Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Dear colleagues, honourable members, thank you for the invitation to appear before your committee to speak about Canada's international response to COVID-19.
We are living, without question, through a consequential once-in-a-generation moment. The scope and scale of this pandemic have tested every community, country and international institution, and we have all been affected, both personally and professionally.
We will be sorting through the global health and socio-economic ramifications of this crisis for some time to come.
The ramifications of this pandemic will lead to increased emphasis on health care diplomacy, supply chain diplomacy and economic security diplomacy. No one can underestimate how much this pandemic affects the economy and cybersecurity, along with human rights, gender equality and, of course, inclusion.
We must also recognize that the pandemic has not occurred in a vacuum. Indeed, this crisis is exacerbating existing global trends, including geopolitical competition, rising protectionism, increased inequality and challenges to democratic values.
Here at home, this pandemic has forced the government to come up with solutions to problems of an unprecedented nature. At the Department of Foreign Affairs, the consular response has, of course, been the most visible and demanding one. Hundreds of staff at headquarters and at our missions abroad were redeployed to deliver the largest and most complex peacetime repatriation of stranded Canadian travellers in our nation's history.
While I speak today of the consular element of Canada's response, I also want to highlight more broadly Canada's leadership in shaping global responses to the COVID-19 pandemic on the diplomatic, trade and international assistance fronts, as they are critical and will only become more important as we go forward.
I'll start with the consular response.
Some people may forget that, before COVID-19 became a pandemic, Global Affairs Canada had already, by the end of January, brought hundreds of Canadians home from Wuhan and assisted hundreds more in Japan on the Diamond Princess cruise ship. Things only became worse after that. As the virus spread and countries around the world, including Canada, implemented strict border controls, we were facing airspace, border and airport closures, and even tight restrictions for Canadian travellers in various countries around the world.
As I have said before, when the world pressed “pause”, we went into full gear. Here are just a few numbers that should give you an idea of the magnitude of efforts we deployed to meet the needs of Canadians in distress.
In March our emergency watch and response centre was fielding thousands of calls and emails a day. Early in the crisis, single-day totals peaked at over 5,800 calls and more than 9,000 messages. Staff from across headquarters were redeployed to help handle all these calls and emails. Our network of 178 missions abroad likewise shifted gears to provide critical on-the-ground support to Canadians. Ambassadors, trade commissioners and development officers found themselves working alongside their consular colleagues arranging flights, ground transportation, permission letters, quarantine exemptions and emergency loans. By June we had facilitated the safe return of over 48,000 Canadian travellers from 111 countries, including 42,000 on more than 400 flights and more than 6,000 who were at sea on board 197 ships.
Mr. Chair, I really want to take this time to congratulate and thank Heather Jeffrey, who is with us today, for what she did so marvellously as the chief consular officer. This was consular crisis management at a level never seen before in our country, a real-time illustration of Canada's strong and broad people-to-people ties around the world and a remarkable show of resilience by the Canadian foreign service.
At the same time, despite troubling signs of a lack of international action and solidarity, Canada has played and continues to play a leadership role in coordinating and developing the global response, through timely diplomatic and trade action and international assistance programs. Our work is guided by the Prime Minister's clear commitment to defeating this virus everywhere and to emerging from this crisis stronger as an international community. With these priorities in mind, the Prime Minister, my fellow ministers and I have spoken by telephone and video conference with hundreds of our counterparts around the world.