EVIDENCE Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development NUMBER 014 1st SESSION 39th PARLIAMENT Wednesday, June 21, 2006 Le mercredi 21 juin 2006 Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development CANADA [Recorded by Electronic Apparatus] EVIDENCE June 21, 2006 Committee Edited Evidence * Table of Contents * Number 014 (Official Version) Official Report * Table of Contents * Number 014 (Official Version) Témoignages * Table des matières * Numéro 014 (Version officielle) 14 21 06 2006 2006/06/21 15:45:00 House of Commons Comité permanent des affaires étrangères et du développement international Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development FAAE Chair Mr.

Kevin Sorenson 39 1 (1545) [ English ] The Chair (Mr. Kevin Sorenson (Crowfoot, CPC)) : We'll call this meeting to order. This is the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), a study on Canada's role in complex international interventions that involve multiple foreign policy instruments focusing on Canada's efforts in Haiti, we're pleased to have with us this afternoon Rights and Democracy. First of all, we have Nicholas Galletti, Latin America's regional officer.

We also welcome Jean-Louis Roy, president of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, known simply as Rights and Democracy. He has held this position since August 2002. Mr. Roy holds a PhD in history from McGill University in Montreal and a master's degree in philosophy from the Université de Montréal. We look forward to hearing from you in respect to Haiti, which we are studying as a committee.

The way our committee operates is that we allow you approximately 10 minutes to bring a presentation, and then we will go into the rounds of questioning--five minutes for question and answer, and then we move to the next member. Welcome to our committee. The time is yours. [ Translation ] Mr. Jean-Louis Roy (President, Rights and Democracy) : Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for welcoming us and for the opportunity to have this conversation with you about perhaps the poorest area of the world in the richest region of the world.

Everything I'm going to say stems, we think, from one fact, which, in our judgment, is the most important fact in Haiti's recent history, and which, I believe, warrants Canada's continued interest in that country. That decisive fact is that Haitians have exercised their civil and political rights: 63% of Haiti's electorate voted on February 8.

I was in Haiti just before the election, and everyone said it wasn't possible, that the risk of violence was great, that the electoral lists and everything else made it virtually impossible for the vote to take place and that Haitian citizens would have a lot of trouble getting out to vote, also for reasons of poverty, travelling costs, waiting and so on.

And yet 63% of the Haitian electorate went out to vote, thus giving all those who had long invested in the transition, particularly in the past two years, a resounding response that the transition would end in a lawful manner and in the assertion of democratic values. That, I believe, was the will expressed by our Haitian friends. Even though it may appear somewhat rhetorical for those who were in Haiti at that time, I believe we must hail, and never lose sight of, that dignity and responsibility shown by people living in the greatest indignity.

Our view is that these democrats must be heard and that their commitment must be met with a similar commitment by the Haitian government itself. I wouldn't say here that we should be hard on the Haitian government, but we should definitely be demanding of it. The Haitian government, Canada and the international community must show a similar commitment to that shown by the Haitians themselves. I was very interested in Prime Minister Harper's statement, when he spoke with the president elect of Haiti and said that we were in that country for the long run.

I was also very interested to read Minister MacKay's answer to the question by your colleague Mr. Patry on Canada's long-term commitment. You are members of this committee, and I'm not going to quote the minister's answer in full, but he said: (1550) [ English ] The government intends to remain in Haiti for as long as necessary to complete the reinforcement of international efforts undertaken with other partners. Our work is not done.

Canada will therefore be there for an indefinite period of time. [ Translation ] I believe that's the first thing we should recall: it will be hard, long and complicated in Haiti, and Canada is there to stay, according to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs. As you will understand, we are dealing with the future of Haiti. In the 10 minutes you have generously granted me, Mr. Chairman, I will focus fairly little on Haiti's history and past.

I even believe that everyone interested in that country must make a considerable effort to turn toward the future, rather than get stuck in endless historical analyses of factions, groups and so on. We think that Canada must promote the establishment of democratic governance in Haiti very soon, that is to say by the end of the decade—and we aren't the first to say so.

We must provide Haitian citizens with proof that the choice they have made and the period in which they find themselves will yield positive results, particularly with regard to respect for the rights of every Haitian, the operation of government and democratic governance. What must be done to bring about democratic governance in Haiti? First, second and third, there must be security.

The Government of Canada must fight in New York so that the mandate the Security Council gives to MINUSTAH includes, in the most imperative terms, an obligation to disarm the private groups that have the resources to overturn in a few hours—we see them at work right now—the efforts of many people by spreading terror and murder. These people must be restrained and controlled. Haitian society must be summarily rid of these elements that can quickly underdo all the work that others, including Canada, could do in that country. That's an absolute necessity.

The experience of the international community must be put to use, its resources assembled, its programs in place supported, particularly by the National Disarmament Commission in Haiti. The country must become a living civil society again, sustainable and secure. I would remind us all that security is a human right. It isn't a manifestation of power, a force used against each other, but rather a fundamental human right. Second, there is the question of impunity. Haiti's prisons are full of men and women living in unspeakable conditions. Some may be guilty, others may not be; no one knows.

How do we resolve this matter and prove to our Haitian friends, these democrats I referred to earlier, that the judicial system in Haiti will once again be honest? I have a few ideas that are not currently very popular, but that I think are essential. The special representative of the UN Secretary General has mentioned the possibility of sending a number of judges from Francophone countries to Haiti to conduct judicial investigations and prepare the basic files on the basis of which the justice system will be able to work.

Obviously, we won't send judges from Africa, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Mauritius or Cameroon without the Haitian government's consent. I hope Canada is working toward obtaining that consent. When I was Secretary General of La Francophonie, we sent Francophone judges from a large number of African countries to Rwanda following the genocide, and they did precisely that: conducted investigations, and the judicial process was expedited as a result.

(1555) As you know, in the past two or three years, our Haitian friends have done some extraordinary thinking on these matters pertaining to the operation and reliability of the judicial system. There is the Haiti citizens forum, which I believe is funded by CIDA, and is a partner of Rights and Democracy in Haiti. There's Group 184, which has prepared a proposal for a new social contract, also with CIDA's support, I believe. In the area of justice, these people have made extremely interesting recommendations. The hope that what they call "the judicial chain" is established on a priority basis and followed.

What's the relationship between the police and the judges? What's the relationship between the judges and prison? What is the relationship between prison and the police? Second, they want training to start now for young judges in order to renew the supply of judges, some of which, in the opinion of many, should eventually disappear from the justice system in Haiti. In that spirit, they hope that a national judicial council is established and developed, a kind of judge of the judges, which would make it possible to determine when a Haitian citizen is no longer fit to perform judicial duties in that country.

They also hope that a consultation mechanism, a kind of grand council in which civil society in particular could be represented, is established. Third, I believe MINUSTAH's upcoming mandate must absolutely dissociate the security requirements I've just referred to from those stemming from the need to promote and protect human rights. In the past two years, the security and human rights mandates have been combined in a single team, under the same authority, and so on. We are no longer in a transition phase. We are in the implementation phase—we hope—of a state governed by the rule of law and democratic governance.

We hope so. We hope that the Office of the UN Commissioner for Human Rights receives the necessary resources to open a permanent office in Port-au-Prince, to determine the status of the situation, as it has done in many countries of the world—the last most interesting case in this hemisphere was in Colombia, and that had some significant effects—and, after determining the status of the situation, which is largely known, to propose that a legislative and institutional structure be put in place for the protection and promotion of human rights, in accordance with international standards.

I repeat that the Office of the High Commissioner has done this in a number of countries. I'm pleased to see that La Francophonie has made a commitment to reforming the ombudsman office, which absolutely needs that. It's a fantastic team whose leadership is said to need to be enriched by a board of directors and be supported by a broader authority than that of a single individual. La Francophonie says it will take care of that. The Office of the High Commissioner could help create a national human rights commission in Haiti, as 138 countries of the world have done in the past 20 years.

I see that time is running out. I'd like to say a word about the police. Tomorrow, in 18, 24 or 30 months, or in five years at most, MINUSTAH will be leaving Haiti. At some point, MINUSTAH will leave. There's no army in Haiti; there's no police. I believe that the vice-president of CIDA, Ms. Laporte, gave you some figures on the ratios: one police officer for so many citizens in Canada, Europe, Latin America and Haiti. I'm not going to repeat them. This situation makes no sense.

Based on a small survey of some of the resources in Canada, particularly in Quebec, we estimate that the 100 police officers we have in Haiti, in addition to the 25 retired police officers, form a minimum base for Canada's action in this essential area.

(1600) One day, the police that we now have to train will be the only force capable of keeping the peace and stability in Haitian society. I believe that Canada should evaluate its resources. I know there are considerable financial implications. However, doing everything I've referred to in this decade would cost less than starting over in 2014 or 2015, as we're doing because we left Haiti too soon in the 1990s. That's absolutely fundamental.

Canada must absolutely make a direct and constant contribution in the next two or three years to establishing a professional and depoliticized national police force with the necessary standards, resources and equipment to perform its mission and duties. Canada is already intervening, and I should have mentioned that earlier, for the courthouses and certain police stations. We're not talking about that; we're talking about the need to train several thousands of police officers in the next two or three years. Perhaps we could do that in the context of La Francophonie and also, of course, of the OAS.

That's an absolute necessity. Mr. Chairman, since we have to choose, I'd say there's a lot of literature on Canada's support and on the general support for Haiti's civil society. I don't think we can maintain these programs as they are, because we're no longer in the transition phase, or in the crisis that preceded the transition. We're in the process of building a state governed by the rule of law and, we hope, democratic governance. Some elements have remained in Haiti, and they are women's groups, defenders of human rights, young lawyers and other groups. I've seen them; they're our partners, and I know them.

CIDA knows them and has given them considerable support, and that's very good. I hope that, rather than help individuals or groups one by one, we'll have a policy designed to consolidate sectors of civil society. There has to be a domestic federation of Haitian women. There has to be a major coalition of human rights defenders. It exists, but it needs to be enriched. There has to be a coalition of youth associations, which I'll come back to, since 52% of Haitians are under 25 years of age.

So the idea is to provide systematic support for the consolidation of a sustainable civil society of these major sectors, to ensure its cohesion for three or five years and to make it capable of proposing economic, social and cultural policies and of playing by the democratic rules. It seems to me we should consider three- or five-year partnerships to ensure that what we do isn't undone in two or three years. Mr.

Chairman, in Morocco, in 2004-2005, Rights and Democracy organized 12 regional forums on democratic culture in the 12 major administrative regions of Morocco and one national forum on democratic culture in Rabat. We propose to do the same thing in Haiti between 2006 and early 2009. People have to be educated in democracy and democratic culture. Mr. Chairman, I'll close by describing one last project that we are finalizing. In Canada, we have established 40 Rights and Democracy delegations at 40 universities. Each of our delegations is being twinned with delegations we've established in developing countries.

Rabat is twinned with Sherbrooke, McGill with Kenya, Moncton with Ouagadougou, and so on. We are working on a program based on this experiment, but that obviously can't be a copy of it. It would be a network of delegations called youth and democracy in Haiti, so that, across the country, there are places for discussion and proposals for this generation of young people who, I repeat, form the majority in this country.

(1605) Mr. Chairman, I have no particular proposal for addressing this extraordinary scandal. We're talking about the economy and the private sector. We need investment in Haiti, obviously, but 40% of the children in Haiti will still never go to school in their lives. In terms of social rights, in terms of social development, in terms of economic development, in terms of behaviours of all kinds, this situation must be absolutely changed, and quickly. Countries have successfully completed large scale basic education operations.

Will the Bucharest Summit, which the Prime Minister of Canada will be attending in September, be the opportunity to establish a major 10-year basic education program with the European countries, the African countries and the countries of the Maghreb region, so that we can put an end to this intolerable, scandalous situation in which 35 to 40% of the children in Haiti are uneducated? I know that CIDA is working on consolidation projects for the Ministry of Education, which must be done, but children must be in school in the world in which we live in 2006. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman. [ English ] The Chair : Thank you, Monsieur Roy. We'll go to the opposition side. Mr. Martin, go ahead, please. You have five minutes for your question and answer. [ Translation ] Hon. Keith Martin (Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, Lib.) : Thank you very much for being here, Dr. Roy and Mr. Galletti. [ English ] We have to be there for the long run, to be sure. For the taxpayer, as well as for the Haitian people, as you've said, we must see steady progress. And our investment must be making a difference.

CIDA's evaluation over a 10-year period of time shows, as you know, that at best, there have been mixed results and, at worst, we're failing. As you know, MINUSTAH, by its own evaluation, is also failing. In particular, our health and education policies have failed. From 1996 to 1999 we spent $184 million on strengthening the public service in Haiti, and yet, arguably, their public institutions are worse now than before. My questions are really these. What do we need to do specifically to improve the outcomes of the considerable investments that we have made?

What can be done to deal with the endemic corruption in the country? And last, faced with the staggering statistic that you mentioned, Dr. Roy, that 40% of Haitian children have never gone to school, what can be done to make sure the investments we're making in primary health and education are making a difference? Or alternatively, can you tell us why they have failed? Merci beaucoup.

(1610) Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : Well, Mr. Martin, let's take the example of education. I think we have to decide first, and then maintain the decision for at least a decade, that we will change the situation and that kids in Haiti from ages six to eleven or twelve will be in school. We can build a beautiful plan, and we have done that for other countries. The net result after two, three, or five years should be evaluated this way: how many kids can we bring to schools, on a yearly basis, who were not in school? How many schools can we build? How many teachers do we need? Is it 300, 3,000, 30,000?

And can we have a plan, with the Haitians of course, to be sure that after eight or ten years we will have substantially changed the situation as we described it? We have to have a plan and be able to measure results. We have to evaluate what we do. And we also have to be sure that the money we said we would spend in education is spent in Haiti in the building of schools, in the training of teachers, and in bringing the kids to the schools. I have a little experience in international cooperation. I've been in charge of multilateral institutions for 10 years.

The most difficult thing is to be sure that at least two-thirds of the money that we say we will spend on education really goes into that country, in the form of concrete action, to help change the situation that needs to be changed. Hon. Keith Martin : Curiously enough, this is exactly the opposite direction.... I agree with you, but this is the opposite direction as CIDA's going in. They have made an explicit statement that they're not going into bricks and mortar. I agree with you; they're going in another direction. Mr.

Jean-Louis Roy : Well, I cannot see how we will build a democratic governance, un état de droit , in Haiti if a third of the kids are not in school. I should add to this also a comment about the quality of the schools that exist. As it is today, half of those who go to school are out of school after three or four years. It means that very, very few are going to school until the end of the first elementary level of a school system. This has to be changed, otherwise we will have thousands and thousands of illiterate young people having nothing to do, and doing more than nothing, unfortunately, in many cases.

As for the outcome of our involvement, we have to be extremely cautious and, at the same time, be severe and ask the real question--the one you asked--about the outcome. At the same time, what Canada has done has also produced results in Haiti. I have seen that in Port-au-Prince; I have seen that in other parts of Haiti. I have been there many times in the last 15 years. I mentioned earlier those groups of Haitian citizens who are trying to reflect upon the situation, to propose change and working....

Because of Canada, because of us, many of those people have been able to maintain social services, houses for women who have been raped. They have built private schools. They have maintained a certain semblant de fonctionnement in their society. I was really impressed in November when I was there for a long period of time--I was there for 10 days--and I think that what we have done in the last two years, during this period of transition, is that we have been able to maintain a strong connection with the political elite and the political class and the administration.

Some departments, like the women's affairs and others, have made tremendous contributions during this transition, and we have helped them to do that. We have also, as a country, been able to maintain a very important link with those Haitians who have decided to stay in their country and try to build something, what we call civil society organization. We have a rare cooperation in Haiti that is all over the country. We are in the capital city, but we are also in agriculture, in reforestation, in various parts of the country.

If I read correctly what the new government has in mind, in terms of decentralization, in terms of rebuilding the local communities, we are in a good position to help because we are in all parts. Then it's un bilan ; it's active and passive. I don't think anyone can expect 100% results in a situation like the one that was prevailing in Haiti, but the situation has changed. We now have an elected government. The president has been strongly elected, and 63% of the Haitians who can vote, who went to vote, said that they want another future.

I think that's why I said earlier that it will be complicated, even if our friends may have a reaction. We want them to have results. We want to have results with them. We cannot accept any sidetracking. We want results. We want kids in school, new schools. We want new judges, new courts of justice. We want this country to deliver; otherwise they'll fail and we'll fail with them.

(1615) The Chair : Thank you, Mr. Roy. Madame Bourgeois. [ Translation ] Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : Mr. Chairman, the questions can be put to my colleague Nicholas Galletti, who knows more than I do about Haiti. Ms. Diane Bourgeois (Terrebonne—Blainville, BQ) : Good afternoon, Mr. Roy, Mr. Galletti. First, I'd like you to clarify something for me. You said earlier that we should be hard on the Haitian government. Mr. Roy, I'd like you to explain to me what you mean by those words. How should Canada be hard on it?

Listening to you talk earlier, I thought that, when a certain climate of security is restored in Haiti, perhaps, through your Youth and Democracy in Haiti program, we could send our university students there so they can help this social climate you're so keen to blossom. One woman came and told us this week that there weren't a lot of places or resources to educate young people. There may be schools and infrastructure for older people, but the fact remains that everything has to be rebuilt in Haiti. We could send engineers there. There are young students in engineering, law, education and so on.

We could go through organizations like yours, which are very familiar with the terrain. What do you think of that? Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : Madam, I'd like to comment on the term "hard" and to tell you that I stand by it. At the donors meeting that will be held in July, where we'll expect them to make commitments for a five-year period, Canada will likely—I know nothing about it; I say it's likely—mention figures in the order of half a billion dollars over a seven-year period. We're choosing to spend considerable amounts of money to support our Haitian friends.

When the Prime Minister of Haiti says, in his general policy speech, that the Haitians' highest aspiration is security and disarmament in his country, I applaud him and I say I agree with him. (1620) [ English ] What do we do to be sure that what you call the most significant aspiration of a Haitian today will be respected by you, will be respected by your government, and will be respected by us, your partner? That's what I mean by sévère . [ Translation ] As for the Youth and Democracy in Haiti program, I take note of your thought on the movement of young Canadians who could travel to Haiti.

We could draw on the Rights and Democracy delegation program in Canadians universities. You saw how we immediately twinned universities. All that's done in a partnership format. For example, Ouagadougou and Moncton proposed joint projects to us. These are students from Ouagadougou and Moncton. Exchanges between institutions in Quebec, Saint-Boniface, Moncton and Haitian institutions would take place in the same spirit. Ms. Diane Bourgeois : It would be, on the one hand, an exchange of knowledge and, on the other hand... Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : Joint projects. Ms.

Diane Bourgeois : Perhaps that would result in greater openness to the democratization of Haiti. Every year, many students ask us to give them funding or to help them go and do volunteer work in other countries. Why not open the door for Haiti? There are doctoral students who have gone there. There are some in my riding, and I think that would be fantastic. We'd be sure that knowledge would be transmitted, but the security of these people has to be guaranteed. Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : And we'd also be sure that the Canadian students would learn a lot, madam. Ms. Diane Bourgeois : That's right. Thank you, Mr.

Chairman. [ English ] The Chair : Thank you, Madame Bourgeois. I think the main part of it is the security end of it. It wasn't that long ago when we were almost encouraging people not to be there, because of the lack of security. We'll go to Mr. Van Loan first, and then to Mr. Goldring. Mr. Peter Van Loan (York—Simcoe, CPC) : Among the 17 projects that Rights and Democracy has in the Americas, you have listed something called "Supporting Civil Society, Human Rights and Democracy in Haiti". What I heard from you in your presentation was this business of the exchange between institutions.

Is that something you hope to happen, or is not happening yet? Am I correct? Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : No, it's happening within our Canadian program, but in the case of Haiti, we're building it. Mr. Peter Van Loan : Okay, that's what I meant. It's not happening back and forth between the two yet. Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : No, not happening. Mr. Peter Van Loan : The other thing is that you're hoping to have these democratic culture forums, if I got that right. Is that the substance of your organization's active involvement in Haiti, or what is that project that you identify? What is it that you're actually doing there? Mr.

Jean-Louis Roy : It's two projects for the future. I'd like Nicholas to explain to you what we're doing now in Haiti. Mr. Nicholas Galletti (Latin America Regional Officer, Rights and Democracy) : Thank you. We've been in Haiti for just about six months now. We have an office in Port-au-Prince and we've hired staff to run the project that you mentioned. We have six Haitians working for us—

(1625) Mr. Peter Van Loan : That's the conference, the forum? Mr. Nicholas Galletti : No, this is the one you mentioned, which is supporting.... Mr. Peter Van Loan : The university exchange? Mr. Nicholas Galletti : No, it's the one that's on our website. Mr. Peter Van Loan : Oh, it's a totally different one. Okay. Mr. Nicholas Galletti : These are projects that we're in the process of reflecting on whether to continue in the future. The one we're currently working on is what you mentioned.

The crux of the project or what we see as essential, given that our mandate is to work on the promotion of democratic development and human rights, is the participation of different sectors of society in the democratic process. In Haiti there have been instances of marginalized sectors of society or groups of individuals coming together and attempting to participate, but it has never been at a level where the impact has been noticeable. Certainly there are examples of that, but a lot of the time we'll see NGOs and civil society groups protesting and denouncing.

When it comes to making propositions and engaging with government officials and those who are deciding on public policy, the connection between the government and civil society is not as strong.

So what we propose to do is to work to train civil society organizations on conducting advocacy campaigns, including how to do research on a particular issue, whether it's on the right to water or the right to education, or civil and political rights, judicial reform, or women's rights; and to find out who are the deciders in government who will make decisions on these public policies; and to know how to engage them in a constructive dialogue; and then basically to lobby for these public policies to come forth. This is basically the project that we're working on.

It's very much centred on training NGOs to negotiate and dialogue with their counterparts in government. Mr. Peter Van Loan : All right. My perception is that it's not a very strong civil society to begin with, so I don't know if you're working in a vacuum in trying to train a very small group of people on what to do. I'll go back to a reference that Mr. Roy made. You talked about a 100% result or whether or not we can get 100% results at the end of the day, and I'm beginning to come to the conclusion, the further we get into this study, that one of the problems is that we don't ever measure anything.

We don't measure the results of any of our interventions. We have no way of knowing whether we're getting anywhere or getting success. Perhaps we should be using or should have, in the "techno-lingual" metrics, some sort of goals and objectives and have a way of knowing how many police officers we've trained and whether they result in the rule of law, and whether things are relevant. Is there anything you're going to be doing that would...? Let me ask first, in setting up this project—and presumably you got funding from the government—were you asked to establish measurable results and to report back on those?

And how would you measure success? Finally, since you do say security is the number one priority, objectively speaking, would it make more sense for us to be funding more efforts on that front, rather than the kind of stuff you're talking about doing? I know that may create a bit of a conflict of interest for you, but— The Chair : Thank you, Mr. Van Loan. You have about a minute. Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : If we don't have security, the rest will not stand. How do we measure success?

Even in human rights, we have to be able at some point to know how many people, how many women, how many kids, how many Haitians have been protected because of the mechanism that we hope the high commission will put in place. This we can measure. How many people in jail today in Haiti will have a decent trial and will be in a position to say at the end of it that it was a fair trial? We can measure that at some point, if you want to measure things. The Chair : Thank you, Mr. Roy. Madame McDonough, go ahead, please. Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP) : Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I very much apologize for having been late. I had to be in the House until I made my way over here. I apologize if I'm backtracking on some issues that you've dealt with. I'd like to pick up on two things quickly. One is the reference to democracy building through strengthening the participation of civil society, which means learning skills advocacy and the working of the democratic process. My recent trip to Haiti was a fabulous exposure to much of what was going on. I came away with the sense that there is genuine optimism and some basis for optimism that some things could really get on track and stay on track.

But I was actually quite distressed by the sense that I got, at least in the limited time we were there, that those representatives of civil society with whom we were meeting really seemed to be there more as the eyes and ears, or the spokespersons, for either American commercial interests or the American notion of what would be acceptable in Haiti to keep the U.S. from pulling the plug. That's a bit of an overstatement, and I don't want to characterize everyone that way.

But I was really distressed that when one asked why in any of the gatherings, given the rural agricultural predominance on which the economy is based--about 90% of it, I think--there were no representatives of, say, agricultural workers or small cooperatives that might be involved in agricultural marketing, or production, or whatever. There were no representatives of teachers, or of health personnel, or of anyone you could remotely call workers, whether they would be factory workers or jail workers. I'm just trying to get a sense of how you identify with whom you're going to be connecting and working.

And I'm wondering if in your run-up to launching this project you have some comments you could share with us about the existing nature of the civil society on the scene.

(1630) Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : I will ask Nicholas to give a substantive answer to the question, but I'll just make a general remark. Of course, the civil society has, in the last decades, been dispersed. Four million Haitians have left the country, many of them because they were fighting for rights, and they were forced to go. But we still find in Haiti women's groups, student groups, agricultural workers, people working in coopératives d'épargne et de crédit , who have stayed there and who want things changed.

As I mentioned earlier, we have been able to help them in the past--and by "we", I mean Canada and CIDA--but I think we have to ask whether we can rebuild the women's movement in the larger sense, whether we can help rebuild the student movement in Haiti. I think we have to answer yes to those questions and start in the new context. When 63% of Haitians have voted, have exercised their political rights, this is a new context, and we have to give our trust to those who have stayed in Haiti to rebuild, and there are a lot of them. Mr.

Nicholas Galletti : Your question is very important because there is a tendency in Haiti to focus on the groups in Port-au-Prince and not to see all the groups that are working all over the country. Maybe I can answer a bit of your concern, too, Mr. Van Loan, at the same time. The first thing we did when we went to start this project was to see what groups had done positive things already, things that we could build on, use as examples for other groups. We so often go to a country and take examples from across the world and say, "Look, it worked in Morocco, and it can work here," and that's a complete disconnect.

We wanted to find very good Haitian examples of success. And there are many. It's just a matter of taking those and really systematizing them and getting some lessons learned from them. Monsieur Roy mentioned the women's movement. There are a lot of women's rights groups who have worked very hard to get a decree law to criminalized abortion. That was a huge success. It took them a long time to do that.

They worked a long time to create a ministry for la condition féminine , which is a ministry specifically charged with working on women's rights and the gender issues in Haiti and to mainstream that across the government. It's a very big success. In fact, the new minister comes from civil society. There are also groups that have worked on justice that have done national consultations. We've tried to take these groups and say, "Okay, what have you done that's been a success? Let's try to show that to other groups." We've done that.

We are currently identifying other groups that may not have been traditionally the groups we hear about all the time, the ones you may have met with, that have had partners in the U.S. and so on. One of the networks we plan to work with on giving this advocacy training is a network of handicapped people. Blind patients--nobody thinks of handicapped people in Haiti because there are so many other problems. How do we deal with that issue? There is the right to water, and groups that are fighting for that.

There are a lot peasant groups and labour groups in the north and in all of the different regions that are working very hard to bring their proposals to government. Because everything is centred in Port-au-Prince, it's very hard for them to get their voice heard. We want to give them the tool. The Chair : Thank you, Mr. Galletti. Mr. Goldring, please. Mr. Peter Goldring (Edmonton East, CPC) : Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr.

Roy, on your comments earlier, where you suggested that certainly security is one of the things that must come about first before many other issues can, I think it would follow through with the interim cooperation framework that was set out as a master plan some three years ago. It was very specific in outcomes. It had 25,000 homes to be renovated; it had some 600 schools to be renovated. These are hard numbers that I think it would be very easy to account for now. It would be easy to give some measurable listing of successes and outcomes on it, as well as many of the other initiatives that are on here.

I think it would be helpful for us if we could have some kind of countering update on each and every one of these sections, as to who is working on it and what organization, and what their success has been to date; and then maybe try to work from that same framework on a continuation of what successes you would have in the future. It would seem to me that one of the major reasons we're hearing for why so many of these initiatives weren't brought to fruition is security. Would you agree that the first and foremost place would be to start...?

And this is the Prime Minister himself who in his speech said we must maintain order and security, ensure the safety of people and property, number one, and then possibly we can look at all of the other initiatives in the order of their priorities.

(1635) Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : The Prime Minister, in his discours de politique générale , said that the most significant aspiration of the Haitians today was the security question. At least it was like that prior to the election. When you were with new friends in Haiti, people who you didn't know except that you were with them the day before, working together, and then you had a chance to have lunch or a beer with them, were always talking about security. Everyone was talking about how they would return to their home that day, about what happened to their friends and to their neighbours in other parts of the city.

People were fearful. How can you behave normally? How can you do what you have to do when you're really fearful? I'm sure that some members of the committee have seen people going for groceries with arms, people going to get gas at the gas station with arms, people going to buy drugs in small shops taking arms along because of the looters. I think it's very difficult to understand. I'm sure you don't understand what I'm talking about. It's in another context, another experience. Mr.

Peter Goldring : But would you not say that one of the reasons they still live in fear is that there have been ten police officers killed since May, two of them decapitated? I would certainly say there's still terror, in the public's eyes, in many of these situations. It was clearly delineated here in the report three years ago, under security and police, that there were thousands and thousands of police officers to be trained. Disarmament hasn't happened. Work in the justice penitentiary institutions that was supposed to take place didn't happen either.

Should we not have an update on why these things didn't happen? I think there would have been organizations earmarked to apply for and to look after these projects. Would the project that you're proposing be a duplication of somebody else's effort that might just be stalled for now? Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : I think you're right to say that we have to evaluate what happens and who is in charge, and why in some instances we have had limited results or in other instances no results at all. I certainly believe we have to do that. But we have also to take into account that this period of transition is over.

There was an election. It was a very costly experience, in all senses. It was a success, and 63% of the Haitians went to vote. Sixty-three per cent of them went to vote: that's quite a message for me. That's why I used the expression "severe", and I know people did not like that very much. At this time, we are not in the nineties; we are in the first decade of this century. We'll not do that for a third time. We have to succeed. We have to measure, and we have to be sure that we progress. If we don't progress after 18 months or 24 months, maybe we should return to the program itself and change it.

We have to succeed this time.

(1640) The Chair : Thank you, Mr. Roy. Certainly I think that's what a lot of people are suggesting here: we need to go back to the programs, take a look, re-evaluate, and put in some methodology to be able to assess what's working and what isn't. We've had people come before our committee who have said, "We have been involved for two years there. We've spent lots of money there, but we can't show one step of improvement since we started." That is problematic for most members of this committee. Mr. Wilfert, go ahead, please. Hon. Bryon Wilfert (Richmond Hill, Lib.) : Mr.

Chairman, very briefly, in a society where democracy is alien, in a society where the culture has not known a real, true democracy, we seem to have, from all the reports of the witnesses, in my view, a failure to understand the situation. We have a failure to plan properly, we have a failure to evaluate properly, and the results have confirmed that. It's like putting people of goodwill in a row boat and giving each of them an oar. They're all rowing in all sorts of directions, and they're going absolutely nowhere.

After all of the time and all of the money and all of the different governments--we started at the top, and I won't bore the committee with my thoughts on that—we haven't really, at the local level, dealt with trying to empower people, whether it's with clean water or it's with employment. We haven't done the basics. At the same time, we have another government, which we had hoped for, as we did before. Why is it that we, along with the international community, have had, in my view, such a very bad record on this subject?

I haven't heard one witness come forth to say they understand what's gone wrong and that here is the kind of solution with which we, along with the right partners, can correct the situation. Is it correctable? The Chair : Thank you, Mr. Wilfert. Mr. Roy, go ahead, please. Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : I share the question. I'm not sure whether I have an answer, except to say, as I think I mentioned earlier, we maybe also have to try to build a little more balanced view. Elections Canada succeeded in the last 18 months in Haiti. They started from nothing, and there were two elections with quite decent results.

People who know the media in Latin America will tell you that the coverage of the presidential and legislative campaign in Haiti was one of the best done in the Americas by national television. I think we have spent money to help this television rebuild itself, etc. I quote the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who said we'll be there for the long run. Maybe it will take more than four or five years to turn over such a situation, and we will have to be there longer than that.

It may be less costly to be there for 12 or 15 years than to return four times over five years and start from scratch each time. Hon. Bryon Wilfert : In order to be there for the long run we would have to plan effectively with other governments, the Government of Haiti, NGOs, and different organizations, but I don't hear that. I don't hear that there is in fact any real sense of coordination. We understand these mistakes have occurred, but we haven't been able to see the political will to deal with it, either there or elsewhere. Mr.

Jean-Louis Roy : It may look like that, but to be fair to all, I can say that in the last months we have been in many meetings in this country with CIDA and others. Rights and Democracy have had meetings with 40 groups that work in Haiti and came from Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick--all over the place. There is a sense that we have to do that more and plan together. I mentioned earlier that we have this project trying to organize the younger generation in Haiti around the democracy culture question.

We do it with many partners--Canadians, Americans, and others who are in Haiti and can help us because they have their connections, their networking.

(1645) The Chair : Mr. Goldring. Mr. Peter Goldring : Monsieur Roy, one of the concerns of the committee is what has been happening and whether there is any accountability for the money that's spent. But the other question might be that if we've seen no improvements on the ground and we're not seeing any changes over the period of time.... In this case there's an allotment of $90 million for security and police, and another allotment of $22 million for the justice system--justice and penitentiary. Would that indicate that the money simply hasn't been spent or that those projects didn't go ahead?

Are you offering to start a project that would not have been instituted, and perhaps that money and commitment might still be there, earmarked for your project? Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : You force me to return to my wording. Maybe we have to be more severe with partners. We also have to take into account fully the fact that two years before the transition and in the last two years--which means in the last four or five years--all conditions were adverse for working in Haiti. But even in those conditions, some villages and cities have electricity because of Hydro-Québec and the help we brought to those people.

Eighty credit unions were established in Haitian villages and small cities. Some of the money we spent gave spectacular results or real results, but the conditions were really not there. We have to build on the fact that we are out of the Aristide period; we're out of the transition. They have been correctly elected--I have said that many times. We have to jump quickly, as your colleague has said, and plan with great exigences the work we will do with them. We need results, period. The Chair : In conclusion, I have a couple of very quick questions.

First, you've been involved in some of your projects there in the short term, for six month and so on. How long have you been involved in Haiti in the long term? You do many different projects there, but when did you begin? Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : We have been there in the past— The Chair : The mid-1990s? Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : Yes, the mid-1990s, and we quit and returned. We started planning to return and started going to Haiti a year ago, and we started our new project six months ago. The Chair : What is your total budget as an agency or a group?

From the Government of Canada, I think you receive roughly $4.8 million a year. Is that correct? Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : Due to the work of this committee, Mr. Chair, unanimously last year, we had a substantial increase. We will have a parliamentary allocation of $7.3 million this year. The Chair : So did that increase happen? Did it show up in the budget? Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : Yes. The Chair : Is that your total budget? Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : No. We were also able to raise some money outside of government. Our budget is a little less than $10 million.

The Chair : How much of those resources from your annual budget would be earmarked for Haiti?

(1650) Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : We have a budget of $450,000 for this year in Haiti. The Chair : So it's really a small component of your $10 million? Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : Well, it's a significant component, plus salaries. If we include everything, it would be $600,000. The Chair : How many countries are you involved in? Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : We're involved with direct programming in 12 countries. The Chair : And how many people, as far as resources and manpower, would you have in the Haitian projects? Mr.

Jean-Louis Roy : We have my colleague Nicholas full-time, and we have six Haitians who work for us in Port-au-Prince. The Chair : You've spoken quite a bit about the partners you work with, the NGOs and other partners. How many NGOs would you work with? Mr. Nicholas Galletti : From the beginning of the project until now, we have worked with two coalitions of NGOs. In one coalition I think there are three NGOs, and the other has five women's groups, if I'm not mistaken.

The women's groups we work with are grouped under the Coordination nationale de plaidoyer pour les droits des femmes, or CONAP, which includes SOFA, a group that works on violence against women and has clinics for women who have been raped or have suffered from sexual violence. There is also ENFOFANM, a group that works on documentation and research on women's rights. As well, we work with FOCAL, a group that works on education and has a debate program for young people.

We work with the Centre Oecuménique des Droits Humains, which is a human rights organization—in fact, one of the first human rights organization in Haiti—that was working during the Duvalier dictatorship. I think it was formed right afterwards, but the members are still active. We have a lot of partners. Some are institutionalized, in the sense that we work together on our project, but others we consult with on a daily basis. We have an advisory committee in Haiti that helps us determine how to evaluate and put together our training program. Mr.

Peter Van Loan : I counted four NGOs that you went through, and you said there were five and three, so that would be— Mr. Nicholas Galletti : In CONAP, there is also Fanm Deside Jakmel. Because it's a coalition, we work mainly with the secretariat of the coalition. I can't give you the exact name of every one of the other members right now, because we work closely with SOFA, and ENFOFANM. Fanm Yo La used to be part of the coalition, then left, but we continue to consult with them. The Chair : Are they all Canadian NGOs? Mr. Nicholas Galletti : These are all Haitian NGOs.

We also have very good partnerships with the Canadian NGOs working there. We work closely with Concertation pour Haïti, which is a group of NGOs from Quebec, including Développement et Paix, SUCO, and L'Entraide missionnaires, a group that advocates for Haitian rights with the Canadian government. We also have international partners, including the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights.

The Chair : Do you get the idea maybe that there are so many good little projects going on—NGOs doing this, agencies doing that, groups doing this, faith-based agencies doing that—but there's no one wrapping this thing all up, working under one basic plan? I mean, many different plans can work, but sometimes many plans can't work at the same time. So these are all good strategies, but are we missing that one strategy that ties it all together? Mr. Jean-Louis Roy : Mr. Chair, I agree with you.

That's why I mentioned earlier that in this phase—and I won't repeat that for us this has profoundly changed, with the election—we have to rethink what we are doing with our NGO partners in Haiti. We have to stop working with each little group and try to organize sectors—for women, for students, and for others--in such a way that, at the end of the day, what you just mentioned may happen; everyone will know a little more what the others do, and will be able to plan together.

Concerning our work in Haiti, we have worked a lot with NGOs in the past, and we'll do that in the future, but we're also looking to work with the new government. I mentioned earlier that we hope the high commissioner creates an office and does what they've been doing in other countries. We have a joint budget and joint program with the high commissioner in Geneva.

We may use part of that money to help the high commissioner do the three things I mentioned: first, help create this national commission of human rights; second, help the government look at its law and see what is needed to ensure the protection of rights; and third--I should have started with this--make an inventory of the situation. We'll do that with, I hope, the high commission in the context of helping the government develop institutions in that domain.

(1655) The Chair : Thank you. We want to thank you for coming here. Certainly it has helped our committee, and we appreciate that. We'll suspend for just one minute. Dinner will be brought in a little later on. We have other witnesses waiting here, and we have committee business, so we want to come back as quickly as possible. (1655)

(1700) The Chair : We'll call this meeting back to order. For the second hour, we're pleased to have with us Stephen Wallace, vice-president of CIDA's policy branch; and Yves Pétillon, program director for Haiti, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic, Americas Branch, at CIDA. We're interested in a lot of different components of what CIDA is involved in, and primarily a document entitled Canadian Cooperation with Haiti: Reflecting on a Decade of Difficult Partnership , which was published in December 2004. We appreciate the minister being here, and Mr. Greenhill's attendance in the past.

We want to discuss CIDA's experience with assistance to Haiti as a fragile state. You have been here and listened to the committee in the last hour. You understand that we give our presenters ten minutes and then we go to five-minute questions and answers. That five minutes is for the question and the answer, to keep things moving. Welcome, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Pétillon. The time is yours. Mr. Stephen Wallace (Vice President, Policy Branch, Canadian International Development Agency) : Thank you very much. It's a real pleasure to be here.

Monsieur Pétillon, as director of the Haiti program, also lived in Haiti from 2001-04. He should be able to give you some on-the-ground perspectives about some of the developments you've been discussing over the last hour. I'd also like to acknowledge the extensive work of the committee at a really critical moment for Haiti. We'll follow your deliberations with interest.

If we can help in any way, we would be very pleased to do so. [ Translation ] We've tabled four documents with the committee: "Haiti-Country Development Programming Framework/CDPF"; "Summary of Lessons Learned by Donors in Haiti"; "Guidelines for Effective Development Cooperation in Fragile States"; and, lastly, "Canadian Cooperation with Haiti: Reflecting on a Decade of 'difficult partnership'". This last document, which you referred to, was prepared for the OECD. My remarks will be fairly brief. I won't go beyond the five-minute limit so that I can hand the floor over to my colleague.

My remarks will concern the last document, which analyzes the context of fragility prevailing in Haiti, identifies some of the key Canadian and international cooperation issues and states certain conclusions and principles regarding our overall approach to fragile states. [ English ] In referring to the analysis that we undertook for the OECD, let me start with a basic observation about fragility and development.

Many of the basics of aid effectiveness are quite clear: the importance of local ownership, donor coordination, alignment of priorities and resources, sustained engagement, and cross-government policy coherence. This committee, I think, has heard and discussed a lot of these across many issues. The point we would make, which comes out of the study, is that these principles of aid effectiveness are especially difficult to apply in fragile states because of the fundamental lack of authority, legitimacy, and capacity.

It's these fundamental shortcomings of authority, legitimacy, and capacity that manifest themselves in very different ways across fragile states. It is therefore not surprising that our studies show that understanding the local dynamics of fragility is a key determinant of effective engagement. Even more importantly--and I think this was alluded to by one of the members, Mr.

Chair--is that this understanding needs to be structured, it needs to be ongoing, and it needs to be shared, or it results in very ad hoc, very uncoordinated and sometimes mutually incompatible results, as we have seen elsewhere, particularly in the context of Haiti. It is a very different environment from fragile state to fragile state. The warlords, terrorism, and poppy culture in Afghanistan are not the same as the ethnic resource wars of Sudan, and they owe little, in turn, to the historical, socio-economic, political, environmental, and security dimension of Haiti's instability.

We've found, therefore, in Haiti and elsewhere, that shared perspectives across governments and the donor community, leading to shared commitments to achieve stability and concrete progress toward millennium development goals, are basic conditions of success. That was our first and overwhelming conclusion, and it was taken up subsequently within the OECD as one of the fundamental principles of aid effectiveness in fragile states.

As for our second conclusion, our study also concluded that in a politically charged, corrupt, and high-risk environment, even greater attention is required to ongoing monitoring and evaluation to ensure due diligence and oversight, because if it can go wrong in fragile states it most often will. Realistic targets must also be set. Sometimes "realistic" means just a arresting a decline, not making progress. But we need to set these realistic targets and determine early on if we're making enough progress and adjusting as needed, with the kind of flexible response mechanisms that I'll talk about in a second.

And we must reflect, as well, the mutual accountability that must govern the aid relationship. That was our second set of conclusions. Our third conclusion in this study for the OECD was that effectiveness in Haiti and elsewhere requires a long-term commitment of resources. We all know in development that progress takes time, but stabilizing crises, building accountable institutions, and rebuilding trust and a social contract are among the greatest challenges of development. And in this context, on-again, off-again relationships with poorly applied conditionality can sometimes do more harm than good. Mr.

Chairman, this is not about ensuring that annual budgets are spent; it's about ensuring, in a flexible and responsive manner, an ongoing relationship based on dialogue, accountability, and mutual responsibility. Our fourth of five conclusions is that it takes a lot more than effective programming to make a lasting difference in fragile states.

Diplomatic dialogue at a bilateral and multilateral level, backed up by support for basic security and an activist approach to outreach, involving both state and non-state actors, are essential for achieving sustainable results. (1705) [ Translation ] Our last conclusion, Mr. Chairman, emphasizes that it is important to adopt iterative approaches to implementation.

Here we're talking about involving various partners, providing for alternative solutions selected from a full range of delivery mechanisms and about forming a critical mass of resources in order to achieve tangible results. [ English ] We have seen in Haiti, as elsewhere, an international community that has a responsibility to prevent, protect, and rebuild countries in crisis, including difficult partnerships where will or capacity, or both, are lacking. This government has undertaken tangible steps in this area, but great challenges still lie ahead in fragile states such as Haiti.

The work we undertook, therefore, in relation to this study is helping the international community and us to understand the need for a different and more effective approach to development assistance in fragile states. Mr. Chair, that concludes the main aspects of the study that was undertaken. It was undertaken, as you mentioned, at the end of 2004. For a short update from 2004 to the present, and on how this was implemented in practice, I will turn to my colleague Monsieur Pétillon, with your agreement. [ Translation ] Mr.

Yves Pétillon (Program Director, Haiti, Cuba and Dominican Republic Americas Branch, Canadian International Development Agency) : Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for inviting us to appear before you as part of the debate on Canadian cooperation in Haiti. As my colleague said, Haiti is a country very dear to my heart. I lived there for a few years, and now I'm responsible for this program at CIDA. [ English ] The report we are talking about was written two years ago, and I would like to present the evolution of international cooperation, specifically the evolution of Canadian cooperation since 2004.

We took into account many of the conclusions that were presented in

chapter 6 of the report, concerning aid allocation, service delivery, country ownership, alignment, harmonization, and policy coherence. [ Translation ] In 2004, less than three weeks after Aristide's departure, the first action that the international community took as a whole was to meet in Washington to decide on measures that should be taken. For once, the international community, donors, banks and bilateral cooperation organizations decided to work together and to establish a plan. That had not been the case when cooperation resumed in 1994 upon Aristide's return.

Each of the donors had gone off on its own, without any coordination between those organizations or with government. What was new in 2004 was this genuine will to coordinate efforts and to establish a single plan. Together, we proposed this approach to Mr. Latortue's transition government, and, in April 2004, at a joint meeting in the presence of the Port-au-Prince government, we decided together, donors and government, to design the Interim Cooperation Framework.

(1710) The Interim Cooperation Framework, which was based on an analysis of the situation in the country, guided the transition government and all the donors during those two years. Our cooperation program thus fits into the Interim Cooperation Framework. That had never previously been done in Haiti. So that was a very significant starting point in 2004. In addition, at virtually the same time, Canadian cooperation defined a new strategic approach for Haiti. You moreover have the document, since it was distributed to you today. There are four key ideas in that strategic approach.

First, build on what's already there. What's working? What have we done right? What can we build on to do better, to continue what we've done right? Second, pay special attention to conflict prevention and management, since this is a country coping with numerous deeply rooted societal conflicts. Three, help build social consensus, in view of the fragmentation in this country. Four, support the agents of change. Those are the four leitmotifs of our orientation over the past two years.

As regards the allocation of aid, the report that you've read mentions and criticizes the major fluctuations in aid in Haiti since 1994. Depending on the circumstances, it recommends a long-term sustained commitment to achieve greater predictability of available amounts and greater stability. Aid from CIDA and Canada increased from $26 million in 2003-2004 to $99 million in 2004-2005, then fell to $98 million in 2005-2006.

We responded extremely quickly, and we hope that the conference in Port-au-Prince in July will confirm Canada's long-term commitment so that there is greater predictability and our Haitian partners are more able to plan. We were criticized because we had too many projects and too many small budgets. We have therefore undertaken longer-term project planning. The vast majority of our projects are currently planned over periods of five to 10 years and have budgets ranging between $15 and $20 million. This is a major change in CIDA's programming in Haiti.

We have also exercised our influence on other donors, something that perhaps can't be measured in terms of concrete results. Thanks in part to Canada, the World Bank has returned to Haiti. The World Bank simply left Haiti in 1999. We helped pay a portion of the arrears owed to the World Bank so that it restarted its program in 2004. We also paid Haiti's fees to join the Caribbean Development Bank. Consequently, there's a new financing organization that can meet Haiti's needs. That wouldn't have been possible without Canada. The 2004 report referred to the inefficiency and conditionality of service delivery.

My colleague mentioned that in his presentation. Allow me to give you an example. Extreme conditionalities were imposed during the military coup from 1991 to 1994. An economic embargo was declared on Haiti. That embargo didn't really achieve any results. On the contrary, it helped enrich those we had intended to punish. It took other methods to restore democracy to the country. So conditionalities in Haiti are a problem that must be delicately addressed.

Instead we should opt for serious dialogue on policies with the government, while supporting the development of the institutions' capabilities in order to enable them to meet their obligations. The report also recommends a diversified range of channels and methods for delivering aid, as well as targeting areas of excellence. (1715) [ English ] One of the key lessons learned from past experience of our cooperation in Haiti is that we have to support both the civil society and the public institutions.

Therefore, CIDA supports various types of partnerships, combining the value-added of Canadian and Haitian organizations as well as organizations from the diaspora. CIDA's solid network of Canadian and local partners across Haiti should be outlined as a major value-added of our cooperation program. Finally, in addition to supporting both the civil society and the public institutions in their respective roles, we support the dialogue between them, between the civil society and the government.

I believe it's very important to support this type of dialogue [ Translation ] As regards delivery mechanisms, when it comes to delivering emergency humanitarian aid or any type of humanitarian aid, we call upon the multilateral institutions, such as the World Food Program, which we mostly fund in Haiti for food aid, aid for children and aid for pregnant women. The report also recommended that we establish a new mechanism based on local funds. That's what we've done.

In 2004, we put in place a fund management centre, which became an extremely important mechanism in our cooperative effort, with a budget of approximately $15 million a year, which enables us to take quick and flexible action and to provide rapid support for organizations that bring about change in Haiti when the opportunity arises. This is a new mechanism which is useful and which benefits a lot of organizations. For example, the organization of those who preceded us here is financed in part by these local funds.

In addition to funding organizations and managing funds, this team that we have in Port-au-Prince is working on the institutional reinforcement of Haitian partners, both in government and civil society. Projects that are put forward very often do not meet criteria because the organizations do not have the necessary capability. An effort is thus being made to develop those capabilities, and an effort is also being made to manage funds, as well as to network organizations.

All too often, partners and organizations are isolated, and this effort to network organizations that work in the same sector, be it education, health or human rights, is very important. The sectoral approach was one of the other aspects raised in the report. Canadian expertise is widely recognized in key sectors such as energy, local development, health, education and support for the general women's movement for change. In the past two years, CIDA has begun developing sectoral orientation frameworks to better target its operations in each of those areas of excellence.

In addition, where we think it is possible, and where we think there is value-added, we try to twin Canadian funds with the funds of other donors, which can have a multiplier effect. We used this method, in particular, in the elections. All funds were pooled and managed by the UN Development Fund, and that was much more effective. As our predecessor said, together we all managed to carry out this electoral operation that few people believed in.

As regards local ownership, coherence and coordination, (1720) [ English ] the report recommends aid effectiveness principles be adapted and applied, especially regarding ownership, coherence among donors and the Haitian government, and coordination among donors. Since 2004, significant progress has been made in these areas. The international community mobilized itself, and donors agreed as well, to a long-term commitment to Haiti so that country could work toward sustainable development. To do so, all development partners recognize the importance of working together to develop a common analysis.

As early as May 2004, donors and Haitian authorities prepared a detailed needs assessment to address Haiti's stabilizations and the constrictions. An interim cooperation framework was based on this detailed assessment. [ Translation ] In addition to working together on this needs analysis and this joint effort to arrive at a common plan, we've worked with the transitional government to put in place sectoral frameworks in health, education and so on, to achieve the best possible coordination between donors in the implementation of the joint plan.

I must say that the new Préval-Alexis government, which has just entered office, has confirmed the validity of this model. With the new government, we are continuing to develop the model and are working to extend the Interim Cooperation Framework for an additional year, with virtually the same coordination framework. So that's an asset that's been taken into consideration by the new authorities. I believe that's quite positive. Local ownership isn't just the government's business. It's also the business of people in civil society.

We are working hard to support those people and to develop local development plans in the communes and communal sections. This is what's called the Local Development Program, which is one of the highlights of our program in Haiti. I'm going to summarize because I believe my presentation is a little long. The 2004 report also raised the question of the coherence of Canadian policies. It stated that Canada had made notable progress in coordinating its policies in Haiti. I must say that, since 2004, the coordination between Foreign Affairs, National Defence and the RCMP has improved.

The elections are a perfect example of that. The diplomatic efforts made by Foreign Affairs, the technical assistance and funding provided by CIDA, the increased security supplied by the RCMP, as well as a coordinator put at the disposal of MINUSTAH authorities by National Defence are a very good example of how we've coordinated our efforts here in Canada to achieve this good election result. I believe it was good. Of course, it requires constant effort.

All the people from those various departments met at least every two weeks to exchange information in order to better target the future of our cooperation in those countries. Thank you. [ English ] The Chair : Thank you. We will go into the first round of questions. Mr. Patry, you have five minutes, and you'll be splitting your time. [ Translation ] Mr. Bernard Patry (Pierrefonds—Dollard, Lib.) : Thank you for being here, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Pétillon. We know perfectly well that we all want winning conditions in Haiti. We also know that all the problems have been studied in all possible ways.

I'd like to ask two or three brief questions. First, you talked about the coordination among donors. I'm very pleased to hear that the coordination is being done very well. There's also what you call local ownership. In that perspective, you referred to the communities and government. Before your report was published in 2004, we saw that there were major difficulties at the local level. Have those local problems been ironed out? Are things working well? You referred to communities in certain regional sectors. Can you tell the committee what regions you're in and what fields you're working in right now?

That's my first question. Second, we know that Haiti's debt is in the order of $2.1 billion. In Canada's case, Haiti only owes $2.5 million to the Canadian Wheat Board. Canada is not seeking repayment of that debt, only interest. As Haiti is not a highly indebted poor country, an HIPC, it is eligible for debt relief or extension of its debt by the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. Have any changes been made in that regard? This country is so poor that it will never repay its debt, and that's not hard to understand. I'd like to ask you one last question, and you can answer me in writing.

Canada paid Haiti's fees to join the Caribbean Development Bank. That's excellent. Has the Caribbean Development Bank made any investment, and, if so, in what areas? I'd like to have those answers in writing because I want my colleague to have an opportunity to ask a question. (1725) [ English ] The Chair : Madam Guarnieri, please pose the question. Hon. Albina Guarnieri (Mississauga East—Cooksville, Lib.) : Thank you very much. You mentioned earlier that you wanted a long-term commitment of resources and you talked about realistic targets.

You also mentioned, if I'm not paraphrasing you incorrectly, that you didn't necessarily make tangible progress. In the 18 years that I've been a member of Parliament, the question that taxpayers always have with respect to CIDA is, where does the money go? Obviously there needs to be public confidence to get the public support for additional resources. What are you doing to communicate stats or any kind of plan about what you're doing and to tell the public what portion of your budget actually leaves the country? How rare is it that funds fall into the hands of corrupt governments or circular financial schemes?

I recall an incident where some moneys were supposed to go to Mali and they ended up with a businessman here in Canada. They were told to go sue the businessman, so that didn't inspire a lot of public confidence. What is your strategy to try to encourage public confidence? Thank you. The Chair : Mr. Wallace or Mr. Pétillon. Mr. Stephen Wallace : Thank you. I think Mr. Pétillon is going to handle some of the Haiti-specific elements of it. With respect to the issue of results, let me deal with some of the aspects of the study.

We're quite conscious in the development area of the kind of framework of results that is a bit more sophisticated in the way it is operated, and Mr. Pétillon can show you what that actually looks like. We would be happy to share with the committee our results report on Haiti, which gives the specifics that you mentioned. I think the issue with respect to results, which is the challenge here, is not so much development results, but fragility results. If legitimacy, authority, and capacity are the key drivers of fragility, how do you measure progress?

You can measure development progress in sectors, and you can measure economic and social development in ways that I think have a pretty good background to them, but measuring authority, capacity, and legitimacy actually require new ways of looking at it. We've been doing some work with Carleton University that is being looked at internationally with a considerable interest, because people haven't gone there yet, and we're developing indexes for those three. From the development perspective, perhaps Mr. Pétillon could give you that sense. [ Translation ] Mr.

Yves Pétillon : We recently prepared a report, not on impacts, since impacts are measured over the long term, but on outcomes. Here I have a document, which is not final and which we can submit to you in the next few weeks, and which is intended as a

summary of results in the context of the Interim Cooperation Framework. Each of our projects is measured on the basis of results achieved. We're also trying to conduct an analysis of the program as a whole over the last two years. This is a document we're finalizing. I nevertheless brought it along today in order to show you. I promise you we'll send it to the committee as soon as it's finished—it won't be long. I explained the Interim Cooperation Framework to you. At the Brasilia conference, which the member attended, a draft report on all donors was submitted.

In other words, all donors, in partnership with Haiti's interim government, prepared a report on the implementation of this common framework. We contacted the authors of the document today to see whether it was final. That's not yet the case, but it will be very soon. So I'll be pleased to table it with the committee as well once it's considered final. It isn't our document; it's a joint document of the donors in partnership with the Haitian government. (1730) [ English ] Hon. Albina Guarnieri : My question was not a hostile question.

For those of us who want to inspire more confidence in investing in foreign aid, those are the questions that the public often come up with. I guess the real issue is that the public always want to know if the money actually ends up where it's meant to go to get value-added and actually ensure that.... You know, it's not just feasibility studies that people are interested in; they want to actually see productive use of that money being spent. It was not meant to be a hostile question. I detected a little undertone there. I just wanted to clarify that.

The Chair : Yes, that's on the record, and I didn't take it as a hostile question. I've never taken anything that you've ever done as hostile. Anyway, we'll move to the next— Mr. Bernard Patry : Could I have the answer about the debt? The Chair : Okay. We're at eight minutes, so very quickly. [ Translation ] Mr. Yves Pétillon : They're planning their future program in cooperation with the new government. They preferred to wait for an elected government because, as you know, there were some sensitivities between the CARICOM countries and the former government.

Now that there's a new elected government, the planning has to be done, and the loans will follow. [ English ] The Chair : Thank you. Madame St-Hilaire. [ Translation ] Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire (Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, BQ) : Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen. I'd essentially like to speak to you, Mr. Pétillon, but not in your capacity as an official. You said that you had lived in Haiti for two years. Mr. Yves Pétillon : Three years. Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire : Three years, that's worse, or better.

I understand that you're playing a specific role this afternoon, but when we hear about Haiti, we think we also want to hear about hope. This afternoon, figures and a lot of abstract things were mentioned. You referred to a future report, which committee members might read by the lake this summer. For the moment, can you give us any examples that, as my colleague said, might reassure us? I'd like to have some concrete results and examples of what CIDA and Canada are doing. That's my first question. Second, I'd like to have an overview of how the money is being allocated because that's important.

This week, we talked about a report, and we were wondering whether CIDA was giving more money for military operations or humanitarian aid. Can we have an overview of how the money is being allocated in Haiti? Is there more money for security and less for humanitarian aid? Those are my two questions for the moment. Mr. Yves Pétillon : Thank you very much. I'd like to talk about hope in Haiti. With your permission, I'd say that hope in Haiti resides first in the Haitians. Fortunately, Haitian society is evolving; it isn't static. That evolution entails a number of positive factors.

Let me give you four examples of that. As you no doubt know, Haiti emerged from dictatorship not so long ago, officially in 1986. However, there followed a succession of military regimes. Only very recently has it been in good hands. That's my first example. Prior to 1986, during the Duvalier dictatorship, among other things, the right of association was utterly non-existent in the country. There were no duly constituted organizations. What do we see today? Tens if not hundreds of organizations of youths, women, farmers, merchants, rights defenders and others are springing up. That's an asset.

This is important for Haiti, particularly since it has always been a destructured country. As in Africa, there is no traditional structure based on chiefs, for example. None of that exists because the society emerged from slavery. The fact that these institutions are gradually being constituted shows us that social capital is beginning to form. For us donors, that's very important. For that society, these are so many new relays and agents of change. Now here's my second example. Until 1986, the right to communication was non-existent. Everything was controlled by the state. What do we see today?

People who have gone to Port-au-Prince know that, even if it's only there, there are now at least 25 radio stations that are free to communicate. Some are good, some are bad, but they exist. Today, all families, no matter how poor they are, can at least hear the news on their radios. This very significant progress. Of course, this right was hard won: journalists paid for it with their lives. Nevertheless, I don't think this right can ever be taken away from Haitians. It also constitutes the basis of democracy. Now I'll move on to my third example. Part of the private business sector has started a change.

Until now, the business sector has always been content to enter into agreements with any government. Now young businessmen and women have decided to get involved. They're even taking more political than social action. This is also a very significant agent of change. As for the fourth positive example, I'd say it's the women's movement. The speakers who preceded us referred to it. It's a very real phenomenon. I'm pleased and proud to be able to say that Canadian cooperation has provided the most support for the structuring of the women's movement in Haiti. There can be no doubt: this is also an agent of change.

Everyone recognizes it. There are other positive examples, but I've told you about reasons for hope that, I think, show that this is a crucial stage for Haiti leading to something even more positive. (1735) [ English ] The Chair : Thank you, Mr. Pétillon. Mr. Goldring. Mr. Peter Goldring : Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Pétillon, in your report of April 22, 2004, on lessons learned by donors, you had mentioned here that, "...we see a lack of continuity in donor activities.

Instead of persevering and 'talking tough' to Haitian authorities where necessary, donors have tended to beat a hasty retreat when difficulties arose." Has that been the case since then, too, particularly involving the interim cooperation framework guideline on projects that were expected to be carried forward? Were there a number of donor countries that did not stay to complete their commitments? Mr. Yves Pétillon : I believe the majority of the donors have committed and have given what they pledged in Washington in 2004.

Probably the United States and Canada have been the first to disburse the money and to support the new interim government. The banks, the IDB--the Inter-American Development Bank--and the World Bank, maybe were not so fast because probably they needed more time to design their new program and to be able to disburse. Mr. Peter Goldring : We're looking at a lot of initiatives that were started here. There are 1,500 schools to be renovated, 2,500 houses to be renovated, 40 or 50 universities, water works, water supply, infrastructure. Have many of those have been completed?

(1740) Mr. Yves Pétillon : Many have been completed, and that's why I think this document, when we get it, will give you more information about what has been completed and what should be completed. Mr. Peter Goldring : Could that be correlated with the last document so we could see, looking at what was planned three years ago, if specifically these models were met and actually completed or whether certain segments weren't, and what happened with each contribution or commitment by particular countries and organizations or why they weren't able to commit?

That would give us an overall better view not only of all of what was planned to be done, but what has been done. [ Translation ] Mr. Yves Pétillon : It's possible the correlation isn't perfect. In the document as it stands today, the correlation is no doubt not adequate. [ English ] Your question is the same question as was asked by the new government in Haiti. Now the new government in Haiti is also working with the donors to try to look at this type of-- Mr.

Peter Goldring : If we're looking at it and doing an update of a report that was started three years ago and has expectations for September 2006, could we not best finish that report by noting what has been done to date and what could not be done, with a commentary on the reasons why something wasn't done? Furthermore, each one of these segments has a substantial amount of money earmarked for it. So if one segment could not be done due to security or otherwise, does that mean that amount of money would still be held in abeyance, with this part of the program going ahead by a commitment from others?

In other words, is there still money left to be allocated for doing certain segments that have not been done? Most importantly, the best way to tell, from our own point of view, would be to correlate it directly to this one, if it's possible, and answer some of the questions project by project. Mr. Yves Pétillon : For Canada, we are able to do that. Our document does that. For the other donors, it could be more difficult. The Chair : Thank you, Mr. Goldring. Next is Mrs. McDonough. Ms. Alexa McDonough : Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

There are so many places one could dive in to ask questions, it's hard to know where to begin. It was a very helpful presentation, by the way. I'd like to go right back to your earliest reference, Mr. Wallace, to the factors of authority, legitimacy, and capacity as fundamental principles to implement in the course of trying to achieve positive results. I'm wondering if you could speak to us a little bit more about what clearly is a huge challenge--assisting the new duly elected government to effect the kind of transition that is necessary for them to be in the driver's seat.

In some ways, I see that as the most enormous task of all, and essential to any real success. I want to ask about a couple of specifics. Those of us who visited during the election had big ideas about things that parliamentarians could do to help. But when we actually saw firsthand what new parliamentarians were going to have to work with and build on, it was absolutely unbelievable to imagine where one would begin to try to help give them some of the tools they need.

I mean, we're talking desks and chairs, practically, never mind the democratic processes that require support and staffing resources and all the rest of it. I'm wondering if you could comment on that from the perspective of any concrete Canadian commitments and engagement. Secondly, especially around the notion of legitimacy, you hear a lot about corruption, but the voices we heard from--and they were really quite impressive and convincing, I thought--were pretty consistent on there being no way to eliminate corruption unless you had a justice framework, which barely existed.

Even for our own police and military who where there, you could clearly see that their ability to actually carry out their function was severely limited. You can track someone down who's involved in alleged corrupt activity or damage to persons or property, but if there's no judicial system, you may just be contributing to condemning people without any possibility of their facing fair trials and all of that. I'm wondering if you can comment on that.

Is there a program on track to which we're contributing in terms of what's needed, and what's going to be needed, to actually put the infrastructure in place that can make for some success with all of this?

(1745) The Chair : Thank you, Madam McDonough. You have about a minute. Mr. Stephen Wallace : All right. This is a very interesting paradox, and a very important paradox, of fragile states. You need two things if you're going to be able to build accountable institutions--one is will, the other is capacity. If you don't have will, the money you put into capacity building in the justice sector doesn't work. That's what we've had good experience on.

If you respond to a lack of will by not getting involved in trying to help develop accountable institutions, and put all of your money in NGOs, and try to go around a bad government, what happens is the paradox of actually weakening an accountable state even further. You need to find a way in which you can work with a civil society and private sector to strengthen demand for accountable government, to strengthen the will for accountable government, to go with the ability to develop capacity.

You have to be able to operate across the supply of good capacity with the strong local demand for accountable public institutions. Then you have to pick these agents of change, which Monsieur Pétillon was talking about, to say what things you can actually make progress on in even a politically charged, high-risk environment. You can make really good progress, but it requires these kinds of choices. How does this get played out in the context of Haiti? Maybe, in the few seconds that are left, Monsieur Pétillon can talk about it. [ Translation ] Mr.

Yves Pétillon : We implemented justice support programs for some time. We put an end to that in the last 1990s because there was none of the political will that Stephen referred to. However, we have continued working in the area of demand for justice. To do this, we've cooperated with associations, lawyers and judges. People have made proposals that couldn't be implemented under the previous government. However, I believe that kind of preparation will help in the reform of the justice system. The new government will have no other choice but to use it.

It will now have partners that we will have supported all that time. We couldn't work within the ministry as such. [ English ] The Chair : Thank you. Mr. Goldring. Mr. Peter Goldring : Mr. Pétillon, when I asked earlier about the completed projects, you said that most of the CIDA projects had been completed, yet we can go through the list of priority sectors that CIDA has been involved in, and we see security. We know that security isn't tenable there now.

There's the justice that's really still under way, the policing has problems, and the disarmament--where it was mentioned in the report here to disarm, seize, and destroy 25,000 weapons over the projected period of three years--I don't believe has been done either. It also mentions the electricity program in Jacmel. Even on the plane on the way down, we could see it was a top project that was of great pride. When we visited, the plant was shut down for six hours a day, yet the information we were receiving was that it was the only town in Haiti that had 24-hour electric power.

Will all these issues be identified back to the interim cooperation framework? Maybe you have had successes with these programs, but the successes would have limitations. Would you be detailing in the report what these limited successes are? (1750) [ Translation ] Mr. Yves Pétillon : In the area of security, CIDA's main contribution has been to fund RCMP activities. That provided support for the Haitian national police department in order to develop a strategic plan and establish the plan's direction. In that case, we can't really boast of achieving a major feat in the area of security.

However, CIDA had no direct responsibility in the matter. [ English ] Mr. Peter Goldring : One of the plans was to train 6,000 active police officers by this date. Was that accomplished? [ Translation ] Mr. Yves Pétillon : MINUSTAH did recruitment to ensure election security. I don't know what document you're referring to. [ English ] Mr. Peter Goldring : This would go back to the interim cooperation framework, specifically for security and the police. The targets were, first, for 3,200 active and trained police officers, and going through to September 2006, to have 6,000 active and trained police officers.

My question is, has that been accomplished? [ Translation ] Mr. Yves Pétillon : We can't consider that as Canada's responsibility. It's an overall responsibility. We haven't invested any money directly for that purpose. [ English ] Mr. Peter Goldring : Is this one of the problems when you initiate a plan like this, that it's too broad-based and perhaps involves too many partners so that no one group is particularly responsible for ensuring the project is completed? [ Translation ] Mr. Yves Pétillon : You're right; it's definitely a factor.

However, as regards the police, I would point out that 1,540 police officers have been recruited and trained in the past two years. I can't say that involves Canadian money, but it was done with other funds. As you know, we intend to establish a police executive training centre in cooperation with other stakeholders. There is an academy for young police officers, but there's no organization responsible for training police executives. This deficiency has clearly been recognized by everyone. We're going to assume responsibility for setting it up, together with the government. [ English ] The Chair : Thank you.

When you say we have not been involved in training of police officers, do you mean specifically CIDA or Canada? You're referring specifically to CIDA? Mr. Yves Pétillon : Specifically CIDA, yes; the RCMP, yes. The Chair : Yes, because the 65 RCMP officers there are mostly helping with training. Mr. Yves Pétillon : Yes, exactly, but it's a program of the MINUSTAH. The Chair : Right. Mr. Martin, very quickly, and then to Madame Bourgeois. Hon. Keith Martin : Mr. Wallace and Monsieur Pétillon, thank you very much for being here today. Monsieur Roy, who was here just prior to you, gave us a very gripping commentary.

Part of that involved the fact that up to 40% of children in Haiti have never gone to school. The fact that we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars in Haiti and yet 40% of the children have not gone to school is, to me, utterly staggering. It's incomprehensible that a society whose children have never gone to school could ever develop and move forward. I also know CIDA is moving away from bricks and mortar. I would submit that we have to do both. Without a shadow of a doubt, we have to deal with governance issues, but I would also implore you to move back toward doing some bricks and mortar.

In my view, we cannot meet the millennium development goals unless developed countries invest in bricks and mortar for primary health care and primary education. Perhaps you could let us know if CIDA has any desire to change and move forward to investing some money into bricks and mortar for primary health care and education for Haiti. Merci beaucoup.

(1755) The Chair : Thank you, Mr. Martin. Madame Bourgeois. [ Translation ] Ms. Diane Bourgeois : Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, I've been hearing you talk for the past little while, and I see you're talking bafflegab, which is quite hard to understand. We know what planning is, but when you speak quickly, we have trouble understanding your remarks because we don't have the documents and we haven't read them yet. Second, you often used the words "for us donors". I admit that disappoints me on the part of CIDA. I know that CIDA is investing $99 million for aid in Haiti.

I expected your work to be more related to aid for the population than as a donor, but that's a perception. My questions are for the CIDA representatives. When you're in the field, do you work with the NGOs, or solely with the donors? What are you doing about security? Are your donors aware of the fact that, if there's no security in the country, it's impossible to do development there? Are they aware of that? Lastly, what are the prospects for the future? Does CIDA have a plan to enable Haiti to pull through? I would have liked to see that plan this evening.

Those are my three questions. [ English ] The Chair : Mr. Wallace. Mr. Stephen Wallace : These are really important questions. I think there's some background information the committee is not getting yet. Being able to take the interim cooperation framework and say, here's the status report, and make the correlation on the figures is going to be absolutely essential. Canada plays a leadership role in Haiti, and if we don't see an international community doing it adequately, we will do some work on that one and we'll get you additional information. That's one thing.

Second, with respect to health and education— [ Translation ] Ms. Diane Bourgeois : You'll have to come back to explain to us what you're doing because we don't understand at all. We get the impression you're headed in one direction and the others in the opposite direction. Mr. Stephen Wallace : Yes. We may have inundated you with documents. We tabled a large number of documents, but we only talked about one of them. I agree that it's necessary for you to understand the broader context. As regards education and health, [ English ] and this is a question for Mr.

Martin, I think it is absolutely correct to say we have failed when we go in with microprojects that only deal in health and education, with the institution building or school fees or one aspect, and we leave behind such things as infrastructure. What we've found in Haiti, within the context of a lot of other fragile states, is that unless we deal in a joined-up way with all the component parts to be able to deliver effective schooling, particularly basic education, we don't work very well on that one.

So this idea of moving from individual projects to a collective program approach where infrastructure plays a role in both areas has been, I think, a real trend line we've followed on that one, but absolutely clear. On the indicators, I'll let Monsieur Pétillon answer. [ Translation ] With respect to the partnership with the NGOs, I believe we have a very broad range in Haiti. Yves Pétillon can tell you about that. [ English ] The Chair : Please respond very briefly, Mr. Pétillon. [ Translation ] Mr. Yves Pétillon : I'm very sorry you feel I'm speaking bafflegab.

In fact, I rather thought I was really telling you what I had on my mind in explaining that there was hope in Haiti. I even gave you examples of that. The expression "donors" is a general expression. I don't think anyone should think we're only doing that. You have to consider the commitment of our people there, whether it be CIDA people, the people from private companies or the NGO people. All CIDA-funded projects are implemented by Canadian partners. There are currently about 30 or 40 Canadian partners in Haiti. They're on the front, with other Canadians and Haitians.

They're part of teams that consist of people of both nationalities. I can't report on that, but that's the fact of the matter. Now the documents are one thing, and we can distribute many others to you. We can give you a list of all our projects, since that's in the public domain. They're also published on our Web site. The document we distributed to you is an overview of the Canadian Cooperation Program in Haiti. It's a

summary that outlines the signs of change in the country and the allocation of funds by sector. Now, if the committee wishes, I can send you a full list of all programs, by major sector and partner. (1800) [ English ] The Chair : I know our researchers would certainly all appreciate that document. And by the sound of things, Madame St-Hilaire reads that when she's at the lake. So we would take as many documents as you could prepare for us; we would appreciate it. Mr. Van Loan, go ahead, please, very quickly. Mr. Peter Van Loan : I did want to say I was encouraged to hear that document is finally taking some form.

I am very tempted by it sitting there in draft form. I should say I'm disappointed that we don't have it yet, because I made it pretty clear to the CIDA officials at that Brasilia conference that it was exactly the kind of thing we wanted to have at our committee. We didn't get it initially--we had a recall of CIDA so that we could again see it--and we still don't have it. In fact, looking at the document that I think was prepared for today, about the only thing you can measure here is money going out. That's in the numbers on page 2.

So that leads me to another question: what is the normal CIDA practice for all these projects that are undertaken and so on? Do you actually have measurements and criteria? You say some outcomes are hard to measure. You can look at crime rates and decide whether you have rule of law or not. But certainly, at the very least, you can measure what you do to institutions, how many police officers you train, how many judges you train, and so on. I haven't seen that anywhere in all the stuff that we're getting here.

Is that normal practice for how CIDA measures stuff, or are the words in these various reports kind of like the opinions and ideas expressed by an undergraduate student who doesn't want to work too hard on getting numbers? Do you ever measure things? Is that the way you review it? And why don't we see that more often? The Chair : Thank you, Mr. Van Loan. Who wants to field that question? Mr. Stephen Wallace : Let me, because in fact we spent a lot of time and attention on this particular one, and it actually started in Parliament.

The management reporting and results structure that we have goes right down from a sector, to a country, to a project level. And we can actually roll up results—the outputs, the outcomes, and the impacts as related to millennium development goals. We've actually have a structure for that. It is part and parcel of the very process that deals with the main estimates process. So we would actually very much welcome a more considered discussion about the results side with the committee. We could lay this one out and talk about results, whether they be by institution, sector, or project. Mr.

Peter Van Loan : Why, after 10 years of work and after two appearances by CIDA people, do we now have nothing in front of us? Mr. Stephen Wallace : I'm sorry, I thought we were talking about a specific document that the committee was interested in, and that was our OECD report on lessons learned in fragile states, so we came with that purpose in mind. Frankly, we would have been far better off to get into a direct discussion on results. We would have been prepared to do so and very pleased to do so. The Chair : Thank you. Are there any other questions? Madam McDonough, I sense you have a very short one. Ms.

Alexa McDonough : Yes, I guess it's partly a question, but this committee actually voted unanimously to say it would be very helpful if we had an actual legislative framework for our international aid obligations, which perhaps could shape somewhat that whole reporting mechanism, starting with transparency, and so on. I'm wondering if you have any comments on that in relation to what I think you sense is a desire to have a better understanding of what we are really doing, with what results, or of the measurability of the results, and so on.

You would see the adoption of a legislative framework and then what else would flow from that as being potentially a constructive contribution to this whole business of measuring, reporting, or revealing our activities and our results?

(1805) Mr. Stephen Wallace : Whether you do this through policy or through legislative design, you need a clear, transparent, sophisticated, accountable result structure. That's the absolute core of it. I think that taking a look at what is an effective, accountable results structure allows you to make decisions about what it is you want from a policy point of view, and what it is you might want from a legislative point of view. I have to tell you that if you take a look at this worldwide, they deal with this through a whole mix of things—sometimes policy, sometimes legislative.

I think the core is that you need a transparent, sophisticated, results-oriented accountability structure. That's the core of the requirement, to me. The Chair : Thank you very much. We want to thank CIDA for being here. There are a number of documents that we and you have referenced today, which we would invite you to forward to our committee. In a working dinner tonight, we'll work through our committee business. We'll suspend for a few minutes. (1805)

(1815) The Chair : I call back to order meeting 14, dealing with committee business. We have a number of notices of motion that have been brought forward by Mr. Martin. Is there any specific order, Keith? Hon. Keith Martin : Yes, there is, Mr. Chair. I'd like to start with the one on the Congo. The second one will be on Zimbabwe, and the third on Darfur. To facilitate this, you have the original motion, and then after consultation, proposed amendments were agreed upon by the opposition parties--I'm not sure about the government.

I can read the original motion, and if you'd like, I can move to the amended motion, or we can just start with the amended motion. The Chair : No, I'd like you to read the two motions. Mr. Peter Van Loan : Have you circulated the amended motion? Hon. Keith Martin : No, but I have the motion, and they can be brought up to amendment. Mr. Peter Van Loan : [ Inaudible--Editor ] Hon. Keith Martin : Okay, we'll have to go through the procedure, then, to amend the motion. The Chair : Is the intent of the motion the same? Hon. Keith Martin : Yes, it's just wordsmithing.

The Chair : Let's hear the motion and the amended motion. Hon. Keith Martin : The first motion is on the Congo: That the Committee recommends that the government ask its representatives at the United Nations to double the number of peacekeepers for the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) and to double the amount of funding for aid operations in Eastern Congo as soon as possible.

(1820) The Chair : You've heard the motion as submitted. Now let's hear an amended motion. Hon. Keith Martin : An amended motion is: That the Committee recommends that the government recognize the severity of the humanitarian crisis in Congo and ask its representatives at the United Nations to press for a significant increase in the number of peacekeepers for the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) and to double the amount of Canadian funding for aid operations in Eastern Congo as soon as possible.

The Chair : That motion does not reflect entirely the intent of the original motion. The original motion speaks wholly of funding and aid operations, but does not talk at all about peacekeeping-- Hon. Keith Martin : It does. It talks about doubling the number of peacekeepers. The Chair : Okay, then I'm sorry. I think that motion is in order. Keith, do you have a copy of the amendment? Hon. Keith Martin : May I speak to the rationale behind this for a moment? I assume we're not in camera right now. The Chair : No, we aren't. Hon.

Keith Martin : The Congo is arguably the worst humanitarian crisis in the world right now. In fact, every single day the equivalent of more than three jumbo jets full of people are dying. More than 30,000 people a month are dying in eastern Congo from a variety of preventable problems. Most international observers on the ground, including those who are part of the UN peacekeeping operations on the ground, are beside themselves because there aren't enough UN peacekeepers on the ground.

Secondly, because eastern Congo is one of the most forgotten humanitarian crises in the world, thousands and thousands of people are dying every single month of entirely preventable diseases and problems, from malnutrition to very simple medical problems that can be treated in simple ways, but they're dying as a result of it. No one in the world is actually standing up and fighting to bring this to the forefront, to use the multilateral organizations to make the very modest but significant intervention into the Congo that will save an enormous number of innocent civilian lives.

That's what we're talking about, civilian lives. I think we as a committee can put this forward, as a very constructive motion, to try to convince our government that this is something they could do in a very constructive way that will save a large number of people's lives. It's entirely consistent with comments by the Prime Minister on improving aid effectiveness and his comments earlier this year, during the remembrances of the holocaust, that he would not stand by and allow catastrophes like this to continue to occur. The Chair : Mr. Obhrai. Mr.

Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, CPC) : The intent of the motion in which the member is bringing attention to the crisis in Congo is quite right, and the government is quite right that there is an appalling toll and great suffering in Congo. Congo is one of those countries that has had a terrible state of dictatorship for a long time, with no government and everything. So we continue to strongly deplore the violence, and we are very heavily engaged in Congo. But the problem with the motion for the government is that the international community is already engaged in trying to bring peace there.

There's a three-year transitional peace plan that the whole international community agreed on. It is now working to ensure that the new government will gradually have stability and will move as quickly as possible to control the whole region. There's no question that there are areas--and eastern Congo is one of them--where there is still a need for the government to assert control. In our view, that's the best way to go. On the second problem, at this time the UN peacekeeping force is the largest ever deployed in Congo.

So the UN, with the international community, has put a tremendous amount of resources into Congo. As a matter of fact, they've got 16,700 military personnel and 475 police over there. Therefore, we are working with the other partners to ensure that peace is very quickly brought to Congo and the killing is stopped. I think we are seeing a tremendous amount of progress, despite the fact that some areas have not. We have also allocated a huge sum of money. We recognize the crisis faced in DRC. We are committed over there, and Canada's total amount is now $29 million.

We can all say at any given time that this is less, this is less, and that is more, but taking into account the concentrated effort by the United Nations, by the international community, the government feels there is still an opportunity to go ahead and support that. So at this stage it's a little difficult to support so much commitment by the government when so much killing is still going on. Everybody is working well together to ensure that peace is quickly returned to Congo. We can all argue it hasn't been done yet, but there's a three-year plan and we need to give it a chance.

We're heavily committed there; I'm not saying we're not. But it's very difficult for the government to immediately come out and say to increase the UN forces--and more money. There is step-by-step process going on. (1825) [ Translation ] Ms. Diane Bourgeois : How many peacekeepers do we have on the UN mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? Do we know that? [ English ] Mr. Deepak Obhrai : The total authorized strength by the United Nations there is 16,700 personnel and 475 police. On October 28, 2005, a temporary increase of 300 military personnel was also authorized by the United Nations.

A Security Council resolution on April 10, 2006, authorized the Secretary General to temporarily redeploy an additional one battalion, a military hospital, and up to 650 military observers from the UN mission in Burundi to Congo. Moreover, the UN mandated a European Union force of 2,000 troops to go into Congo. So there is a huge number of personnel out there. [ Translation ] Ms. Diane Bourgeois : I was talking about Canadian peacekeepers. Are there any and, if so, how many are there? [ English ] Mr. Deepak Obhrai : The Canadians are part and parcel— Mr.

Peter Van Loan : The peacekeeping contribution is protected through the financial commitments through the UN and that $50 million contribution in the last fiscal year just completed. So if you do that $50 million plus the $29 million, that's $79 million. There are reasons why Canada doesn't— [ Translation ] Ms. Diane Bourgeois : Mr. Van Loan, that's not what I asked, and the question wasn't for you. I put the question to Mr. Obhrai. I simply asked him how many Canadian peacekeepers there were. Then I may have another question to ask. [ English ] Mr. Deepak Obhrai : We are there under the UN mandate.

This is what the UN has requested and the UN has committed, and that's what we've done. As we said, we are also providing some humanitarian assistance as part of CIDA's plan. [ Translation ] Ms. Diane Bourgeois : I think we're jumping to conclusions. The motion reads as follows: "That the Committee recommend that the government ask its representatives..." The committee can recommend it, but the government isn't required to do it. These aren't dangerous motions, but nevertheless... In any case, that's my perception. (1830) [ English ] The Chair : Thank you.

Let's make sure we continue to direct the questions through the chair, and we'll try to get the answers to them. We have an order here. Madam McDonough. Ms. Alexa McDonough : What we are now looking at is the amended motion, is that right? We're not dealing with the original motion; we're dealing with the amended motion. So I don't want to use up a lot of time talking about the improvements over the original. I think it wisely doesn't commit to an actual figure of double, but recognizes that the continuing crisis is enormous, that many other countries have acknowledged this.

We know that in terms of peacekeeping contributions Europeans have committed to larger numbers, recognizing the need to be very much available to deal with emerging crises, and so on. So I think it expresses a general direction that we want to express, acknowledging this situation. I think in terms of our own knowledge of the situation, having heard from many witnesses over the last couple of years...even in terms of Canada's contribution to Congo, it so utterly, totally pales in relation, for example, to the massive commitment that we're making to Afghanistan.

Yet I don't think there are many people who would disagree with the characterization of the Congo as really the worst crisis on earth at the moment, that it is not commanding the kinds of resources and attention that it desperately needs. In Afghanistan, Canada alone committed to $3 billion in military expenditures, $1 billion over 10 years in humanitarian expenditures, and if you add it together with the two figures that you referred to—$50 billion and $29 million—it's still tiny in relation to what even we ourselves should be looking to put forward.

So I think it is an expression of a general direction of this committee that it's very supportable to vote for this. Mr. Deepak Obhrai : We could go to a debate on this whole situation and say that's only the war on terrorism, and this could be that. Suffice it to say I do not want members to go from here not recognizing the fact that we recognize there is a crisis in Congo today. We do recognize that, and we are there. We are looking, with the multilaterals....

I've just highlighted what we believe at this stage is a clear transition, with the government helping them to go out there with all the resources, working with our multinational partners that are there. We'll see how it goes. The Chair : Thank you, Mr. Obhrai. Mr. Van Loan. Mr. Peter Van Loan : I too think that we all share the view that there are problems in Sudan. That's why Canada is so committed there, both in terms of our support through the UN, the $15 million a year, and the $29 million a year. That's $193 million over the past five years.

When Madam McDonough compares it with some of those 10-year numbers on Afghanistan, if you do that kind of number over 10 years you're talking $50 million a year on peacekeeping, $30 million a year on aid. That would add up to a very significant amount of support over a similar period of time for Congo; it gets it up there. I'm very concerned that we come across sounding like we don't believe the UN is doing their job in a case where they actually are showing quite a bit of responsiveness.

In addition to being the largest UN peacekeeping mission in the world right now, they've actually voted, on three separate occasions in the past nine months--September 6, 2005; October 28, 2005; and April 10, 2006--to increase the deployments of peacekeeping forces and police to Congo. I don't want to stand here criticizing the UN when it appears to be, based on three occasions in just the past nine months, responding to the need. There is a suggestion in the motion that we should double our aid; it is a specific doubling of aid.

I think that again does not show respect to the generous aid that has been going there so far. I am worried about how prescriptive that is. It's not at all a question of disagreeing with the sentiment; it's a question of how the motion is framed and what it says about the good job the UN is trying to do there.

(1835) The Chair : Madam Guarnieri. Hon. Albina Guarnieri : I will be very brief. I don't want to regurgitate the reasons that D