Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2010

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I have asked my office to ask the Translation Bureau to take care of this. I hope it will be ready by next week.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Fine. I have no objection.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Okay, that's perfect. Merci.

Thank you, Mr. Creutzmann.

We are going to suspend momentarily to allow a new set of witnesses to take the table.

[Jürgen Creutzmann]

Thank you very much for your invitation. It was a great pleasure for me to be here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much.

We are suspended.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

We are reconvened.

With us today are.... I get the impression that the entire Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade is with us today.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Welcome to all of you. Of course, I'm being a bit facetious. It's actually a series of officials who are here.

I'm going to read off your names, but not your titles, because that would take a long time: Elissa Golberg, Neil Reeder, James Junke, Ken Macartney, Donald Bobiash, and Adrian Norfolk. That's simply the order you were in on the list. I'm sure that's probably not the correct order. It wasn't alphabetical.

At any rate, I'm told that Elissa Golberg will be beginning and making the remarks on behalf of the group.

Ms. Golberg, I invite you to begin, please.

[Elissa Golberg, Director General, Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force Secretariat, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to address the committee on this important subject.

The coordinating responsibility within the Government of Canada for the U.N. Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security resides with the Department of Foreign Affairs, and specifically with the Stabilization and Reconstruction Task Force, for which I am the director general.

We work closely with a number of partners across government on this issue, including CIDA, the RCMP, Public Safety and the Department of National Defence. As you mentioned, several colleagues from DFAIT join me today to address questions you may have about specific geographic situations or broader human rights matters.

The Government of Canada takes seriously its commitment to the women, peace and security agenda. We regard full implementation of the four U.N. Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security—1325, 1820, 1888 and 1889—as important for the long term effectiveness of international responses to conflict or cases of fragility; to protecting civilians in such circumstances; and for building peace that respects the fundamental equality of men and women.

These resolutions commit member states and the U.N. system to a number of goals and activities. First of all, they ask us to consider the fact that women, girls, men and boys each experience war differently. All four resolutions commit member states and the U.N. system to strengthen efforts to prevent violence, including sexual violence; advocate for the active and meaningful participation and representation of women and local women groups in peace and security activity; promote and protect the security and rights of women and girls; and work to ensure women's equal access to humanitarian and development assistance, as well as to justice.

These resolutions provide us with an important framework; but their implementation remains very much a work in progress, both at the international level, as well as for Canada.

I know this committee is particularly interested in these resolutions as they relate to sexual violence. We have seen many contexts where sexual violence is used as a deliberate tactic by the warring parties. Belligerents know that this violence has terrible direct consequences for the women and their families. They also know that sexual violence has the potential to destroy the social fabric of entire communities which can reduce a community's resistance and resilience.

Security Council Resolution 1820, adopted in 2008, was the first Security Council resolution to recognize conflict-related sexual violence as a tactic of war. It notes the particular impact of conflict on civilians and “that women and girls are particularly targeted by the use of sexual violence, including as a tactic of war to humiliate, dominate, instill fear in, disperse and/or forcibly relocate civilian members of a community or ethnic group”.

Mr. Chairman, Canada has been seized of these issues for many years, having played an important role in the original development of Security Council Resolution 1325, and having fostered a number of the developments in the subsequent resolutions that have emerged before the council in the last year and a half.

A key element of our efforts to implement these resolutions includes strong diplomatic advocacy, and I'd like to give you some examples of the kind of work we've been doing in this respect. For example, Canada has been vocal about the need to ensure that all UN peacekeeping operations have a strong mandate to protect civilians, including preventing sexual violence. While strong mandates are important, they're not sufficient. Peacekeeping operations also need to be given clear operational and tactical guidance so that they can follow through on the mandates that have been issued to them.

We're pleased in this respect that the Department of Peacekeeping Operations is working to put in place a strategic framework for mission-specific protection of civilian strategies. This is something we have long advocated for, including in our capacity as chair of the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping Operations.

Similarly, Canada's been at the forefront of efforts to address issues of sexual violence in the context of humanitarian emergencies, including support we've provided to the UN protection standing capacity and the UN gender capacity standby project. In addition, we've been a consistent supporter of international criminal justice mechanisms, including the International Criminal Court and the Special Court for Sierra Leone, both of which have worked to hold the perpetrators of sexual violence to account for their crimes. We've played a key role in ensuring that sexual violence has been recognized as a war crime and as a crime against humanity.

In New York, Canada has also used its role as chair of the special Group of Friends of Women, Peace and Security, and the Group of Friends on Children and Armed Conflict, to strategize with partner countries in order to hold the UN system and member states accountable to the commitments they've made, and then to make concrete recommendations to different UN bodies. In fact, Minister Cannon co-chaired a meeting of the group of friends along with the UN Secretary-General this past September.

Finally, with respect to our global engagement, I thought it would be interesting to note the work we've done to support civil society's efforts to implement the women, peace, and security agenda. Examples include efforts to support women's organizations in Burundi, Sri Lanka, Timor Leste, and Uganda to increase awareness and to advocate around Resolution 1325. We've also been a strong supporter of the NGO Working Group on Women, Peace and Security, which works to track implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325, and advocate for actions on its behalf at UN headquarters in New York.

In parallel to the work we've been doing at the multilateral level and at the global policy level, we've also been working to try to integrate these concerns into our country's specific activities. In countries like Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Sudan, Burundi, and others, we've supported a broad spectrum of responses to address inequality and sexual violence. This includes support to improve the monitoring and reporting of sexual violence against women, to provide investigation and human rights training to peacekeeping and local security forces, to ensure that services are in place to the survivors of sexual violence, and to build the capacity of women's organizations in these countries to address and combat sexual violence.

I've limited my summary of all the kinds of activities we've done in geographic situations so that we can have more of a discussion, hopefully, about these issues when we get to the Qs and As.

Mr. Chairman, if you don't mind, I thought I would take a couple of minutes just to talk about the action plan the government adopted on October 5. As I'm sure you're all aware, the government has developed a national action plan for the implementation of UN Security Council resolutions on women, peace and security. The action plan aims to build on our work to date and seeks to enhance Canada's capacity to safeguard and support women and girls during all phases of peace operations and post-conflict reconstruction efforts. The plan did benefit from fairly extensive consultations with civil society.

The plan is meant to guide the way we develop policy and doctrine; how we will select and deploy our staff abroad, whether it's Canadian police personnel, Canadian Forces personnel, or Canadian civilian personnel from government departments; and how we'll make sure they have the right guidance and knowledge to be able to effectively implement Canadian policies in the field.

The action plan is forward-looking. We very much recognized, as we were developing it, that it's not one of those action plans where we can already tick off all of the things within the action plan as being things the government is in a position to do. It's going to require us to strive to do new things and to do other things differently. And I would submit quite humbly before this committee that it was developed with the understanding that we don't currently have in place all the mechanisms, tools, and strategies to implement what we've set out, but what it does indicate is that we're committed to doing so.

Developing these capacities is going to be especially important as part of the implementation process, and during the first few years of implementation we're hoping to establish our baseline data so that we can continue to improve over time.

The action plan is not a specific project to be implemented in isolation. We very much have attempted to make sure that it's understood by departments and agencies that it's an overarching document meant to influence all of their activities related to women, peace, and security work. When they're doing work on fragile and conflict-affected states or other crisis situations, they're supposed to be bearing in mind and taking into account the actions set out in the plan.

You'll note, therefore, that no specific money has been set aside. We are seeking to make sure that all of our existing work has this lens associated with it. So the work done by Foreign Affairs and CIDA, for instance, with respect to policy development and programming, should be taking into account the national action plan. It should also be taken into account when we're looking at deploying military and civilian personnel to international peace operations.

You would have noticed that we put in indicators wherever practicable to help us measure our progress in areas such as training, policy development and analysis, programming, women's participation, advocacy, and reporting. These indicators will be very crucial to help us to identify any gaps in our response. Canada is among the first countries to actually utilize indicators in its national action plan. We were inspired to do so by the recent decision by the UN to develop indicators in order to increase accountability on this issue. So the international community, as a whole, is very much learning as they go, and we're benefiting from that.

The government plans to produce an annual report during the lifespan of the action plan up to March 2016. DFAIT will convene regular meetings of an interdepartmental working group, will coordinate with our other government department colleagues, and will look at both qualitative and quantitative input from each organization. The first report will be for the 2011-12 fiscal year. We've also built into the action plan a mid-point review so that we can take stock and assess whether or not there are new things that we need to be adding and what we need to recalibrate.

Each government department and agency is responsible for implementing its components of the action plan, and are responsible as a result for developing their internal processes and policies to do so, while at the same time, hopefully, capturing lessons learned and best practices, which would then get shared within the interdepartmental committee.

Given the committee's specific interest on sexual violence, I thought I would end by just noting some specific elements in the action plan that pertain to that. One important element is the strong emphasis we've tried to place on training. We need to ensure that our deployed personnel have the necessary capacity and appropriate attitude to perform their responsibilities in a manner that takes into account the differentiated experience of conflict on men and women and girls and boys. We think this will better prepare our staff to adequately respond when they do witness or encounter instances of sexual violence.

For example, action 17 requires region- and mission-specific training related to sexual violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, and human trafficking. Action 2 outlines the need for a systematic inclusion of modules on women, peace, and security in all Canadian training for military personnel, police, and civilian personnel being deployed operationally. This will include specific training on codes of conduct, cultural awareness, HIV/AIDS, and trafficking in persons, as well as Canadian and international law applicable to the human rights and protection of women and girls.

In conclusion, I would underscore again that we're committed to supporting efforts that prevent violence, including sexual violence against women and girls in conflict, and to protecting their rights in such circumstances.

We believe Canada's action plan will enhance existing Government of Canada collaboration and the effectiveness of our response. The action plan is very much an aspirational document meant to guide policy and programming efforts across the government. We have a lot of work to do between now and 2016 with this first iteration of the action plan to be able to implement what we believe is an ambitious agenda, but we're determined to make progress.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you very much to all our witnesses.

We're going to go to questions and answers now. We have enough time to allow seven-minute rounds, but just by way of structuring the questions that are asked, I want to point out to members of the committee, in case you haven't already noticed, that we have a person each from the various regions of the world. We have someone dealing with Latin America and the Caribbean, someone else dealing with Africa, someone else for southeast Asia, and so on. You can look at the list and match up the appropriate witness with the region. That will allow you to direct your questions, if you have any region-specific questions. That way, the right person will be able to answer you.

That being said, Mr. Silva, I turn the floor over to you.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank Madam Golberg for her comments and for giving us a good overview of the action plan, what's happened, and the UN resolutions.

Because of our limited time, I'd like to get from her, or from anybody else who would like to add their comments on the different regions, what they see as some of the challenges in implementing this, in terms of the action plan, both on the issue of capacity-building and on the issue of some of the UN resolutions.

Finally, I realize there are some political overtones to the language of the words “failed state”. It tends to be that in DFAIT we use the words “fragile state” a lot more, as opposed to “failed state”. I guess you try to avoid saying failed state.

I'm curious to know why that is the case, given the fact that many other governments use the words failed state to describe certain countries, specifically Somalia and Afghanistan, but also some of the countries we're looking at where there are deeply concerning issues of both human rights violations and the lack of government ability to fully control certain regions.

So there are serious issues of concern, and I wanted to hear your opinions.

Those are my two questions for now.

[Elissa Golberg]

Thank you very much.

I'll start with the second one first, since that's my area of responsibility within START.

In fact, there are very few countries now that we would refer to as “failed states”. The preference internationally within the OECD DAC and within the UN is to refer to countries that are “vulnerable”, or “fragile”, very much recognizing that different contexts require different kinds of approaches and that when we refer to them as fragile and vulnerable, these are countries that are least likely to be able to manage external or internal shocks as a result of armed violence or organized crime.

There's a whole complicated cocktail of reasons why a country may be vulnerable or fragile, and then it is incumbent on us to design our strategies to be able to address it effectively. So our preference is in fact to speak of them as vulnerable and fragile, because we think it more appropriately reflects the context those governments are facing. They may have an elected government, a strong national government, but they might not necessarily have control over a specific geographic area of their country. Therefore, we would say that they're fragile because there is internal unrest. A country might be very capable and strong but it may experience a catastrophic natural disaster, in which case then it becomes vulnerable. So it all depends on the context we're dealing with.

With respect to some of the challenges that we will face or that the international community faces, these are ones that you're very familiar with. Obviously, there are the country-specific challenges that depend on the context in which you're working. There are cultural and social issues that one has to grapple with and that one has to be very aware of when you're trying to engage in specific country situations. For us, there will be an issue of even just baselining our current approaches, to determine what we are already doing, then collecting all that information in one place, making sure we're very aware of how much of our programming, for instance, does take this into account, and doing it in a very systematic way. After making sure we have that, then we can measure how we're doing going forward.

As for challenges in capacity-building, again, it very much depends on the country that you're going to, and their level of awareness about these issues; then you'll design your capacity-building training and mentoring accordingly. Your mentoring and training in a place like Sudan is going to be very different from the mentoring and training we do in a place like Afghanistan, and that can be impacted for a whole variety of reasons. It depends on levels of literacy of the people you're training, and on the social and cultural context. Those are all the kinds of challenges we're dealing with.

At the international level, when you look back over the last 10 years from when 1325 was first adopted, you actually see a significant number of developments. You see the language being used increasingly. You see UN Security Council resolutions paying specific attention in the geographic context to the risks faced by women and girls. You see Security Council missions increasingly meeting specifically with women's organizations when they go on the ground. But there's still a gap between the aspirations that we as the international community have set out in the various women, peace, and security resolutions and our ability to actually implement them on the ground. Again, it's for a whole host of reasons, whether they're human resource, technical, socio-economic, or financial.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to ask Ambassador Reeder a question about Haiti.

From what we've been hearing, and from what's been in the papers, specifically what's been happening on the ground, not just cholera but also the attacks on women, sexual violence, and everything else, it seems we're getting a sense of hopelessness from there on a daily basis. What is your read on the ground? Is that misguided? Is there hope that things will get better? It seems things are getting worse in that country.

[Neil Reeder, Director General, Latin America and Caribbean, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

I would say our impression was that Haiti was on a much more positive course in the past couple of years before the earthquake. The earthquake has left huge challenges for the country, a country that was already very fragile. We thought it was starting to turn a corner, and now it's been set back again by the consequences of the earthquake. There are 1.3 million people living in temporary shelter. This is a country with a GDP per capita of $800 U.S. annually, so they face many challenges.

The international community, including the Canadian public, has contributed to a number of programs in Haiti and recognizes the challenges that are ahead. It's very difficult. We've also just gone through an electoral situation that wasn't perfect. Although we recognize that the OAS and the UN have said that, generally speaking, it was a fair and transparent process, we've encouraged them to pursue allegations of irregularities. We're hoping to go to a second round so that we can then move forward with the new government in February.

It's a very challenging situation, but Canada and the international community are very devoted to trying to assist Haiti. We can't let Haiti fail. We have to help it. Canadians have stepped up, the government has stepped up. The donor contributions are enormous, both in terms of humanitarian aid since the earthquake, the reconstruction fund under President Clinton and Mr. Bellerive, and of course our CIDA programming, which was extensive, over $100 million per year before the earthquake.

So in fact we've done a lot. It's a difficult situation, but we can't give up hope. We have to keep working. The Haitian people have hope, and we have to work with them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Thank you.

You have about one minute left, Mr. Silva.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

That's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

That's fine? Okay.

Mr. Dorion, please.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to thank Ms. Goldberg and the other witnesses for appearing today.

I have two questions, and I think they are both for Ms. Goldberg.

First of all, this subcommittee has not discussed, either today or recently, UN Women, an organization that has just been created. In the House, I recently expressed my surprise at the fact that Saudi Arabia is a member of that organization.

First of all, I would like to know what we should expect from that organization, to what extent Canada's action plan can be carried out, and how useful relations with UN Women could be in carrying out that action plan.

Secondly, I would like to point out that, very recently, when the plan was presented in front of this subcommittee, at least two witnesses alluded to certain gaps, even though they recognized that it is a step in the right direction. They talked about a lack of financial resources for implementing the plan, and the fact that no one had been designated to see to it that the actions it calls for are actually carried out. We don't know what financial resources have been made available to implement the plan. We would like to know that. We would also like to know who will be responsible for ensuring that it is carried out.

[Elissa Golberg]

Thank you very much.

That's my job, in fact. Since every department is responsible for its own part of the action plan, my team and myself will be handling interdepartmental coordination. We have worked very closely with Canadian NGOs, and we would like to continue to do that. I noted that some witnesses had discussed that during your deliberations.

With respect to financial resources tied to the action plan, we are assuming that funds will be set aside for conflict and crisis situations. We have to use those funds where the peace and security of women are at stake. The plan provides a lasting strategic framework for programs and activities to which the Government of Canada is already devoting large sums of money. So, our job is to look at how those funds should be used and whether we are consistently thinking in terms of the peace and security of women.

Furthermore, it doesn't really matter that we are going through a period of budget austerity; the point of the plan is not really to secure new money. We want to use the plan to determine how Canada can respond to conflict or cases of fragility where the peace and security of women are at stake.

With respect to UN Women, I'm going to ask my colleague, James, to answer that question, since it falls within his responsibility.

[James Junke, Director, Human Rights Policy, Human Rights and Governance Policy Division, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade]

UN Women is an attempt to bring within one branch, under a single secretariat, all the various organizations within the United Nations system. As a function of the United Nations system, that structure will certainly be more effective. Ms. Bachelet, who was the President of Chile, is now in charge of UN Women. We are extremely pleased about that. She has a tremendous reputation and, based on our analysis, she is extremely proactive and efficient.

As regards the membership of Saudi Arabia, it was automatic because, at the international level, it is the largest developing country to be in a position to provide funding for UN Women. In cooperation with partner countries, notably the United States, the European Union, Australia and New Zealand, we succeeded in heading off Iran's membership. The result isn't perfect, but overall, we find the situation encouraging.

In terms of incorporating that into our national action plan, that is a good idea. Clearly, that should be considered.

[Elissa Golberg]

I would just like to add that UN Women will be including issues related to the peace and security of women in its own action plan. We will be working with these people in New York to try and better understand how they would like to proceed. We will be seeking to ascertain whether this is one of UN Women's three or four priorities. Our colleagues are already addressing that issue with Ms. Bachelet and her colleagues in New York.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

You have one minute left.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

The Pearson Centre for Peacekeeping and Peacebuild do work, at least partly, in the areas we discussed today. Yet we've been told that funding for these two organizations will be cut. Would you not agree that this move is a step in the wrong direction?

Am I right to assume that the strategy used to prevent Iran from becoming a member of UN Women was to replace that country with Saudi Arabia

[Elissa Golberg]

The Pearson Centre for Peacekeeping and Peacebuild are two organizations that we work with. We work jointly on various projects. We will continue to work with them. I cannot comment on their overall budget, but I know that we are currently cooperating on several projects. The Pearson Centre has worked for us in Africa, providing training to African police officers. We have also worked with the Pearson Centre to provide training on sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in Sudan.

We are currently working with these organizations and will continue to do so. Mr. Junke will answer your question about UN Women.

[James Junke]

No. Iran was a candidate for the Asia region. We supported the candidacy of East Timor. So East Timor replaced Iran. Saudi Arabia is considered a donor country.