FAIT Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES ET DU COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, October 9, 1997

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Bill Graham (Toronto Centre—Rosedale, Lib.)): I call this first meeting of the newly constituted Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade to order and welcome the new members to the committee. I would also like to welcome, on behalf of the members, a representative group that is here to speak to us today about World Food Day, which is next week.

The Honourable David MacDonald, who is known to many, appeared with a group of NGOs before the committee last year and informed us of the activities of the various NGOs prior to the World Food Summit in Rome. I understand from David that the group this morning will be bringing us up to date on what took place in Rome, and we will have an opportunity to ask them questions.

We put this in the context of the fact that aid for food is decreasing. The statistics we have recently received tell us that aid to poorer countries for the production of food has decreased by about one-third, from $15 billion a year down to about $10 billion recently. On the other hand, the need for food in many parts of the world is increasing. We are informed there are some 800 million people who live in the world who do not have adequate access to food.

We're therefore very pleased to welcome before the committee today a group of NGOs and government experts that can tell us what we can do as Canadians to deal with this situation. I'm pleased to say that we have with us, from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Sally Rutherford; from Partners in Rural Development, Mr. Bruce Moore; from the Global Network on Food Security, the Honourable David MacDonald; from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Susan Mills; from Oxfam Canada, Robin Walsh; and the newly appointed Executive Director of Oxfam Canada, Chisanga Puta-Chekwe; and from Rural Advancement Foundation International we have Jean Christie. Welcome.

I wonder if each one of you would make an introductory comment or remarks, and then we could open it for questions from the members. Thank you very much for coming.

Hon. David MacDonald (Global Network on Food Security): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the volunteer organizations that are represented here today, we're delighted to have this opportunity, in response to your kind invitation of a little over a year ago, when we appeared shortly before the preparations for the World Food Summit in Rome in November of last year.

I would also like to say that I think that in our reporting back we not only want to make a number of hopefully very pointed observations about what is significant about the World Food Summit itself but what the implications are for us as Canadians and our governments in terms of the follow-up. There are many international and global conferences and summits, but I think often the most important point to be made from any of these events is, what is the significance on a long-term basis of what has been discussed and agreed to at the time of such a meeting?

Along with those of us here at the end of the table, there are several others who will join us shortly, including Susan Mills, who chairs the interdepartmental committee in the follow-up to the Senate, as well as Sally Rutherford, who's the Executive Director of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

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I want to say just a word, if I can, about the collaboration that has existed over the last several years among Canadian volunteer organizations. This has been a very large and diverse coalition, one that really came together in response to the founding of the first United Nations organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, which, as members may recall, was founded in Quebec City in the fall of 1945, only months following the end of World War II.

One of the guiding spirits and founding fathers of the Food and Agriculture Organization was in fact Lester B. Pearson, later to become Canadian Prime Minister. It was while Mr. Pearson was working in Washington as Canadian ambassador that he participated actively as chair of the drafting committee that created the first ever United Nations organization. It's interesting that out of the ashes of the Second World War, the Allied nations, led by President Roosevelt, felt their first obligation was to deal with the long-term scourge of hunger and poverty and the threat of famine. So the FAO was created in Quebec City on October 16, 1945. When this committee meeting is televised it will be televised on October 16 this year, acknowledging the World Food Day and the anniversary of the founding of the FAO.

At the time of that meeting in Quebec City, more than 60 volunteer organizations from around the world came together to hold what was called the People's Assembly on Food Security. From that collaboration we then set ourselves on the path of preparing for the World Food Summit, which was held last year.

I will leave it to other representatives around the table to discuss many of the specifics at the World Food Summit itself and the major NGO assembly that took place in Rome at the same time. I simply want to acknowledge that during the course of the last two years there has been a remarkable collaboration among farm organizations, international development and environmental groups, community groups, food banks, human rights organizations—many different components of what we now describe as civil society—in an attempt to meet the challenge of hunger and poverty both at home and abroad. I think members will find the testimony this morning may help all of us to understand more acutely the unique role Canadians and their governments can play in responding to those challenges.

I'm going to ask first, if I may, Jean Christie, who is with Rural Advancement Foundation International, to speak from her own experience. I might just say in introducing Jean that she has been involved in food issues, like some of the rest of us, for a great number of years, and can give a perspective to our discussions here today.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. MacDonald.

Ms. Christie.

Ms. Jean Christie (Rural Advancement Foundation International): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm really 85 years old. David's introduction makes me feel old. It's true: RAFI and I have been concerned about food and agriculture since the 1970s.

RAFI, I should say, is an international non-governmental organization. We're based here in Canada, but our work is basically in the multilateral arena on the international level. We do research and we do policy analysis and advocacy on issues relating to food and agricultural policy, agricultural biodiversity, and so on.

We've followed very closely issues relating to food and agriculture since the 1974 World Food Conference in Rome. That was in fact the first time when NGOs were organized in a really systematic way to participate in a UN conference, and it really did set the stage. The Canadian NGOs led the way in that. RAFI was among those. It was the first time NGOs made a concerted effort to be present at intergovernmental negotiations and I think it set the stage for many parallel conferences of NGOs and for NGO intervention in international conferences almost yearly since then. We were very actively involved with NGOs, as David has mentioned, from around the world in preparing for the World Food Summit, starting a year and a half before the summit and following through to the summit and beyond.

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Let me start by saying, on the food summit, I think we have to admit that the commitments that were made there were limited at best. Perhaps the most significant result from the food summit itself was that it focused attention on world hunger again.

About 800 million people were hungry last November when the summit was held, and I dare say not many of them are better fed now as a result of the summit. I think we have to keep that in our minds as we contemplate what we should do.

Governments at the food summit committed themselves to reduce by half the number of hungry people in the world over the next 20 years. I don't know if any of you in the room listened last night to the CBC Radio piece on Che Guevera, but I was reminded, as I was thinking about this presentation today, of the words of Fidel Castro at the summit, because at the food summit he really said, “The emperor has no clothes”. He reminded us that by accepting to cut world food insecurity by half, we were accepting that over the next 20 years 400 million people would still remain hungry. In a sense he reminded us that our target is low and that low only because hunger has been accepted as a way of life for people in a world where there's enough food for everybody.

I'd just like to say that to start: that the targets set by the summit were limited at best, and yet, in a world of realpolitik, I think it's also widely accepted that even this limited target is very unlikely to be met.

So the first thing I'd like to say—and perhaps the most important thing to say—is that without an all-out effort by governments, the specialized multilateral agencies of the UN, like the FAO, IFAD, and the World Food Program, and the independent, consultative group for international research, among many others—unless those organizations and governments work in cooperation with civil society, we won't achieve even the limited target to leave 400 million people hungry.

So “business as usual” won't do, and unless we work together we will fail miserably.

I suspect that, if Fidel isn't still speaking from the podium, he will damn us from his grave if we don't do better. So I'm starting with a plea that we find ways to work together. That's really my first point.

Now I'd like to focus on four summit commitments—there were many more than that—that I think could make a significant contribution to reducing world hunger and on which I think Canada should concentrate. When I say that Canada should concentrate on these things, I pick up what David said, that we have to work on them domestically, because hunger is also a fact of life for many Canadians, and we have to work on them internationally through our aid program and through other mechanisms.

The first point is that all governments at the summit recognized that people have a basic right to food. I believe—and I may be wrong in this because I didn't have time really to check the facts—it was Canada's Minister Goodale who spoke most forcefully to this point at the summit. He was the one who actually raised from the podium the issue of the right to food. I know that Canada's negotiators—and I wish Susan Mills were here—in the preparations for the summit worked very hard to ensure that the right to food would remain in the text of the summit's final documents.

As the final assault on the square brackets on the text was in full swing, it was the Canadians who stuck to the issue of the right to food, and I think we need to continue to focus on that.

More importantly, though, we need to look at legal instruments that will define the right to food. There are people working on a code of conduct. We need to look at existing instruments and what their implications are for the right to food, but, more importantly than that, we need to look at implementing it. We need to look at what realizing the right to food means here in Canada, and we need to support efforts to translate the right to food into practice in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where many of the world's hungry are.

Unless we can find ways to implement it, to talk about it is just pious nonsense.

I guess I would say again that this is a plea to say that if we are committed to speaking about the right to food, then we must be committed to implementing in practice the right to food.

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The second commitment the summit made was to conduct, by a term whose name I can't remember now, hunger mapping. They changed the name sometime during the negotiating process. Governments undertook to look at the detailed geography, the demographics, and the gender of hunger in the world, and this needs to be done right down to the community and household levels. In fairly crass terms, who eats enough, who goes hungry? Who's most vulnerable? Who's at risk? More specifically, what about kids in school? What about kids who can't go to school, who have to work to keep the family alive? What about the gender breakdown? What about girls? What about boys? What about men and women? What about pregnant women? What about the homeless? Hunger has to be defined by faces, real people in real places, in real parts of countries, in households.

We need to see that this hunger mapping is done in Canada and we need to see that it is done internationally. Governments are going to have to work with civil society organizations to do it because quite simply this task can't be done by bureaucrats in capital cities. However well-intentioned they may be, it simply cannot be done from capital cities and offices. Ways must be found to have this task done involving people who live in communities and can get the detailed information that will be required to develop policy that actually responds to the people most at risk.

That brings me to the next point. All countries at the summit undertook to develop national food security strategies. Canada will have to do this nationally with the people who are dealing with the most vulnerable, and we need to support initiatives that will see that it gets done internationally.

We shouldn't lose sight of existing commitments that we've already made. There was an international conference on nutrition a couple of years ago that made a great deal of headway. My understanding from people who work in that field is that not a lot has been done since. We need to look at what the commitments were there and integrate them into this work of developing a national food security strategy.

Finally, governments agreed to support a Food for All campaign. We need to figure out how this will be done in Canada. What does it mean in Canada? What does it mean for CIDA's program? We need to make a serious commitment to translate this statement into reality in very concrete terms so that Food for All actually will deliver food for at least some of the many who are hungry.

In all of these cases, the right to food, hunger mapping, national food strategies, a Food for All campaign, governments and civil society and the multilateral agencies will have to work together. Governments can't do it alone. Civil society can't do it without governments. We must find ways to work together, as I said before.

If I have a couple of minutes I'd like to say just two other things. One is about the impact of the World Trade Organization's agricultural agreement on food and security, and especially on national food self-sufficiency. The food summit studiously avoided looking at the impact of trade and the World Trade Organization on hunger, but the links are there, and unless they're addressed hunger will not be solved. Before the World Trade Organization's agricultural agreement is reviewed in 1999, somebody needs to look at the impact of the agricultural agreement on the most vulnerable and the hungry, and Canada should support this process. I haven't spoken to any of the people who are possible actors in this because I didn't have time last night, but it could involve universities, it could involve the North-South Institute, it could involve multilateral agencies like IFAD. Whoever does it, somebody between now and 1999 has to start looking at what the implications will be of the agricultural agreement of the WTO on hunger.

My last point will be this. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has regional meetings in 1997 and a global meeting in 1998. The director general of the FAO, Jacques Diouf, has agreed in principle that these meetings ought to be used as an opportunity to track progress, to monitor how we're doing against the commitments in the food summit. We need to use these opportunities in whatever way we can to do that.

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Canada played a very important role in ensuring that civil society organizations could be involved in the food summit process, in the events leading up to the summit and at the summit itself. Canada funded non-governmental organizations from the south to attend the summit and the preparatory meetings. I think it would be quite fitting for Canada, particularly given the role the Canadian Minister of Agriculture is going to be playing in the FAO over the next year, that Canada work again to facilitate the participation of NGOs in those FAO meetings and in the global conference. I think that would be an important continuity to the contribution Canada has already made and one that would make a significant contribution to ensuring that civil society organizations, multilateral agencies, and governments work together.

I've probably spoken longer than I should have, but I thank you very much for your time.

[Translation]

I should have mentioned at the outset that I am prepared to answer questions in both languages.

[English]

The Chair: I will say, Ms. Christie, for someone who is 85 years old, you did go along very well. It was very interesting and we thank you very much.

We would now like to go to Mr. Puta-Chekwe, from OXFAM, please.

Mr. Chisanga Puta-Chekwe (Executive Director, OXFAM Canada): Thank you very much. I represent OXFAM Canada, which is an international development agency with a mission of fighting poverty. We have programs in Africa, the Americas, and indeed Canada. We also belong to the expanding family of OXFAM International affiliates. OXFAM International now has 10 members, including older OXFAMs such as OXFAM-UKI.

Food security is very much a major program theme for us, both overseas and in Canada. Jean made reference to the fact that 800 million people go to bed very hungry every single day. I would add that Canada is not immune to that problem. You may recall that before 1981 there were no food banks at all in Canada and today we have 450 of them. That's reason enough to make food security a priority.

We use food aid, we think, in a creative fashion. Now we use it in non-emergency situations. A good example of this comes from the Ethiopian province of Tigre, where we'll sometimes supply food in order to enable the local farmers to leave their land fallow; in other words, to help with soil conservation.

Our work can and does make a difference. Political will can and could make a difference. Let me give you one example.

Five years ago OXFAM Canada moved into Namibia to work in cooperation with the local NGO. We went in under a program called Canada-Namibia Co-operation, or CANAMCO. The history of Namibia, as you know, is that initially it was occupied by the Germans, and subsequently by the South Africans. So when we got there there was no living memory of a time when any part of Namibia was sufficient in food production; certainly not among the indigenous Namibians.

The problem was compounded by the fact that Namibia has only two perennial rivers, the Okovango in the north, on the border with Angola, and the Orange River in the south, on the border with South Africa. The area we worked in, the one I'm referring to, is in Okovango, the northeastern part of Namibia.

As a matter of deliberate policy, the South African government had banned the use of water from the Okovango for irrigation purposes or for other farming purposes. So food, especially vegetables, were flown into the country from Cape Town and then transported by road from Windhoek to Okovango. On a good day that is a five-hour trip.

In the five years OXFAM has been there we have helped set up a village workshop that manufactures water pumps. These pumps are very accessible to local communities and they are used to draw water from the Okovango River and to irrigate horticultural activity; to irrigate small farms for very low-income families. The result is that today the majority of communities in the Okovango region are almost self-sufficient in food production. So a difference can be made.

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Here at home we've been very active in promoting world food activities. Let me just show you a kit that we have put together in collaboration with our sister organization, OXFAM Quebec. This has been sent to more than 4,000 high schools throughout Canada, coast to coast, and is also available on the Internet.

If I may just do a bit of advertising, the website is www.oxfam.ca.

We therefore take the view that food is a basic right. It is a right that's connected to other rights that have been identified by OXFAM as basic rights that could help fight hunger. Those rights are—obviously at the top of the list—the right to food, the right to clean water, the right to a home, the right to health care, the right to an education, the right to a livelihood, the right to a safe environment, freedom from violence, equality of opportunity, and a say in their future. People must have a say in their future. We believe that if these basic rights are respected and are enforced, hunger could be defeated—and, indeed, will be defeated.

Let me just go back to a point I made earlier, about 800 million people going to bed hungry every single day. I'll leave you with something that I hope you will reflect on. In the past five or seven minutes that I have been speaking, something like 125 children around the globe have died as a result of lack of food or from preventable diseases. Let's think about that.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Puta-Chekwe.

I'm sure the members will have some questions of you and Ms. Christie, but I think first we'll go to Mr. Moore.

Mr. Bruce Moore (Executive Director, Partners in Rural Development): I think our overriding objective here today is to provide you with information that in a collective sense will assist you when the Canadian action plan and follow-up to the food summit comes before parliamentarians to consider this position that Canada is going to therefore try to take to the FAO and to further both domestically and internationally. In that sense I think Jean gave some of the most fundamental milestones and issues that need to be addressed and we need not add to them, except to add information that is behind that that you might find helpful.

By way of background, you might find it helpful to know that Partners in Rural Development was actually the Canadian non-governmental organization formed in 1961 under the initiative by the Food and Agriculture Organization called the Freedom from Hunger campaign. At that time, and before entering public life, the Honourable Mitchell Sharp established the Freedom from Hunger campaign as a vehicle to raise consciousness in Canada and also to raise resources to support self-help projects in developing countries.

Our name has changed to be more current, and we went through a rendition for many years called the Canadian Hunger Foundation. Now Partners in Rural Development more adequately describes what we do.

Our organization, in addition to the work we do in Canada and support to community organizations in 12 developing countries, is a member of the NGO advisory board of the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development. On the NGO committee at the World Bank we at one time coordinated the World Food Day program and were involved with the consultative group on international agriculture research with respect to new initiatives to involve civil society in combating desertification.

Having said that, I think the one additional number we need to bear in mind is that, of these 800 million people we are referring to, three-quarters, some 600 million people, live in the countryside. They are rural dwellers, and therefore the irony of living on the land and being hungry really drives home the question of why that should be.

Quite clearly, we have to find in our assistance to developing countries ways to provide these people with access to productive assets. These people end up drifting to the cities, not by choice but because they are unable to make their land productive. Either they lack title to the land, access to water, appropriate energy sources, technology, training, or extension services. We know that when these people have access to productive resources they rise above subsistence agriculture, they produce marketable surpluses, they earn income, and then they address their own social needs. They will address whether they're going to build schools and have health clinics and whether they will be able to afford to keep those things going so that we don't end up with donor dependency.

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Clearly, common views are that we have to look at how to increase their access to productive resources so that they can use the one thing they most offer, that is their labour, and have their labour get a good return.

When we look at these issues, I think we have to bear in mind both the domestic and the international side. At a meeting just a few weeks ago in Toronto, many of the NGOs who had been part of the World Food Summit process came together, and of course, as you can expect, the globalization of poverty became a focal point in our discussions. What we saw was the need for some more exercised examination of policy.

As recently as yesterday I was talking with the director of the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto, who, along with myself, has agreed as part of the global network to take the lead in trying to work with people like yourselves to better situate food security on both federal and provincial policy agendas. She pointed out to me the fundamental parallel that food banks, as with food aid internationally, have come to be accepted as a way to address the needs of people who are hungry, as opposed to looking at, in the international sense, the access to productive resources and, in the Canadian context, the ways in which people will find gainful employment, become productive and self-reliant.

The institutionalization of a charitable response in terms of hand-outs and food banks or food aid—we know there are times when these are needed, but there's a fundamental issue here: what social policy is going to be put into place in Canada that will recognize that while we need an effective economy, while we need, both domestically and internationally, effective markets, we know all too well that while markets can create growth, while markets can produce productive wealth, they cannot guarantee, in and of themselves, adequate access and distribution? Otherwise, why would it be that in 1960 the richest 20% of the people living on this planet had incomes 30 times the poorest 20%? World Bank and other statistics—UN statistics—show us that 37 years later the richest 20% have incomes 60 times the poorest 20%.

The gap is clearly widening, and unless we find a way, domestically and internationally, to intervene with appropriate social policy as opposed to continuing to emphasize that the market will meet the needs of the poor, then we're failing to understand the lessons of history. Trickle-down economics drove foreign aid policies for many years, and we know that there are still 800 million people unable to get access to credit, access to land, access to the tools and implements needed to produce. So fundamentally we know that the market, which we are not criticizing in and of itself...we are concerned that it's being seen all too much as the way in which benefits will trickle down to the poor, and there is no evidence from history that that has worked.

When we try to move this forward, I do think we have to examine, within the context of the foreign affairs committee we're here to talk to, some fundamental issues within CIDA. If one talks to our aid officials, we find that the place to situate this discussion is within the basic human needs component of CIDA's policies. But if one peels that onion, we find that the basic human needs policy is being responded to as a social policy. It formulates and its action plan more highly reflects the outcomes of the social summit than the need for productive activity. In fact, it was arduous to have the word “food” added to the question of nutrition, because nutrition has often been seen from a health standpoint, not from the standpoint of improving the ability of people to produce for themselves.

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We do need to see, therefore, that while the basic human needs strategy of CIDA now has a place, if you want to point you can point to agriculture, food, and nutrition. We need to bear in mind that from 1990 to 1995, according to a CIDA report, support to agriculture and food dropped by 45% globally in developing countries and 80% for Africa and the Middle East. So to have a basic needs strategy, but to have a practice where we've seen major declines in support to agriculture and food, shows that our policy and our actions are not consistent.

We also have within our aid agency clear mandates for things that we know to be important. We know it's extremely important to empower women in the development process, domestically and internationally, and we're pleased that there is clear gender policy and environment policy. There is no official mandate within the agency to activate the agriculture, food, and food security component. There is no official policy branch—because we've asked and met with the people—that is mandating the agency to translate basic human needs into an active, driving force within the agency on food security. So the words are not followed by clear direction within the agency. These are things that are the important tools for good intentions to start to become visible within the work of that organization.

My closing comment is that I think we have to find a way to manage the complex agenda. When we raise this issue, or when my colleagues raise issues that are particular to their mandate, we find when we're talking policy that the response generally is, we understand that issue, but please appreciate how many issues we have to balance. For instance, what would be said, specifically in meeting with the minister responsible for CIDA and talking about these things I've just mentioned...the answer is, yes, we have to find a way to do that, but bear in mind that we also have to find a way to follow up on the micro-credit summit.

This reveals to us a confusion between the ends and the means. Micro-credit is a very important tool if we're trying to put resources effectively into the hands of poor people, whether they be in rural or urban communities, but that is fundamentally different from the end, which is to allow people to support themselves.

So all of these issues are getting to be a big jumble that somebody in government seems to feel they have to balance, and they all weigh out equally. They're not assembled into an action plan where we find out what are the means and what are the goals and how do we use them effectively.

In terms of sharing with you some of the views Canadians have, prior to the 50th anniversary of FAO in Quebec City and leading into the summit, our organization, with the support of CIDA and Agriculture Canada, brought together domestic and international organizations to share their views on some of the issues that other speakers have mentioned and that I've tried to cover. If you're interested, there is a book here that brings together views from the academic community, from producers, including groups like the Maritime Fishermen's Union through to the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, from NGOs domestically and internationally, called Tough to Swallow. If you'd like to get a sense of how a cross-section of Canadian groups looks at this issue and the actions we need to take as a country—not as a government but as a country, as Jean said, of the voluntary sector, the private sector, and government working together—you might find some of the views from the agencies in this book useful. You can get a copy at the end of today's meeting from me.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Moore.

We have Ms. Rutherford from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

Ms. Sally Rutherford (Executive Director, Canadian Federation of Agriculture): Good morning. Thank you very much for the opportunity—both to the committee and to David for inviting CFA—to participate this morning.

Being farther down the list gives one pause. I was crossing off all of the points that I was going to make that have been made more than adequately by Jean, Bruce, and others, and I think I have just a couple of points to make to reinforce perhaps what they're talking about and to perhaps put a slightly more pedantic spin on some of the points they have made.

Most of the people who are here today work for international NGOs or non-governmental organizations whose direct work is essentially with policy and in trying to affect government policy in the international sphere, although there are some tentacles that drift down, quite appropriately, into the domestic side.

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We know, as Bruce pointed out, that there are many groups within Canada that also share the interest in terms of food security issues that are actively involved in the process.

Where do farmers come in? Where the Canadian Federation of Agriculture got involved in the process was around being invited to participate in the exercise Bruce just mentioned. Coming out of that and participating in the 50th anniversary meetings in Quebec City, we became quite disturbed—that probably is not too harsh a word—to understand that most of the issues were being dealt with at very much a policy level. As Jean pointed out, there were bureaucrats deciding how things were supposed to happen, how they might happen, who was going to do what, but nobody was actually talking about the realities of the situation, except in pictures, charts, and graphs.

At the time of the food summit last year, we worked very hard with other farm organizations to ensure that the words “farmer” and “food producer” actually occurred in the document. It was as though food, whether it was from agriculture or from the fishery, was simply to appear, that it could be created at the World Bank headquarters or at the FAO in Rome and somehow distributed. Nowhere did the document—not just in the initial phases, but also very close to the end—actually refer to the people who had the role and the responsibility of producing food, in either this country or any other.

Picking up the point that Bruce and Chisanga made, clearly if we are going to feed the world we need to pay some attention to those who are going actually physically to engage in that act.

The issues of access to land, credit, appropriate inputs, seeds at a minimum, the kind of basic equipment that this requires, and the money required to purchase that are all of significant interest to Canadian farmers. They understand very well that these are issues that involve food producers in all countries and that they have to be looked at as more than abstract ideas.

Bruce's point about dealing with micro-credit separately from food security is very close to, the parallels are very strong with, what farmers in Canada experience in terms of being told that they have to produce for export but there will be little worry about what the costs are at home or whether they have access to credit or whether they are actually able to meet the targets that are set out.

I'm not trying to say that that's not an appropriate target. My point is that in this issue, as we do at home, we have to look at things from a much more holistic point of view and to find ways of addressing them. I know that saying to address it holistically also has the possibility of falling into the trap of it simply being a discussion as opposed to dealing with reality, but we do have to learn to deal with issues differently. We have to look at the end and not just the means.

I also participated in the meeting Bruce mentioned that took place in Toronto. One of the things that was very clear out of that meeting was that, again, there are very significant parallels between the domestic situation in Canada and the situation in other countries. I don't think anybody would ever pretend that the situation here is anywhere nearly as serious or dire as it is in some other countries.

Again, what is pointed out really strongly by those discussions is that you can't address the issue of hunger just by providing food. There are underlying causes that have to be addressed both here and abroad. We have to find a way of trying to do that. We have to find a way of bringing the departments of government together. That perhaps is a role this committee can play.

• 1055

Very clearly, throughout the whole discussion around food security, or food insecurity, depending on your take, many government departments were involved, quite willingly and I think quite genuinely, but everyone came to that table with their own agenda and their own departmental mandate. It was very difficult for them to be able to get beyond that, actually to do more than have somebody sign off on Minister Goodale's speech to the FAO in Rome. I think we have to find new ways of trying to address issues.

This is something I have some experience in, because we're trying this in a really significant way in terms of the interface between agriculture and the environment in Canada. I think we have to find new ways of interfacing on other issues as well, and this is a very important one and a very timely one.

The Chair: Members of the committee will be entirely surprised to find that occasionally the departments don't really talk to one another as much as we would like.

Ms. Sally Rutherford: I knew this was new information.

The Chair: I think you may look around the room and realize that this is not the first time we've heard this story. It's very important for you to bring it up. Thank you.

Ms. Sally Rutherford: The last point I'll make is in relationship to what the role of perhaps this committee and the federal government overall might be in trying to address this issue seriously from a more holistic and more global point of view. CFA did have the opportunity...we were asked by Agriculture Canada before the summit last year to undertake a consultation exercise with the agriculture and agrifood industry. It was a very interesting experience for us, and I think somewhat disappointing for the organizers in the department, because they didn't get a very strong response. They didn't get the kind of response they expected to or wanted to, both in terms of numbers and in terms of the kinds of things they were looking for.

I think they are experiencing this same problem now, where you go to an individual, you go to a company, you go to an organization, and ask, well, what are you going to do about world hunger today, what are you going to do about it in the next six months? Quite frankly, most people don't have a foggy idea, because they don't have the basic understanding they would need to have to do that, nor do they have the wherewithal, nor do they have the organization, to do it. It's not their role in life. It's not their mandate.

CFA's mandate is not to address food insecurity issues globally. Our mandate is to support farmers in Canada. What we can do is to work with others and to support others in the work they are doing. I think that's what we have to be able to ask of Canadians and Canadian business, Canadian society generally: to support the non-governmental organizations and to support the government in the work it's doing and to get the buy-in of Canadians into the specifics of the kinds of things we need to do to address the problems—and I think you've heard many of them outlined today.

Individual farmers in Saskatchewan or Prince Edward Island by themselves will not be able to feel they are making a difference. If they are given the opportunity to have some input into a broader process they can trust is going to make a difference, I believe many more people will be actively willing to do that.

I guess that's the role of government. It's to support the kind of work that needs to go on, to provide the underpinnings and the framework that are going to allow the people whose business it is, who know the business well, to go out and do that work. I can only urge the committee to try to address those kinds of issues, encouraging CIDA to alter its mandate appropriately, to encourage departments to work together, so there is a way of actually finding a way to deal with micro-credit as well as food insecurity issues all at the same time, and when we do send our officials off to international meetings they are all singing from the same songbook, their goals are the same, we develop some serious and consistent goals for Canada in food security, and everybody tries to work towards that goal and sees it as the base.

Farmers find it very difficult to fathom that they have spent their lives growing food and there are millions of people who go hungry every day. The trick is trying to figure out how you put all this together. I think that's what Canadians look to government to do.

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The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Rutherford.

We are now going to pass to Susan Mills, who is the Director of the International Marketing Division from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Before I give the mike to Ms. Mills, I would like to say to the NGO witnesses who have given evidence so far that the committee, as you know, is responsible for the oversight of CIDA, IDRC, and of course generally the departments of both international trade and foreign affairs. If, as Mr. Moore and Ms. Rutherford did, you have comments about ways in which departments function or a way in which CIDA could be more focused on the issue of food security, what programs we might try to examine as a committee as the year goes on, because we'll have the president of CIDA here...we'll be seriously interested in whether or not those mandates are being properly carried out. I know the members will be particularly interested in the insights you have because you have worked with these institutions and can tell us where good jobs are being done and where we can make better jobs done. We would very much appreciate your comments in that respect. It will help us later in our work during the year to deal with those institutions.

Ms. Mills.

Ms. Susan Mills (Director, International Marketing Division, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First, may I apologize for being late for this meeting. I was previously engaged in a meeting on this issue with our colleagues and partners from the United States of America, who were visiting with us to discuss some of the work they are doing on the issue of food security in preparation for an upcoming meeting in Rome of the Food and Agriculture Organization. I therefore am not able, since I have not been here, to direct my comments in total to some of the comments that have been made today.

I would like to say before I start, Mr. Chairman, that it's a pleasure to be here before this group, and it's a pleasure to see that Mrs. Augustine, who joined us on the summit delegation last year, is also here. All of us sitting at this table feel that this is a very important, very difficult, and very complex question. I think the comments of Mrs. Rutherford are extremely well taken.

If I may enter a little bit of philosophy, as somebody who sits at the fulcrum of a lot of the activities that are going on, I see, after facing many of the frustrations of dealing with a subject, some people saying, what are you talking about, this is everything. But I think when we spoke about environmental sustainability 10 years ago people had the same reaction. We're dealing with a subject that at base is very simple: it's a question of hunger. But when you address all of the various meanings as to why that hunger exists and how we deal with it—I think we addressed some of those questions at the meeting of this body last year—we come to a very multifaceted, multidimensional, multiphased problem, and I think we're beginning, as human beings, to begin to understand something, a little bit, in dealing with such a problem in not so simplistic a manner as simply dealing with the “hunger gap” that we talked about in the past.

When we deal with such a complex problem it cuts across the interests and the mandates of just about everybody in society. The problem with that is that nobody owns it. I think Mrs. Rutherford is quite correct, when you speak with industry, as I have, and ask, what are you doing about food security, what can you recommend that industry should do about food security, what can you recommend that government should do about food security, they basically look very baffled and say it's an extremely important question but they really don't know, they really don't see that it's their mandate and we should be telling them.

I pick industry and that's not fair, because that's true of non-governmental organizations; it's true, to a certain extent, greater or lesser, depending on the organization. It's true also of government. Each government department has a different portion of the pie. Each government department has a different interest. It's very difficult, given today's environment, to coordinate all of the parts of society that have to be coordinated to try to deal with such a complex question.

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I think what we're talking about is something that we all studied years ago, and it's called the global commons. We talk about the global reality, but to achieve the global reality and the global commons we have to have partnership. Partnership means we have to know, with where and what I do and what my mandate is, if I can join with others to mediate progress. It's not always easy. Where do I make a difference? How do I join with others to make a difference? It's the challenge of our time, Mr. Chairman, that is very difficult for all of us to face, because we're all so very busy and we all have our own immediate mandate and immediate direction of action.

I think it is important that I say this, because it forms the backdrop for the work we're trying to do. I think we should say that the work in following up—I believe some of this has been touched on. At the summit last year, the representatives of the delegation, members of Parliament and non-governmental organizations, met with Minister Goodale, who was the head of delegation at the summit, and said, look, the preparations for the summit are very important. However, the follow-up is what is going to count. What do we do about this problem? We can't just say we came, we saw, we bought the T-shirt, and we left. We have to do something. Minister Goodale said, yes, I will engage, and he engaged to have a meeting to initiate what we had endorsed as a global plan of action, which was a national plan of action.

I can tell you, Mr. Chairman and hon. members, it is very evident to us that many countries in the world are not engaging. Canada and the United States of America have agreed that they will engage, that they will produce a national plan of action. We feel this is important, both for us nationally and for our participation as members of a corporate body, that is the world, part of the global partnership.

I'd like to just review very quickly some of the process we've gone through and tell you that initially it was our plan at our February meeting, where Mr. Goodale spoke and created a joint consultative group, which drew together I think 10 or 12 government departments, just to give you an idea of how many different departments have an interest in this.... I think we have 24 non-governmental organizations sitting on this joint consultative group to advise us and to make the decisions on what should be in our national plan of action. That's a lot of different interests across the table.

We met. We determined that we would write a paper, and in those initial heady days we thought it would be ready for July 1. I have to say that I think we're all disappointed, but we've now begun to acknowledge that it's not a simple job. We then hoped to have it ready for World Food Day. We can't do that. I think we will have it ready for the Committee on Food Security, which will be meeting in the late spring, May or June of this coming year, for the FAO.

We tried to be imaginative. We put information on the Internet. We provided information to people by mail, by fax. We created a mini-document, simply as a reflection piece, in order to get reaction. We got reaction from probably something like 120 organizations and individuals across the country. We drew people together for a retreat. We drew industry together for a retreat and we said: What are you doing? What do you think you will be doing? What do you propose to do? What might be your future policies to address the issue of hunger? What do you think others should be doing, non-governmental organizations, industry, and government? What should be done?

In essence, what we were looking at was a base line of what's happening in the country now and also an attempt to give recommendations to the partnership of non-governmental organizations, industry, and the different levels of government in Canada as to how we together can work to address this complex problem.

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When we drew all the material together in the month of May we realized we had some serious planning problems. Basically we had so much information that we had not prioritized. We had massive recommendations. We had an inadequate picture of what different organizations are doing, including the federal government departments. People had worked too quickly. There had not been adequate reflection.

So we all agreed in the joint consultative group that we would come together in the late fall, which is now, having done a research phase to produce some more reflective information. We're at that point now, Mr. Chairman. We will be working on this information through the month of November, and it is our hope amongst our partnership to be able to draw together a satisfactory plan of action that pictures both what we are doing in Canada now and what we plan to do to address the target that all of us in the world have taken on, which is to reduce, both domestically and internationally, the number of hungry in the world by half by the year 2015.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Mills. That's helpful.

I have four members on the list: Mr. Bélair, Mr. Reed, Mr. Assadourian, Mr. Grewal.

Mr. Réginald Bélair (Timmins—James Bay, Lib.): You're not going to the opposition first?

The Chair: No, not in this type of meeting, if that's all right. You were first on my list and I was going to go to Mr. Grewal next. We'll just go back and forth.

[Translation]

Mr. Réginald Bélair: Listening to you takes me way back to my youth when as French Canadian Catholics, we were asked by the good sisters teaching us to make donations to feed the children of China.

I'm saying this to illustrate the fact that this problem goes back many years and solutions have still not been found.

I'm saddened somewhat on listening to each of your presentations in that no one mentioned the military regimes and dictatorships and the fact that these very same dictators are lining their pockets at the people's expense. Everyone of these military strong men is well-fed and maintains a firm grip on power, but in the meantime, their people are starving to death.

This raises two issues. The gentleman who just left briefly alluded to CIDA. He related a few success stories in countries which were easily accessible. That's fine. We must sustain our efforts in this regard and I for one disagree with the last budget cuts.

No one talked about solutions. Therefore, I would propose, and I would like your comments on this, that where access is possible, we launch a Canada-wide campaign to appeal to individuals, in particular retired persons, with considerable expertise and talent who would be willing to travel to these countries and help the people through CIDA programs. I may not be reinventing the wheel. Similar initiatives may have already been proposed, but let me repeat that this is a practical and concrete initiative that would work with some planning.

I also mentioned military regimes. Clearly, broad-based action is needed to deal with large-scale problems. For instance, two months ago, communist North Korea rejected the latest U.S. offer to provide assistance to North Koreans. Once again, politics was a factor in this country's refusal, not to mention the history of the Korean War.

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Considering that the United Nations have not been able to resolve the problems in Korea, Zaire or the Congo, why couldn't the major military powers—understand that I'm talking here about major problems that could be resolved through broad-based action—combine their efforts and military equipment to find ways of feeding those who are starving? They are not responsible for their suffering. I hope I never know what it means to starve to death. This is not likely to happen to me since, as you can see, I'm well-fed.

However, when we gaze at these images and realize the political trickery involved, we know that we have to do something.

Why couldn't the world's major military powers join forces to pave the way for Canadian Hercules aircraft loaded with food and medicines to be dispatched to help these people? It's all well and good to talk about nice gestures. This morning, all of you related some nice experiences that you have had, but no one offered any solutions.

It's time to take drastic action. That's all I wanted to say.

The Chairman: Mr. Moore, do you wish to respond in French or in English?

Mr. Bruce Moore: In English.

[English]

There are clearly some Canadian organizations that have found ways and means by which Canadian expertise has been able to be matched with particular needs. We can see that in some cases. We could put our list forward, but I would have to disagree with you, and I would have to reflect upon my inadequacy in putting forward a part of the solution. By no means should we turn instantly to the view that the problems of developing countries are because they don't have the ability.

As I've said, three-quarters of poor people live on the land. No one wants to come to grips, including our own government, including CIDA, with the tough issues. We do not look in our multilateral funding for how to place conditionality on the kinds of loans that the World Bank and others provide to governments with regard to addressing the issue of the vested elites who control land. When poor people do not have title to land they do what you and I would do. They're not going to spend years investing in improving the quality of that land. They're not going to plant trees to prevent erosion so the land quality will be improved, only to know that the landlord, as soon as they've done that, will reclaim the land.

The issues are not about expertise. The issues are looking at the systemic problems of how to deal with vested elites who control these economies and control and prevent.... Unless we in our aid programs are going to place conditionalities on the kind of lending schemes we put—

Mr. Réginald Bélair: How do you get around that? That's my point.

Mr. Bruce Moore: For example, there was a global coalition formed in Brussels two years ago to look at hunger and poverty. One of their action plans is called the Popular Coalition for Action to Eradicate Hunger and Poverty. It's made up of NGOs and the World Bank.

To get practical, we, the NGOs, said if you really believe there are ways to get around governments to get resources into the hands of poor people, then let us create an international guarantee fund so that charitable organizations, community organizations, can be entitled to the credit that right now only goes through governments and never gets to poor people.

Talk about micro-credit, fine, it's great stuff, but talk about getting access to micro-credit is quite another thing.

There is an international panel. I happen to sit on it. Right now, with all of these institutions, it's looking at how to create a guarantee fund so that money can be lent directly to community-based organizations in places where government corruption does exist and resources do not get through to poor people. These institutions will be empowered to lend directly to civil society organizations.

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The question—and I've taken it up with the president of CIDA—is whether CIDA, in our multilateral lending to the World Bank and others, is prepared to support this initiative by having Canada get behind the need for guarantee mechanisms. This would be a way to put resources in the hands of poor people.

The World Bank is working on market-based land reform and others.

Unless people get title to land, they will not invest and they will not become productive. That would be a clear case, but are we and are you when you meet with CIDA prepared to look at the kinds of ways in which we provide funding to multilateral institutions? We're prepared to work with you and share the global knowledge that's coming out of these meetings as to practical ways that, in this case, guarantee funds—because it's working in Switzerland and in other countries—are allowing multilateral organizations and commercial lending institutions to have the confidence to lend to micro entrepreneurs.

This is a very practical way to get resources into the hands of people. I could give other examples, but I don't think that's necessary.

The Chair: Thank you.

I'll pass to Mr. Grewal.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal (Surrey Central, Ref.): First, I appreciate the comprehensive information given by all the speakers. I'm a rookie member of Parliament from British Columbia and obviously new on the committee, so I might be asking some dumb questions in the beginning, but I want to—

The Chair: Mr. Mills will be helpful in telling you.

Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Ref.): We'll coach him.

Mr. Gurmant Grewal: On this issue I would like to know two things so that I can develop a better understanding and make a clear vision for the future on this topic.

I'm not very clear on how we define hunger at this time, whether we are talking about providing two meals for the people or we want to go into further details, such as providing food supplements. There may be some shortages of food supplements in some places that are more important than providing the food to cure the situation for the long term. Or do we also to some extent provide medicines that help to eliminate the situation in which they are there? I wonder whether we are talking about the nutritional quality or undernutrition or malnutrition in some areas or a situation of pregnant women or some children or some old people who are unable to get food.

The other thing I want to know is something about the background of the organization and what we have done and what we intend to do in the future so that it will put us on the right track to think in the right terms. What are the soft areas in the world or the target of the organization where we want to focus more in the future that will give a clear idea of whether it's only underdeveloped countries or the developing countries or there are some pockets in the developed countries where our focus will continue? What's the overall strategy?

The other thing I would like to know is whether we are focused on providing the food or we are interested in developing the resources in those countries to develop some infrastructure that would help to make those countries self-sufficient in food production and self-sufficient in growing more food in those countries.

What's the role of these organizations in the war-torn countries? Do we follow the political view of the countries or the dominant countries or the role of the United Nations, or do we want to hit the target right on the nail to eliminate the situation? Similarly, due to lack of infrastructure in those countries, are we focusing on the areas that are easily accessible or do we want to go into the rural areas and the inside of the countries, inland, or the detailed areas where the problem really exists?

What kind of budget are we talking about in the amount of dollars for the implementing of our plans? What is Canada's share in the world organization structure on this issue?

In fact, what is the organization structure? What level of coordination do we have with other organizations to achieve our objectives?

It was also mentioned that CIDA has to play a significant role and the mandate is not in line. What will be the recommendations of NGOs on making the mandate of CIDA align to their requirements so that we will achieve our objectives more efficiently?

What kinds of resources do we have that will help us to go into detail and make a balance and coordination effective?

Are there any recommendations from these experts on these issues?

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There are so many issues I want to touch on, but I will stop here so they can give an idea in detail.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Grewal. Before I pass it to the experts.... We're trying to limit it to 10 minutes, because we can go only until 12 a.m. and I have about 5 other members who want to ask questions, so within the timeframe...but I think these were all very good questions and they are ones we'll have to pursue with CIDA and other organizations. We will spend a lot of time on these issues, but maybe we could start.

Who will begin?

I think Mr. Walsh was willing to start.

[Translation]

Mr. Robin Walsh (Director of Communications, OXFAM-Canada): I would like to respond briefly to Mr. Assadourian's question. I work with Mr. Puta-Chekwe for OXFAM.

[English]

It's just to clarify that as a non-governmental organization—we define ourselves negatively, and that's a problem, I know—as a voluntary organization, we do work with community groups. We don't work with the government. We therefore hopefully channel our assistance to and work with people who are the most in need and who can do the most with the assistance we provide. For instance, with North Korea we sent in a mission and we tried to meet with people. We do the same in every country where we do work. I think we do need to keep that distinction.

On Mr. Grewal's question, briefly, I'll give you a concrete example where we are trying to change CIDA policy, where we've used food aid, which is normally used in an emergency situation, we've taken it into Ethiopia, and over a three-year period we're using that food aid for communities where there's a vulnerability to hunger. What they need to do is to take their soil, take it out of production for three years, plant trees, build terracing, do things like that, so that land will be much more productive over a longer term. We've taken some food aid assistance to do that. That's something we've made a change on with CIDA, and I think we need to continue to do those kinds of things and push them to use more food aid assistance in non-emergency situations so people can become self-sufficient in the long run.

The Chair: Ms. Christie.

Ms. Jean Christie: Just a quick response. Obviously Mr. Grewal has raised a dozen questions, and I can tell there are at least a dozen more he could have asked—and each one is important. I guess the thing to say is simply that people are actually spending their lives addressing each one, in a way, and they are the questions to be asked, along with the others you have in your head and all the others around the table have in their heads.

I think the point made earlier about the importance of seeing them together and developing a national strategy that will in fact come to terms with what are our responses to these kinds of questions and where we go next is really critical...without doing a disservice by trying to respond quickly to any one of them, because it could take weeks on any one of them. There are people who are addressing them. I think any of us would be willing to give you at least the part we're dealing with. I think it just spells the importance of the kind of committee Susan is working with and of the interdepartmental committees that also deal with industry and NGOs, where the expertise of people dealing with different parts of the problem actually comes together and agrees on common targets.

Your questions are absolutely fundamental. We have to find ways where those of us who are addressing some parts of it can make sure the pieces we know about are part of the solution. I don't think there's an easier response than that.

The Chair: Mr. Reed.

Mr. Julian Reed (Halton, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

When I heard the word “multifaceted” it certainly rang true. You have identified a number of villains, and that will be of immense help to our deliberations. I see ignorance. When people leave the land and go into cities the knowledge of self-sufficiency is lost to the next generation, because it's not taught from parent to child. As a matter of fact, I see urbanization itself as one of the villains, perhaps even here in Canada, because we are now two or three generations away from an agrarian society, which means that the bulk of our population no longer know how to provide for themselves and therefore rely on other means. We have the privilege of being able to do that here.

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You've identified regional strife. You didn't mention the weather, but it is a given in this situation.

One thing that I didn't hear from anyone was the question of population growth and population control. I know that there are non-governmental organizations—there's one that I'm rather familiar with—that are very concerned about this issue. We have today 800 million people who are hungry on this planet, and we're faced with the challenge of how they can become self-sufficient and provide for themselves. But 10 or 15 years from now, if we achieve that objective, how many more hungry mouths will there be that are going to be faced with the same thing? The figure may not be 800 million any more. For all we know, it may be 2 billion.

I'm concerned about the comment that was made that other countries will not engage. That poses a great difficulty. If not all of the countries of the earth who are concerned about this issue engage, then it makes the work of those who will engage very difficult.

Finally, how do we get past the corruption in these countries, when you have the vested elites—I heard that phrase—who own the land and therefore prevent people from actually working it and becoming self-sufficient? And how do we get past the corruption where, even if we give direct food aid, some of it or most of it ends up in the hands of the military who sustain the dictator in power?

The Chair: Mr. MacDonald.

Mr. David MacDonald: I am delighted with Mr. Reed's questions, because they go to the heart of what we've been working at over the course of the last several years.

First of all, he's absolutely right: there is a monumental shift taking place in the world from rural to urban societies. When we somehow get into the next century, we will actually have many more people living in urban areas than in rural areas, even in developing countries. It puts a very interesting dilemma in front of everybody, because we normally think of the food being produced in rural areas being consumed in urban areas. One of the exciting new possibilities is looking at urban areas as centres of food production, and work is being done by a number of agencies on that.

Also the question goes back to what was said by Mr. Moore that three-quarters of those who are the most vulnerable are living in rural areas. This is an enormous irony, but it speaks to the issues he raised in terms of, do they have access to land, to credit, to the resources to feed themselves?

Also, in most cases—and this is where it becomes very pointed—does it help women who are in the situation, because they are the major food providers and food producers?

Again, the irony of the population explosion, which is mostly among the poorest of the poor, is in situations where people are not able to get out of endemic poverty.

I was delighted when Ms. Augustine said to me today that parliamentarians are now taking the initiative around issues of population and development. She herself is very specifically involved in providing that leadership.

We have to look at those issues together.

But in my view the population issue will not be resolved unless we look at the situation of women, of their empowerment, of their education, of them having the resources necessary to finally come out of poverty. It's clear in this country and around the world that when women are able to actually become empowered in their own lives, the population does go down. We know that reality. We know it here in Canada.

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The other thing I want to add, in conclusion, is that when you talk about the corruption in many of these countries, the corruption is usually because there is no kind of democratic system that holds people accountable. Again, democracy relates to getting out of the elite situations that existed, as Mr. Moore described. I think we as Canadians almost take for granted things we have experienced, without realizing we must somehow or other learn how to provide leadership in a way that is sensitive—and we have done this in the past—and a way that helps people in these countries break loose of the kind of tyrannies that have in fact held them down for such a long time.

The Chair: Ms. Mills.

Ms. Susan Mills: I would like to address the part of Mr. Reed's question that related to other countries not engaging, and my earlier comments. That comment covers a wide set of factors. I think the issue is that in coming to a global plan of action that has exhortations on just about every aspect of human endeavour—David has mentioned a number of them: many of the countries are from the south, many are developing countries, many do not have well-developed policy and statistical skills within their government departments—writing a national action plan is not straightforward for them.

There is another issue. One of the key leads Canada, the United States, and the Nordic countries made through the global plan of action was that to address such multivaried problems, it isn't just governments that have to address these problems, it's governments in partnership with all other aspects of society. This was something we fought out in the negotiations over a number of very intense days.

This means for developing countries, where there is, let's say, not as much of a democratic situation as there is in North America, non-governmental organizations are seen less as partners and more as representative of dissolving attributes of the state. So the participation of various portions of society and building a national action plan, even if they were to have the skill sets, is not something they find desirable.

In essence what has occurred in many cases is the Food and Agriculture Organization has, through its experts, prepared documents that basically become, to our fear, documents that will simply sit on the shelf and become dusty documents. They don't represent that coalition, that partnership of people, to be able to determine what are the priorities for us in our country, and that comes back to your questions about the power of elites and the corruption in countries.

Therefore Canada, the United States, some of the countries of Europe, are very carefully attempting to put into place coalition- and consensus-building processes. We all find it very difficult, as we've talked about here. Many parts of our society have trouble participating in them. But without them we're not going to have the kind of rapport we need to have.

Anyway, that's the issue.

The Chair: Mr. Turp.

[Translation]

Mr. Daniel Turp (Beauharnois—Salaberry, BQ): Mr. Chairman, unfortunately I was not on hand yesterday to witness your election. However, I would like to congratulate you and to wish you and the committee staff a productive term in office.

I did not catch all of the presentations. Unfortunately, I missed Mr. MacDonald's, but it appears to me that one of the issues that concerns you is the contribution of the Canadian International Development Agency and the manner in which it assumes its responsibilities with respect to world food security. I have two questions for you. Perhaps you could enlighten us.

My first question concerns the substantial decline in Canadian official development assistance. The level of ODA now is lower than .4 per cent, whereas Canada made a commitment some time ago to meet the .7 per cent objective set by the United Nations. How has this reduction affected CIDA programs dealing with world food security? How do you feel about the declining level of ODA?

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Secondly, would your agencies prefer a bilateral or multilateral form of Canadian official development assistance, provided through international organizations like the FAO, the World Food Program or other programs that lend assistance to famine victims?

Mr. David MacDonald: Mr. Turp's question is extremely important under the circumstances. Indeed, the current situation with respect to international assistance is cause for much concern.

[English]

If I may speak very pointedly to this, we are experiencing, in the area of food security, a double whammy in that, over the course of the last half dozen years, not only has Canada but most of the countries, not all of them.... There are some countries of Europe—the Dutch, the Scandinavians—who have in some cases maintained or increased their assistance, but virtually all the other OECD countries have significantly reduced their aid programs, in fact to much lower percentages than you describe. We're going to be closer to 0.3%, or even below 0.3%, very shortly.

In addition, as Mr. Moore said before you arrived, we have made even greater reductions in terms of the amount of assistance we have given in areas of agricultural support and food security. So we seem to have withdrawn at an enormous rate just at a time when our assistance could be really significant.

Not to put too fine a point on it, one of the reasons for having the World Food Summit last year was to try to reverse a kind of decade of moving away from support to increasing food production and food resources around the world.

But I would also have to add—and I think this is the great new issue during our time—that we are looking at how we can assist people in the most vulnerable situations to increase their access to food and their production of food, but we are also looking at questions of equity. We're looking at the right to food. If there was one major new issue that came in front of the World Food Summit last year, and is out there now being worked at by a number of volunteer organizations and countries, it is how we put into tangible practice the notion of the right to food, both domestically and internationally.

I have documents here, codes of conduct, which are being discussed now by NGOs around the world. I would invite members of Parliament to watch this very closely, because I think, as we head into the 50th anniversary of the writing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, people will want to look at this most basic right, the right to food, and ask if we have gone far enough, in terms of our international and domestic agreements, in giving some substance to that rhetoric.

I won't take the time to get into the details of that this morning, but I do think it's the issue of our times, the issue we have to face.

I say this because we also know at the other side, as we look at global projections, that we have reached the level of production in terms of our global fisheries. In fact, we have seen in our own experience the collapse of our own fishery. So we are going to have to look at ways in which we can be much better stewards of the resources we have, both in land and sea, and the way in which that is in fact equitably going to be shared.

The Chair: Will someone address Mr. Turp's very important question about the multilateral versus the bilateral aid? That's something this committee will spend a lot of time trying to understand, and it's a very complex issue. You have only a couple of minutes left and then I'm going to pass the mike to Ms. Augustine. So someone might give us a quick cut at that issue.

Mr. Moore or Mr. Walsh. They seem to have their hands up.

Mr. Robin Walsh: I'll give a quick one. I think Mr. Moore will probably give one as well.

First of all, within CIDA there are several studies that point to the fact that they spend only 25% of their budget on basic human needs. So when we look at how CIDA is spending its budget, we would like to see that figure go up. At the World Summit for Social Development of course there was a commitment to increase that. I think that's something to examine over the coming months.

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Secondly, within multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, yes, there is an opportunity. If we speed up the debt reduction proposals and increase the amount of debt reduction that happens for severely indebted countries, that can somewhat compensate—not totally, but somewhat—for the cuts in aid we have seen globally over the last four or five years if governments commit to use that money in turn for things such as social development, particularly rural development.

But in terms of multilateral, bilateral, again I come back to it's how you use the money, whether or not it's used for basic human needs. I think we need to look at how money is used, not necessarily where. But I'll let Mr. Moore answer that further.

The Chair: We'll ask you to send us your definition of “basic human needs”, because this committee in its last life spent several months hearing experts who had very differing views on what the definition of that is. If you want to send that to us, we would appreciate OXFAM's view of that. We had people tell us that building roads was a basic human need, because you can't move agricultural products to market and people will starve if you don't have a road. So infrastructure providers have their view on what basic human needs are, as well as others. This is a very complicated issue.

Mr. Moore.

Mr. Bruce Moore: Yes, certainly we will share our views as well, because of course when we're concerned with production we're concerned to see that 13% of that 25%, or half of what is spent on basic human needs, is in the form of food aid, which is increasing to the detriment of things that support the productive capacity. So there are trade-offs. We will send you our information in that respect.

The question, as Mr. Walsh has said, is not a particularly easy one to answer. Our view on the multilateral-bilateral question is that at the multilateral level at least we neutralize some of those tendencies to try to combine too many agendas, in the sense that when we deal bilaterally we're of course competing with the issue of in what way the aid program should also serve our trade objectives and we end up having to work that one through. There are places, obviously, where those things are mutually acceptable, and places where we would say they are not. Certainly some would argue that as a middle power but with the history we have and our influence among the member nations...multilateral places neutralize some of that.

The flip side is that we have found.... In my agency we've sat on the World Bank committee, the Inter-American Development Bank committee, the IFAD committees, where all of these agencies are coming to us as non-profit organizations and saying, we would like you to work with us in the implementation of programs in particular localities. At the end of the day this is extremely complex, because those institutions do not have a mandate to deal in the sovereign affairs of a country, so with any of their lending programs they can lend only to governments. The result therefore is the tendency not to want to deal with the voluntary sector in many situations.

If we're going to put an emphasis on multilaterals we have to look at the particulars that come back to this question of effectiveness—some might call it corruption—in terms of saying how and where in particular countries we can be most effective. We might want to support the Inter-American Development Bank, but we might want to put in conditions about our funding for particular member countries where we know that's not effective, because on a bilateral basis, by comparison, when Canada renewed its aid program to El Salvador in 1986—a very contentious issue—the Government of Canada, because it was bilateral aid, was able to come to an NGO—it happened to be us, and many didn't agree with the position we took—and was able to bypass government by having us implement all of Canada's aid for a 10-year period, to try to avoid getting caught between the conflicting parties in the middle of that civil war.

So I think there's a combination. There's value in the multilateral, because it starts to do what Susan has illustrated here, that while some people aren't engaging—the multilateral arena provides a place to try to get better engagement among governments and to try to further their creation of space for good development activity to go on—within that we need to look at whether we have to apply conditionality to ensure that within the member countries of that multilateral we have some influence where there are countries whose behaviour is inconsistent with Canadian values.

It's a complex question. I guess all of these are.

The Chair: Thank you. I think that's a fair conclusion to all these.

Ms. Augustine, you've been at two of our important conferences, both Rome and the Asian forum.

Mrs. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): Again, I'm coming at the end of some really excellent questions on the whole issue of undernourished people and hunger, which I think Mr. Grewal's question was on. I think those are important issues for us to follow.

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I want to begin by complimenting Susan and the work that was done in preparation for the process that led to Rome and the activities there. I want to mention not only the work the NGOs did with the department but also Madam Labelle's speech on July 15, which showed some commitment on the part of CIDA. It was a very strong speech coming from government circles, and the desire was there to cooperate and make sure Canada meets its responsibilities.

I know the work that David does and the advocacy he does on behalf of a whole series of issues. I was going to speak about the role of women in this dialogue, but because of time I will limit my question to asking you to speak a bit about World Food Day and the focus on investing in food security, how you see that statement or theme of World Food Day amplified in terms of the continuing work of this committee or the follow-up on some of the work of Susan and the members of the various groups with which you're working. How do we see the theme of World Food Day being followed through?

Mr. David MacDonald: I'm delighted Mrs. Augustine has raised this question, Mr. Chairman, because we may be establishing a bit of a tradition here. This is the second year in which this committee has met just prior to World Food Day in order to be a part of an eight-hour telecast, which will originate from the Parliament Buildings on October 16.

The reason it's important goes to the fourth point Jean Christie made earlier this morning. There was an overall commitment at the summit last year, what we called the Food for All campaign. Earlier Bruce Moore referred to the origins of Partners in Rural Development coming out of the Freedom from Hunger campaign, which was likely the most active program the FAO ever instituted in terms of mobilizing a lot of public support. Let's face it, all the best documents, all the best commitments and words will mean nothing if the general public is not motivated to take some action, to encourage its governments to take action, and to do things that specifically make a difference.

We have attempted to use World Food Day here in Canada in the last two years, using the public affairs channel, CPAC, and discussions among significant groups of Canadians to see what we can do in response to the challenges of global hunger and global food needs. Along with our own activity here, our American colleagues, for a number of years now, have had their own international telecast. We have hooked up with them, and in fact this year Canadians and Americans and people from around the world will be able to phone in to an expert panel in the afternoon to talk to the former executive director of the World Food Summit and to representatives from around the world about their own response. For members who are here, if they would like to be involved, I can give you the number to call in the afternoon between 1 and 2 eastern daylight time. It's 202-293-7776.

I simply mention all this because I think we have to use the contemporary means of informing people and involving them in working towards these complex solutions. We believe this is an opportunity for Canada to show the way, in effect, and hopefully by example encourage other countries to take on similar activities.

On Sunday, following World Food Day, the FAO itself will have an all-day telecast from Rome, a kind of tele-food, trying to mobilize public support in Europe and elsewhere.

So there are lots of things going on. OXFAM has I think 16 different events across the country. All of this is on the Internet website OXFAM has.

We're just using every means possible in order to get the message out from the important event that took place in Rome last November.

The Chair: Thank you.

This committee is now becoming a vehicle for people to provide their telephone numbers and website numbers to the Canadian audience. If any other member wants to do that before the program ends.... But, Mr. Mills, you cannot provide your website number as part of the committee proceedings.

Mr. Bob Mills: That's a restriction.

I apologize for not being here earlier—I had other commitments—but I will certainly go through the material we have received.

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There are so many questions that could be asked.

First of all, you just brought up a very important point, which is convincing the public that in fact anything they contribute or get behind is going to be used efficiently and effectively. The biggest problem is when you have a problem in delivery of something. That is the one that then hits the front page and the one that then puts a black eye on whatever kind of aid program it is.

I always remember the African situation where Caterpillar tractors had been delivered but nobody had thought about bringing diesel fuel, so they sat in the jungle for several years, rusting. That's the kind of thing that hurts so much in terms of anything you might want to do or we as parliamentarians might want to do.

Secondly, I think that raising the ability of people to produce food has to be very important in all of this. I'm a farmer, sort of, and through genetic engineering and using canola that was genetically engineered I've been able to increase my production by 40% on the same land with actually lower input costs. If we could just get that technology more widespread, obviously the potentials speak for themselves.

Thirdly, I was just part of a European team observing the elections in Bosnia and saw NGO groups, the United Nations, the OSCE, military units, SFOR, and NATO falling over themselves doing the same job. I have seen aid agencies do the same, trying to stake out their turf and competing with each other for delivery of services.

One conclusion I've come to in travelling the world is that if we could just coordinate countries and efforts, we could do it so much more effectively. Get rid of the bureaucracy, get it coordinated and make it work.

Do you see hope for that happening in food aid and all other kinds of aid that we might be involved with?

Mr. Robin Walsh: One of the recommendations we've put forward to the UN reform process that's under way at the moment is that there be somebody at the UN who can be a special person who can bring together, within the UN to begin with, all the different departments that work in an emergency situation. It's usually fallen to the DHA, Department of Humanitarian Affairs, but I know this is something that is still being discussed and debated, and our own Maurice Strong of course is working on that.

I think that's a place and I think there is some hope that that can be improved.

I saw something similar in Rwanda my first time there.

The NGOs are actually quite good at coordinating amongst themselves, particularly within Canada. Within the world, we're recognized as working well in coalitions with each other, as is evidenced here today. Many of us belong to international networks where we try to coordinate as well, but the UN plays a central role in that and I think that's where we need to focus our energies.

Mr. Bob Mills: In 1985 I was in Rwanda for close to a month and saw agencies falling over each other, countries literally competing to deliver services through their NGOs. That's what I'm referring to. UN reform—hey, that sounds great if we can make it happen.

Mr. Robin Walsh: Well, we're hoping. This is what's in the works.

The Chair: Ms. Mills.

I was going to say that on that mixed note of optimism and pessimism we might end, but you might bring us up to an optimistic ending.

Ms. Susan Mills: It's the same point, essentially, I think we should mention, because it refers back to an earlier question with regard to multilateral and bilateral. Again, philosophically the multilateral system was set up so that we could coordinate and work together. The pressure of the global commons is requiring us to do so more and more, but we all know the difficulty of bureaucratic systems that become ossified as they grow.

The UN reform process, which is a very difficult process in terms of human relations and planning and downsizing and all the rest that goes on, is under way and it's something we should be hoping for.

The FAO activity in calling the World Food Summit, which is to act as a trampoline for all of the other UN specialized agencies to work together on the issue of food insecurity and to bring all of the countries together to work on this, should in theory do this.

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It's up to us as individual countries, when we make our representations to the UN agencies, to the UN General Assembly, to push this kind of coordination.

I have to say, Mr. Chairman, that I think Canada does a relatively good job at trying to encourage that kind of thing. It's one of our goals.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Moore, you have the last word.

Mr. Bruce Moore: Just because we've said so much about changes we would like, I think there's a balancing point with respect to CIDA. When we talk about coordination as exemplified by what Agriculture Canada has coordinated around the summit, I think we have to bear in mind that, with the downsizing of that particular agency, you as a committee looking at CIDA have to consider the expertise within the agency.

Those of us who work with the agency find that, in order to manage their work with the number of staff they have, in fact their expertise is now out of house as opposed to in house. We deal more with consultants hired by CIDA to deal with the substantive issues and planning of what's going to be undertaken in a particular country. The officers within the agency now are so heavily encumbered with managing contracts and funding relationships and making sure that the Auditor General won't find that something went wrong that they've become contract administrators and are less and less development experts.

Therefore, when we talk about coordinating effort with an agency that you oversee, we have to look at how we make sure that agency has within itself the resources to preserve and to bring to the table expertise in terms of the professional staff who work there.

It's all too easy to criticize the agency, but we know that it's not a lack of capability. It's the demands on that agency. If in the end the same dollars are being spent to hire consultants as to have better in-house capacity, then I think someone has to look at that in terms of the kind of culture of development that the agency has, and some of its shortcomings are not of its own doing but are a reflection of other processes that it falls under.

The Chair: That's a very helpful comment. Certainly when we looked at CIDA before, the committee members were very conscious of the fact that evaluating aid in any circumstance is a very difficult thing, particularly long-term aid, women in development and education. How you actually determine its value and measure it is one thing we've had many discussions with the Auditor General's department about, because as parliamentarians it's our job to ensure that taxpayers' money is not being wasted, but we don't want to be looking at too short a term and thereby preventing long-term results from being developed.

I want to thank all of the members for coming this morning. This is the first official meeting of our committee.

Mr. MacDonald, I thank you for making the proposal that you come. I think you've opened our session by introducing us to the issues that we'll have to come to grips with over the next year or two: international institutions, domestic institutions, how we coordinate with one another, CIDA, our aid, micro-credit, and the need for a holistic approach to so many of these issues that so many Canadians are very interested in. Thank you for bringing it to the attention of Canadians. Believe you me, the committee will be watching with interest how you do your work, and I hope you will continue to support us in ours. Thank you very much.

The session is adjourned.