Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 26th, 2022

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

I'll take your admonishment, Mr. Chair. I have that same problem of speaking too fast at times.

I'm relatively new to the committee, so in the interest of transparency, I did serve on and was employed by the Canadian Foodgrains Bank for five years, prior to being elected in 2019. I wanted to put that on the record. If my bias shows through, I apologize for that up front. I'll endeavour not to have that happen.

I'd like to start, Mr. Khan, with what you just referenced in one of your closing comments. Canada's ODA is fairly low. We heard in testimony earlier that Canada has committed, I believe, $33 million to a UN estimate of $816 million of immediate need.

Can you comment on how that compares to other countries?

[Usama Khan]

I don't have the specific facts and figures, but we do know that Canada has a positive reputation throughout the world. We feel that it can do more. It can do more to help developing countries, like Pakistan and countries throughout Africa. It can do more to increase the amount of funding, not just through multilateral partners, but also directly with NGOs that are operating in those countries.

I know a lot of work happens in the sector. There are competing demands at home with Canadians and with inflationary pressures on the budget, but we feel that Canada should be doing more to meet some of the objectives and the expectation that is there, frankly, for Canada to step up on the global stage.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Khan.

I'd like to go to a question for a number of the witnesses regarding how your organizations work. Can you be fairly short and succinct, but also tie it back to the accountability to your donors and to the Canadian government? Do you work largely through local partners, or do you work largely with staff based in Canada? How does that translate into accountability back to your donors and back to the Government of Canada?

My understanding from past experience would be that working through organizations such as yours with local partners to address disasters is far more effective than government-to-government or bilateral and then down through foreign governments.

I'll stop talking. Let's start with Mr. Khan and we'll go to Mr. Shariff next, please.

[Usama Khan]

Thank you for the question.

The CRA, for example, has a lot of requirements for Canadian charities when they're working with foreign projects. I know there's been a lot of movement on that. Compared to multilateral and compared to the UN agencies, Canadian charities have a very stringent requirement on books and records, for example.

Specifically for Islamic Relief, as I said, we have 400 staff throughout the country, so we work with the Islamic Relief global family worldwide through our intermediary there.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Chair, a point of order.

We have a problem with the interpretation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

My apologies, Mr. Khan.

[Usama Khan]

It's no problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Mr. Khan, can you resume your remarks?

[Usama Khan]

Sure.

In terms of any government funding that's provided, there are reporting requirements back to the government on how the funds were spent, with—

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Khan.

I'm going to ask Mr. Shariff to chime in here, as well.

I apologize; my time is limited.

[Khalil Shariff]

I have three quick answers.

First, we work through local partners. Our Aga Khan Foundation in Pakistan is older than the Aga Khan Foundation in Canada, so it's a local partner. It's all staff from the region.

Second, I agree that the government has to decide on the portfolio: multilateral, bilateral or civil society projects. They all have their own profile of strengths and weaknesses, but the accountability that you get when you fund and support Canadian institutions is orders of magnitude higher than anything we see from the other two categories.

The last thing I would say is that when we do work with local civil society institutions, we have to insist they coordinate with the government. It's not really either/or. It has to be both. They have to be working closely with the governments in the region to ensure they're coordinated and getting the most bang for their buck.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'd like to continue. We heard in the first round of testimony from the officials that one of the reasons there are pre-vetted organizations was for speed of response.

I'll ask Mr. Daud, followed by Mr. Singh, to respond. How do you respond to that rationale for having matching funds only to pre-vetted organizations?

[Dr. Aslam Daud]

I totally agree with the idea of having a pre-vetted organization, but sadly, pre-vetted organizations are not considered. For example, Humanity First was pre-vetted. We were a partner organization. We have a proven track record, and we received funding for the response in the Philippines. We responded by building 400 homes and other projects. That was also reviewed and audited by a third party. The record is there.

Whatever the process for pre-vetting is, we are all for it. We agree to it, and that should be done.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Daud.

Mr. Singh, go ahead.

[Rahul Singh]

Listen, we are quick. We always have boots on the ground very quickly. We used to get funds from the government. We do not anymore. We don't even ask for government funds. I would ask you to go back and ask Ms. Carney if she ever considered the impact of her decision and how it would affect the sector and smaller charities, because it's very devastating.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'd like to ask one more quick question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I'm sorry, but you're out of time.

We'll now go to MP Zahid.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses for appearing before the committee. Thanks a lot for all the work you are doing during this difficult time in Pakistan.

My first question is for Mr. Khan. You mentioned that you have 400 staff members working in Pakistan, and you have over a hundred in the province of Balochistan. What phase of the work are you working on in Pakistan? Is it just providing humanitarian assistance right now, or have you moved toward redevelopment? Winters can be very severe, especially in Balochistan. Winter is approaching, so those who have lost their homes.... Has some redevelopment work started there, or are we in the providing humanitarian assistance mode?

[Usama Khan]

Even within the province, in different villages, you'll find different needs. Sometimes the water has not receded, so the needs of that community are much different, whereas in some other villages, even at the village level, you will get into early recovery. We've also seen from the ground there is an increase in water-borne diseases and—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I'm sorry. Mr. Khan, it seems that your headphones are not connected to Zoom. The interpreters are having problems hearing you.

[Usama Khan]

Is this better?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Yes, thank you.

[Usama Khan]

As I was saying, the needs are different even at different village levels. In some cases, we've seen water-borne diseases. We've seen early recovery activities in terms of livelihood recovery, so we give that flexibility to our teams on the ground who are directly working at the village level.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Are you part of the assessment process in order to determine what the needs are, and what the priorities should be?

[Usama Khan]

Yes, absolutely. Our programs team here is collaborating at a minimum on a weekly basis with our team in Pakistan. We do lean on their expert advice on what they're seeing to approve any allocation of the funding.