Evidence of meeting #102 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was need.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Bloor, I saw you nodding your head while I was asking my question and while Mr. Akuffo was answering it. Would you like to comment on this subject?
5:05 p.m.
Chair of the Board, The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business
If I may, I would like to answer the question to add to what Mr. Akuffo said.
The question was how we can address what we are calling the synergy between trade, diplomacy and development. The cornerstone of any investment is of course always said to be security. That is the base. That is what we see in the other countries of the world. After that, we really look at the synergy between development and international trade. You can have a lot of development programs aimed at countries' economic development, as Africans are asking us for, but that will also contribute to security and to establishing a structure in which Canadian companies that want lower risks will be comfortable going to explore the markets in Africa.
So it really has to be considered as stages, as Mr. Akuffo said.
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
For the first stage, do you have specific recommendations? You can always send them to us in writing, if you do not have time to give them to us now.
5:05 p.m.
Chair of the Board, The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business
Certainly, we can send you details in writing later.
I would say that we really have to focus on Canada's strengths, among which are financial technologies, green technologies, agriculture, education and the mining industry. We first have to look at where our strengths lie, and then look at the fields where Africa wants to establish partnerships with us. At present, we can focus on certain places.
In fact, that is one recommendation I would make. We cannot be everywhere in Africa. We do not have the resources to do that, nor do we have the programs to help our companies go and explore the markets in Africa. We do not have enough programs that offer that opportunity.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Thank you.
We next go to MP Cannings.
Welcome. It's good to have you back, MP Cannings.
You have four minutes.
April 15th, 2024 / 5:05 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Thank you.
Four minutes is indeed not a long time compared with other committees, but I'll try to adapt.
I'm going to start with Ms. French.
I was just in Kenya and Rwanda a couple of weeks ago, where we met with many refugees, migrants, some of whom have been living in refugee camps for over 30 years. We have a situation in Sudan, South Sudan, Chad and Somalia of people being trapped in a spiral of deteriorating food security, violence and displacement. This growing crisis has strong gender impacts, with women and girls facing increased risk of gender-based violence.
How can Canada get at this? How can Canada help address those links between food insecurity and sexual and gender-based violence?
5:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Stephen Lewis Foundation
I think the question should be asked to the people themselves. Ultimately, communities know what they need. Most of the time what they're lacking are the resources to do the work they need to do or to address the issues that are facing them, the biggest challenges for them.
As Canada, we invest a lot of money in large international NGOs and multilateral organizations. We make it very difficult for any Canadian assistance to get on the ground to community organizations that can respond quickly, know what the challenges are, know who the players are, know what the culture is and what the history is. They could be responding, but they simply don't have the resources to do it and so they can't have the impact they could have.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
Richard Cannings NDP South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC
Okay, thanks.
Professor Akuffo, you bought up the situation that Canada doesn't seem to take its diplomatic role in Africa seriously or that it should be.... We heard rumblings about this from various people in Kenya and Rwanda as well. Other countries have a full slate of embassies across the African continent, but Canada does not.
We have played a serious role there in the past. Why don't we do this seriously? Can you comment on why Canada hasn't stepped up to the plate and what we should be doing?
5:10 p.m.
Associate Professor and Head, Department of Political Science, University of the Fraser Valley, As an Individual
Part of the reason that Canada has not been doing this has to do with how we entirely shifted our focus to Afghanistan in the early 2010s. If you recall, 2002 was the very first time that Canada invited African leaders to the Kananaskis conference under former prime minister Chrétien.
That was the momentum that Canada was building. In fact, we were able to leverage a lot of diplomatic.... We scored a lot of diplomatic points at that time. For example, African leaders supported the establishment of the International Criminal Court, the responsibility to protect and the Kimberley processing certification scheme, which deals with conflict diamonds, but then we stepped back. That is why I said that we actually lost that diplomatic momentum. It was because of stepping back out of these things.
I think Canada was among the first countries to establish observer status at the African Union when it was transformed from the Organization of African Unity in 2002, but it took us up to about 2020 or so before we established a permanent mission there. That is how much momentum we lost over two decades.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Thank you.
We'll now go to the second round, with three minutes each.
We'll start off with MP Aboultaif.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
Thank you, Chair, and thanks to the witnesses.
Ms. Caldwell St-Onge, you represent two worlds—Global Affairs on one side and the Africa Business Council on the other side. It seems like your background in business is quite deep.
Countries like China found a way to get to Africa and do business, and they've been very successful. Would you be able to tell us if there is a way for Canada, based on your experience in both worlds?
5:10 p.m.
Chair of the Board, The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business
I'm retired. I'm not speaking on behalf of Global Affairs, Mr. Chair.
China, as everyone knows, is in the long game. They've been there before anybody else. They've been there for 30 or 35 years. It's always about getting in the game early. We were in the game, as Dr. Akuffo said, and now we just have to get back to it.
How do we do it? I think this committee and other committees may have very good recommendations on working with governments but also on working with the private sector and businesses. Our companies are very keen to go to Africa. There are countries that have the security that they can go to in Africa that pair up very well with our Canadian strengths. It's a matter of having enough support for those companies to go to Africa, look around and see if there are possibilities there.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
We need to start somewhere. I have a background in international business too. I've done business in that part of the world. North Africa seems to be a perfect place to start—Egypt, for example, and others like Tunisia and so forth.
Where can we really start to penetrate the market? We know this is good for us, but we can't cover 54 countries. It's a big region of 1.2 billion people. Where do we start? Where would be a good case study for us to start doing some real work in Africa?
5:15 p.m.
Chair of the Board, The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business
I can name a few countries that have approached us that really want to do business. We just had something in Kenya—
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
5:15 p.m.
Chair of the Board, The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business
Yes.
There is Kenya that approached us. We had a business conference there. We went to the D.R.C., where we have Canadian mining interests as well as other interests in the southern part of the country. We were in South Africa. Obviously it's always a starting point, because there we have investments into Canada from South Africa. We have Ghana, as we have heard. We have Côte d'Ivoire. There are many countries that our Canadian business—
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Ziad Aboultaif Conservative Edmonton Manning, AB
Are we taking those requests seriously? Do you believe that we are?
5:15 p.m.
Chair of the Board, The Canada-Africa Chamber of Business
Yes, we are. They're our members, so we support them, and we have had business conferences. We're now going to have our fourth business conference in September in Zimbabwe, and it's a private sector response. That's who funds us.
We also have Morocco, so that's of interest. The Business Council of Canada will be going to Nigeria a little later on. They mentioned in their report on Africa why we should be going to Africa—Egypt, North Africa—and we have Morocco as a strong member. We've been looking at—
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
You are out of time, Ms. St-Onge.
We next go to Dr. Fry. You have three minutes.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC
Thank you, Chair. You can't go very far with three minutes.
They've been very excellent panels, the first one and now this one.
I think we need to shift how we look at Africa. We thought we knew what Africa was about; it was always poverty and aid, etc. Now I'm listening to you suggesting that there are three areas that we should invest in. I think one of them is economic development, obviously, with job creation, know-how and expertise. I think we all buy that.
Another thing that I have a question about is health. You are the only person who has spoken about health infrastructure. If people aren't healthy, they can't work. If they don't have an education, as you said earlier on, Mr. Akuffo, then they can't work. It's not simply a one-size-fits-all of just looking at trade or just looking at economic development. We need to look at a broader picture that includes healthy people, educated people, trained people who are able to work.
I have a question.
I buy into all that, and everyone has spoken about that. What I want to ask is this. We talk about 54 nations in Africa. Is the African Union the place to start? Europe is made up of 57 and more nations, and we've dealt with the European Union. Is the African Union the pivot that we need to start working in to create some kind of synergy among African countries? That's what I wanted to ask about, because Africa is very diverse and very disparate in many ways.
You talk about wealthy North Africa. You talk about other countries that are doing well—South Africa, Kenya, etc.—but there are other countries where there's the issue of democratic institutions and where corruption is rife. How do you build things in those countries? How do we deal with those things? Is the African Union the place we go, or do we have to deal with countries on a case-by-case basis? Then we don't have an African strategy; we have individual bilateral strategies.
I just want to get some answers, because it's quite difficult and complex.
Please go ahead, Mr. Akuffo.
5:15 p.m.
Associate Professor and Head, Department of Political Science, University of the Fraser Valley, As an Individual
I think that Canada should have a three-level diplomatic engagement with the African continent: with African states, with regional economic communities, and with the African Union.
In my presentation, I've highlighted that Canada needs to establish a permanent diplomatic missions in other regional economic communities. There are regional economic communities in five areas of Africa: east Africa, west Africa, central Africa, north Africa and southern Africa. We need to engage them diplomatically. We also need to expand the number of missions that we have. Currently we have 17 in 54 African countries. I think that is significantly low.
We need to strengthen the relationship with the AU as well.
Thank you so very much.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Thank you. I'm afraid you are out of time, Dr. Fry.
We next go to Mr. Perron. You have a minute and a half.