Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 14th, 2023

[Richard Morgan, Executive Director, Humanitarian Coalition]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting the Humanitarian Coalition to attend this meeting and discuss the urgent situation in Turkey and Syria as well as Canada's response to the crisis.

I'm happy to see two of our members, Islamic Relief Canada and Oxfam-Québec, also present at this meeting.

While it is not yet a familiar name to many, the Humanitarian Coalition brings together 12 of Canada's leading international aid agencies working in 140 countries. These include Action Against Hunger, Canadian Lutheran World Relief, CARE, Doctors of the World, Humanity & Inclusion, Islamic Relief, Oxfam-Québec and Oxfam Canada, Plan International, Save the Children and World Vision. In addition, the Canadian Foodgrains Bank is a member that brings together 15 other church-based development agencies, including Mennonite Central Committee, Caritas Canada and others.

Together we provide Canadians with a simple and effective way to help when disaster strikes. Since 2009, we have raised $160 million to aid eight million people in over 120 disasters. Our members work across the peacebuilding, development and humanitarian nexus with combined annual operations exceeding $1.1 billion. We reach 16 million to 18 million Canadians, and we are supported by more than 2.5 million active donors.

Last year we partnered with the Canadian government, as many of you know, to respond to the hunger crisis in sub-Saharan Africa and to the flooding in Pakistan, but you may not know that we also responded to more than a dozen small-scale responses worldwide.

With that background in mind, allow me to focus on three key messages today.

The first is that the needs in Turkey and Syria are massive and growing. Beyond the search and rescue efforts that have been the focus of much of our discussion, a second wave of humanitarian needs is already upon us. We need to shelter, feed, protect, reunite, care for and educate tens of thousands of homeless, displaced children, women and men in the coming weeks and months ahead, particularly during this cold winter period.

Second, our members are already responding and scaling up in the affected areas, but government and private funding to date has been inadequate. A much more significant response from Canada and the global community is urgently required.

Third, I would like to emphasize the value add that the Humanitarian Coalition brings as a partner with the government. The government cannot and should not do it all, and Canada lags behind many of its OECD counterparts in terms of leveraging philanthropy during humanitarian crises. In partnering with the Humanitarian Coalition and its networks, the government can mobilize more Canadians to help save more lives.

As you may have seen, the death toll in Turkey and Syria has risen to more than 37,000, although reports, of course, are different depending on which source you are referring to. Many thousands more, at least 100,000, have suffered injuries, and these numbers will continue to rise. The World Health Organization estimates that up to 26 million people, 15 million in Turkey and 11 million in Syria, are affected in both countries.

Six thousand buildings or more are damaged or destroyed, including hospitals, residences, schools and government buildings. Many others remain standing but are unsafe, and more will come down. As you may know, more than 2,100 aftershocks have been felt in the last week alone. This leaves thousands of families in both countries without adequate shelter and livelihoods. Urgent action is needed to avert a further catastrophe.

Worldwide, our members are already actively working through national offices and local partners, and I want to emphasize that localization aspect of our work. In Turkey, seven of our members are actively programming, and some have been there for more than 20 years. In Syria, all 12 of our member agencies have been active there for at least a decade and, as you know, 4.1 million people in the northwest area are already dependent on humanitarian assistance due to years of conflict.

My colleagues at Islamic Relief and Oxfam-Québec will speak more to their work, but overall our response includes the multiple stages of immediate, near-term and then medium and longer term response: ongoing assistance with search and rescue; emergency food and multi-purpose cash; shelter and non-food items; primary care and medical supplies; water, sanitation and hygiene, including menstrual health management support; mental health and psychosocial support, assistance with devices for those who have experienced life-changing injuries; protection and safe spaces for children and women particularly; education in emergencies, which has been terribly disrupted; and eventually building back better and recovering livelihoods.

Despite the scale of the devastation, Canadians are not abandoning hope. To date we have raised more than $8 million together, and this will help approximately 400,000 people. Each donation makes a difference in another person's life. A blanket may cost only $8 but can make the world of difference to someone out in the cold.

To give you one inspiring example of Canadian generosity, Izmir Kassam from Calgary just turned 10 years old on February 6, the day that the earthquake struck. He loves to run, and he's running to raise funds for the victims of the earthquake in Syria and Turkey. He will do 10 runs of 10 kilometres each over 10 weeks starting this Sunday. We need more of Izmir's compassion, more of his courage and more of his creativity in the coming weeks.

In summary, the needs in Turkey are significant and growing. The members of the Humanitarian Coalition are already responding and scaling up, but government and private funding so far has been inadequate. The government cannot and should not do it all, as I said earlier. It needs to leverage the power and creativity of philanthropy in support of this response.

This leads me to two recommendations for the committee. One, in support of the work that you heard from Mr. Salewicz earlier, the government needs to mobilize substantial and supplemental funding. Second, we would urge that the government consider a matching fund with the members of the Humanitarian Coalition so that we can stretch the support that Canadians are willing to provide and so that we can mobilize media and public-corporate networks to transform this terrible situation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks again for inviting us to share some of our comments and recommendations with you, and I thank you for your attention. I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Morgan.

Next, for Islamic Relief Canada, we go to Mr. Usama Khan.

Welcome back. You have five minutes.

[Usama Khan, Chief Executive Officer, Islamic Relief Canada]

Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, honourable chair and members of the committee. I just wanted to start off by thanking all of you for the really important work you do. I know recently you had a study on Bill S-211, and it's now awaiting third reading. We really appreciate all of the hard work.

Today, we are here to talk about the earthquake that happened just over a week ago.

I'm here to represent the more than 85,000 injured people who no longer have a home. I'm here to represent all those we lost.

I'm here to represent our courageous staff members, both in Turkey and Syria, who've been living there, are nationals over there, and many of whom have lost their own family members. One of our staff members lost 32 members of his extended family, yet after burying them, with so much courage, patience and a sense of community service, he is back distributing aid to those who have survived.

I'm also here to represent the 21,000 Canadians across the country who have donated to Islamic Relief Canada, and the many more tens of thousands who have donated to our various partners of the Humanitarian Coalition. Canadians across the country have seen the images and the videos on social media and in the media, and they're deeply impacted by what those in Turkey and Syria are going through. I'm here to represent the concerns they have and the expectations they have of public officials, elected officials, from all sides of the aisle.

As you know, the epicentre of the earthquake was in Turkey. I was in Gaziantep a few years ago. The southern parts of Turkey have hosted millions of Syrian refugees who have escaped a decade of civil war and conflict. The infrastructure in Turkey has been well established and their disaster risk readiness is well established, so hours after the earthquake they were able to bring excavators and construction vehicles to start digging.

However, because of the constant air strikes, many of the buildings in Syria were already unstable. More than 3.3 million people in northwest Syria have already been displaced, and not just once but multiple times. There is a lost generation of children who haven't been able to go to school.

They didn't have construction vehicles or bulldozers to respond to the cries they heard from their family members. I was speaking to our head of mission of Syria yesterday, and he was telling stories about people being able to hear their family members but not being able to move rocks and rubble to help save them.

As you know, the constant fear of air strikes, the lack of health infrastructure and the recent outbreak of cholera all make this incredibly difficult for the Syrians in the northwest and throughout Syria. There were access issues to get aid into Syria in the first few days after the disaster. The only border crossing between Turkey and Syria was closed. That has recently opened. Just yesterday we heard about the UN facilitating the opening of a few more access points from Turkey to Syria.

Our local staff in both Turkey and Syria have been operating there for more than a decade. We have warehouses in Syria. We have procurement supplies that we solicit in Syria. We have banking mechanisms to ensure that funding can be spent on people in a reliable way through our local staff members. We have more than 600 project staff and more than 60 permanent management staff in Syria coordinating all of our aid efforts.

The asks, I think, are primarily for funding.

The Canadian government has announced $10 million and a $10-million matching fund for the Red Cross. As my colleague Richard Morgan has said, it's imperative that the government announce an extension of the matching fund through the Humanitarian Coalition. The 12 agencies will be able to go to their donor base and the general public to incentivize Canadians to continue to step up after this news goes off the news cycle and off our social media feeds. Unfortunately, the needs will be very long term in terms of shelter and rebuilding infrastructure and livelihoods.

We ask for a more direct funding commitment from the government. We ask for a matching fund. We ask that in the upcoming budget there not be a decrease in the ODA and the development portfolio. We understand that Canada itself is facing a potential economic recession and rising inflation. However, there's an imperative that we step up and continue to help those around the world.

Last, we ask this committee to take an interest in the underlying crisis in Syria, ensure that more humanitarian corridors are open and use our soft power with our multilateral partners and the UN to push for a resolution of the 10-year-old civil war.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

We go next to Oxfam Canada. We have with us Mr. André Charlebois.

You have five minutes, Mr. Charlebois.

[André Charlebois, Humanitarian Project Manager, Oxfam-Québec, Oxfam Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Members of the committee, my name is André Charlebois, humanitarian project manager at Oxfam-Québec.

Throughout its 50-year existence, Oxfam had dedicated itself to fighting inequality and ending poverty. Oxfam-Québec and Oxfam Canada are members of the Oxfam International confederation, comprising 21 affiliate members. Oxfam-Québec and Oxfam Canada are also members of the Humanitarian Coalition, which Mr. Morgan spoke about earlier.

I'm here today to speak more specifically to Oxfam's presence in Syria.

Oxfam has been present in Syria since 2013. For 10 years, it's been working to supply safe drinking water through infrastructure upgrades and to increase vulnerable populations' means of sustenance. In order to work in Syria, we've had to negotiate framework agreements with local partners, government departments and the public water utility company. We have three offices: The first is in Aleppo, in the north, the second in Deir ez-Zor, in the east, and the third in Damascus, in the south.

Since the quake, Oxfam has been hard at work dealing with the humanitarian emergency and addressing immediate needs. When the quake hit, Syria was already fragile. The earthquake only exacerbated a humanitarian crisis that was already gripping the country. The people were already reeling from the aftermath of 12 years of conflict. The communities are destroyed, the economy's weakened and the infrastructure is crumbling. There is a serious lack of basic services, which is now being compounded by the destruction wrought by the quake, a cholera epidemic and, of course, a harsh winter. More than ever, the Syrian people are in need of long-term, lasting support.

Before the quake, close to 15 million people were already in need of support. Moreover, 85% of households were unable to meet their basic needs. Seven million people had been displaced internally, and two million were living in camps.

Humanitarian response often occurs in the short term. In other words, the goal is to save lives in the days and months following a disaster, and yet the impact on communities and families continues to be felt over the long term, in the range of several months to several years, even. Immediate aid is not enough; we need to rebuild these communities. We need lasting, long-term support. We need to go beyond the initial response to a humanitarian crisis and support reconstruction efforts. Long-term aid means forging ties with local partners, supporting communities and strengthening civil society organizations.

Two-thirds of Syrians are currently living outside of active conflict zones. Their needs are changing, and the aid as well as the funding need to adapt. Oxfam believes that the best way to lift people out of poverty is to upgrade public infrastructures. Before the war, Syria had large-scale infrastructure and public services. We need to build on that to help the Syrians.

There are still barriers to lasting support, however: the lack of flexible, long-term funding as well as the global sanctions that undermine humanitarian response and ultimately hurt the people. Everyday Syrians are hardest hit by these sanctions, as they lack fuel and electricity. Sanctions prevent operations from going smoothly and being efficient and long-lasting.

Let's move on to our requests. In order to give the Syrian people a chance to make it, governments need to focus on lasting solutions. Canada needs to show leadership. It has a duty to invest not only in emergency assistance, but also in infrastructure rebuilding efforts. It needs to provide flexible, multi-year funding. The aid should be completely apolitical. Our humanitarian response is guided by our principles: impartiality, neutrality and independence. Canadian aid should adhere to the same principles.

I'll happily expand on that during the rounds of questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much, Mr. Charlebois.

We now go to the members. The first member up is MP Genuis.

You have three minutes for the first round.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here and, more importantly, for the important work you are doing in this crisis situation and the important work you do at all times, helping some of the most vulnerable people around the world.

I want to just start by underlining our party's support for more inclusive matching programs. This has been a consistent ask. Our preference is that the government try to be as inclusive as possible in its approach to the matching programs so as to not, in effect, deter donations to smaller organizations. Certainly a matching program for the Humanitarian Coalition as a whole would be much preferable to a matching program involving the Red Cross only.

That concern is reflected in the report that was tabled today on our findings related to the response to the earthquake in Pakistan.

Thank you to all of you for being here. I want to start with a question for CNEWA and Islamic Relief.

Could you both share a little bit about the particular impacts of this crisis situation on religious and ethnic minority communities, people who may already face various kinds of challenges and people who are displaced as well?

Maybe we will start with CNEWA and then go Islamic Relief.

[Dr. Adriana Bara, National Director, Catholic Near East Welfare Association]

Thank you.

I just want to mention that CNEWA always helps people in need, regardless of their religion or Christian affiliation. Although the name is Catholic Near East Welfare Association, we open the door to everybody.

We have in place religious communities that help people. For instance, the Marist Brothers have around 1,000 families in their covenant because people just go to the covenant, to schools and to halls searching for help. They never ask what their religion or their city is. They just help people with food, with clothes and the basic needs.

One sister at CNEWA said that we don't help people because they are Christians. We help people because we are. This is a slogan we use for CNEWA. We never ask people what their religion is and we never make differences in helping people.

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

Thank you.

I'm almost out of time.

Mr. Khan, is there anything you are noticing in terms of differential impacts that you'd like to share?

[Usama Khan]

In any crisis, anybody who is a minority or marginalized is definitely impacted more.

I can speak from our experience not just in Turkey and Syria but around the world. We definitely do not discriminate at all. There are strict criteria to look at the most vulnerable populations irrespective of their faith, their creed and their background. Aid is delivered to them without any discrimination.

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

Thank you for your great work.

That is my time, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We next go to MP Bendayan.

You have three minutes.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd also like to take a moment to thank our witnesses for all the work they do on the ground and also for being here with us this morning to discuss this tragic and horrible situation.

Mr. Charlebois, one of my colleagues asked earlier if humanitarian aid was distributed fairly and equitably on the ground and if certain ethnic and religious considerations came into play. I noticed that Mr. Genuis is in full agreement.

What has been your experience, as an Oxfam official?

[André Charlebois]

Thank you very much for the question.

Oxfam operates by applying the basic humanitarian principles of complete independence, neutrality and impartiality, and by responding to the needs of the most vulnerable. Obviously, we work in government-controlled regions, but displaced persons cross borders and enter occupied territories not controlled by governments. We work to help the most vulnerable. That is how we focus our programs.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Very well.

You also said that the sanctions were an obstacle. I understand that the situation in Syria is difficult, but I want to say that I'm strongly opposed to lifting the sanctions on Bashar al-Assad's regime or on Vladimir Putin's government.

Aren't we able to deliver more aid and work with trusted partners on the ground without giving carte blanche to two of the worst regimes currently in power?

[André Charlebois]

It's not about giving anyone carte blanche; however, I think that exceptions should be made for humanitarian actors. The current reality on the ground is that the sanctions are stifling the economy and therefore directly hurting people. Merchants and all those who profit in any way always find a way around those sanctions.

We're not advocating for sanctions to be lifted, but rather for changes that would allow humanitarian workers to do what they need to do and have access to the most vulnerable.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Very well. Mr. Charlebois, I've run out of time to ask you more questions. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Mr. Bergeron, you have three minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, thank you all for coming. I salute your work on the ground, and I'm thinking in particular of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association. A few months ago, I had the opportunity to meet with L'Oeuvre d'Orient in Paris, which does similar work. Congratulations to all the organizations.

Mr. Morgan, I want to come back to your two proposals. You probably heard the officials tell us earlier that they were working within well-defined budgetary parameters. There seemed to be some openness to the idea of responding to the UN's call for new funding. So there's clearly some openness in that regard.

The matching donations will go exclusively to the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, but you're suggesting that they be extended to the Humanitarian Coalition as a whole. We asked officials that question; you were there. We were told that the existing programs and budgets would enable co-operation with the other organizations on the ground, and that the matching donations were only one component of the humanitarian aid that Canada is providing to Turkey and Syria.

What do you say to that?

[Richard Morgan]

In line with Mr. Salewicz's comments earlier, the point is that the $50 million he talked about is already allocated and already being put to use in Syria. The government is allowing greater flexibility in the use of those funds, most of which have already been spent and don't necessarily meet all the new requirements.

The dilemma I foresee and the reason why our first recommendation is that the committee support a broader humanitarian envelope at Global Affairs Canada, is that the department has an annual budget, but all the available funds in that budget have already been earmarked, if I understand correctly. It is urgent for the government to do even more as this crisis escalates. To do that, it will need to seek these funds elsewhere, beyond normally allocated budgets.

I hope that all the parties will support this urgent need so as to substantially increase what the government is able to do. The matching program is just one way to do that. However, Canadians have increasingly less money, and the government too, because budgets are tight across the board. So, we need to make the most of what we have and multiply it.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

One of the concerns—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I believe you're out of time, Mr. Bergeron.

We'll now go to MP McPherson.

You have three minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to echo all of my colleagues in this meeting and thank all of you for the work you are doing. The work that you do on the ground is so important. I know the danger you put yourselves in, and I know what your sector goes through to provide these services. I'm very grateful to all of you.

Mr. Morgan, I'd like to continue on with some of the questions that my colleague from the Bloc has been asking. Frankly, it is extremely frustrating for me to see the government not include the Humanitarian Coalition. We know that you have significant access on the ground and that you are on the ground. I'd like you to talk about that a little bit.

What areas are the Humanitarian Coalition members responding to specifically in Turkey and Syria? Let's push back on that narrative that the Red Cross was there but that the Humanitarian Coalition was not.

[Richard Morgan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and MP McPherson.

I would emphasize that, indeed, to your point, the members of the Humanitarian Coalition are deeply localized. The Grand Bargain commitments that Mr. Salewicz was referring to earlier are I think most effectively delivered by members of the Humanitarian Coalition already working through national offices staffed by local and national staff, and also by partners, really driving home the localization commitment we've all made as part of the Grand Bargain.

I'd also add that, as Usama mentioned, many of our members are part of those neighbours helping neighbours. They're digging through the rubble trying to help those whose cries they are hearing. Some of our own members' teams have been lost as a result of these earthquakes. Communities are always the first responders, and we rally in behind them.

What does that mean in terms of our response at the moment in Turkey? It includes Gaziantep, Urfa, Mardin, Hatay, Sanliurfa and Izmir. In Syria the areas include Aleppo, Hama, Tartus, Latakia, Afrin, Idlib, Azaz, Al-Hasakah, Daraa, and also areas controlled by the government and Kurdish parties as well as by Syrian defence forces.

The point is that we have local access in many contexts. We would like the committee as well as Global Affairs to recognize that.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

There's another thing you touched on with my colleague Mr. Bergeron that I'd like to get you to reiterate a little bit. That's around the supplemental funding. One of your recommendations was that there be substantial funding, of course, and also supplemental.

As you mentioned, what often happens within Global Affairs is that as our official development assistance is so low—it's 0.3%, and of course the goal is 0.7%—there is very much the risk of stealing from Peter to pay for Paul in certain situations. Of course, there isn't a person who doesn't want as much support as possible going to Turkey and Syria.

Can you talk about the impacts of this money coming from previously allocated programs?