Foreign Affairs Committee on March 9th, 2023

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

No, you have no time remaining.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

We will now go to MP Bergeron.

You have six minutes, sir.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would first like to note that I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Shefford.

Witnesses, thank you for your introductions.

Oxfam Canada representatives, you have clearly demonstrated that lack of safe access to abortion services does not reduce the number of abortions, but increases unsafe abortions.

In 2021, the World Health Organization's website published an article about abortion. It explains the following: “Barriers to accessing safe and respectful abortion include high costs, stigma for those seeking abortions and health care workers, and the refusal of health workers to provide an abortion based on personal conscience or religious belief.”

During your presentation, we learned that, through two programs, you operate in countries such as Honduras, Bolivia, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Jordan, Lebanon, the occupied Palestinian territories, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. Yet this week, the committee heard from two witnesses telling us that western support for safe and respectful abortions would be a form of neo-colonialism that would run counter to the cultural values of the countries we are engaging with.

Based on your experience in all the countries I just mentioned, what kind of resistance do you encounter culturally that prevents you from doing your work properly?

[Lauren Ravon]

Thank you for the question. If you don't mind, I will answer it in English.

When we talk about what aid Canada is providing, we're providing aid to countries that are independent, that have their own social movements and have a variety of perspectives within their own community. We're not saying that every single person in any of these countries wants access to these services. What we're saying is that there is a demand for it. There is an unmet need, whether it's for family planning, contraception or safe abortion, and those who want it should be able to have access to it.

I know the first question was about how we are influencing policy in these countries and how we are influencing culture. That is not our role; our role is to support civil society actors and local governments to make choices for their own communities.

What we do see, though, is that in every single country around the world, women get pregnant when they don't want to and look for a way to have an abortion. Whether it's illegal, safe or not safe, it's happening. It's a matter of asking, “How are we making this come out of the shadows?” It's about having safe services and medical options for women in every single country in the world, without exception.

I also want to add something on the issue of safe abortion. We know that it's a critical component of a life of dignity. We know the number of women who die in unsafe abortions every year. We've talked about Canada ramping up the investment in sexual and reproductive health and rights around the world, but, in the first reporting year of Canada's new commitment, less than $2 million went to supporting safe abortion services. You know what health care costs. You can imagine that, if you trickle that around the world, it's not a whole lot of money, so this is an area where we'd like to see Canada ramping up in particular, because most donors are not investing in that.

When we talk about safe abortion, it's also postabortion care. I've worked in countries, like Kenya, where the emergency rooms are flooded with women who have had unsafe abortions, so there is a huge weight on the public health care system and on hospitals. Also, these are women whose futures are compromised. They might not be able to have children later when they want or have health problems for the rest of their lives, so this is really an area where Canada can be investing.

I would say one more thing. It's also about supporting social movements and women's rights organizations that have an important role in norm, attitude and behaviour change. These organizations are talking to communities and changing mindsets around women's sexuality and around women's agency and choice. What we would also like to see at Oxfam is more Canadian funding going directly to civil society and women's rights organizations, not exclusively to large multilateral programs and government agencies.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you.

In the same vein, you note that funding tends to focus on targeted, time-limited interventions rather than on the long-term work of building strong health systems and infrastructure, of which sexual and reproductive health and rights are an integral part.

To go back to the answer you just gave us, do you think the development assistance that Canada provides should be transformed, so as to be aimed not at supporting ad hoc interventions, but more at supporting health systems in developing countries, thus facilitating a better approach to women's reproductive health?

[Lauren Ravon]

I just want to recognize that we have seen changes in the way Canadian aid gets delivered. We're not talking so much about two- or three-year projects anymore. We now have five- or seven-year project timelines, so that's important progress.

What we'd like to see is more continuity. Sometimes I think the best innovation is just doing the same thing with more resources and for a longer time. We don't need to reinvent the wheel constantly. Building up health systems is a decades-long project, but also building up women's movements is over years. When we look at Global Affairs Canada, our preference would be to see investment in the long term in supporting social movements. We're talking not just five or seven years, but 10 or 20 years. Then, in terms of health care systems, there's building up things like a national sexual education curriculum. These are things that are not done in five-year horizons. It's the same when supporting midwives across the country, building up midwifery programs and safe abortion services in rural health clinics. These are things that can't be done on a short timeline.

If we look at Canadian funding right now, about two-thirds goes to government or multilaterals, and less than a third to civil society initiatives. That's where we would like to see a better balance, because we know—and you're all politicians, so you know this—politicians act when they feel that there's public interest, public pressure, public demand. It's civil society that holds up that demand, so it means having strong civil society speaking up for rights and making sure there's that counterweight. We can see government investing in family planning and contraception one day, and then not doing it the next because they don't feel that need, that demand on the ground. It's civil society organizations, in particular women's rights organizations, local grassroots organizations—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I'm sorry, Ms. Ravon, but you're considerably over.

[Lauren Ravon]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We next go to MP McPherson.

You have six minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses. These are things that, as somebody who's worked in the sector, I know we've been calling for for a very long time. It's very good to hear this and to know this is getting on the record.

For me, this study is so very important because we know that women—because of conflicts, because of COVID-19, because of climate change—are disproportionately burdened right now and are feeling many of the effects of those things. As my colleague Ms. Bendayan pointed out, it is a day past International Women's Day, and it seems like a very good time to be asking questions about how Canada can do more to support women around the world.

What I'm going to focus all my questions on is what we need to see from the Government of Canada. What are the recommendations you want to see in this report for the Government of Canada?

To start with, can you talk to me a little bit about the Global Affairs Canada accountability framework, how you feel about that, how you feel about the first report that came out, and how you feel about the fact that we have a commitment to $700 million for SRHR, yet we haven't gotten anywhere close to that, to date, and time is running out? Could you explain that a little bit?

[Lauren Ravon]

Sure. I'm happy to speak about the accountability report.

First, I'd say the commitment that was made was historic. It was fantastic, and now it's a matter of getting it right. Also, the commitment to having this accountability reporting is a wonderful thing, not only because we can keep track of things, but also because we can readjust as we go along, so I really applaud the government for that.

I think the first year might have been to some extent a test run, so we have an opportunity to shape things differently. I think there's clearly an underinvestment in the four neglected areas of sexual and reproductive health and rights that we want to see more investments in. For everyone to know, they are safe abortions; contraception and access to comprehensive contraception; sex education, especially adolescent and youth; and advocacy for SRHR. If you look at those four areas, two areas in particular, sexual education and abortion, have received virtually no funding in the first year. We think it's in part because there hasn't been sufficient funding being directed to civil society partners and women's rights organizations. That can help balance it out.

I feel hopeful that we can get on the right trend, but it also means ramping up different kinds of partnerships. If you always work with the same actors in the same way, you don't get new results, so this is a real shift in Canadian aid funding. It's building on the work on maternal and newborn child health, but it's a new approach, so you need new partnerships. More partnerships with progressive women's rights actors can help increase those numbers.

I think something that's been encouraging is on advocacy. There have been investments in advocacy work. This is something that's a promising trend in the report and that we would like to see more of.

[Béatrice Vaugrante]

I want to add something about funding. We want Canada to be much more supportive of organizations, which are sometimes working in increasingly difficult contexts in terms of democracy and freedom of expression. Some organizations are becoming increasingly informal, but we still need to be able to support them.

So that occasionally requires flexibility or a review of budgeting or funding methods, which are sometimes a bit too rigid for this unfortunately increasingly common context.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much for that.

We've said many times in this room that the best development funding is long-term, predictable and, of course, increasing, but I take your point that the flexibility to be responsive is also very important.

Oxfam is one of the 77 groups that wrote to Minister Chrystia Freeland asking the government to ensure that it lived up to its own commitment to produce increases in our official development assistance.

Can you tell me a little bit about what it means to organizations like Oxfam and other Canadian-based civil society organizations when we have these ups and downs? We see it more in the U.S. when there is a change of government and there's a real gap in funding, but it does happen here as well. Could you talk about that a little bit as well, please?

[Lauren Ravon]

We're asking for more funding, in particular because we're facing a situation that we didn't have in the past, where we have development challenges, but then we have major climate emergencies and then humanitarian crises, so it's making our work more expensive and more difficult.

Inflation touches everything, including good development, so this has an impact. Even a Canadian aid budget that remains steady is one that is declining globally. That's why, obviously, we're asking for more.

On what it means in terms of disruptions for our partners, one thing we've seen, and this is not specific to Canada, is that the aid community has a hard time keeping its attention on core anti-poverty work and core humanitarian work. For example, in the response to the war in Ukraine, we have seen much-needed support in that context, obviously, but it has definitely disrupted aid investments in many other countries. We speak to colleagues in the Horn of Africa, in eastern Africa, who are facing extreme hunger but also health systems that are really at their knees. We're talking about women's maternal health in these contexts being very difficult. These countries are seeing the whole world's attention turn elsewhere when they are facing one of the biggest crises of the century.

Canada has a role to play in keeping a steady ship and saying that we've made commitments to a feminist international assistance policy. We've made commitments to helping certain communities that are the hardest hit by climate change. Let's stick with it, even if we can show our solidarity when an earthquake hits somewhere else or when a war breaks out somewhere. Let's keep a steady ship, because organizations having their funding pulled from one day to the next because there are no development dollars left means literally life and death in certain circumstances.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Of course. Thank you so much for your work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much.

Now for the second round, we first go to Mr. Genuis.

You have four minutes, Mr. Genuis.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to comment at the outset, in response to what was just said, that our focus on Ukraine is extremely important, in part because hunger crises in other parts of the world are impacted by the flow of essential food that's been disrupted as a result of the invasion, but I won't go too long on that, because I know it's not the main point today.

Ms. Garcia, you've had your hand up for a little while wanting to come in on some of the points that were made in the last 15 minutes, so I'll give the floor to you, if you'd like to do that first off.

[Dr. Maria Cristina Rodriguez Garcia]

Thank you very much.

Yes, I want to talk about how to deal with legislation on abortion that some of you were talking about. In my country, the discussion about abortion leaves no space to address all the issues about the vulnerability and exploitation that women are facing. In my country, women are barred, because of years of poverty and violence. We just find the solutions that many of the funds...and the actions that some organizations do are just a political resignation to violence. Why? There is that connection to the trauma of women that provokes this dissociation. The dissociation leads to their vulnerability, and their vulnerability is like green grass for exploitation. These vulnerabilities that women are facing have been creating industries of exploitation, even in abortion.

I say that because in my country, we have no accountability, for example, about why women are having an abortion. We have no accountability about which of these women are being trafficked or living in violence. We definitely have no accountability if these women come back to the same environments that generate trauma and disassociation.

We have a circle of political affirmation of vulnerability that makes the most vulnerable women invisible in all the programs and all the policies. With the limited interpretation of their autonomy, we are not seeing the exploitation, pain, suffering and trauma that women are facing, which affects all their decisions. Sometimes they will decide on the side of the trafficker and the violence—

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

Thank you. I did want to get one more question in.

We have in our next hour the United Nations Population Fund appearing before the committee. I wanted to ask a question about an issue that has arisen in Mexico specifically. The National Human Rights Commission in Mexico has done a report on the issue of coercive family planning and population control. The report says that public health servants have imposed methods of family planning on the native population without their consent and without informing them of the risks. The National Human Rights Commission further alleges the complicity and involvement of UNFPA, and this follows a series of allegations about UNFPA complicity in population control around the world.

Dr. Garcia, do you have any observations or comments on the activity of UNFPA in Mexico and suggestions for us in that regard?

[Dr. Maria Cristina Rodriguez Garcia]

Yes. Thank you very much.

In the last year, we have been facing an aggressive imposition of some of the agenda that doesn't correspond with the reality that Mexican women and girls are facing. These interventions have become the main part of the discussion and the main part of the regulations. They don't let us talk about the real problems that women are facing, like the separation of women, the femicides we are facing, and how women are being sold among the narco groups.

The denouncements of these interventions that some groups have made are because these interventions absorb all the resources but don't leave us the space to talk and decide about the huge problems that we are facing in our countries.

Thank you very much.

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

Can I just ask if there is a sense of public or political response to the UNFPA as it relates to their involvement? What has been the popular response to that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

You have 20 seconds.

[Dr. Maria Cristina Rodriguez Garcia]

The popular response is that people are really worried, because of the war against narco that we are leading. We are generally angry and desperate. We feel they are not listening to our necessities and they are talking about things that don't relate to our reality.

Thank you very much.