Evidence of meeting #41 for Status of Women in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was foreign.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Irene Mathyssen NDP London—Fanshawe, ON
No, but I think it's important to underscore what's happening and what's going on.
Conservative
Executive Director, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action
Yes, just quickly. I understand that “child soldiers”...and Mr. Kessel made the point that it's a colloquial term. But what I would say about that is yes, it's colloquial, but if it's the term that's being used, it does affect public opinion, and public opinion, as we all know, in turn can affect political will to follow the international norms, which indeed refer to and use the phrase “children in armed conflict”. There's a set of United Nations Security Council resolutions on children in armed conflict.
Again what I would say is that the real issue for me is the actions that we're performing. The question is, are we adhering to the norms set out under what are binding Security Council resolutions on children in armed conflict, which do define age of majority and do have specific prescriptions around the treatment of children who have served as combatants?
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much, ladies, for being here this morning.
I find my colleagues' interruption very disturbing. I would have preferred them to interrupt Mr. Kessel when he was here and almost told us we were inept because we dared challenge the section that said there had been changes in terminology at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. He stated that we could not go by one section, although there were several that referred to terminological changes. When I referred to the 2010 AFAI report, he interrupted again to say that there had not been any terminological changes at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, that we were completely mistaken, that there were none, that there had not been any terminological changes, and that things were just as they always were.
I understand, Ms. McInturff, that you have done an in-depth study. Earlier you provided dates and very concrete examples. Could you explain the methodology you used to arrive at these conclusions? I want us to be sure here this morning that what you have shared with us are certainties and not only ideas that you concocted out of thin air. Otherwise, others could tell us later that what you presented was groundless and that these were only things that you had heard. I want to be certain that what you have told us this morning cannot be refuted.
Executive Director, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action
It would be my pleasure. What I did, for example, with the speeches delivered by Minister Cannon, since that was one of Mr. Kessel's suggestion for review.... There were 47 speeches that he has given since he has taken office as Minister of Foreign Affairs and they're all, happily, available online. I did word searches of every single speech, counted the number of references to women and to gender equality, and then looked at the context of those references.
I did the same thing in looking at the priority concerns on the website, the Foreign Affairs website. Again, it was Mr. Kessel's suggestion that we examine that.
For the UN Security Council open debates, I was able to find Ambassador Normandin's presentations. Two were on the website of the Canadian mission in New York. One was not, but I found that through the Security Council's own records.
The speech delivered by Mr. Kent was something that I happened to have been present for. To be frank, somebody handed me the transcript, so I happened to have a copy of the transcript. I can testify that the transcript is more or less identical to what he said on that occasion.
For the statements on international law, again, they were on the website of the Canadian mission to New York. Again, I did a word count, and then I looked at the context in which the words did or did not appear. I did likewise with the 10 speeches delivered on human rights.
With the national action plan, it was the same thing. I went through that, did a word count, and looked at the context in which those appeared. I then spent a very long time last night reading the national action plans of the other 19 countries that have them, and counting the incidences of use of the phrases “gender equality”, “gender”, and “women and men”. Then I used an Excel spreadsheet to calculate the average.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Mr. Kessel was utterly convinced that there had been no changes, and he tried very hard to convince us. However you, Ms. McInturff, are telling us that there are some. According to you, are people attempting to convince us that there are no changes even though they know that there have been some? It is rather perverse to attempt to have us believe that there are no changes, to try to convince us of that, when there have been changes. This implies that people know that these modifications will bring about a big change in the way things are done, but they do not want the population to know.
What dismays and upsets me the most is that they want to have the population believe that no changes have been made. If they want it to believe that, it is because they know that this changes the way things are done profoundly. Otherwise, they would admit that there have been changes. If they knew that this did not affect the way things are done, they would admit that there have been changes. What do you think?
Executive Director, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action
That's a good question. About whether or not there's an effort to obscure the changes, I think it's a question you should pose to Mr. Kessel. All I can say is that they exist, that they do have an impact on the lives of women and girls, and that impact is real and meaningful.
I noted, for example, that the other person who testified about the capacity of the folks giving advice--Mrs. Bejzyk--referred to the folks in human rights policy, and those are precisely the people who no longer have a specific mandate to do gender-based analysis.
Conservative
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I just want to say that I do take language very, very seriously, having done a lot of editing in my lifetime. Language is very important.
Ms. Bulger, you reflected on some words of Barack Obama, and you said that words matter. I'd like to reflect just for a moment on another committee on which I sit. I sit on the transport committee, and I'd like to suggest that during his election campaign, Mr. Obama used the term “high-speed rail” frequently in his discussions. There was speculating and decisions were made during that election process. As the transport committee, we went to Washington to meet with the congressmen down there to discuss high-speed rail, their intentions, and how that might have an impact on Canada and some of the decisions that we might need to make.
What we discovered in our process down there was that high-speed rail was never the discussion. The term was “higher-speed rail”. What they were prepared to invest in was the amount of money they would need to incrementally increase their rail by 13 miles per hour--not the 300 kilometres an hour that most people were basing their discussions on. So words are absolutely critical, and I will suggest that the terminology we're looking at is very important.
If I may just backtrack again, Madam Chair, before I go on, the whole issue of allegations that the government is not considering applications because they're being put forward by women I think is something that needs to be taken very seriously. I again ask, through the chair, that any of those articles or projects be submitted to this committee so that we can take a look. I would also like to see the words that were put down as to why the project was not accepted. If it was not accepted because women can't lead a project...? First of all, I would be absolutely blown away. I would be offended by that. I think it's something that we need to take a look as a committee. Please submit that through the chair, if you would.
Mr. Kessel is a public official. He's responsible for carrying out the directives of the government. He is a person who has been in his job for many years, through multiple governments. He is not philosophically driven. He is not ideologically driven. He is responsible for carrying out the directives of the government.
Mr. Kessel said in his submissions to us the other day that there is no policy change and that Canada is using language used in international instruments. In fact, I can quote him. He said: “As you know, the language that we use is based on international instruments, and it's those international instruments which dictate the terminology that we use. We don't create our own terminology”. He also talked to us after he was asked by Ms. Simson about rebranding. He said: “There is no rebranding. There's no change.” Then he went on to say, “It hasn't changed since the terminology was used under the Liberal government, and it certainly hasn't changed within the context of this government”.
My question, first of all, is to Ms. McInturff. You say that you did research on 47 speeches, that you did a word count on 47 speeches by the current Minister of Foreign Affairs and ambassadors. Have you done the same word searches on previous ministers and done a comparison?
To both of you, are you calling Mr. Kessel a liar? Or are you suggesting that he is intentionally misleading this committee?
Liberal
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative Cathy McLeod
Yes. I'd like to call that last question perhaps out of order. It's inappropriate to ask them if they're suggesting that someone is a liar. Could you rephrase that, please?
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Yes. I would be happy to rephrase it.
Given the fact that you are suggesting the opposite, are you suggesting that this committee was misled on evidence that was presented here in the previous committee?
Conservative
Executive Director, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action
Sure. I'll give the same response that I gave to Ms. Mathyssen, which is that I can't speak to Mr. Kessel's intentions and I don't have his full testimony in front of me; that's not available to me right now. I do understand that he said there had not been this kind of research, so I took it upon myself to conduct that kind of research. That was how I followed from his recommendation. Essentially, I was following his recommendations, because I thought that might be useful, and—
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Ms. McInturff, if I may just interrupt, then, are you basing what you heard on one opinion?
Executive Director, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action
I'm sorry. I don't understand the question.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
This committee has a history of looking at one opinion and making a decision based on one opinion. The evidence that was presented to this committee for this subject discussion was one article that was in Embassy magazine.
Executive Director, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action
Yes.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
Sections were taken out of that article and presented to this committee as the evidence that changes were being made in foreign policy.
Executive Director, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action
Yes, and--
Conservative
Executive Director, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action
Yes.
Conservative
Lois Brown Conservative Newmarket—Aurora, ON
There is no directive. There is no evidence that there's a policy change and yet you're saying, based on one opinion—
