Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on April 4th, 2022

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

It's very clear, Mr. Beasley.

When it comes to the prevalence of food insecurity around the world, is a difference noted between men and women? Are men and women affected differently? If so, how are they affected differently and in what parts of the world?

[David Beasley]

When you have conflict and food insecurity, it's always the women and children who suffer the most. All studies show that. More important than a study, anecdotal evidence from what we see on the ground is a clear indication of that. This is when we come in, when we set up our systems, working with, for example, your government to make certain we can reach equally everybody who's impaired. Regardless of their sex, regardless of their politics, regardless of anything, we make certain that we can reach everybody who's in need. In fact, we try to really promote a lot of women's programs, and we do that in a lot of different ways that we don't have time to get into today. When we do school meal programs, we do those, for example, not just for boys. We do them for little girls and little boys. For example, in Afghanistan, we are feeding millions of little boys and little girls in schools now even though the Taliban stops any girls in sixth grade and above from going to school. We are pushing and negotiating, and it's like, look, we're going to reach the boys and the girls, not just one half. We try to use food as a way of achieving human rights and opportunities for a lot of people. Afghanistan is in a very delicate situation as we speak, as you can only imagine. We want to make certain we empower women and give women opportunities. It's not just there; it's from Yemen to as many other places as you can imagine.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Beasley.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Ms. McPherson, the floor is yours for seven minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I do want to thank Mr. Beasley for being with us today. I always feel hopeful after these conversations, and I find it fascinating that you're sharing such difficult stories with us, yet I feel there is hope and there are things that we can do and ways we can all work together to solve some of these crises we're hearing about.

I'm thankful to my colleagues for asking many question about what's happening in Ukraine. Of course, that is a pressing issue for us right now, but you said during your testimony that our focus on the east means that we cannot lose focus on what's happening in the south and in other countries.

I'm seized by the idea that Afghanistan.... We were talking in the House of Commons just six months ago about the humanitarian crisis facing Afghanistan, with 23 million people at risk of starvation in that country.

I'm wondering whether you can talk a little more about what is happening in Afghanistan, what Canada can do to help, and perhaps some of the impacts on some of the Criminal Code barriers that have been put in place that need to be removed if we can be as effective as possible.

[David Beasley]

Heather, thank you.

It's hard to believe, whether it's Ukraine or not, with Ukraine for example going from a bread basket to bread lines. We don't want to take food from the children in Chad to give to the children in Ukraine. That's the last thing we want to do. That's why were asking everyone....

With international funding, you're going to have to be very strategic this year. You can't fund everything; you have prioritize. As I say, we need to be certain to avoid the icebergs in front of the Titanic. We may have to let go of the broken wine glass in the bar-room inside the Titanic. What are the vital issues? Food security is obviously one of those.

In Afghanistan, with the Taliban it's been interesting. They have co-operated with us in a surprisingly positive way. I want to put that out at the beginning. When I met with them—as I would meet with anybody, Houthi, Taliban whoever it may be—I'm always very clear. I say that we don't have enough money now to reach all of the people we need to reach. I said, "If you play games with us, I can assure you that our donors are going to maximize every dollar to go to the place where we can reach the most children." I said, "Please don't play games with us."

They had been really co-operating with us and allowing us impartiality, neutrality and independence to achieve our goals and objectives in many ways. They were allowing women to come back to work with us, and they were allowing us to reach the girls in schools; however, in the last few weeks we've seen it going the other way. We have run into a few places where they're trying to tell us whom we can hire and whom we can support and feed. We've shut down operations in a couple places. Usually that triggers a response that gets it resolved.

We had some problems in the first few months. It was really quite remarkable how positively they did respond. We seem to see a shift right now going in a direction that we're very concerned about inside Afghanistan. We're reaching about 15 million to 16 million out of a nation of 41 million people. Twenty-two million people are in IPC 3, 4, and 5. Out of that, 8.7 million are at IPC 4, meaning they are knocking on famine's door.

We are trying to reach with at least full rations to those at IPC level 4, but we're reaching 16 million with part rations and full rations. However, if the Taliban continues to move in this wrong direction, donors are going to lose complete confidence, and that's going to really create havoc inside Afghanistan, as you can only imagine.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Of course. This is one of those things. I'm hearing you talk about where these hot spots are, and they're all around the world, and it's happening all over. Really, we do need to contribute more towards fixing the problem in the short term and the long term.

One of my big concerns, and I've raised this several times, is that Canada may be using vaccine dosages as contributions to our ODA. That means we might be treating vaccines as part of our ODA and therefore reducing the dollars that go out the door for official development assistance.

What does Canada need to do right now to make sure that we are responding adequately to this? How can I as an opposition member convince the government of the vital need to push for increased investment in food security right now?

[David Beasley]

Well, as you can imagine, I get this question from governments around the world. You'll get this question: Why should I send money to Chad, Niger or Guatemala when I have road problems, bridge problems, school problems or health care problems in my own district?

My answer is really simple. I was a United States governor and served in politics. These are valid questions from taxpayers, I want you to understand that, but I say, number one, if you're not going to do it out of the goodness of your heart, you'd better do it out of your national security interests, because you're going to pay for it one way or the other.

Let me give you anecdotal evidence. For example, in Syria, we can feed a Syrian for 50¢ a day, that same Syrian, who, by the way, does not want to leave home.... We survey. You see everybody in Ottawa every day for two years.... I know what's going on in Ottawa. I know what the people are thinking, and I know when they're about to move and why, and what's going on. People don't want to leave home.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

That's a big stretch, Mr. Beasley, to know what's happening in Ottawa. I don't think any of us know that.

I'm sorry to interrupt. Please go ahead.

[David Beasley]

That might not be a good example.

If that same Syrian, Heather, ends up in Berlin or Brussels, let's say, the humanitarian support package is $70 per day.

Let me give you another example, this one on the United States border. The Washington Post did an an article about the United States spending $3,750 per child per week sheltering children on the United States border. For that same child and family, for $1 to $2 each per week, we can provide stability and sustainability with resilience programs inside their home country. We have solutions that work. We have to scale them up and fund them, and I don't mean to just throw money at international aid and throw money at the problem, because that is not the solution.

You know me. I'm pretty tough about how we have solutions, we have effective programs and we need to fund them. As to the governments like Canada, the United States, Germany and others, it's going to cost you a thousandfold more if you have destabilization of the nations that end up in war and conflict. If you end up with mass migration by necessity, it costs a lot more.

It would be like having leaky water lines in your ceiling and you have water just dripping and dripping. You're going to lose the carpet, the mahogany table and the curtains, and you're going to lose the flooring, and you're fighting over where to put the buckets. It's a lot cheaper to go up there and fix the busted lines. That's what we're saying. Let's go and address the root cause. Obviously, when you're dealing with a short-term emergency, I get it, but many of these issues we're facing now are protracted conflicts. The more that the donors—the governments—can give us flexibility to do more with the dollar, that is also very strategic and effective so that we can have long-term planning.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

If we could turn to the second round, I would ask the members to keep their questions to under three minutes, please.

The first member is Mr. Oliphant.

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

Three minutes, not five...? I'm just checking.

Thank you, Mr. Beasley, for being with us. I have been in a number of meetings with you over the years, and I want to say to you that I believe you're the right person at the right time in the right place, so thank you personally for your work. I will admit that I don't know that I would have said that when you were nominated, and it has been really wonderful to watch your leadership at the World Food Programme. On behalf of those of us who watch that, thank you very much.

I have two questions.

The first one is that usually you're asking just for money. It looks like we're in a position now where money may not be the only solution. The sources of food from Ukraine and Russia could be tied up, and it could be very difficult for you to get food for Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, etc. Do you have any suggestions with respect to how we navigate a conflict that is causing such a shortage?

[David Beasley]

You just bingoed the problem. When I joined the World Food Programme, I had a lot of questions. There were 80 million people marching to starvation. That jumped to 135 million, and almost all of that was due to man-made conflicts. This is what I've really been very vocal about in private meetings with presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers around the world.

You've got to slow down, and focus on just a few of these major conflicts and resolve them, because it's just adding up. It's like playing that children's game, whac-a-mole, where one pops up, you pop it, and you run over here and you do that one, and you run over there. I know that's kind of silly, but quite frankly, we've got to give serious attention to solving some of these conflicts that we have, because I do believe they can be solved.

In my opinion we can actually end world hunger by 2030. I still believe we can do that if we end man-made conflicts. Even with climate change, in the short term I believe we can end world hunger. We can respond and do what we need to need to do. The longer term or next 50 to 100 years is a whole different issue, but in the short term, man-made conflicts have to be brought to an end.

As I was saying about Ukraine, if that war does not end in the next 30 days, we will see an extra 30 million people in acute food insecurity. In the next 60 to 90 days, we'll see an extra 50 million people go into acute food insecurity. That, coupled with the other 275 million...I don't know, but it's just going to be a catastrophe on a catastrophe, and hell on earth.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We'll turn to Mr. Viersen, for three minutes.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Beasley, and it's great to have you here.

I'm going to carry on with Mr. Oliphant's line of questioning. It appears to me that if there's no production, all the money in the world won't be able to fix the problem. What's your perception of Canada's contribution to perhaps increasing its production of some of these grain crops, such as cereal crops, canola, corn, and those kinds of crops?

[David Beasley]

We've been talking and hearing from many different political parties with regard to this issue, from the Green Party in Germany and others in Europe. We all realize we've got a very unique window before us, and we've got to respond. The last thing we want to do is to end up at the end of this year with not enough food for the people on the planet. That would be a catastrophe.

I'll leave it to you what decisions need to be made, but when you look at.... There are many issues.... We're talking with foreign ministers as well as agricultural ministers, as I said just a little while ago. We had very substantive discussions with the ministers of agriculture from the G7 regarding what lands could be set aside and what the different issues are that they might want us to [Inaudible--Editor] on a short-term basis to increase production.

I'll let you weigh out the politics of what might be permissible, what might be acceptable, or what might be doable. The last thing we want is to end up at the end of the year with not enough food for people in Ottawa, Chicago, New York, or London. I don't think we want to see what happens if that were to take place. We need to be thinking this thing through.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Do you have any recommendations on things we could be watching for that might reduce or limit our ability to increase our production here in Canada?

[David Beasley]

I'd probably have to sit down and specifically look at Canada, but one thing we are recommending is that you don't get into import and export bans. Please make certain that on the purchasing side, there's transparency. There are many different issues to be looked at. We're talking to many different countries and companies. Off the top of my head, regarding Canada specifically, I'd really have to look at that, so let us get back to you.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

That would be great.

You mentioned that 40% of the fertilizer comes from the Russia-Ukraine area. What is your perception of that impact and the rest of the world's ability to produce?

[David Beasley]

I was talking to the CEO of Yara, which is one of the world's largest producers of fertilizers. Not to get into all of those details, but if you don't put fertilizer on a particular crop, you could lose 50% of the yield. You can get into what types of fertilizers...and all these other different issues, but those are generic perspectives.

What I understand, and I don't know if this number is exact, but Belarus and Russia produce about 40%, give or take, of the fertilizers in the world. We are already seeing farmers around the world, particularly the big farmers, cutting back. Fertilizer costs are skyrocketing, because fertilizers are based on fuel. So you have a base fuel dynamic, and then if you've got a supply chain problem, those two factors will create an extraordinary availability problem, as well as a pricing problem. Obviously, we're already seeing pricing play into our equation. It will only become an exponential problem over the next three to six to nine months.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Beasley.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Mr. Trudel, go ahead.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Beasley.

You talked earlier about the current repercussions of the Ukrainian conflict on other countries, and that was really good. You also said that those repercussions even affected South America. But you did not talk about a country I would like you to talk to us about, Haiti. That country was already struggling before the Ukrainian conflict. I don't know whether the conflict has a direct impact on the general situation in Haiti, which has already dramatic, but what can you tell us about that? Do you have any new information on what is currently happening in Haiti?

[David Beasley]

Yes, sir, before Ukraine, Haiti was a very serious problem. About 4.5 million Haitians, which is about 45% of the population, are projected to be severely hungry inside that country. I was there just a couple of months ago, and the corruption, the problems and the gangs are now being compounded by the issues in Ukraine, the price increases and the lack of money. It's a very serious issue. Looking at some [Technical difficulty—Editor]. That's pretty much it. I mean I can get you a lot more information on Haiti, but it's an issue of a money right now as well as of who we can reach in addition to all of the other internal factors. Haiti is a significant concern. We have a lot of programs and operations inside Haiti, as you can imagine.