Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 7th, 2024

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Next we go to MP Oliphant. You have four minutes.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I may not need it all. Thank you.

Deputy, thank you for being here with your officials. I have one easy question and one harder one.

First is the easier question.

Global Affairs Canada counts for about 1.8% of the budget of the federal government. Would more resources be helpful?

[David Morrison]

Yes.

Was that the easy one?

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

What would your top two or three priorities be, in that case?

[David Morrison]

The top priority is investing in the foreign service.

Minister Joly gave the statistic. France had a 20% across-the-board budget increase and hired 800 new diplomats. We have allowed our foreign service to atrophy over time, in terms of recruiting, retaining and investing, including in language capacity.

I had a chat with Mr. Hoback before this session. Canada was extraordinarily blessed between the end of the Cold War and February 2022 and the invasion because our security was essentially looked after by our geography.

In my building, in the Global Affairs set-up, the high priests of the organization were the trade negotiators. Our best and brightest raced around the world signing trade agreements, because in that 30-year period, as I said, we were blessed by geography and by globalization, which allowed Canadian companies to sell lots of things and benefit from free trade agreements.

We're now in a very different world and we need diplomats who do a much broader range of things.

Just to drill down on Minister Joly's point about being at multilateral tables, there are rules being written right now on 6G. We need to be at those tables, for both prosperity reasons and for national security reasons. We saw what happened when 5G was rolled out: We and the world took too narrow a lens on it.

That requires people at the right tables and in the right organizations, and it costs money.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

Do I have time for one quick one?

Maybe Mr. Chevrier or you could answer this question. I wanted to get some clarification on the question that Mr. Genuis asked.

My understanding is the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, requested the Security Council of the UN to withdraw the peacekeeping troops earlier than originally planned and that late last year, the UN Security Council acceded to that request to withdraw the MONUSCO troops.

Am I understanding that correctly? We're not on the Security Council. Am I understanding that process appropriately?

[David Morrison]

I don't know whether you have the sequence right or not. Antoine might know.

[Antoine Chevrier, Assistant Deputy Minister and Chief Transformation Officer, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

I would need to confirm the sequencing and the exact statement. We can certainly come back with a precise response.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We'll now go to Madam Larouche. You have four minutes.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the officials for being here.

I'll first address the issue of public diplomacy.

In 2022, Daniel Livermore, who was a public servant in international relations for three decades, was concerned that Global Affairs Canada seemed to be ignoring international cultural affairs. He explained that the Senate's 2019 recommendations called for the development of a cultural strategy and that this recommendation went unanswered.

How does Canada see cultural and public diplomacy in its future strategy? Couldn't Canada make more investments in the francophonie, particularly to get closer to certain African states that are increasingly turning to China and Russia?

[David Morrison]

Thank you for your question.

I remember very well the 2019 Senate report on cultural diplomacy. We agreed with almost all of its recommendations.

We value cultural diplomacy. When I was a diplomat in Havana several years ago, we did a lot of it. It's like the parliamentary diplomacy we talked about before.

But it does cost money. It's not free. We need resources to send Les Grands Ballets Canadiens overseas, for example.

At the moment, the department must prioritize the essentials, that is to say invest in staff first.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

It was clearly a recommendation from the Senate; we'll come back to that.

I'd now like to talk about collaboration with the provinces.

Some witnesses recommended that more emphasis be placed on partnerships with provincial representatives. Representatives of Global Affairs Canada offices abroad said that, for a state belonging to a confederation, they had the most developed provincial foreign service in Canada and the world.

What is Global Affairs Canada's strategy for increasing its collaboration with Quebec and provincial field offices?

Could they play a role in developing a cultural strategy or in organizing public diplomacy?

[David Morrison]

As deputy minister of foreign affairs and former deputy minister of international trade, I would say that there is a great deal of collaboration between federal and provincial offices located around the world. In fact, I've had the opportunity on several occasions to meet with my Quebec counterpart to talk about collaboration.

I think that, in terms of cultural diplomacy, it's a very good idea to share resources and strategies. I'm sure that's happening in embassies around the world right now.

There's no program as such, but in our embassies in China, the United States and throughout Europe, we have a very close working relationship, even with Quebec.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We now go to MP McPherson. You have four minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here today and for staying a little late as well.

Mr. Morrison, I want to echo your comments that Canada is in a different place now.

I was in the sector at the time. I was not a fan of bringing Global Affairs Canada together from CIDA and other departments, from trade. I think diplomacy is important, but I also think development is vitally important. It is one of the legs of the stool, as well as defence, that has to hold up our foreign policy. I think we have dropped the ball on diplomacy and also on development, and we need to do more on defence. I just want to make that clear.

I have a more detailed question for you. This is about the concerns I raised with the minister and the government in the fall about the detonators going through Kyrgyzstan to Russia.

What this does is show a real loophole in our legislation. Those detonators were going to Russia, presumably to be used in the exact same land mines the Canadian government is paying to demine in Ukraine. This committee did a review on sanctions. It recommended that the Government of Canada publish comprehensive data annually on Canadian exports of dual-use goods like these detonators. We see these loopholes in our arms export system. The minister talked about it being “robust”, but I think it's clear from many organizations and many examples that it is not as robust as it needs to be.

Will you be making it an immediate priority to publish the data on dual-use goods this year?

[David Morrison]

I also come from the development side. I was at CIDA when the amalgamation was announced, and it sort of rocked my world for the same reason.

I will maybe differ with you just a little bit to say that 10 years on, I think it really works for Canada. I think having a common team in the country at the embassies really works for Canada. Having spent time on the development side and having been deputy minister of trade and now deputy minister of foreign affairs, I think it is definitely the right model to have all of those tools in the tool kit at our disposal. I'm happy to debate that.

On your concerns with respect to dual-use technology and detonators, I am not aware of any plan to make it an immediate priority to publish such a list. We can come back to you on that.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

That would be great. I would love to get that information. I'll be raising some of these issues as we go forward, because I do think that our arms regime is not working, similar to our sanctions regime not working.

I will quickly end on the idea that while there may be some benefit in having our trade, diplomacy and development under the same roof, there are challenges when trade trumps all. We heard from the minister the idea of pragmatic diplomacy. At this moment, Canada's reputation is not strong in some circles around the world, because pragmatic diplomacy can't mean that we don't protect our values, that we don't protect human rights or that we don't apply international law equally in all contexts. The rest of the world is watching how Canada is applying those standards very differently in different contexts. It is disastrous for our reputation, which will ultimately have deep implications on our trade relationships.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

All the members have had an opportunity to ask their questions.

Allow me to thank you, Deputy Minister Morrison and Mr. Chevrier, the chief transformation officer. Thank you for being here. It's almost three hours that you've been here.

I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank the other officials who have joined us. We have, of course, Ms. Shirley Carruthers, the assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer. We have had the pleasure of having Ms. Vera Alexander, the associate assistant deputy minister for people and talent management. Of course, we have also had the pleasure of having Mr. Stéphane Jobin, who is the director general of Canadian Foreign Service Institute. Thank you ever so much for your time and for your expertise.

We will now suspend for a couple of minutes so we can go into committee business.

[Proceedings continue in camera]