Evidence of meeting #109 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 important.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I would love to hear from the other two witnesses. I saw Dr. Jones nodding his head, but we are at two and a half minutes, and I promised the extra time to MP Dzerowicz.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
You're at three minutes, but we just have one more person and we have a bit more time. If you want to continue that thought, I can circle back to MP Dzerowicz afterwards.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Okay.
Beth—it's easier to pronounce your first name.
12:45 p.m.
Coordinator, Women, Peace and Security Network – Canada
That was a deliberate choice by my parents, actually.
I would agree with Kate that we seem to be on the right track. I think it's really important that we take the lessons we're learning domestically in terms of how our security institutions reflect Canadians, how we act on Canadian values, and then take those globally, not only into specific missions, but also into our advocacy work at different points in the United Nations. If we continue to be true to that, then I think we'll be on solid ground.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you.
Dr. Jones, we have one minute left. I did see you nodding your head, but that's not on the public record.
12:45 p.m.
Vice-President and Director, Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution
Yes, I would strongly support the notion of longer-term commitments. I would hope that Canada would learn from its first experiences in Mali—which would give it a wider context in intelligence terms and policy terms about what the situation is—evolve its contribution and stay engaged, both through the peacekeeping arm and through political and development tools. You can't make a huge contribution in six months; you can over a longer time period. The first six months should be a learning exercise that hopefully will continue and deepen.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
We will go with MP Garrison, and then we will close with MP Dzerowicz.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Randall Garrison NDP Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
At the beginning, Ms. Woroniuk, you talked about four pillars. We've spent some time on the participation of women at all levels of the peace process and peace operations. We've talked about protection and prevention of sexual violence. We haven't talked about the other two very much. Those were the role of women in the prevention of conflict and a post-conflict recovery plan that benefits both genders.
I want to give you a chance to talk about those last two a bit, since we haven't really discussed them. We haven't really spent much time linking peacekeeping and peace operations either to prevention or post-conflict situations.
12:45 p.m.
Coordinator, Women, Peace and Security Network – Canada
Thank you very much for pointing that out. I think that one of the strengths and attractive elements of the women, peace and security agenda is trying to bring this holistic approach. One of the key points that have been made is that work in this area is not just to make war safe for women. This is not the goal of what we're trying to do.
What we're trying to do is stop conflicts before they start. This calls for different kinds of investments. It calls for development. It calls for early warning. It calls for narratives different from violent extremism. This is also important to put on the agenda, as we know, and I think other witnesses have talked about the various costs of spending a dollar to prevent conflict versus the hundred dollars it costs once the armed conflict has erupted. I think we should focus much more on addressing the root causes of conflict.
Second, looking at what happens post-conflict is really important. We see that sometimes in conflicts gender norms change. Women take on different roles because of the dislocations. It's important in the post-conflict situation that there be opportunities for women as well as men in terms of employment and demobilization.
One of the real challenges in cases where you have women and men who have been members of the armed forces is what we're seeing in Columbia, for example. The women being demobilized from the FARC are often being offered hairdressing and beauty salon as training. These are highly motivated women who know many technical skills, and they are becoming prime recruitment for narcotrafficantes because they have these skills, yet formally all we're offering them is hairdressing as an employment opportunity.
It's important to look at these elements and how we build peace as well.
12:50 p.m.
Davenport, Lib.
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
Dr. Jones, I'm going to start with you, following up on my colleague Mr. Fisher's question about Canada's contribution in Mali, and whether you believe it's a positive contribution to the UN objective of creating conditions for peace.
I hear from you that you wish we took on a lot more of the tougher end of the peacekeeping and were there a little longer, but do you think that, overall, it's a positive contribution?
12:50 p.m.
Vice-President and Director, Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution
Yes, absolutely. You can't have the kinds of effective peacekeeping responses that you need in these kinds of conflicts without the airlift and oversight support that Canada is providing, but it's the beginning, not the end of what needs to happen from serious troop contributors.
12:50 p.m.
Davenport, Lib.
Absolutely. Just so you know, I'm very clear. You have made very clear the back and forth that needs to happen between knowledge gained on the ground with these high-end operations and efforts and then bringing that back to the UN for policy development so we can start pushing the UN to where it needs to go to address the challenges of UN international peacekeeping in the 21st century. That is now completely ingrained in my head, and I'm very grateful to you for informing us of that.
Ms. Woroniuk, I want to loop back to you and ask if you can respond to the question I asked before. One of my key things is how we get to that critical mass we need for women to have that change. I would love any insight you might be able to provide to us and maybe some recommendations.
12:50 p.m.
Coordinator, Women, Peace and Security Network – Canada
One of the pieces in the Elsie initiative is to try to understand the barriers that women face, both in joining security institutions and in deployment, because it's very interesting that women deploy internationally at a lower rate than they are members in their national armed forces. So additional barriers have to be taken into account.
One of the really important points so far is that a lot of these barriers are context-specific. A woman in Ghana faces different challenges than a woman in Bangladesh in doing that, but certainly some of the issues that have been raised do relate to sexual harassment. Some women do not deploy because of fear and the stories that other women have told them about the dangers they'll face in deployment. Some are related to the lack of family supports and the length of leaves. Some are even technical issues. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations has minimum standards. One of them includes being able to drive a shift automobile, and women in many of the militaries don't get that kind of training. Some are easy to address by offering that kind of training so women can have the same access once they join.
I think this is a very important area that is being looked at. We're trying to understand these barriers and move forward, and I think they're different globally than they are in Canada.
12:55 p.m.
Davenport, Lib.
I'm hearing from you that we have to gather some more data so we can figure out how we can leapfrog and transcend in a very big way.
Dr. Jones, I think we heard that we need to focus a little more on stopping conflicts before they start, and think more about the post-conflict stage, once we get to what that new peace looks like and what work we need to do.
In relation to international peacekeeping in Canada, what recommendations might you have around stopping conflicts before they start, looking at the root causes of conflicts?
12:55 p.m.
Vice-President and Director, Foreign Policy, Brookings Institution
I confess I'm very old school on this. One of the best conflict analysts of this past quarter century wrote a piece in the early 1990s describing conflict prevention as alchemy for the new world order.
Politics is politics. We intervene badly in it. We don't understand the societies where we've intervening. I'm deeply skeptical of conflict prevention as an agenda, frankly, other than if you're thinking about long-term developmental transformation over the course of decades, which we're engaged in and should be engaged in.
I'm much more focused on stabilizing conflict situations. This requires defeating those who are trying to undermine peace agreements or undermine the state. It's easy sometimes to drop back to notions of prevention and political processes, etc., but ultimately, there are groups that are going to try to undermine peace, undermine the stability of these countries, and they have to be defeated. That's how you protect civilians. That's how you improve the situation in a country.
I know I sound very recalcitrant, but sometimes these softer notions, I think, obfuscate the real challenge in front of us.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
Thank you.
Before we close out, I'm going to give the floor to Mr. Bezan.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB
Thank you.
I have a quick point of order, Mr. Chair.
For the meeting coming up on Thursday, we still haven't received the notice of meeting or a list of witnesses. It makes it difficult for us to prepare for those upcoming meetings. I would think that it would be at least respectful to have those notices 48 hours in advance, and preferably 72 hours, so we can have the chance to do our research on the witnesses, to be able to bring forward quotes and know the positions of the witnesses on various issues. It gives us a chance on our side to at least have a quick pre-committee meeting to discuss strategy.
The more time we can have, the better. I think it's important. It's respecting our privilege as parliamentarians to do the job we're tasked to do.
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
I respect your remarks. I think that's typically the case with this committee, and the clerk will be on that as soon as we're adjourned for the day.
I want to thank very much the witnesses who contributed to this very important conversation.
For those who were wondering, Dr. Bercuson is stuck in a traffic jam in Calgary in a snowstorm. We've been in touch with him electronically, and he will be forwarding the comments he would have made had he been here via VTC.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Stephen Fuhr
He's unavailable. We've tried. The best we can do is get his remarks electronically, which will feed into our report.
Thank you all very much for coming and contributing to this very important topic.
The meeting is adjourned.
