Foreign Affairs Committee on Oct. 31st, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Good evening, everyone.

Allow me, first of all, to apologize. I'm losing my voice, so I ask for your indulgence.

I want to welcome you to meeting number 34 of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room, as well as remotely using the Zoom application.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. Those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. Interpretation for those on Zoom is at the bottom of the screen, and you have a choice of either the floor, English or French. Those in the room can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. I will remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, September 21, 2022, the committee is resuming its study of the extreme flooding in Pakistan.

It is now my pleasure to welcome, from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, the Honourable Minister Sajjan, Minister of International Development

We also have here with the minister his officials: Mr. Christopher MacLennan, deputy minister of international development; Ms. Tara Carney, acting director general, international humanitarian assistance; Ms. Cam Do, director general, innovative and climate finance bureau; and lastly, Mr. Christopher Gibbins, executive director, Afghanistan-Pakistan division.

Minister, you will be provided a maximum of five minutes for your remarks, after which we will proceed to a round of questions. I will signal to you when you have merely a minute remaining.

Minister, the floor is yours.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Minister of International Development]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the members of the committee for having me here today. I appreciate all of your highlighting what's going on in Pakistan with the extreme flooding there. Since mid-June of this year, extreme monsoon rains and flooding have taken a devastating toll on more than 33 million people in Pakistan. I will be happy to explain later on to you what the Pakistani leadership told me and how it took place.

This has left over 1,700 dead, including more than 600 children. As you know, protecting human life and dignity is a fundamental tenet of Canada's approach to the global community. Our humanitarian efforts are aimed at saving lives, alleviating suffering and maintaining the dignity of people affected by natural disasters.

Our early response to this flooding crisis included assistance on the ground in Pakistan through the Canadian Red Cross Society's emergency disaster assistance fund, and contributions to the United Nations central emergency response fund, meaning via things that were already in place.

Given the magnitude of the flooding and the slow pickup internationally, I authorized an initial amount of $5 million in humanitarian assistance on August 29.

Mr. Chair, we remain extremely concerned about the magnitude of this crisis, and that is why in mid-September I led a Canadian delegation, including three members of Parliament, to Pakistan to observe first-hand the humanitarian response under way and to gain a better understanding of what the people of Pakistan were going through and what the needs were. I can tell you that large parts of southern Pakistan are still under water. Almost 8 million people are now homeless or living in emergency shelters with little or no access to food and clean drinking water. Hundreds of thousands of homes and infrastructure have been destroyed. Crops, livelihood and livestock have been ruined. Food is scarce. Hunger is also looming. The need for assistance is dire.

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, while we remain committed to fighting climate change and advancing women's empowerment and promoting regional peace and stability, we also recognize the dire plight of the people of Pakistan.

On October 4, the latest joint government of Pakistan and United Nations appeal was launched, increasing the original appeal figure from $160 million U.S. to $860 million. Anticipating the scale of needs, on September 13, Prime Minister Trudeau announced additional Canadian support and increased our total flood crisis response recovery assistance to $33 million, including a matching fund of up to $7.5 million with the Humanitarian Coalition. This enhanced response means that our government will match dollar for dollar donations made by individuals to the Humanitarian Coalition up to a maximum of $7.5 million. This funding that was generously raised by Canadians will contribute to essential rehabilitation efforts of flood-damaged areas like the girls' high school that I visited in the upper Chitral district in Pakistan.

While in Pakistan I also spent time assessing the needs of frontline workers and announced existing polio eradication programming, specifically the $20 million eradicating polio from Pakistan project, and to advocate for the support for female frontline workers who have been impacted by the floods and who are responsible for the unpaid care and care-related work.

Mr. Chair, we will continue to work with our partners to provide urgent, life-saving humanitarian relief on the ground, including clean drinking water, medical supplies, food and other essential services. We have a history of over 70 years of successful development co-operation with Pakistan. In the year 2020-21, our overall international assistance to Pakistan was over $100 million.

Canada's bilateral development support targets the following priority areas: women and girls, reproductive health and rights, girls' access to education, women's political participation and economic empowerment, COVID-19 relief and polio eradication.

We remain committed to this humanitarian effort to support the people of Pakistan in the days ahead and we know that there's much more to do.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Minister Sajjan.

We now open it to questions. I understand Mr. Genuis is first.

You have six minutes, Mr. Genuis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Chair. It's good to see you, Minister.

I suppose you may have anticipated this question. I've been repeatedly raising concerns about some of the issues with the matching programs and how they're structured. We've heard at this committee specifically about how your decision to match dollars to some organizations and not others leads to challenges for good organizations—often small, diaspora-led organizations—actually being able to fundraise, because people tell them, why isn't the government matching contributions to you? I know the argument we hear back is that we want to move quickly so we thought it would be easier to pick organizations that we've worked with on things in the past.

The problem is that this concretely hurts the ability of small diaspora-led organizations, and there are alternatives that could be pursued that would be just as quick and would take a more inclusive approach. I've raised this issue with respect to Lebanon and Ukraine. I raised it in the context of the Atlantic floods here in Canada, as well, and I raise it here in this context.

But the government isn't responding to the concerns I and stakeholders have raised. Why not? Why is there not openness to reconsidering how you do matching so that a broader range of organizations could benefit?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Chair, the member asked a very good question. It's a question that I have also asked myself.

Having said that, first of all, to get a quick response is very important to making sure that we get the money flowing to what the actual needs are, depending on the disaster.

This does not preclude our supporting other organizations. Keep in mind, though, that when we do a matching fund, we have existing relationships and already have a system in place so we can move very quickly. There are a bunch of options we can take a look at, like organizations that we can have pre-existing agreements with.

Probably the most important thing that I want to emphasize here, Mr. Chair, is that even though we do a matching fund, let's keep in mind that we do provide additional support. This does not preclude any organization from looking at applying for funding for long-term projects.

I'll give you one example. One organization that I met wanted to look at matching funds, but when they talked about the support they could provide, it was for reconstruction of various schools. I told them that those things can be done afterwards and that right now, we're focused on saving lives.

We're guiding them to the right place.

We want to work with anybody who actually has the right mechanism and the right system in place, and try to find ways that we can best support them.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Okay. Thank you, Minister.

You've said that providing this matching program over here doesn't preclude your offering funding to smaller or other organizations outside the Humanitarian Coalition. Of course that's true, but the point I'm making is that your decision to match funding to some organizations and not others actually hurts the private fundraising of those other organizations that are not included. Even if they have, theoretically, available opportunities to apply for government funding elsewhere, you are hurting their ability to raise money privately.

We've heard as well from these organizations that sometimes there is even some suspicion from their long-time donors and a perception that if the Government of Canada is not matching their funding, maybe there's something wrong with them. Of course, that's not the case.

Are you aware of the damage done to private fundraising by the nature of this policy?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

First of all, we're not in any way trying to damage anything. In fact, we actually love the fact that Canadians and many organizations are coming together. There are so many causes out there. We want to encourage Canadians to do so.

However, when it comes to an emergency like the flood here, for example, we need to make sure that the right resources get to the right place at the right time. That's very important. For the first thing, especially in an emergency, that's probably the most important.

I'll give you an example, Mr. Chair, if you don't mind, to kind of outline it. The most important thing is actually trying to prevent it in the first place. In fact, I was told when I visited Pakistan that funding that was put into place for the early warning system, especially in the north, actually saved lives.

Then, you want to put systems in place for emergencies. That way, when an emergency occurs, it doesn't even require us to make a decision. The systems that are being put into place automatically respond.

The $5 million that we put into place—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

This is a bit afield of the matching issue.

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I understand that, but what I'm trying to get at here is that the main priority is who can get the best resource to the right area. Trying to assess which organization can do what when you have lives that you have to save on the ground....

When an organization says it can and it can provide the emergency...we need to have those dialogues a lot sooner. We encourage people to have this conversation. Any time a new organization comes forward, we're happy to work with it.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I think one of the issues, though, is that often these smaller organizations are just not in the business of dealing with government very often. Some organizations may be focused on engaging a particular country or countries. They're not like the larger humanitarian organizations that you would deal with in any disaster, anywhere in the world. You have organizations that are looking at specific countries. They're not dealing with governments on an ongoing basis. Nonetheless, they're doing great work and they lose out on these matching programs.

What was suggested to me by one of the stakeholders as an alternative—and I believe this was done previously under a Conservative government—was that we would match any dollar donated to this effort, but that doesn't necessarily mean the same dollar will go to the same organization. Any dollar contributed will be matched. We get information from organizations about the dollars they raise and then we put that into a fund, which they can then apply to.

You can announce that kind of matching program right out of the gate. You can start dispensing money from that program right out of the gate. It doesn't mean you have to necessarily fund these small organizations. It just means that they're not penalized in terms of their own engagement with donors.

Why not pursue that model, Minister?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

We actually did look at that model, in terms of what the analysis was. In some cases, it has its merits, but it also has its drawbacks.

For example, one key thing was that it took 200 days, originally when the matching fund was done, for the money to really start flowing to those organizations. It's because you're raising money. One of the key—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Why did it take that long?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Hear me out, Mr. Genuis.

For the matching fund that we had here, we had money flowing within 30 days. The key thing is that you have to do the assessment. As you know, at the end of the day, for any dollars we sign off on, we're accountable to Parliament. We're accountable to the taxpayer. For any organization that we give money to, we do have to do the due diligence. This is where we need to...for anybody who wants or any organization that wants to, it's easier to work and get the process sorted out early on, but again—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Spend it fast but match for any organization. That's my point: Spend it fast.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We will now go to Mr. Zuberi.

You have six minutes, Mr. Zuberi.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

I'd like to thank you, Minister, and all of your officials for being here with us for this extremely important issue about flooding in Pakistan.

First off, I was in Pakistan in June for four weeks. I did see the initial aspects of these monsoon rains and how it was impacting the country very early on, with felled bridges and roads being filled with rocks and whatnot because of landslides. I appreciate very much how you and three other parliamentarians went to Pakistan in mid-September. I applaud you for that. I think that is very important.

Could you very briefly outline the assistance we have given thus far to Pakistan, and how that has hit the ground?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll also highlight the fact that we knew that the monsoons were going to be a little bit more severe, but the thing is that the situation actually got worse. There was slow pickup inside the country, as I was briefed on, but also even in the international community. Normally, when it comes to....

What I try to focus on is what the actual needs are and where to move the money very quickly. We visited places where we had warehouses already in place with stores that actually had an impact immediately. Before anything, we already had systems in place. The $5 million was to look at the immediate needs to the various organizations. The next step was to do a very quick needs assessment based on the reporting that came. That's what we did in adding the additional $25 million of funding. That buys you enough time, as you work with other organizations.... Now, keep in mind that, proportionately, Canada did much higher than other countries.

The next step is that now that this gives us a little bit more time, there are still more emergency things we need to do. For example, we need to prevent disease, given the waterborne diseases. Some of the schools have to be rebuilt. We need to look winterization. We're looking at that now. Funding is already moving towards that. The Government of Pakistan has just finished their own needs assessment. We're reviewing that now. Then we'll look at the next tranche of funding to support them.

The next portion of it will be the longer term. How do we look at climate mitigation, adaptation and some of the bigger measures?

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

You touched on climate, and I'd like to touch on that too. That's been a major conversation with respect to the flooding and how Pakistan has only contributed 0.4% of the world emissions, whereas for other countries, such as America, it's 21.5% of world emissions to date; for China, 16.5%; and for the European Union, 15% of world emissions. I'm curious about the equity around the impacts of how the emissions and climate change have impacted the country in question.

As well, it's my understanding that there is international climate financing being delivered within Pakistan. Is any of Canada's $5.3 billion for that being delivered there? Could you speak on this theme?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Thanks. I'll give you the wave-tops view, and then I'll have Chris and the team get into a little more detail on it.

On this, first of all, I do want to state that even I publicly went out and stated that the most vulnerable on this planet end up suffering the impacts of a climate change that they had nothing to do with. Pakistan is in that situation, so we do need to support them.

I'll give you an example. Right now there's the Green Climate Fund. Canada contributed $600 million to that. Of that, $220 million went to Pakistan for this. This is funding that's already going. We will look at additional funding or additional support from the climate adaptation side to look at the long-term aspect of things.

Chris, do you want to add anything to that?

[Christopher MacLennan, Deputy Minister, International Development, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

Sure. Thank you.

Canada over the past 10 years has contributed to numerous large multilateral funds. For example, the creation of the Green Climate Fund was one of the principal outcomes coming out of the Copenhagen COP back in 2012. The purpose of that is absolutely to do exactly what you've noted, which is that there are countries that have contributed very little to greenhouse gas emissions but do not have the fiscal capacities to respond to both the adaptation and the mitigation.

Canada has been one of the major donors to these funds. There's the work of Minister Guilbeault, for example, along with our German colleagues, to outline the contributions that all donor countries have given to the $100-billion goal. This is one of the examples of that.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

My last question is about the following. On August 17, 2022, our foreign affairs minister, Mélanie Joly, whom I know you work very closely with, spoke with Pakistan's foreign affairs minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. That was the first interaction between ministers.

Can you speak a bit about the bilateral relations and sources of co-operation and concern?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Actually, I had the opportunity to meet with the Prime Minister, as well, when I was there, and I met with many other ministers. We need to look at what type of support to provide, but we also need to look at supporting them in other ways as well. This, I think, was an opportunity for me to get a first-hand look at not only what they're going through but also what the opportunities are.

I think there are a lot of opportunities that will come up, and I think that through this tragedy will come a greater opportunity for us to have greater people-to-people ties and even greater economic opportunity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you. We'll now go to Mr. Bergeron.

Mr. Bergeron, you have six minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to continue along the same line as Mr. Zuberi. As well, I have to say I am very happy to see him back again, since it is somewhat thanks to him that the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development is studying this issue.

First, I would like to thank the Minister and officials who are with us today.

In a few minutes, we are going to discuss the situation in Haiti. I am sure, Minister, that you want to follow the committee's work on the situation in Haiti. I hope that this time we will be up to the job of helping Haiti, unlike what we did at the beginning of the pandemic.

You are aware of committee members' interest in Pakistan. I think it is unfortunate that you chose to be accompanied only by government members. It might have been useful to also be accompanied by opposition members, since we try to speak in a united voice on the international scene, particularly on humanitarian issues like support for Pakistan, which is facing an unprecedented natural disaster. That might have meant that we did not need to ask certain questions, since it would have enabled all political parties to have more insight into the situation on the ground.

With that said, I am going to come back to the question Mr. Zuberi asked.

Canada's international climate finance program commits to providing $5.3 billion to developing countries over the next five years. Global Affairs Canada told the committee, in connection with that program, that Pakistan can make an application, but that to his knowledge, Canada had not yet received an application. As has just been pointed out, three projects from Pakistan have been submitted to the multilateral and regional green funds to which Canada contributes. We were told this by officials of the department on October 26.

How can the fact that the $5.3 billion international climate finance program has not received any applications from Pakistan be explained, when the multilateral programs Canada contributes to have received applications from Pakistan?

Does it mean that the $5.3 billion international climate finance program does not meet the expectations of countries like Pakistan? Is that the reason there have been no applications to the program?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the member for that question.

I also want to say that I'm so appreciative of this committee's focusing on Pakistan. Pakistan's flood did not get the attention it deserved from what was actually taking place there.

I want to let you know that I, too, am following Haiti very closely, and look forward to the work this committee does on it.

If members of Parliament are interested in [Inaudible—Editor] certain parts; I'm happy to take a look at those opportunities as well. In this case, just because of the time, we had to move very quickly. We have a few members of Parliament who are from Pakistan, so I was happy to work on that.

When it comes to the funding, the certain requests, there has been the needs assessment that recently came in. Requests come in different ways. Sometimes it's a case of working from our high commission directly to the high commission here through our multilateral organizations. There are many different ways that is done. In fact, we had a laundry list of things that were needed. This is one of the reasons why, when we do the initial providing of support....

Normally, that initial amount is actually a lot lower than what we provided, but because the pickup wasn't there, we went considerably higher. Also, by making that visit, one of the key things I also want to highlight is that Canada does care. We have a few members of Parliament who are of Pakistani descent. I also know everybody in this committee is for this.

We will continually take a look at where the needs assessments are. When it comes to our larger $5.3 billion, remember that was put into place for what we're doing internationally; so that work was already going on. We will take a look at what we can do for Pakistan, but as the needs assessment continues, we will look at a long-term adaptation piece. What is it down the road? We have to get the emergency piece out of the way first.

The reason I say this is that I was very happy with some of the work that was done after the previous flood. The money that was put in previously helped to save lives. I don't know how many times people came up to me and said, “Thank you very much for the funding that created the early warning system. It has saved lives.” They practised those drills in those villages in northern Pakistan , and hundreds of lives were saved. They appreciated that Canada listened to what those needs were, and we will continue to do just this.

We'll look at the next tranche of support. I know there's a key issue. We need to make sure that the vulnerable communities within Pakistan also get the appropriate support. We're going to take a closer look at that.

Then we need to take a look at not just what we can do from our own department, but at others as well, and more importantly what the international community.... I would say that Canada has been a very strong voice to bringing support to Pakistan, because it hasn't been highlighted. I was very happy that the Secretary-General from the United Nations also visited as well.