Evidence of meeting #9 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pandemic.
A video is available from Parliament.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
4:55 p.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
With the previous group of witnesses, we had a very interesting discussion. COVID-19 was affecting developing countries less seriously, not only in terms of the severity of medical cases but also the number of deaths. Apart from a few exceptions, the impact was generally much lower in these countries. We also discussed the potential race for vaccines, which would place developing countries at a disadvantage.
My question is very straightforward: can we expect the pandemic to spread to the third world?
Just as the west might begin to extricate itself from the pandemic, could it continue for a while in the developing countries?
4:55 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Is that question for me?
4:55 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I can take it, then.
I can tell you frankly that the developing countries are completely overwhelmed, much more so than here. Essentially, that's because in many of these countries, a lot of people live together, particularly in unstable countries affected by conflicts, where many refugees end up living together. This inevitably means more COVID-19 cases.
Also related to what I said is the fact that people don't trust the government, don't believe in the system and don't follow instructions. When people don't listen, they don't want to hear about it and think it's all made up to make them afraid or for some other reason, meaning that they won't take the proper precautions needed to survive and stop the virus from spreading.
As for access to technology or drugs, as we have seen already, there were many problems surrounding HIV/AIDS drugs, until the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation intervened and helped develop an effective treatment. Apart from that, it's extremely difficult. It's very expensive, and these countries do not have the power to do anything. International restrictions make it very hard to copy and distribute these products in unstable countries affected by conflicts, particularly when the government, the police and the army are not in place.
4:55 p.m.
Vice-President, Global Partnerships, Wellington Advocacy, As an Individual
There is enormous international co-operation, I think, for the vaccines to get to developing countries. I'm not so concerned about that, and people here don't seem that much concerned that the vaccines wouldn't get to them. They are concerned about what comes after. What are we going to do together? This thing has set back the economies here multiple decades. They're going to need not just access to vaccines but access to a lot of capital from wealthy economies to shore up and then for development programs.
That's what everybody is talking about here, what comes afterwards, because immediately they're going to get vaccines, I think, and people are not that concerned about vaccines.
The other concern, which is also a very big thing, is people not believing in the efficacy or the veracity of the vaccines. That may be something we should all begin to work on too, because if we can't vaccinate everybody, if people lose faith in vaccines, the pandemic may be prolonged by more than we thought.
5 p.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
Thank you.
I'm pleased to hear that you're optimistic about the distribution of the vaccines. Our previous witnesses were perhaps somewhat less optimistic. As Mr. Bollyky told us, things remain imprecise.
I would like to return, with Ms. Dagher, to the idea of a loss of trust. That, for me, is an important factor. We have seen it, for example, with the conspiracy theorists, who attempt to undermine the credibility of the WH0, its recommendations and its responses. As we have seen, here and in other industrialized countries, there is a movement of people who protest against the imposition of rules, mask wearing and so forth.
I understood from your response that this is something that is happening in developing countries; is that right?
5 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Absolutely. I can confirm it. I've been getting text messages from people in Lebanon, for example, telling me that it's a hoax, something invented, and that you just need to add a little lemon juice to your water. When I tried to analyze where this all came from, I found that it began either in the United States or somewhere in Europe. It's not people in the developing countries who started it
Unfortunately, ideas are being exported to these countries. Moreover, people there who do not believe in their current system may have reasons for believing it. Unfortunately, there are also leaders who use situations like this to weaken confidence in the system and in what is happening, to improve their position. In doing so, they deny the existence of COVID-19 and the need to follow measures that are absolutely essential.
5 p.m.
Bloc
Stéphane Bergeron Bloc Montarville, QC
One of the problems we have to deal with is the collapse of what I call the "mechanisms for international solidarity," which ended up creating a "free-for-all". And yet the WHO is telling us that it won't be long before the world will be confronted with other pandemics.
We certainly were, however, truly ineffective in managing the current pandemic. The goal is not only to try to get out of this one, but to become better prepared for the next. This loss of trust in institutions like the WHO is critical to what comes next.
How do you, personally, think things will play out with respect to this issue?
5 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Okay.
I think that international solidarity still exists. Unfortunately, although our solidarity is effective and helpful, there's another one trying to undo everything we're trying to do.
As for legitimacy, whether in terms of the pandemic or anything else, the Canadian government's work plan for international development has not really paid close attention to it. I think that's going to hurt us as human beings, as people who live on this planet, for many years to come.
5 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sven Spengemann
Thank you, professor.
Thank you, Mr. Bergeron.
The final round of questions goes to Ms. McPherson.
The floor is yours.
5 p.m.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much to both our witnesses today. It's been fascinating. I wish I could have you over for coffee and we could talk about this for a very long time.
Of course, it is fantastic to see you Idee. It's nice to be able to chat, albeit distantly and quickly. The first questions actually will be for you, if you don't mind.
You did speak a little about the impacts on women and girls. I know that you were with Minister Paradis when he worked very hard on the Muskoka initiative that was a precursor to the feminist international assistance policy. We are very proud of the work that was done during that time and what it has led to as well.
Could you talk a little bit more about what you see as the gendered impacts of COVID-19 and what you would think would be an appropriate response from Canada?
5 p.m.
Vice-President, Global Partnerships, Wellington Advocacy, As an Individual
There is no doubt that in times of crisis, gender-based violence increases. We are currently in the 16 days of recognizing that effect right now and trying to work toward eliminating it. It is happening.
The one area that is overlooked or not being looked at enough is women, peace and security. Basically, conflict to conflict enforces violence against women in conflict settings. I think this pandemic is increasing it. You can see it here. Just two days ago in northeast Nigeria the same thing happened again. The media is not covering it. It's not really in the news as much as the pandemic itself and so it is forgotten.
One way to deal with this is to maybe partner with women political leaders here on the continent, especially on the continent of Africa, to advance this issue of women, peace and security. The African First Ladies Peace Mission, which is a very credible organization of first ladies in Africa, is one such organization that leverages real political power to make changes. You need sustained, constant political leverage in order to make that change on gender-based violence here.
Don't get me wrong. The advocacy is great and it should continue. The programs on maternal health should likely continue as well, but what we need is sustained political engagement.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
One thing that touches on both of the things you brought up in terms of women's security and in terms of food security is one of the asks that the sector has in Canada right now, which is that there be an investment of $400 million per year to food security. This could actually be of significant help in empowering women and making communities resilient to shocks such as climate change and things like COVID-19.
Do you believe that sort of investment in food security would also be a vital part of Canada's response?
5:05 p.m.
Vice-President, Global Partnerships, Wellington Advocacy, As an Individual
I'm not opposed to new investments. You won't be shocked to hear me say this. It's not so much in whether we are increasing or decreasing the level of investment. It's in how we are doing it. What is the mechanism we are using to to it?
Again, I don't want to continue banging on this, but I think outcome-based funding, outcome-based vehicles, results-based vehicles and blended finance will allow for the leveraging and increasing the finance that is available. You can do it now.
One thing that development actors have to be aware of is that you also work in a political context locally here as well, or locally in the sense of Canada, in this case. You need to buy political support, so I don't know if there is going to be a big ground shake and swell for increase at this particular time. It's good to wait until the time is right to do that, but you have a vehicle now that you could use to make that kind of impact in investment that you would make.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I can tell you that we have done lots of polling. We've seen lots of things. World Vision just did a poll recently that talked about how 88% of Canadians are supportive of an international response, so it does feel to me very much like the political response is lagging behind the Canadian response. That is something we could look at.
I'm going to ask a few questions of Ms. Dagher. That was very interesting testimony. Thank you so much for your comments.
You talked about the need for us to invest in or to partner with local organizations. You spoke about how we have the capacity and the knowledge, but we're not doing it.
We are, of course, a signatory to the Grand Bargain, which is an important piece of this. Why aren't we doing it? Could you talk about why we've said we'll do it, that we know it's the best thing to do, and yet we're not?
5:05 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I think there are two main reasons, from my experience and my understanding.
One reason is we're never prepared for these emergencies. That boggles my mind a little because we've been going through them so many times. When they happen we need to get the money out. We need to get the money quickly and we need to get it to somebody who can actually do the work and implement it quickly. When we have this emergency and we don't have this list and we don't know who's doing what in the country, locally speaking, who's independent and who's not, we tend to fall back to these large organizations.
I think the second one is just risk averseness. We're not ready to take on this risk and it's a huge project to be done. Again, it's so fruitful if we can do it, it's just that we don't want to take on this responsibility and often we move from one emergency to the other, from one country to the other, from one issue to the other, so that we don't really spend time. We don't invest. It's that issue of investing in better understanding and in being less reactionary and more calm and collected in knowing that there's an emergency and we can do this, like we do in Canada. We know what the organizations are and then we work with them but, unfortunately, we don't prepare for that.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Is that partly because we have seen such deep cuts over the subsequent governments to our overseas departments, our diplomatic corps? Would you think that would be part of that?
5:10 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Absolutely.
The other part, too, is that we can rely on our international partners to get us information, but at the same time, we also have to take it with a grain of salt. We can't just take their information as a given, so we tend to not want to completely and blindly rely on them too, but we don't have the capacity to do it on the ground either, so it's a double-edged sword from that perspective.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I have one last question, if I can fit it in.
Something that's very close to my heart that I certainly hope we are able to get passed as legislation in this Parliament is around direction and control, Canadian organizations trying to work with partners overseas are really hamstrung by our archaic laws in Canada on direction and control.
Could you speak to that a little, please?
5:10 p.m.
Adjunct Professor, School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Sure. We have a lot of rules here about contracts and about how you spend money, and about results-based management and about structures and systems and reporting it, all these things, the transparency and the documents that they need to fill in, and the legality of certain things and the contracts they have to sign. That hampers the ability of a lot of the small organizations to do the work with the Canadian government.
I understand the need for us to protect our taxpayers' money and to protect the legality of issues, but we've moved forward and we've all realized from studying international development that this hampers real effort and real development. We have to bridge the gap, yet we're not comfortable. Because we're so risk averse, we're not willing to go there, but there's so much benefit from doing that.