Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 7th, 2024

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I would like to ask for consent from colleagues to ask a question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Absolutely.

Mr. Morrice is here today. He's not a regular member of this committee. Would there be unanimous consent for him to have time for a question or two for the minister?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Mr. Morrice, please proceed.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

First of all, thank you, colleagues. I appreciate it.

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

On a point of order, can I ask how long this will take?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Let's say two questions, so that will be four minutes.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, Chair, so you're aware, in terms of Canada's diplomatic capacity, my question relates to checking another country's claim before cutting funding to a UN organization, so I think it's within the scope of the study.

Minister, as you know, there are two million people in Gaza who depend on UNRWA. As you've said many times before, Gaza is the worst place in the world to live right now. UNRWA employs 13,000 people there, and they quickly fired 12 individuals as of January 26 under allegations of connections with Hamas.

As MP McPherson shared earlier, CBC is now reporting that the Government of Canada hasn't seen evidence backing up Israel's claim that staff employed by UNRWA colluded with Hamas in any way before we suspended our funding. In light of all of this, are there conversations in your department right now and/or with the Minister of International Development with respect to restoring funding to UNRWA?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Thank you, Mike.

I know that there is a very important conversation happening about UNRWA, and I know that UNRWA is important to Palestinians. I really get it. That's why we supported UNRWA and why we invested in UNRWA. What happened on October 7 was catastrophic, we know, and the allegations that have been made are very serious, and that is why Canada is not the only country that has paused its funding to UNRWA. At the same time, it is normal that the UN, which I think is doing the right thing, is investigating, because these are serious allegations, and I think, Mike, you can agree with that.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

There's no debate whatsoever about the seriousness of the allegations. The concern I'm raising, and my question, are with respect to whether we received any other information beyond information from Israel with respect to these 12 individuals—12 of 13,000 employees in the organization—who've already been fired.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Mike, it's the Minister of International Development who has been in contact, but it was UNRWA itself that raised the issue with Canada. It was they who connected with us to talk about this issue. That is why we took note of what they were saying, and that is why we worked with other countries on this issue.

I'm confident, and I have total trust in the head of the the investigation. She used to be my colleague. She's a person whom I respect a lot, the former minister of foreign affairs for France, Catherine Colonna. I really hope that the investigation can be, as I mentioned, very thorough, but also rapid, because we need to continue to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, and UNRWA is fundamental in offering that humanitarian aid.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

To clarify from your comment, did UNRWA request that Canada cut funding?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

What I am telling you is that it's really much more the international aspect. I haven't had conversations with UNRWA. What I know is that UNRWA reached out to us as a government to raise these allegations, and we were not the only one. They did that with all other countries that are funders of UNRWA.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Is there a conversation happening right now in the federal government with respect to responding to what we're understanding from CBC on the extent to which we are validating the claim about these 12 individuals?

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

That is a question you need to absolutely ask Ahmed Hussen, our colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Minister, this time I really do mean it. Allow me to thank you again for your generous commitment of time. Thank you for having stayed with us for as long as you did.

At this point I will suspend, and we will resume in a few minutes to ask questions of the officials.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Welcome back, everyone. We will now resume questioning of officials. It's been agreed that we will have one round, given that there is committee business that we have to attend to as well. Each member will be allowed four minutes.

We'll start off with MP Epp. You have four minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the officials for staying.

In December, Dr. Charles Burton testified. He's with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. He testified that his U.S. counterparts felt that Canada did not need or was not a part of or did not deserve to be a part of important institutions like the three eyes. That was attributed to a statement of the Prime Minister that we will never meet our 2% NATO target for defence.

Can you respond to that? Was there some other reason that we're not aware of that we were shut out of the three eyes—or the Five Eyes. Sorry.

[David Morrison]

I'm sorry; do you mean the Five Eyes?

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

It's the Five Eyes. I'm sorry. Yes.

[David Morrison]

I'm not aware that we've ever been shut out of the Five Eyes. Five Eyes is an intelligence-sharing agreement that grew out of U.S.-U.K. collaboration in the Second World War. It was later extended to the three other eyes, those being New Zealand, Australia and Canada, and we're very much a paid-up member.

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

My apologies. I misspoke.

Canada was left out of AUKUS in 2021. That's what I was referring to—the defence and security alliance of Australia, the U.S. and the United Kingdom. We were also left out of a seat when Norway organized the talks with the Taliban. We've also turned our neighbours away, our allies away, when they've come looking for LNG.

How do we respond to that? What I'm probing for is not so much.... I guess the first round with the minister dealt more with our relationship with trouble spots around the world. I'm very concerned about our relationship with our own allies. We don't seem to be having.... At least, that is coming from the experts that we hear at committee.

Could you comment about Canada's place in the world? How are we viewed by our allies, given that we're being excluded from some of these important opportunities or arenas?

[David Morrison]

I challenge the premise of the question that we're being excluded.

AUKUS is a submarine deal among nations with primary security interests in the Pacific. That isn't really where we are focused in terms of submarines. There are additional elements to AUKUS beyond the core submarine arrangement in terms of technology sharing and so on, and we've made it clear, as has New Zealand, that at the appropriate time we may be interested in joining in sharing the technology, but our Five Eyes partners made it very clear to us that AUKUS is effectively a submarine deal.

I will say that I was a G7 sherpa for five cycles and I think we're at almost every table that matters. As Minister Joly said, we could be punching harder. We could have more resources—not necessarily deeper pockets, but we do need to reinvest in the foreign service. That's the whole spirit of the “future of diplomacy” report and the implementation—

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

My time is limited. I just want to pick up on a comment you made that submarines are not really where we're at, and I'm paraphrasing how you responded.

Minister Joly in her testimony said that sovereignty was very important and that defending that sovereignty was a very important part of Canada's approach going forward, so when it comes to our north, are you saying that submarines are not an important part of our strategy going forward?

[David Morrison]

I'm not a defence policy expert. I will simply say that if you unpack how AUKUS started, it began with a very large submarine purchase by Australia, which was committed to purchasing submarines from France and then decided, because of the long lag time, that they would purchase from the United States, and then they brought in the U.K. It's hard to think of three nuclear-powered subs.... I'm not aware that Canada is playing in the Pacific in that way.

We are members of so many clubs that matter. I don't think we should get too upset. There's no question that we would be in an Arctic club. I personally was totally not fussed when AUKUS began, because of the circumstances in which it began, and if it turns into a thing that is beneficial for Canada in terms of sharing, then, as I said, I have every expectation that our partners will invite us in.