Evidence of meeting #108 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was training.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, As an Individual
You have Iraq. You also have Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen. Did I name seven there? I think the other was the Central African Republic.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Okay. The actual governments go out and recruit child soldiers.
You realize that the non-state players are ISIS, Boko Haram—
12:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, As an Individual
Yes.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
—and al Shabaab. They're predominantly terrorist groups.
You're aware, General—you were a senator—of how parliamentary committees work. At the end of this, we have to make some recommendations. You have lessons learned. Hopefully, the UN is implementing best practices from those lessons learned. What are the recommendations that this committee should be making in its final report?
12:35 p.m.
Founder, Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, As an Individual
I think we've entered an era where there are new capabilities required because the scenarios have changed in the field. The threats are different and the construct of conflict is different, and we must walk in with new capabilities.
When we have something like a new threat, that being children, as an example, and a new mission, which is protection of civilians, how do you stop the sustainment of a war through generations by using children and how do you prevent them from actually targeting the civilian population? I think the strongest thing is to look to where that niche is to complement the other niches that are going around and that will in fact give us the capabilities. I do believe that.
As an example, having a centre of excellence is one thing, but having the Canadian Forces, in their ethos, understand that child soldiers are not an add-on, that it's part of modern soldiering and that's a threat you will face all the time.... It's like learning how to shoot your rifle. It's learning how to handle children in a conflict zone.
12:35 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thanks very much.
I want to try to go back to where we were in my last question with Dr. Whitman on centres of excellence.
One of the things that I think we've heard a couple of times now is that with the closure of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre we lost research capacity in peacekeeping, not just the training capacity. The centre in Kingston, while it does excellent training, doesn't do research.
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, As an Individual
That's right.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Is that part of what's behind your call for a centre of excellence?
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, As an Individual
Yes. I think it's incredibly important. There could be training cells that exist at Kingston or in other areas of the country—
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, As an Individual
—but there has to be an approach to have an academic or research centre that is attached to those and collaborates with them.
When you're conducting the training, you also need to have that ability to collate the information and understand if you have best practices. As well, having a separate monitoring and evaluation system is important for being able to understand effectiveness from a non-biased perspective.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Does that capacity exist anywhere else in the world on child soldiers?
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, As an Individual
No, it does not.
12:40 p.m.
Founder, Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, As an Individual
Don't forget validation, going six or eight months later and finding out whether it was really useful and whether they have used the people we trained, and so on, and bringing that back and putting it into a research model, not just a lessons-learned on how to change a few tactical things but actually how the trends are moving.
We did the research on child piracy and produced the handbook on child piracy.
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, As an Individual
The example of the cyberwarfare that was brought up was research we conducted, which now NATO is asking us to come in two weeks' time to present because it's new. We look at the gaps that exist and where we can get ahead of the curve.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thanks very much for your contribution today and the work that you're doing. It clearly is necessary and unique.
12:40 p.m.
Davenport, Lib.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you for this wonderful conversation today. I have a couple of questions.
As everybody knows, Canada is vying for a spot on the UN Security Council. Should we succeed, in light of the context of the conversation we're having today, what do you think Canada should be pushing for next?
12:40 p.m.
Founder, Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, As an Individual
There has to be a will by the nation to want that seat and to see the significance, so there is a responsibility to bring the country along with it. That's one thing.
Secondly, what are you bringing to the UN in order to continue to advance its capabilities? The 100 recommendations that got scrapped in 2005 are still sitting there. There are all kinds of ones that people could join in and do work on.
As an example, the new re-engagement that we would want to involve ourselves in, with new capabilities in peacekeeping by not necessarily deploying massive capabilities of numbers of troops, but in fact, using even reservists, too, is in training and building capacity in regions such as Africa, or in Jordan, where we're working with the Jordanian police.
Build capacity out there. You will spread that word and build the regional support that you need, which has a lot of votes.
12:40 p.m.
Executive Director, Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, As an Individual
I just want to highlight that whatever Canada should be bringing—you get the issue I'm going to tell you—that should be brought there. The Vancouver principles created revitalization of a commitment to an issue that Canada used to have many years ago when it first started back in 2000. It's an area that people do recognize Canada has contributed to in the past. It's also an area where there have been a lot of threats of cuts to funding in DPKO on this matter, yet it's an incredibly important issue to keep the momentum on.
Therefore, as part of this issue, what Canada should be demanding is that there is actual implementation of practical approaches in this, not just spending on what the funding has always been spent on in terms of this issue at the UN but finding new and innovative ways to do it. It should be about complementing the UN system and the policies and approaches that are already there. Therefore, we're not reinventing anything. We're just augmenting and helping to have more capacity to actually do this work.
Lastly, as an example, in South Sudan, the Government of Canada is funding the Dallaire initiative to do work over the next three years to prevent the recruitment and use of child soldiers, with a priority of making this an issue at the peace negotiation table and within the dialogue. We already see moments there where we're having some traction. That's the type of aspect that Canada could take on around the world, and it's an area where we can galvanize support in terms of others who want to join in on that. It's not an adversarial issue to be a part of for Canada.
September 27th, 2018 / 12:45 p.m.
Davenport, Lib.
I have only 30 seconds left. I'm also very concerned about what's happening in Myanmar and the impacts.
I'm well read on the responsibility to protect. How can we re-engage the world into this commitment to the responsibility to protect for that region? What's missing now?
12:45 p.m.
Founder, Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, As an Individual
We published “Mobilizing the Will to Intervene”, out of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, and the Americans in fact adopted part of those recommendations.
The first premise is the recognition that a nation such as ours has a responsibility to protect, fundamentally as being our national ethos. It's not as though we can just look inward and take care of ourselves. There is a nature of our beast that is holding us accountable to the world.
In regard to that seat on the Security Council, the developing countries were madder than we were about the fact that we weren't sitting there as that bridge. As we're doing between military and humanitarians on child soldiers, we were a bridge between the big guys and the other ones and brought innovative ideas and approaches, and that reinforces the pride and the presence of Canadians around the world.
