National Defence Committee on March 8th, 2012

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

I want to thank all three of you on your comments. They are very appreciated and very interesting.

My question is about the most vulnerable individuals, women and children.

Regarding women, we know that rape is increasingly being used as a weapon of war in many countries in conflict. I would like to know what kinds of solutions are being considered, not only to fight that phenomenon, but also to take care of women. Women who are raped are then also rejected by their family and social environment.

As far as children go, I want to know whether you have noted a decrease in the number of child soldiers and, if so, how you are getting involved in terms of that.

Thank you.

[Marie Gervais-Vidricaire]

Those are important and broad issues. We are certainly very concerned about that situation, especially in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the number of rapes continues to be extremely worrisome. We have already talked about what kind of training is being provided to the deployed officers. In this case, we are talking about deployments as part of the UN mission, MONUSCO. Of course, the deployed officers have been made aware of that issue. They try to deal with it and reduce the problems. We also do programming.

One example is a project we are carrying out in cooperation with World Vision. The project's objective is to protect children and prevent sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We have invested $650,000 in that project. A number of our projects are aimed at addressing that issue.

[Sadia Groguhé, NDP, Saint-Lambert, QC]

But how is the protection of those women ensured? Is it possible to actually ensure the protection of those women who, in some regions, are more exposed to sexual violence? How do you establish connections with the governments in power and the institutions in order to contain that phenomenon as much as possible?

[Marie Gervais-Vidricaire]

Those are matters we have addressed bilaterally with the government. In the case of the DRC, for instance, the government established a zero tolerance policy. I think that international pressures have contributed to that decision. That policy now has to be implemented. It has so far still not been completely implemented, obviously.

That is also the role of peacekeeping missions. MONUSCO is one example. MINUSTAH, in Haiti, also aims to ensure safety. Abuse is taking place in various countries. Trying to create an environment that prevents abuse is part of the training all participants in peacekeeping missions undergo. Of course, that is not easy and remains a problem in many countries.

[Kerry Buck]

When we work with international partners on building civilian capacity of states in conflict and security sector reform, we're very conscious of the need not just to ensure that there is an understanding by judges and police of how to prosecute and how to investigate crimes against women—they are specific to women—but we're also pushing hard to make sure there's a victim's perspective brought into it, including after prosecutions.

Then it segues over into a lot of our development assistance to figure out how we improve the place of women in society and economic opportunities for women.

So it's part of a continuum. When we work on security sector reform, we're also working side by side with CIDA to try to make sure there's a segue into other programs that would help women. We're doing that across the board, not just on sexual violence but on trafficking in women, etc.

I think Jill is prepared to speak to child soldiers, if that's all right.

[Jill Sinclair]

I am, a little bit, and thank you for the question.

I don't have statistics on the reduction or not of the number of child soldiers, but what I can tell you is that since the negotiation of the convention on child soldiers, we have at least succeeded in establishing a new norm, so I think the debate and the awareness of the issue—and obviously we have some extraordinary Canadians who have made people aware of this issue, with General Dallaire.... I know that Canadian Forces personnel, for example, when they go out into operations, are given training around the convention on child soldiers, for knowing how to recognize and how to treat children differently.

The raw numbers I don't know, but my very strong sense is that as the convention was negotiated—it must be 18 years ago, or something....

Is it longer than that?

Anyway, since the convention came into force, we have the norm established, and as you know, that's an extremely important first step, at least.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you very much. Your time is up.

Ms. Gallant, it's your turn.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Overnight we've seemingly had a generation awaken to what is going on outside their Facebook pages. As MPs we've had an explosion of e-mails, texts, and bombardment from the twitterverse over the Ugandan warlord Kony's actions. His Lord's Resistance Army has been systematically abducting children to wage its campaign of terror, and that has this “me generation” demanding that Canada take action.

Would our military be ready for an intervention in a situation such as this, and how would it be in our national interest to intervene?

[Jill Sinclair]

If I could, Chair, I'd like Foreign Affairs to start, because your question shows very clearly that it isn't at DND or the CF that we decide to take that action; this is a foreign policy decision.

Kerry, why don't you lead?

[Kerry Buck]

This has been an issue for a long time, not just in northern Uganda but over into southern Sudan, and well before we had the referendum and the splitting of Sudan and the creation of a new country.

It's been a serious problem that the international community has tried to address for a long time. Some progress has been made, and we've tried to address it through a number of means.

There have been, throughout the years, some serious mediation efforts, quiet ones, trying to get the warlords—because it's not just Kony, it's a kind of web of warlords—to step down and step back. There have also been programming efforts to strengthen some of the communities from which kids were taken, in terms of their own security but also their own awareness. As I've said, it's a lot of cross-border stuff that was also happening.

Then there have been efforts, working with international partners, to try to retrieve the kids and help the kids reintegrate in a healthy fashion into the community. We are talking about interventions that have happened across a whole range of states that are helping out, but also states in the region.

Uganda's not.... There are some positive forces within the government in Uganda with which we had previously tried to work—the Human Rights Commission, etc.—to try to address the problem. There has been some progress; it's not completely intractable. It goes across, as I said, the development assistance programming by us and partners, and the security programming that we do, and then those diplomatic sorts of engagements, which sometimes we'll fund and sometimes we'll do ourselves, depending on the context.

[Marie Gervais-Vidricaire]

I will just add that Canada also chairs a group of friends in New York working on this issue of children in armed conflict, and we've been with others pressing for more accountability for persistent violators. That group is in touch as well with the sanctions committee to see what more can be done to address the problem.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Ms. Sinclair, were you going to—

[Jill Sinclair]

I think this points out how there are a number of ways in which you intervene to affect a situation. In this case it's diplomatic, it's social, it's through development assistance. There are a number of countries that are working on it as well as NGOs on the ground. So we would wait to hear whether there is a need for anything—in this case capacity-building or whatever—on the ground that the Canadian Forces particularly could bring to this. It's all about an integrated approach to conflict management, and the committee is of course focused on readiness.

We need to be ready across our instruments of engagement. That's from diplomatic right out to having fighter planes to deploy.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

With respect to the female children you referred to as having been soldiers, are there any exchange programs or have any of those young women who have been rejected by their families been sent to Canada?

[Kerry Buck]

I don't have the full details on our programming on this specific issue. I think it would be useful, Mr. Chair, if you agree, if we could return to you with a little more clarity, which we can get from CIDA and from some of our programming, about how this has been addressed by Canada and other partners.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Canada is already in various countries across Africa. How is our presence there helping us to be ready for the uncertainty in the world that was mentioned earlier?

[Kerry Buck]

Across Africa we've participated in a number of UN peace support operations.

[Cheryl Gallant, Conservative, Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, ON]

Actually that brings up a question for defence, if we have defence personnel situated. I'm looking at military readiness.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Ms. Sinclair, could you give just a brief response?

[Jill Sinclair]

Very quickly, we have our defence attachés. And we prepare for readiness by understanding what the dynamics are, who the players are, and what might be useful or not if we were needed to do something or directed to do so.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Alexander, you have the last of the second round.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

I'm going to ask my former colleagues a number of questions about very big issues. I'd be grateful if you'd give a very short answer because I'd simply like them to be on the record of our meeting with you today.

The first is a factual question. You mentioned missions in which we have personnel. Are there Canadians in the new UN mission in Libya?

[Marie Gervais-Vidricaire]

The answer is no.

[Kerry Buck]

There are not to our knowledge, but there are Canadians in Libya doing a lot of programming in coordination with the UN and guided by the UN.

[Chris Alexander, Conservative, Ajax—Pickering, ON]

Understood. That's important for us to know.

Second, on training, you mentioned the extent of our training relationships. Some of them are very small-scale, with, I think you mentioned, 60-plus countries. Obviously training military and police in fragile states is an important element of conflict prevention and in some cases conflict resolution. Do you think we're doing enough of it? Give us your personal views...professional views.