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]

Tuesday, December 7, 1999

• 0942

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Bill Graham (Toronto Centre—Rosedale, Lib.)): Can we call this meeting to order, members? It's the continuation of our hearings on the situation in Colombia.

Today we have with us the representatives from our own Department of Foreign Affairs and CIDA. We should get going.

I'm sorry we're starting a bit late. It was because nobody could find the room. And I designed it that way because everybody accuses me of being late, so I thought being late, what the heck. At least it wouldn't be me this time. It's somebody else's fault.

This is the war room?

Mr. Bernard Patry (Pierrefonds—Dollard, Lib.): It's the war room, yes.

The Chair: If we come in the front door we could declare war while we're here? Okay, this is good. Let's not declare war on Colombia. Or if we decide to declare war in this meeting, we'll let the admiral decide where it'll be—somewhere where the navy can go and be effective.

Mr. Durand, are you our first witness. Thank you very much for coming. We appreciate that.

I might just ask you one question that occurred to me on the way in. Obviously we're not actually hearing from anybody from Colombia itself, apart from NGOs—I mean from the Government of Colombia—on this issue. You might tell us whether that's a problem from a foreign relations perspective or not, as part of your presentation, or whether we should be looking at having somebody come from Colombia.

As a rule, this committee does not ask foreign ambassadors to come, even as a courtesy, because we feel it's not appropriate perhaps for foreign governments to make representations to the committee through their ambassadors. Given the fact that we've been hearing evidence about the situation in a foreign country, perhaps the members might benefit from some observations from a governmental source. But perhaps you would be willing to consider that. I don't ask you to do it right away, but you might consider that a dimension of what we're trying to do this morning.

Mr. Paul Durand (Director General, Latin America and Caribbean Bureau, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade): It would certainly be useful, Mr. Chairman, if you could call someone like the Colombian ambassador, but if it's not the tradition it might be awkward. But we have the nearest thing to it in having Nick Coghlan here, who just arrived late last night from Bogotá, although he's Canadian.

The Chair: Right. Well, that might or might not satisfy the Colombians, I don't know.

Please start.

Mr. Paul Durand: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, honourable committee members.

• 0945

I think it's fitting that we're discussing Colombia in the war room, because this country is in a virtual state of war. My opening remarks will be quite brief, because I want to maximize the amount of time available for my colleagues Nick Coghlan, our first secretary and head of our political section in our embassy in Bogotá, and Joanne Goulet, who is director of CIDA's programs in the region.

Colombia, without a doubt, is the most troubled country in Latin America. It's perhaps the only country in the world with an active guerrilla movement. But its problems go well beyond the guerrilla.

Other ills include drug trafficking, a vicious paramilitary movement, widespread corruption, social violence, the world's highest rate of kidnapping, an ineffective judicial system with almost total impunity, and the worse economic crisis in its history. And it has a system of government that does not and has not historically served the needs of the Colombian people or even had an effective presence in much of the country. All of these phenomena are of course linked.

While the Colombian government is to be commended for its determination to start a peace process, we should all recognize that this is only one part of a very large problem. A comprehensive solution, one that attacks all of the ills I've just mentioned, is the only way to real peace in Colombia. This will take time, a lot of time, and patience and resources.

[Translation]

This situation exists despite the presence of many individuals of good will within the government and many honest and brave civilians who are devoted to their country. But these people are simply overwhelmed by the accumulation of errors and omissions throughout the course of Columbian history.

President Pastrana visited Canada last May and those he spoke with were very impressed by his firm resolve to restore peace in his country. Though problems exist, relations between Canada and Columbia are positive and constructive. Our diplomatic relations date back to 1953.

There is considerable trade between our countries. Bilateral exchanges reached $800 million last year, investments have been increasing in recent years and Canadian businesses play a major role in such sectors as telecommunications, pipelines and the processing of food products, to mention just a few.

[English]

On the human rights front, our embassy is second to none in its activism and involvement. Its representations to government, its support of human rights organizations, its first-hand knowledge of what is actually happening on the ground in some of the remotest and most frightening regions—much of this is due to the efforts and dedication of Nicholas Coghlan, who I think we're fortunate to have with us today.

I know you want to get some first-hand accounts from Mr. Coghlan, so I'll give the floor to him. He has just returned in fact from a harrowing trip into the Darien. He accompanied a group of displaced persons back to their homes to see if it was safe for them to reoccupy again. It was concluded they weren't, so they had to leave.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I will leave it for Mr. Coghlan. Thank you.

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

Mr. Coghlan, sir.

[Translation]

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan (First Secretary, Canadian Embassy in Bogota): Thank you very much. My name is Nic Coghlan and I am first secretary at the Canadian Embassy in Bogota; I have been there since July of 1997. If I may, before beginning my formal presentation, I would like to make a few personal comments on the life of a diplomat in Columbia.

It is not the bombs in Bogota, the climate of insecurity or other things like that which cause the most stress. Rather it is the sort of incident recounted to me by people I have met here and there in Columbia during the two and a half years I have spent there. These incidents still affect me very deeply. I will mention three or four of them to you and then I will make my formal presentation.

[English]

The first little incident I want to mention to you is that in October 1997 I went down to a town in the Llanos orientales, the eastern plains of Colombia, a town called Villavicencio. It's a big cattle ranching town and at that time was serving as host, if you like, to a large number of displaced persons from a particularly horrible massacre that had occurred in a place called Mapiripán in May 1997.

• 0950

This massacre was the first of a whole chain of paramilitary massacres. I spent most of the evening talking to the survivors, the family members. About 1,000 people had been displaced as a result of this particular incident. And as the evening drew on, we were sitting out in the square and the conversation came to a halt.

The mother of one of the girls there just pushed her forward, and obviously she had prepared what she wanted to say. She then recounted what had happened the night in Mapirépan. The family had gone to bed about 8 o'clock or 9 o'clock. There is no electricity in the town, so they go to bed fairly early. At about 10:30 p.m. they'd heard gunshots, people banging on doors, names being called, and their own door was suddenly kicked down. In came full-combat-wearing paramilitaries, heavily armed, and they asked, is this the home of Señor...the name of the family. They went into the back room, they pulled the father of the family out of bed, and in front of the wife and the 14-year-old girl, they decapitated him right there and then. It fell to the 14-year-old girl to pull the sheet over the father's body.

The next day, they found his head on the football field, which is where the paramilitaries had left it.

The little girl—she was only 13 or 14 years old—told all of us this just in a completely flat, monotone voice. No tears, nothing. After that, it's fairly difficult to know what to say.

Another incident a few months later—I was down in Putumayo, which is the province in southern Colombia that borders on Ecuador. It's largely dominated by the rebel FARC. We had a little project there, a little CIDA project, working with the local parish priest to put in a radio transmitter, from which he was going to run a little community radio station on health issues and so on.

So we spent most of the day talking about the project, meeting with the local campesinos, meeting with the mayor, and so on and so forth. We had lunch with him and generally got to know the whole community.

About eight months later, I heard on the radio one day that when he was saying mass one Sunday evening, with about 40 or 50 people in the church, a couple of youths on a motorbike drew up outside, both of them wearing helmets. One stayed with the bike, the other one came in, and they put 17 shots into him, and obviously he died on the spot. His apparent sin—and I emphasize “apparent” because you never really know what is going on in Colombia—was that he had preached a sermon calling on all of the armed actors, that is to say the guerrillas, the paramilitaries, to not involve the civilian population in the conflict. In this particular one, it looked as though it was the FARC that had executed him. The FARC is the largest of the two rebel movements.

The third incident is a fairly common one. We have, as you know, as you'll see later in the presentation, a fairly large program of political asylum. I was paid a visit by a young fiscale. A fiscale is a state investigator who works for the office of the attorney general. This was a young woman about 24 or 25 years old. She came into the office with her husband. They had left security guards, who were their escorts, at the doors of the embassy because they're not allowed to come in with guns, and she told me her story.

She had been assigned a particularly sensitive case involving a very senior uniformed official allegedly in collusion with illegal right-wing paramilitaries. Half an hour after she had been assigned the case—and these investigators are assigned cases on an anonymous basis to protect themselves—she received a call on her cell phone from the very senior officer concerned, who said very politely, “I'm so pleased that you've got my case. Whenever you like, please come and visit me. I'd be delighted to help you with anything.” Of course their identity was supposed to be a complete secret.

When she did begin her investigations in the field, again she went completely unannounced. She was met by this very senior officer with a helicopter—“Why don't you step in? Let's go and have lunch.” From then onward, she started to receive phone calls at home, very short phone calls. The calls would say simply, “You have a lovely young baby” or “That's a nice little red Fiat you have”, and the phone would go down. This of course drove her to a state of complete desperation, and she came to us looking for political asylum, which she was subsequently granted.

• 0955

The fourth incident—you can probably tell I'm trying to give you an idea of the complexity of the situation here—was about a year ago, when I went up with the then desk officer for Colombia from Foreign Affairs who wanted to see a little of rural Colombia. We went up to a major refugee camp up in Urabá, in northwestern Colombia, and we were talking to the displaced persons there. We had a helicopter outside.

When we went out, there was nothing unusual except this rather different sound, a sound I had never heard before, and it was actually active gunfire. It was firing into the jungle about a kilometre away from the refugee camp. Subsequently, we went to talk to the young lieutenant in a little detachment of 12 soldiers there.

The lieutenant was maybe 21 years old. He was very relaxed about things. His men were running around, moving ammunition, loading things up, and he would occasionally say, you guys up there on that hill, you guys over here, dig in over here. But he was more interested in showing us photographs of his girlfriend, whom he was hoping to see in about a week's time. And he asked about Canada, whether it was cold here, saying he heard we had a war here. I said, “Well, it's not quite.” That's how the conversation went on. It was all rather surreal.

As we talked, a couple of OV-10s, which are Bronco light bombers, came in—and again, I had never heard this in real life. I'd only seen it in the movies, this kind of noise of thunder. They were bombing about a mile or two away.

As I was talking to the young lieutenant, he said, “Well, last night we picked up 11 separate radio transmissions, so we think there's a fairly major FARC unit out there.” So I said “How many?” He thought about 700 or 800 men. How far away? Just over the hill, about two kilometres. So at this point, we decided it was time to leave, and all during the night you could see the flares going up. Subsequently, I learned that the entire detachment of 12 or 15 men was either killed or captured by the FARC.

The final incident, just to give you a little different spin, is much more recent.

In August, a very popular TV personality by the name of Jaime Garzón, was assassinated. He did TV shows comparable to something like This Hour has 22 Minutes, that kind of political satire. He used to interview senior politicians and embarrass them, and so on. He was killed in a targeted hit in the streets in Bogotá.

There was national stupefaction—that's the only word I can say. Colombia had seen a lot, but this one really went over the top. I went down to the funeral ceremonies down in the main square. A quarter of a million people were there. They had a very short funeral service, and for hours afterward people just stood there, basically just in silence, with their little white flags, the flags of the Colombian peace movement that say No más!, which means “no more”. It was a very emotional scene, and there was a sense of despair, a lack of direction. These people just stood there and waved their flags. They really had no idea of what to do.

[Translation]

I think of these incidents constantly; they happen almost every week. Through these little stories I was trying to illustrate the complexity of the situation in Columbia. It is not just the paramilitary and the guerilla forces which are bad; everything is gray in Columbia. It is a country of victims. The situation is tragic in every way. It is really a very sad country.

[English]

The overall human rights situation—I'm going to move into my notes a little bit now, and move through this fairly quickly—is without a doubt the worst in this hemisphere. The gravest abuses occur in the context of the conflict involving the government, left-wing guerrillas of two separate armies and a number of smaller ones, and illegal right-wing paramilitaries.

• 1000

Peace talks have begun. They began on October 24 this year. They're moving very slowly, and to be honest, the chances of a very successful outcome in the short term are really quite remote. As my colleague Mr. Durand said, this takes place against the background of the severest economic recession ever seen in Colombia.

Just rapidly moving through the different categories of human rights abuses, in the classic definition of human rights, direct gross abuses of human rights by state actors—that is to say, the army and the police—are in decline and are now quite a small percentage of overall human rights abuses, maybe 5% if that. But the big problem here is not the direct abuses; it is collusion or sins of omission between the army and illegal right-wing paramilitaries, who are in turn responsible for the worst abuses.

There are major abuses by the guerrillas, who really pay scant regard to the concept of human rights or international humanitarian law. The vast majority of the country's kidnappings should be laid to the account of the guerrillas. This year we're going to be looking at maybe 2,800 reported kidnappings in Colombia, of which the guerrillas are responsible for between 60% and 75%. We've had three Canadians kidnapped this year. Of course, with this other incident in Ecuador, it remains to be seen who is responsible for that one.

We've also had aircraft hijacking—two hijackings this year, both by the guerrillas. Both groups routinely recruit children—minors—and a wide range of abuse is currently going on in the so-called demilitarized zone, which is in fact a FARC-controlled zone in southeastern Colombia.

Overall, the guerrillas are to blame for maybe 20% to 25% of the most serious abuses.

[Translation]

Paramilitaries are responsible for the other major abuses, or some 70% of them. Typically their victims are the civilian population, whom they see as being an ally of the guerillas. This is the tragic aspect of the situation in Columbia. The two parties in the conflict, the guerillas and the paramilitaries, both attack the civilian population. They do not fight with each other directly. The civilian population finds itself caught in the crossfire.

[English]

Also, NGO activists, union leaders, and particular initiatives like Communities of Peace are prime targets of the paramilitary movement. The paramilitary movement is of course completely illegal, but the big problem, as I mentioned, is collusion or sins of omission on the part of the armed forces.

Then we have abuses by criminals. Narcotrafficking is of course rampant in Colombia in spite of the end of the Cali and Medellín cartels. Narcotrafficking and drug production are at their highest levels ever and continue to grow. That industry corrupts everything in Colombia. It also plays a key role in sustaining the guerrilla movement and the paramilitary movement. In many ways, people ask why this guerrilla movement has gone on so long. It's because they're completely financially self-sustaining. They do not need any external support.

The Chair: Self-sustaining through the sale of drugs?

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: Well, not directly through the sale. I should explain that. They're not a cartel in the sense that the Medellín and Cali cartels were, in that they do not market the drugs. What they do is protect and tax the business. For example, I've seen in southern Colombia an actual price list of what they charge. For a narcotrafficker to land a light plane there, have it protected, and have the plane take off, it costs $18,000 U.S. For gasoline and cement to go in—those are critical elements in producing cocaine—again, they'll charge a percentage.

So they do not market, they don't have contacts abroad marketing it, but it's taxation of the industry.

The Chair: Action money.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: The principal social effect of the war is forced displacement on a massive level. This year we're looking at a quarter of a million civilians displaced. The agents responsible for the displacement principally are the paramilitaries, followed a close second by the guerrillas. The armed forces are in third place.

As for the government response to all of this, it has an integrated human rights strategy, rather belatedly; however, its human rights agencies are underfunded and understaffed. The government cooperates fully with the UN agencies in Colombia, and I would like to mention one particular agency of the government that does an excellent job, and that's the Fiscalía—that's the office of the attorney general. This is the office from which, for example, the judge I mentioned came from. They do very lonely, pioneering work. In a typical year, anywhere between 15 and 30 judges or investigators are killed because they're getting too close to highly connected military or police officers or even politicians.

• 1005

Collusion between mid-ranking and junior officers is of course a responsibility of the state. It's probably the single major human rights abuse that can be laid to the government. Typically what happens is that the army and police will become aware of a paramilitary operation, and they will simply do nothing about it, because from their point of view it suits them. The paras are taking on the guerrillas. The paras then do their mayhem, and again there is no pursuit.

There's a growing NGO movement, which is getting stronger and stronger. Particularly promising this year has been the development of the so-called No más!, or “No more!”, movement. It began as an anti-kidnapping movement, and it is now broader than that. The current demands of the movement are an immediate ceasefire, and an end to kidnapping and to abuses of international humanitarian law by the guerrillas and the paramilitaries. Those are the three principal demands. In what I think is an unprecedented phenomenon or achievement, on October 24 this year 12 million Colombians marched in support of those three positions.

[Translation]

Let us talk about what Canada is doing. My colleague Ms. Goulet will say a few words about the various programs provided by CIDA. Generally speaking, we bring up the question of human rights at all high-level meetings. When the President came here in May or in June of this year, the Prime Minister and Minister Axworthy referred to this matter.

At the embassy level, we make constant efforts.

[English]

In the embassy we keep a running track of the démarches and the letters or verbal conversations we have on human rights. Over the last three years we've raised 63 groups of cases. Some of them are individual cases, while some of them are groups. We keep a file on that, and we keep all the correspondence in the embassy. I have a little track of those, if anybody would care to look at the correspondence afterwards. So every week or ten days we're raising some kind of case. We also put out regular press releases condemning particular abuses and so on.

We try to get out and about in the country as much as we can to show the flag and also to display solidarity with local and international NGOs. I'm delighted to see an old friend here from Peace Brigades International. I think they do a tremendous job in Colombia. We try to get out and show that we support their work. Just by physically being there, having a foreign diplomat on the ground, one would hope, does deter the armed actors a little bit. In particular, I've been accompanying a number of so-called return processors, who are working with the displaced and trying to guarantee the conditions for safe returns.

What more can we do? What more should we do? From the embassy's point of view, you can be assured that human rights will be absolutely central to our dialogue with the Government of Colombia. In fact I would say it is the central issue. We're also working with the Colombian government at this time to develop a bilateral human security agenda and a number of cooperative activities, some of them with CIDA support. A number of activities will be shared. Really, the object of that is to try to work toward creating a climate of peace.

We have our source country refugee program. In the year 2000, if our targets are met, we'll be looking at 450 political refugees coming from Colombia. These are typically union activists, people from left-wing political parties, people who work in human rights NGOs, and people who have been threatened with death by one or more of the warring groups. They're basically persons who would probably not survive were they to stay in Colombia, while still engaged in perfectly legitimate work. That will mean we take more political refugees than all the other western embassies put together.

What more can or should Colombia do? Most of the correct legislation is now on the books. There's a slight correction to my written presentation. Just four days ago Colombia finally passed legislation criminalizing forced disappearance. Eleven years after that legislation had been tabled, it was finally passed just four days ago. We've been pressing that for a long time, as have the United Nations.

• 1010

The Chair: Do you mean that before it wasn't a criminal offence in Colombia to kidnap somebody?

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: To kidnap and kill them. Previously, in crude terms, you had to have a body—

The Chair: A dead one.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: —yes, in order to pursue a crime.

On forced disappearance, I have the numbers later on in my presentation. Approximately 200 people—this is a very Latin American phrase—“have been disappeared” this year. That means they are abducted, often by the paramilitary and sometimes by agents of the state, and simply disappear. The assumption is that they've been killed. But this was not actually a criminal offence until four days ago.

The principal action the government can and should take is to take energetic and decisive steps to cut all links between the army and the paramilitaries. There have been a lot of presidential statements to that effect. The reality is that collusion and omission still go on to a great extent.

We also need a much greater degree of commitment to the protection of unionists and human rights activists and initiatives such as Communities of Peace and an integrated strategy for this huge phenomenon of the internally displaced. At the moment the official policies are simply chaotic.

The recommendations to the guerrillas and the paramilitaries are that, first of all, they should agree to government calls for an immediate ceasefire. With some hope, we might get a temporary ceasefire for Christmas. Obviously they should cease kidnapping, make real commitments to the basic tenets of international and humanitarian law, and disavow all involvement in the narcotics trade.

What can other players do? I hesitate to say this, because obviously the NGO movement does exactly what it likes and that's how it should be, but we'd like to see more Canadian NGOs taking an interest in Colombia. We'd like to see them working together and developing relationships with Colombian NGOs. Above all, we'd like to see more Canadian members of civil society getting to know the complexity of the problem in Colombia.

We'd also strongly encourage parliamentarians to develop links. I think Madame Beaumier was on the verge of coming down to an event in 10 days' time in the Colombian senate, but she had other commitments. The embassy is delighted to receive delegations and to organize visits. Don't worry too much about the security.

[Translation]

Ms. Debien has already visited us and she can tell you some things. But here she is, in good form.

Some hon. Members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: Ms. Debien is very fierce. She always carries a machine gun, even when she comes here to the committee.

Ms. Maud Debien: It is the way I speak.

[English]

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: The principal recommendation I would have is to try to make every effort to comprehend the complexity of the situation in Colombia. I cannot overemphasize the complexity. There are very few black and whites. It is very difficult to give a concise rendering in just a few minutes of why Colombia is what it is.

[Translation]

Thank you for your time and your attention.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, sir, for your very interesting first-hand report, fresh from the source, as it were. I appreciate it.

[Translation]

Ms. Goulet, you are going to give us your point of view on AIDS and also on CIDA.

Ms. Joanne Goulet (Director, Brazil, Southern Cone, Columbia, South America Division, Canadian International Development Agency): Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to thank you very much for giving CIDA the opportunity to speak to you and taking part in this meeting. I cannot possibly equal the eloquence of the evidence which you have heard from representatives of the NGOs last week or of my colleague here, Mr. Coghlan. I can only admire the work of those people who are in direct contact or exposed to violence. I would like to give you an idea of what CIDA does, particularly with respect to projects directly or indirectly linked to human rights. I will be speaking mainly about projects related to human rights but I will also mention some others in passing.

CIDA's current Development Cooperation Program in Columbia has three key objectives: these are to increase equity and respect for human rights, to improve good governance and to promote sustainable economic growth.

• 1015

In addition to projects specifically designed to achieve these three objectives, there is a debt-conversion fund. Canada has forgiven Columbia's debt, allowing payments to be made directly to a local fund which finances environmental projects conceived and implemented by local institutions which aim to improve management of the country's rich natural resources and promote respect for the environment. The fund is also helping to increase indigenous and community participation in environmental decision-making in these areas.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Svend J. Robinson (Burnaby—Douglas, NDP): I'm sorry to interrupt the witness, Mr. Chairman, but just in the interests of time, I wonder whether it's her intention to read all five pages, line by line, or whether she might summarize the key points in the presentation. Then there'd be a bit of an opportuntiy for dialogue. I'm not sure what her intention is, but we can read this.

Ms. Joanne Goulet: Not having done this very many times before—in fact this is my first appearance—I was afraid to miss some of the important points. But if you like, I can try to condense this into five minutes and skip some points.

The Chair: It would be helpful. Since you do have the written presentation, madam, we would appreciate that very much. Otherwise, we'll have only 35 minutes for questions, because Mr. Good will come before the committee at 11 a.m.

If you could compress it a bit, then, we'll have more of a chance to get into the details with you by way of questions.

Ms. Joanne Goulet: All right. I will do my best.

The Chair: Thank you. I appreciate that.

[Translation]

Ms. Joanne Goulet: If I may, I would like to close by saying a few words about the humanitarian assistance which CIDA provides to victims of armed conflict through the program. We try to draw as much as possible from International Humanitarian Assistance programs and the Peacebuilding Fund to develop the co-operation program which we have. You all know that CIDA has experienced rather severe budget restrictions.

We are dealing with a country which is changing a great deal, and our programs were developed in 1994 and 1995. At that time, we established specific objectives and grouped projects to build this program. Since 1994 and 1995 however, the conflict has greatly intensified. The number of displaced persons has increased. We have therefore tried to use all possible sources of funding, bringing them together and using the Peacebuilding Fund and International Humanitarian Assistance to complete our projects.

We are in the process of reviewing our programs. We know that some things are no longer up-to-date and that others must be changed. Although many basic elements remain valid and may help to resolve the problems of the Columbia of today, we realize that some things must change. We hope that resources will be assigned to the programs and may be used to increase programming in the area of human rights, for example, and assistance to victims of armed conflict.

It is hard to know exactly what should be done in Columbia. That is why we, just as much as you, are trying to understand these very complex problems. We cannot simply say that we will send Columbia a cheque to help it solve its problems. CIDA's resources will never be great enough to have an important impact. Rather we are trying to identify areas where we can make a difference.

Where can we find the necessary Canadian expertise? How can we help Colombians find their own solutions? We are looking for ideas along these lines. We hope that last week's presentation along with today's will help move this reflection forward.

At the present time, there are two of us in Columbia. The people who look after the Colombian program are there to meet with various representatives from the Colombian government, other donors and the NGOs. They are trying to get information from them which would make it possible to develop the major outlines of our new program. We hope that in a few months' time, we will have an idea of our future program.

• 1020

[English]

Mr. Robinson has knocked me off track here.

Voices: Oh, oh!

The Chair: You're doing fine. You can handle Mr. Robinson just fine.

Ms. Joanne Goulet: There are a couple of other points I would like to make. When we're talking about addressing the development challenges in Colombia, we have to address the questions of both human development and human security. Beyond questions of basic human needs, when we're talking about human development—and I know this is in my presentation, but I would like to say it anyway—we have to look at questions of equity.

We're talking about equitable access to a whole range of resources. We're talking about access to not only land and natural resources but also to employment, to the political decision-making process, and to telecommunications facilities in order to be able to communicate across the country.

One of the issues put on the table last week was that there is a considerable amount of money in the programming we now have in oil and gas and telecommunications. I'd like to make the point that in terms of telecommunications, it's not just a question of looking at the titles of the projects; it's important to look at what it is we're doing in these projects.

With regard to telecommunications, we've worked with Colombia to help them open up their industry, to make telecommunications access widely available. The liberalization has increased by several hundredfold the access to telecommunications, which is what terrorists try to cut off. Disinformation is an excellent tool for terrorists. We're trying to work in those areas to make it more broadly available.

So I think it's also important to look at the actual “what”, not just the titles of our projects. You have a list of the activities we are doing through various projects that Canada funds in all sorts of areas. We have dozens of projects. Many are small, but some are larger.

One in particular I would like to mention has been going on for a few years. It's with the international committee for human rights in Geneva, the ICRC. It has been working, at another level, with regard to training the military in all of the countries of South America in international humanitarian rights law and getting that incorporated into their training.

The reasoning behind this is that if you can reach some of the people who are perpetrators of what is going on now, training them young, making allies with ICRC—and we have a Canadian who is leading this program for the ICRC—then perhaps we can have an influence further down the line.

We are doing a great deal in human rights, although it's never enough, and we intend to continue working with Colombia. Any suggestions are welcome.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Madam Goulet. I think you put it very well when you said we should be trying to figure out how we can use Canadian experience and expertise in a way that enables Colombians to find solutions appropriate to their situation, which, as our previous witness indicated to us, is unfortunately very difficult to understand. It's a very complex situation.

The committee would like to try to find some positive ways we could reinforce helpful things in Colombia, so if you have any recommendations in that respect, we would be most interested in hearing them when we question you.

[Translation]

Ms. Debien, do you have any questions?

Ms. Maud Debien: Yes, Mr. Graham.

Good morning to you. Welcome to our committee. I would like to thank you for your excellent presentation. What you have said is very similar to what we were told by most of the NGOs which met with us last week. Their accounts were also dramatic. Just like you, we wonder what should be done and where we should concentrate our efforts with respect to Mexico.

Mr. Durand, you said in your intervention that the Colombian government had abdicated and in spite of all efforts at negotiating a peace, the situation was virtually inextricable.

• 1025

You also said that even though all the people of good faith there are trying to do something, they are often overwhelmed by events. The situation is a complicated one as everyone continues to tell us. Last week, we heard from a young Colombian who worked with an NGO in Colombia. He told us there were three possible scenarios: exclusion or a state of permanent warfare; military intervention to pacify the country; or negotiated political solutions.

I asked Mr. Garzon, who was representing one of the NGOs last week, why Colombia and the civil society in Colombia were refusing a pacification intervention. Mr. Garzon did not answer my question directly, but at the end of his presentation he repeated what he had said at the beginning, that the situation in his country was deplorable and he himself wanted to see a negotiated political intervention.

I would like to hear your opinion. We have seen situations elsewhere in the world—I am thinking of Haiti, for example—which have been quite similar. The context was different, of course, but the situation was just as dramatic as that in Colombia and there was a peacekeeping intervention. I would like your opinion on this. What do you think about bringing in peacekeeping forces or pacification attempts or some other form of humanitarian intervention, however you would refer to it? Our Minister of Foreign Affairs often talks about human security. Do you think we can consider this a question of human security, of humanitarian intervention? I would like to hear what you have to say about this.

My second question has to do with Canadian businesses. Mr. Durand told us that Canadian businesses were very active in Colombia in telecommunications, I believe it was in mining and hydrocarbon operations. As you know, when the latter development first commenced, there existed at that time the Pacifico Plan. I don't know whether it is still known by the same name. There was very considerable opposition from Aboriginal peoples to the Pacifico Plan, which allowed mining and hydrocarbon extraction over a vast region.

The CIDA document seems to say—although it is not very clear—that black and native communities were consulted. For my part, I have heard these were mere token consultations. I would like to hear your opinion on that point as well.

My third question is—

The Chair: I am afraid that he will not have enough time to answer you.

Ms. Maud Debien: I'm finished, but I would like another opportunity because I have several more questions.

The Chair: There will not be time for an answer if you ask a third question. You have used up five minutes for your questions. How much is there for the answers?

Ms. Maud Debien: Very well, but I have ten minutes.

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Paul Durand: With respect to your question on peacekeeping operations in Colombia, I have to say that such an intervention would have no chance of success. It is not possible to act from outside to control the situation in Colombia. It is totally impossible. I do not think that anybody is seriously thinking about such a solution for Colombia.

Ms. Maud Debien: But why?

Mr. Paul Durand: It is a huge country with very rugged terrain, jungles and mountains. There are vast regions which are not even under the control of the Colombian government. There are regions to which there is no access. It would be totally impossible.

• 1030

A few months ago there were rumours that the Americans were thinking of intervening. I spoke to some Americans involved in the fight against narcotics and they confirmed to me that they had never thought of occupying Colombia. Colombians do not pay even enough taxes to support an army which is sufficiently well disciplined and equipped to do things themselves. The sons of the wealthy in Colombia do not perform their military service, they prefer to avoid it by offering bribes. There is very little motivation. There is no inclination to be involved in such interventions after Vietnam.

You had some questions about Canadian businesses operating in Columbia.

Ms. Maud Debien: Yes.

Mr. Paul Durand: You mentioned the Pacifico Plan relating to the construction of a new canal.

Ms. Maud Debien: Yes.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: The last president of Columbia, President Samper, presented the Pacifico Plan in 1995, if I remember correctly. I know the area, a little, the Darien Peninsula, where the canal we have been talking about for some 80 years was to be built and is linked to the Pan-American highway. Quite honestly I do not think that anyone would be interested in investing in such a project. It would be absolutely crazy. This project just remained on paper and, as far as I know, no one talks about it anymore.

You are, however, correct in saying that there have been rumours to the effect that some major multinationals were interested in it. The Darien Peninsula region is in a state of war. No foreign investor would invest there in the present situation. Apparently these rumours created a great deal of false hope about the value of neighbouring land. Some people think that this sort of speculation may have drawn paramilitaries to this region. Personally, I would not speculate on the value of that land.

Ms. Joanne Goulet: Your last question was about consulting indigenous people. The consultation process referred to in Columbia was not really a consultation process. The people were brought together and were given the information. That was what they called a consultation process.

We have taken some action and have participated in drawing up the most recent mining code. Thanks to our efforts, there is now a legal obligation to carry out true consultations and reach an agreement with the people involved. It is a first step. At the present time we are giving workshops on the Canadian consultation model in order to move this process forward.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also share Ms. Debien's concerns, particularly with regard to the role of Canadian corporations in Columbia.

[English]

I'd like to thank the witnesses for their presentation, and in particular Mr. Coghlan for coming directly from Colombia to share in a very powerful way his personal observations about the tragedy in that country and also to acknowledge the important work done by CIDA in the human rights area. I look forward to reading the brief.

I have questions in three or four areas. I'll be very brief and just put the questions directly. The first is with respect to export control policies and specifically exports to the military.

When they appeared last week, ICCHRLA reminded us that in February 1999 the Canadian government was actively promoting new opportunities and further sales in the aviation field to Colombia's police and armed forces. We've heard about the repression from these armed forces, in particular the possibility of future sales of helicopters. I want to ask specifically what actions the Canadian embassy is taking to ensure that there is, in the words of our export controls policy, no reasonable risk that the goods might be used against the civilian population. Do we follow up on sales of these helicopters? Do we know what battalions they go to, how they're used? Very precisely, I'd like an answer to that question.

• 1035

In terms of human rights generally, I recall attending sessions of the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Church groups, NGOs, and the UN itself were pleading with the Government of Canada to speak out on these issues, and we were definitely silent. It wasn't in fact until 1995 that Canada finally even spoke on these issues at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. I welcome our recent activism, and I think we have to put it in that context.

Madame Debien mentioned consultations with aboriginal peoples. We heard in this committee, in the middle of last month, very moving testimony from a member of the Embera Katio Nation about the impact on his people of a dam financed in part by our Canadian Export Development Corporation. Since his evidence, we understand that in fact the reservoir has been filling and this is having a disastrous impact on these people.

Given our financial commitment to this, what is our government doing to ensure that the Embera are being provided with compensation, at least, for this loss? Are we involved in talks on this issue?

The recommendations of the two tribunals, Toronto and Montreal, urged the Government of Canada to play a role in bringing to justice those responsible for the appalling massacre in Barrancabermeja. What is the government's response on those important recommendations with respect to bringing to justice the perpetrators of that massacre?

The Chair: There are three questions. Who wants to take the first one?

Mr. Paul Durand: Nick, I think you can cover the aviation equipment.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: As you know, this issue has been around for a number of years, since the first sales in 1994-95, I believe. I suppose I would say there's a fundamental problem in that the current legislation is such that all of these sales that have so far taken place were not subject to the export control regime, if you like. In other words, they did not pass over the desk of our export controls folks at Foreign Affairs, the reason being that they are all civilian certified equipment, such as Bell Helicopters from Mirabel.

Unless the character of the equipment is such that they're classed as military, the current legislation is such that we have no say over the sales and whether they go ahead or not. I guess what I'm saying is that the legislation doesn't cover this particular instance.

Mr. Svend Robinson: But the legislation doesn't prevent the embassy from following up to see whether these helicopters have been refitted with military equipment. Are they in fact being used against the civilian population? Unless we follow up, how do we know there's no reasonable risk that they might be used against the civilian population?

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: I think it's entirely possible that they may by now have armoured floors, armoured seats, and possibly door guns. The helicopters are used principally by the national police in protecting crop-spraying planes.

Mr. Paul Durand: That's for the eradication of cocaine.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: Yes, crop spraying for the eradication of cocoa and poppies as well. Unfortunately the eradication activities do require armed escorts. The Colombia police in an average year lose several hundred police to incoming fire when they are attempting to undertake either crop spraying or going in on laboratory takedowns. If they're running interference, they require armoured floors.

Mr. Svend Robinson: But do we know they're not being used in any other military battalion?

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: Yes. We know they're not used in the military per se. They're painted different colours. The police helicopters are specifically used in the anti-narcotics battalions of the police, which are white helicopters with green stripes on them. Those helicopters are not available for use by the military.

• 1040

The Chair: Thank you. That's very helpful, because it's very difficult in these situations to know who's a civilian and who isn't. But I think we'd all accept that if it were part of the fight against drug trafficking, and at least a legitimate police operation. That's what I got from the answer.

Mr. Svend Robinson: If we could perhaps get some written confirmation on exactly what this policy is, that would be helpful.

The Chair: That's very helpful. Thank you.

Second question.

Mr. Paul Durand: You referred to the dam that was partially financed by EDC. I think the EDC financing amounted to something like 3% of the total value of the project, and provided some turbines and other electronic equipment for it.

When they committed that financing some years ago, as I understand it, it was with the understanding that there was going to be a process of negotiation with the people affected by it. In fact, there was such a process, and I understand that 50% of the people affected by this have accepted the offer of the Colombian government; the other 50% have not. The EDC, as far as I know, has not intervened in that process, and I'm not sure they would be obligated to.

I think EDC generally has a good reputation in that when they know they're getting into a situation, whether it's environmental, human rights or otherwise, they're quite cautious.

Mr. Svend Robinson: I appreciate that EDC is involved in this process, but that doesn't preclude the Government of Canada, perhaps through the embassy, from urging the Colombian government to ensure there is acceptable compensation and the rights of the Embera are not further violated. Can that not be one of the initiatives taken by the embassy?

Mr. Paul Durand: Well, if 50% accepted it, maybe it is considered acceptable.

The Chair: At least 50% of the gentlemen who came to see us thought it was disastrous for the community, but apart from that the pressure was coming from paramilitaries who were just coming in and killing people. It wasn't a question of negotiations, it was—

Mr. Paul Durand: Take it or leave it.

The Chair: —take it or get shot. That was the evidence we heard, anyway. I don't know if you know anything about that specific situation.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Maybe Mr. Coghlan....

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: I would add that the region in general, the whole Cordoba area, is the stronghold of the paramilitary movement in Colombia. It's where the movement was born.

As the paramilitaries go on their various rampages.... One gets into some rather macabre relativism in Colombia, but it's difficult to say exactly what the motivation is behind particular massacres and what their objective is. Certainly there's been a lot of forced displacement from that area and threats, but it's not as simple as paramilitaries coming in and saying “Get out of here or we'll kill you, because we want to clear this area for the dam.” If it were, I think we would have actionable grounds, as it were.

The paramilitaries operate on many motives. Sometimes it's on behalf of landowners, and there are narcotics trafficking interests as well. There certainly have been allegations in the past that large companies—BP fought these allegations for many years—were supposedly in league with paramilitaries.

Mr. Svend Robinson: I'm just asking that the Canadian government raise these concerns in our discussions with the Government of Colombia. Can that not be done?

The Chair: Mr. Coghlan, we'll send you a copy of the evidence we have had before the committee on the EDC issue. Maybe you could raise that when you're down there—

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: I personally discussed this with the environment minister just about 10 days ago, which was the day he signed the filling authorization. He said it was not a decision he was very comfortable with at all, but he had weighed it and gone through the entire process, and so on and so forth. He himself has an NGO background. He said he was not comfortable with the situation, but felt the Colombian government had complied with its obligations under the legislation, and he signed the authorization.

Mr. Svend Robinson: So you will be following up on this issue.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: Yes.

The Chair: The third question.

Mr. Svend Robinson: This is the last question on the issue of the tribunal recommendation. There are two tribunals, actually.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: There are three if you count the one in their answer as well.

• 1045

If you don't mind, I'll read a couple of things here, because these are legal matters, and I'm no lawyer myself. I'd like to add that I think the whole exercise of the tribunal was incredibly positive in raising the profile of this particular issue of army-police collusion with paramilitaries. It got a lot of press in Colombia and was on the front page for several days in Le Spectador, which is the second daily newspaper. So it was tremendously valuable, in that sense.

If I can just comment on a couple of these from our legal advisers—forgive me for being very bureaucratic—under section 7 of the Criminal Code, Canada can only take criminal jurisdiction over the persons suspected of the Barranquilla massacre and disappearances if they are “found on Canadian territory”. The person to be found on Canadian territory would obviously not have knowingly been given a visa to come to Canada. So they would have had to show up here illegally.

The second comment from the lawyers was that in order to have a trial against the individuals suspected of crimes—in this case in Barranquilla—the forum chosen must be the most likely to achieve success. Any procedural and legal irregularities that could cause the prosecution to fail must therefore be avoided. Such irregularities would include the absence of a legal basis for transfer to Canada. In other words, if a person came here illegally, we would apparently have problems trying them.

The lawyers add that the greatest chance for success for the prosecution of such individuals rests with Colombia, where the crimes were committed and where all the witnesses and evidence are. They also add that ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court by Colombia might provide Colombian authorities with a useful option for prosecution of the most serious crimes in the future.

They have in fact ratified that.

The Chair: Thank you.

I have Madame Augustine and Mr. Patry on my list.

Madame Augustine.

Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to say how pleased I am to hear the witnesses. I also want to add words of welcome back—and for a breathing space for you, Mr. Coghlan, when you get back there.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: I'll probably get mugged when I leave here.

Ms. Jean Augustine: Oh, it happens. One of our colleagues was fairly recently—

The Chair: You didn't go to Seattle last week, by any chance?

Ms. Jean Augustine: I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask.

As I listened to the NGO groups last week and heard their beginning remarks on the level of abuses in Colombia, I wondered how we could have Colombia as one of our largest markets in South America, with exporting and the movement of goods and services between us at the level we are working with them, while at the same time seeing the level of the abuses there. I'm just trying to put that around my own head.

At the same time, how can we use those economic interests and advance human rights, in light of our own economic interests? That's a question that's out there all the time with the general public. What are we doing operating with bad guys and in these places where a lot of awful things are happening to people?

I'm grappling with that. I know the answer in a certain way, but at the same time it is really very difficult to span and bring the two things together.

Secondly, I want to ask about the neighbouring states, because I'm sure refugees are not just looking for political asylum in places like Canada. They must be crossing state lines. Is CIDA assisting the refugee situation in neighbouring states in any way? Are we, in some way, assisting people to get to neighbouring states, rather than directly to Canada?

I turned the radio on a few days ago at the end of a program, and I'd like some explanation around something that was being discussed at the time called Plan Colombia. They were talking about the fact that the United States and Europe were proceeding with caution and Canada should be proceeding with caution also. I want to ask if you can speak a little bit about this Plan Colombia. What is that plan, and is CIDA involved in reshaping that plan or that program?

• 1050

The Chair: Mr. Durand.

Mr. Paul Durand: On the trade one first, Ms. Augustine, I understand your concerns. It's so hard to keep Colombia in perspective, but it is a country of 39 million people and most of those people live what for them is a normal life. They do have a democratically elected government that is admittedly ineffectual in many ways, but it is trying its best to deal with the problems it has.

Canadian companies are dealing with the vast majority of the people in Colombia who are decent, law-abiding people and good business partners. I think the government's belief is that it's better to trade with countries than to try to close them off and seal them away from everyday life and everyday commerce. So we don't see a direct connection between trade and the abuses, although I understand how you may feel. It makes one feel rather queasy to be trading with a country where such reprehensible things are going on, but I think these things have to be isolated to some extent.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: On refugees moving into neighbouring states, this is at the moment a small cloud on the horizon, but it is growing as a problem or a potential problem. Where I was just this time last week, up in the Darien, this was a group part of whom in 1997 fled over the border into Panama, in fact, to escape paramilitary incursions. That issue was not handled very satisfactorily by the Colombian or the Panamanian authorities. Basically, they were forcibly repatriated to a different location, a relatively safe location. But certainly it was not very well handled.

There have also been, more recently, some larger-scale displacements into Venezuela because of paramilitary incursions into Santander department—groups of up to 2,000 or 3,000 people just getting over the river into Venezuela.

Typically, in most of these cases so far, the first choice of those people has been to come back. At the moment we don't have a phenomenon of permanent camps in neighbouring countries. It's conceivable in the future, if the violence continues to rise, that these people will feel their best option is permanent relocation outside Colombia. At the moment, that is not so.

For example, in the cases we have in the embassy on our refugee program, we don't typically get your campesino, the peasant, who has been displaced. Their first choice is...they're always hopeful they will be able to go back. Of course that's international refugee policy. That's the policy of the UNHCR, High Commissioner for Refugees, to always try to push that option as far as possible. Having said that, they're looking for safe return and there are very few safe places in the Colombian countryside. So that certainly is a looming problem.

Plan Colombia: This is a very ambitious, $7 billion plan that has been about a year in gestation. It was recently accelerated with considerable assistance from the United States State Department—a lot of input into that plan. It calls for, as I said, $7 billion of investment in a whole range of areas, ranging from infrastructure, bridges, schools, health, alternatives to development, telecommunications, and so on. The idea of Plan Colombia is that it's basically a development plan that is targeted at, how can I say, removing the ideological raison d'être of the guerrillas, which is poverty and social deprivation in the more remote parts of Colombia. It's aimed at undermining that ideological element that is undoubtedly behind part of the guerrilla movement, at least.

It's a very ambitious plan—$7 billion. The Colombian government itself has indicated the intention of financing half of it. The remaining $3.5 billion is going to be looking for foreign support. Until about a month ago, the U.S. had...well, the U.S. has pretty much pledged $1.5 billion to that. It got held up in Congress, and I think most of that money has actually gone to the United Nations now. Nevertheless, President Clinton has indicated his commitment; he's still very committed to that.

We have not been approached directly in terms of signing the cheque, no. But as I think Ms. Goulet will indicate, we're looking at some of the areas in Plan Colombia to see how we might be of assistance.

• 1055

Ms. Joanne Goulet: That's correct. In terms of assistance to refugees in neighbouring countries, as far as I'm aware, no. I will check, however, and should that information be incorrect, I will, if you permit me, send you something in writing.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Joanne Goulet: Secondly, in Plan Colombia, as Mr. Coghlan has said, what we're trying to do now is look at those portions of the plan where we think there may be something to offer as we reshape and reorient our program to bring it more in line with what the requirements are now. So we're looking at those areas that deal possibly with human rights, displaced people, and the discussions with the Government of Colombia as to where they want us, where they think we would be of most use.

The Chair: Thank you.

Bernard Patry.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernard Patry: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would like to congratulate this morning's witnesses for their excellent work and the quality of their comments.

I would like to return briefly to the Export Development Corporation, which some witnesses and my colleagues were speaking about last week. Some representatives of the First Nations came here, to the Canadian Parliament, to tell us about the famous $700 million dam in which Canada has invested $18 million.

I agree that economic development in a country should always be linked to human rights and environmental protection. Some people went even further. They told us that the Canadian government, through CIDA, should not invest at the economic or human level in countries where human rights are not respected.

I have the following question for you as an official, as first secretary at the embassy. When Canadians want to invest in an economic development project with which Canada is associated, for example, through the EDC, are you consulted? Are you asked to prepare a report or evaluation with respect to human rights or does this not come under your purview?

You said at the beginning that Canada had completely forgiven the debt, but that payments were being made to certain Columbian NGOs or organizations concerned with environmental protection for example. I would like to know a bit more about this. I did not know about this before, that Canada was not being paid, but money was going to Columbians.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: Obviously some Canadian investors consult us, while others do not. We are asked questions primarily about security and we take the opportunity to warn them against certain dangers. For example, when a mining company is going to be working in the countryside, we always explain the situation which exists there. We particularly advise them not to pay what are known as vacunas to the guerillas and not to have any contact with either the guerillas or the paramilitaries. We also point out how important it is to obey all the laws. We have no power of inquiry and we are therefore not able to tell you to what extent the companies follow our advice. But we always make this effort.

Regarding investment policy and public development assistance, as you no doubt know, we always publish an annual report on human rights. Indeed, we have just put out our last report, which we tabled ten days ago. We have given you the abridged version. My colleagues from CIDA and from the other departments consult the report before making decisions on behalf of the government.

Regarding your question about ECOFONDO—

Ms. Joanne Goulet: Canada has allowed several debtor countries, such as Columbia, to repay their debt by investing money in an environmental management improvement program. We are not the only country to do this, as the United States have also taken similar initiatives.

• 1100

The Columbian NGO ECOFONDO was created to manage a debt conversion fund and to assign funding for projects carried out by Columbian communities. Money is not paid out directly to Columbians, but there is now an organization which chooses projects, which finances them, which monitors their progress on site and then files a report.

[English]

The Chair: Maybe I can just follow up with Dr. Patry's first question, because this does go right to the core of the EDC review we're presently doing.

EDC's position is that it follows government policies in respect of environmental and human rights and other abuses. Obviously it would be obligated to follow those in respect of international law and international covenants of Canada.

The question is, how does it ascertain what those are? I mean, you've told us this dam we're talking about in this situation is located in one of the worst places of possible conflict in Colombia. So it would seem appropriate from my perspective that someone from EDC might have at least called you or somebody in the embassy to find out what's going on there before they got involved. That seemed to be the thrust of Dr. Patry's question. Your answer seems to be that sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Well, if they don't, how do they know what our policies are or what we're doing?

That's really where we're going, I think, Dr. Patry, and maybe that's not relevant to this issue as much as to our EDC review issue, but it's certainly relevant.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: Certainly EDC, being a crown corporation, has a certain arm's-length arrangement, I suppose. Those decisions were made back before my watch. They have access to this document, yes, which is normally classified confidential, but they have access to it—this document that is basically a review of the human rights situation. One would hope they read it.

The Chair: One can always hope.

We're over the time. I see Mr. Good is here. Don't forget we've only got an hour with him, and CIDA is a big issue for us.

Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Mr. Chairman, this is just a very brief follow-up actually on that question. Mr. Coghlan referred to two documents. One, I believe he read from a document concerning the legal response to the tribunal recommendations. I wonder if that could be tabled with the committee. It would be helpful for us certainly to have that kind of response.

Secondly, this annual review of human rights in Colombia would obviously be of significant interest to this committee, as a committee of Parliament, as well. I wondered whether we might be able to have that tabled with the committee.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: What you have in the longer document is an abridged version of it. I'm afraid this is a bit beyond my power; they're normally classified confidential.

Mr. Paul Durand: We'll look into it and see if we can. The abridged version contains a great deal of information.

Mr. Svend Robinson: I appreciate that, but this is a document that is shared with EDC, with CIDA, with others. One would hope the Parliament of Canada would be in a position as well to review this document.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: It's really tough talking, some of it; that's why this book.

The Chair: Mr. Robinson, as you know, there are many government documents that circulate within the government itself that are confidential, and as a result they're protected from release under the oath of office, and provisions of whatever it is. So the parliamentary secretary can get them because he has been sworn in, etc. We don't get access necessarily to everything. We'll see what we can do.

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: We'll be glad to check into it. If we can get it for you, you'd be more than welcome to it, because it's an excellent document.

The Chair: If it's confidential and it's classified, if we're going to try to get it we would have to agree that it was going to be in camera and it wouldn't be circulated, and all that stuff.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Well, the State Department every year does a comprehensive review of human rights policy, which is a public document. It seems to be similar to that.

And then on the other document?

Mr. Nicholas Coghlan: I'll check with our lawyers on that.

The Chair: I know, Mr. Robinson, with your sensitivity to international proprieties, you wouldn't like to suggest that this committee follow the American extraterritorial example of—

Mr. Svend Robinson: Transparency and openness?

The Chair: No, I'm not saying transparency and openness; I'm saying Cuba.

Anyway, thanks very much. It was very helpful for you to come before us. We appreciate it.

• 1105

Members, this afternoon at the steering committee we'll circulate a draft resolution, which we'll bring back to the main committee, on the Colombia issue. We'll make sure you get a copy.

Ms. Jean Augustine: Do you have copies?

The Chair: You want more, Jean?

Ms. Jean Augustine: There's nothing there that's new except one—

The Chair: Okay, we're going to get Mr. Good to the table. We'll take a two-minute break.

• 1106

• 1113

The Chair: Members, we really should get going. Some of us have some 12 o'clock meetings, and Mr. Good is excellent to have before us.

Mr. Good, it's a pleasure to welcome you to the committee for your first appearance as the president of CIDA. We look forward to other meetings with you, with a new minister responsible for CIDA, with a new head for CIDA, with a public recognition by the Prime Minister recently that we should be doing more in the area of aid. We look forward to hearing from you about how you see CIDA's role and the new directions we might take.

We recognize that CIDA is an extremely important agency for the Government of Canada and for the people of Canada in how we're perceived in the world, so we're very pleased that a civil servant with your particular expertise and background is now in charge of CIDA, and we look forward to working with you in the coming years. Good luck to you in your new position.

Perhaps you could give us an opening statement. I know members will have some questions of you.

Mr. Len Good (President, Canadian International Development Agency): Thank you very much.

Perhaps I should start by telling you a little bit about who I am and where I come from. I was born in England and raised in southern Ontario. I went to school at the University of Toronto for a BA and MA in economics, and I did a PhD in economics at the University of Western Ontario. I taught economics for a couple of years at the University of Prince Edward Island back in 1969-70.

After that, I worked exclusively with the Government of Canada, starting in 1973 with the Treasury Board Secretariat; then with the Department of Finance; then eight years in the Department of what was then called Energy, Mines and Resources, now NRCan; two years in the Privy Council Office as the deputy secretary, plans; four years subsequently as the deputy minister in the Department of the Environment.

Subsequently, I spent four years out of the country in Washington at the World Bank, which is where I really did develop an interest and passion for development issues.

• 1115

After my four years at the World Bank, I came back a year or so ago and was recycled as the Deputy Minister of the Environment, where I spent another year. Three or four weeks ago I became president of CIDA.

So that's pretty much my background.

I suppose the way I saw the heading for this meeting was that it was more or less to ask, in what way are you qualified for this job? If I had to answer that question specifically, I suppose I would draw on two things, including obviously my four years of experience at the World Bank, where I was Canada's executive director. As you know, the World Bank has something in the order of 180 members and only 24 seats around the executive directors' table, so that every executive director represents typically a number of countries. I was there representing Canada, Ireland, and 11 countries from the English-speaking Caribbean.

It's a wonderful position. You obviously have an opportunity to work with all your colleague executive directors, with the president of the bank and its senior management, but also with every level of staff in the bank. So it's a wonderful opportunity to look up close at what it deems itself to be, which is the world's premier development institution. I think in reality it probably is.

But also it was a wonderful opportunity to travel. I had lots of experiences travelling in South America, Africa, China—transition countries—so I had really quite good exposure to some of the problems in the developing world. I was there at a time when unfortunately the downside of rapidly expanding capital markets took place, first of all in Mexico when it suffered from some significant capital outflows, and then obviously with all of the problems in Southeast Asia a couple of years later and the downside of it.

They were very exciting times in terms of seeing how multilateral institutions like the World Bank, IMF, and the regional development banks and bilateral lenders responded to those challenges. It was an extraordinary opportunity.

In Canada, back in the Department of the Environment, I noticed my second time back, more so than I had noticed in my four years formerly, that the environmental agenda was increasingly global in nature. All the big problems we were dealing with on the environmental side were global problems, from obviously ozone depletion to climate change, to species at risk, to transboundary pollution, to desertification and deforestation.

In trying to deal with those problems over the past year, what I found on almost every occasion was that I was looking across the table at developing countries that had quite a strong position with respect to how to deal with those global environmental issues. Their position was almost always the same, which is that they were concerned with those problems, but unless the developed world helped them first and foremost with their problems, we were unlikely to see the kind of cooperation we would need to deal with them.

This is simply to say that whether it's the kind of environmental problems I talked about or whether it was—as it was on another occasion in Geneva—dealing with environment and trade, where once you start pursuing that particular issue you find yourself again dealing with developing countries and their views on trade, there's just an absolutely very strong linkage between development and environment.

So I think my experience both at the World Bank and at the Department of the Environment has put me in a reasonably good position to start off as the head of this institution.

Thanks.

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The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Good. You forgot, of course, to mention perhaps one of the most important moments of your career, which is when you appeared before this committee when we were doing our report on IFIs in Washington and you were good enough to talk to us. And I see that Professor Helleiner is here with you today, and Dr. Helleiner of course is an illustrious economist from Canada and author of the famous Commonwealth report on developing countries. I believe he was a witness on that same inquiry, so we're seeing some of the same old team coming back.

Welcome before the committee.

I have questions from Madame Debien, Mr. Robinson, Ms. Augustine.

[Translation]

Ms. Debien.

Ms. Maud Debien: Good morning, Mr. Good. Welcome to the committee and congratulations on your appointment to the presidency of CIDA.

First, I would like to talk about something negative, but don't forget there are always two sides to one issue. CIDA has always been accused of spreading itself too thinly, of not monitoring its results and of focussing too much on business to the detriment of fundamental needs, as is stipulated in our development assistance policy.

I would imagine that you would like CIDA to meet certain goals during your mandate. I would like to know what these goals are.

Mr. Len Good: First, you have to understand what CIDA is all about. This institution has suffered a lot over the last five years because of cutbacks. It lost $3 billion from its budget and has not been able to implement all the projects it wanted.

[English]

I've seen in CIDA, as in other departments like the one I was in, Environment, just how devastating cuts can be to an institution. In CIDA's case, all of the programs were cut more or less across the board. None of the countries in which we operate were in fact eliminated, so that in the period where the budget has decreased significantly, the number of projects in which CIDA has been involved has actually gone up. And the number of people in the department has been cut back.

We've lost a significant amount of scientific and technical expertise, and I think it's only in the last year or so that the institution has had a chance to draw its breath in some sense and start to think about what it needs to do as an institution, both in developing countries and internally, to make itself the kind of institution it needs to be to achieve the kinds of development objectives that we all have in mind.

[Translation]

I could tell you more about what we have done to completely update our computer systems in order to collect data for strategic analyses. We are also trying to increase the number of people with expertise in areas such as education, governance and agriculture. We are only just beginning this process. That's the direction our organization is heading in.

[English]

At the same time as fixing things like that within the institution, our management information systems, our technology, and building up some of our technical staff, I think we will have to take another look at our program writ large, at the countries where we're concentrating our efforts, why we're concentrating in those countries, and how we're working with our partners. I think there are a lot of things that, as an institution, we'll start to look at over the next year, none of which is to say that we're necessarily not doing the right things, but I think the time has come for us to take a hard look at what we are doing.

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The Chair: That's all?

Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Thank you.

I too want to join in welcoming Mr. Good both before this committee and into his important new responsibilities as the president of CIDA.

I have questions in a couple of areas. The first is with respect to the impact of the cuts, which have clearly been devastating and have cut right into the bone, affecting not just CIDA's performance but also our international reputation, frankly, in this area, and obviously affecting staff morale significantly. In talking to people within the organization, I've found it's been a pretty hellish few years.

One of the implications of the cuts has been, as I understand it, a significant aging of the staff at CIDA. I wonder what plans there are to bring new blood into the organization as well, and hopefully some additional resources. The Prime Minister has personally spoken—I believe it was in Nigeria—about his commitment to increasing resources. Minister Minna is certainly committed to that, and you won't have any opposition, certainly, from this side of the table to a significant increase in aid.

But I'm wondering about what's being done to deal with those concerns around morale and also age. Also, as I understand it, CIDA has one of the worst records in government in terms of contracting out work to private sector consultants instead of fostering and nurturing in-house expertise. Do you have any plans to deal with this criticism that's been made by some analysts?

Maybe I'll put the other two questions and then Mr. Good can respond on both.

The Chair: If Deepak were here, he would say they have the best record. It depends on whether contracting out is good or bad, sort of thing.

Mr. Svend Robinson: There are a couple of policy issues. I know it's early in Mr. Good's mandate, and I don't know if he's had a chance to look at either of these, but if not, he could get back to us as a committee.

One is with respect to CIDA's role in Cuba. The government—the Prime Minister and the foreign affairs minister—announced earlier this year what they called a freeze in relations with Cuba. I'm wondering what impact this has had on CIDA and specifically how this is affecting CIDA's programs in Cuba. There are some excellent projects. OXFAM has a very good project. There are a number of others. What does this mean for aid to Cuba?

Then the last question is, with respect to the human rights mandate, one of the six priority areas for CIDA is human rights. I'm wondering whether CIDA is doing any work at all in the international area of gay and lesbian, bisexual, and transgender rights. This is a human rights issue. It's been recognized by Canada at the United Nations. There are a number of NGOs that are doing very important work in this area, and certainly there is no shortage of challenges. Just recently in Uganda, the President of Uganda, Museveni, ordered his officials to seek out and arrest homosexuals. There are some very serious abuses of human rights in other areas, not just in Africa but elsewhere. There are NGOs that are working in this field, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and others, and I'm wondering whether this is part of the CIDA human rights mandate and what programs are being funded at this time to respond to human rights concerns in this area.

Mr. Len Good: With respect to the first set of questions on staff morale and aging and so on, you're right that people have been disillusioned with cuts, and it has had an impact. I must say, though, you probably saw the results of the public-service-wide survey that came out a couple of weeks ago, of which CIDA was a part, and CIDA's results were very much in line with the results of the public service writ large. And I think to everyone's pleasant surprise, those results were really quite positive. People were indicating satisfaction with their job, and it was quite positive as a general proposition.

Obviously there were some specific things that people weren't happy with. They were again government-wide and within CIDA, and we'll be trying to address them, but as a general proposition they were much better results than one might have hoped for at this period in time.

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Certainly CIDA, like my former department, Environment, works in an area that tends to attract people who are committed and who work in the institution for long periods of time. I would guess that the average tenure of people in CIDA, like Environment, is far in excess of the average tenure in most other departments. That reflects their interest in their work, their commitment to it, and their ability to keep their morale in reasonable shape even in difficult times.

With respect to aging, I think your comment is correct. My director of human resources was telling me the other day that we are trying to recruit—and have been for the last two or three years—in the order of forty people a year from universities as part of a government-wide university recruitment program. That will get us some younger people, which we do need in order to address the concerns you raised. I also think, though, that the institution will probably need to address its questions of expertise and scientific knowledge over time. That will probably require us to bring in people at other than university levels.

On contracting out, I'm not 100% sure I understand your question, because in one sense CIDA contracts out everything. We have 1,500 partners in Canadian universities, NGOs, business, etc., and almost everything that CIDA does, that gets done in the field, is done through a Canadian executing agency. That typically involves us in some kind of contractual relationship. In some cases it's a contract through open tendering, but sometimes it's a sole-source contract. Sometimes it's through contributions and sometimes it's through a grant. In that general sense, we obviously do work through people.

If your question was more specific—for example, you were talking about open, competitive contracts at one extreme—we probably don't do all that many. It's probably not more than in the order of fifty or so a year. As you know, contracts below $100,000 can be sole-sourced, and there is a fair bit of that.

I know there has been discussion about whether or not we should be more extensively into open contracting or open, competitive contracts, as opposed to sole-sourcing for smaller projects, and I expect to hear a lot from the Canadian business sector and NGOs over the next few months. I really do want to get my mind around that issue, but clearly there is obviously a trade-off between the amount of open, competitive contracting one does on the one hand—which is quite time-consuming—and the efficiency with which you need to deal with some of the urgent and pressing issues as well on the other hand. It's important to get that right balance. I'm not saying we're not at that point, but I'd certainly be interested in having people's views as to whether we should be moving in one direction or the other.

I apologize in regard to both of your other comments, on the human rights mandate and gay-lesbian issues. I haven't heard that mentioned in my four weeks on the job, but that's not to say it's not part of the human rights mandate. Certainly I'll go back with that, and if you'd like a response from me in written form, I'd be happy to do that.

I also have to beg off with respect to Cuba. I'm not really in a position to give you a precise answer there.

Mr. Svend Robinson: I assume we can get a written response on that as well.

Mr. Len Good: Absolutely.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Thank you.

I have Madame Augustine down, and then I have Mr. Paradis and Mr. Patry.

Ms. Jean Augustine: Thank you.

I too want to add words of welcome to Mr. Good as he begins his new job. Anyone who was born in England, went to the University of Toronto, and has been a teacher is tops in my books.

A voice: [Inaudible—Editor].

Ms. Jean Augustine: Well, I went to the University of Toronto and I was a teacher.

An hon. member: But he didn't live in Montreal.

• 1135

Ms. Jean Augustine: When one starts a new job, there are three or four courses. You can do more of, do less of, do a 180° degree turn, or continue to do what's been done. What mode would you say you're in? Could you give us a few themes around the ideas of doing more, doing less, etc., as you've seen things and experienced the job thus far?

I think I'll ask my second question right away, Mr. Chair.

There's a discussion going on now around global poverty, donor countries and their responsibility—and maybe I'll ask this in a general way in order to get a response that I expect would be general. If the goal of absolute poverty elimination is affordable and within reach, as say CCIC and a number of the NGOs, then how do you see CIDA responding to this goal of absolute poverty elimination? What is affordable and within reach, and how can we do this?

There are a number of issues out there that I'm interested in, but I will not put them on the table at this point in time, such as microcredit, education of the girl child, HIV/AIDS, etc. But if we could begin with the idea of doing more or doing less, I'd like to hear from you.

Mr. Len Good: When one comes before a committee like this, one is always advised to choose one's words carefully and to be careful about what one says.

The Chair: This is a war room, Mr. Good.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Len Good: You know, I guess I'm going to answer those questions and other ones I get with the same set of comments that I give to my own management team. In that sense, they're unvarnished. I'm not choosing my words particularly carefully, but it is what I think.

CIDA at this point is very much a project-oriented institution. It has something in the order of a thousand projects that are currently unfolding, and I think it's making a contribution in all of those areas that are referred to in Canada's 1995 foreign policy—the six priorities that flow from that and with which you are familiar, I'm sure.

Having said that, when you look at what's happening out there in the international development world today, you see some trends that I think are encouraging. I think the last two decades of international development assistance have taught the north generally, if you want, but all of us, some lessons about the way development assistance should be done.

If you go back to the early 1980s, for example—and you could go back before that—what you saw then was a development model that was almost exclusively market-driven and economics-oriented. As you watched the 1980s unfold, you could see the IMF and the World Bank implementing that model primarily through that new instrument of structural adjustment lending.

I think what we found throughout the course of the eighties and the early nineties was that to focus exclusively on markets and economics was to make an error, that in fact developing countries are influenced by much more than economics. You can't ignore the social realities, you can't ignore the historical context, and you can't ignore the politics. You can't ignore the environment, you can't ignore women, and you can't ignore the basics of education. That whole social side was really not part of a development model.

In the late eighties and early nineties, that started to change. We saw international financial institutions—certainly the World Bank and I think the regional development banks, although maybe the IMF has done it a little less so, but it's coming along—drawing together the lessons from those fifteen to twenty years of experience. Today, I've see those lessons brought together best in a document that was put out over the last year by the World Bank. It's called A Comprehensive Development Framework, and it does just that. It brings the lessons of the last twenty years together.

• 1140

I won't go through all of them, but among those lessons there are a couple in particular that are relevant to your question.

One is that for development really to work, donors have to work together, they have to work with the developing country's government, and they have to work with civil society in the developing country. Among all those players, it should be the developing country that is in the seat driving the strategies and the programs.

I guess what I'm a little bit concerned about in CIDA is that perhaps our project orientation does not take into account some of those lessons. As an institution I don't think we're working as well as we need to with other donors, with developing countries. I think we do it, but I think we can do it better. At this point, rather than simply saying we should be doing more of this and less of that in particular thematic areas, I think we need to pay more attention to the way in which we are working with donor countries, with civil society. We need to get more input from them in the key countries in which we're working.

At the same time, the reality is that what Canada brings to the table is its knowledge and its expertise across those 1,500 partners I talked about. We will be drawing on those partners, but I think the way in which we draw on them, the way it fits with the programs of other donors, is something we're probably going to have to focus on more in the months ahead.

Global poverty is the over-arching theme; you're quite right. Other than institution, we will not affect global poverty with the resources we bring to the table, which even with the hope for significant increase in the budget will still be relatively small in the grand scheme of things. Therefore, I think our contribution is the way in which we use those resources—creative, innovative ways of doing things, bringing knowledge to the table. I think it will be the way we do things, the way we work with other partners, as opposed to the dollars themselves that will constitute our major contribution.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Patry.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernard Patry: Mr. Good, thank you for being here this morning and congratulations on your appointment. Your background is very impressive.

Looking at the documents we were given, and given CIDA's current situation, I fully agree that it has a disappointing track record. Of all the federal agencies, this is the one which probably got cut back the most.

You said that 0.8% of bilateral aid is invested in health care, 0.9% in demographics and 2.9% in education. However, over 68% of Canada's bilateral aid is linked to buying Canadian goods and services.

Shouldn't CIDA reduce the bilateral aid linked to Canadian business interests or stop this policy altogether? Is this feasible? If the federal government generously increased its public development assistance funding in the next budget, what would your priorities be?

Mr. Len Good: I think in the case of the poorest countries, the figure for tied aid is 50%, whereas it is up to 33% for countries that are not as poor. There are two levels of tied aid. It is less tied in the case of the poorest countries. Obviously, we recognize that tied aid is not in the best interest of the poorest countries.

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For some time now, CIDA and the Canadian government have felt that it would be a good idea to reduce the percentage of tied aid. However, it is almost impossible to do that unilaterally. We have been negotiating with other countries for a year to try to reach agreement on reducing tied aid. Although the recent negotiations were not successful and we are currently deadlocked, we will continue our discussions with other countries, because we recognize that tied aid is not really in the interest of the poorest countries.

[English]

Mr. Bernard Patry: What about Santa Claus? If Santa Claus increased CIDA's budget, what would be your priorities for the next year or two years from now?

Mr. Len Good: In a number of speeches that our Minister Minna has given, although she continues to expand and refine her views on where we should be putting incremental money, it's clear that she has strong views in the health area. She is very keen to do more with respect to HIV and AIDS. She's talked a lot about the nexus of mother-to-child transmission of AIDS and orphans associated with that. She's talked about funding for micronutrients as something she attaches importance to.

Unfortunately she will not be able to give her speech over the noon hour to the CCIC, who's just put out a policy paper on the reality of AIDS and education. In that speech, which will be tabled for sure, she's putting a lot of emphasis on education, particularly primary education.

[Translation]

Mr. Bernard Patry: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Mr. Paradis.

Mr. Denis Paradis (Brome—Missisquoi, Lib.): I would like to start by congratulating you on your appointment and welcome you to the committee. I would like to raise three points.

We know that there are close ties between CIDA and the countries of the Francophonie. I would like to know how you see your relationship with these countries. I had an opportunity to take part in the Hanoi summit in Vietnam, and in the summit in Moncton. I saw that CIDA was very involved in the countries of the Francophonie.

I would like to ask a similar question about human security. CIDA is quite active in issues related to human security, including anti-personnel land mines. What is your view of these issues?

CIDA has a communications branch of about 50 employees. One thing Canadians are proud of is our humanitarian aid, CIDA's involvement and our achievements in this area throughout the world. I don't know what these 50 people do, and I don't think their work is very well known within the country. What do you intend to do about communications in Canada?

Mr. Len Good: I apologize, but I have very little to say about the Francophonie and our program. You are correct when you say that we support it strongly and we will continue to do so. Our minister went to Moncton and she supports all our programs in this area.

• 1150

Human security is a very interesting subject and a relatively new area for CIDA. This is a subject that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Axworthy, is interested in promoting. CIDA has taken up the challenge enthusiastically and intends to work closely with the Minister in the next few years. Like issues related to the environment and free trade, an opportunity to expand our programs emerged in 1999. We are currently studying CIDA's traditional program and the advisability of making some changes in it.

As regards communications, you are right to say that everyone seems to think that we did not impress Canadians very much with our achievements. We're trying to correct the situation. It must be said that unless there is a humanitarian crisis, the media are not very interested in what we do. We are currently trying to heighten the awareness of young people in schools. The Minister is also working with our staff to devise a communications strategy to improve the situation. However, this is no easy task.

Mr. Denis Paradis: Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Good. I'm going to ask you a very unfair question with an equally unfair preamble because I won't attribute it.

I was told recently by a highly placed international bureaucrat that one of the reasons Canada's aid is going down so dramatically is that the authorities do not have the competence and CIDA does not have the capacity to administer that aid properly. From your experience as an executive director in the World Bank, would you say World Bank authorities would agree with that? As an executive director of the World Bank, if you were back in that seat, where would you put CIDA in the ranking of other international institutions that are doing the same sort of business?

It seems to me that if we want to get the Canadian public to accept to take us back up to 7% and we want the Canadian taxpayers to finance that, we're going to have to persuade them that we have the best possible delivery vehicle available to do it. It's obviously going to be yours and the minister's job to do that in the next couple of years. Maybe you could tell me how you would see, from your previous experience in the World Bank, where CIDA would fit amongst other international agencies so we could get at least some idea of where we are.

Mr. Len Good: Certainly you're right that with respect to the financial resources available, we've slipped relative to some other countries. We have hopes of restoring that. Simply, as one drops down the ladder of financial contributions, one loses a little bit of credibility and prestige, which is totally independent of anything to do with a capacity to administer.

As for my sense on capacity to administer, here I'll repeat myself a little bit, but it's a fundamental thought in some sense. CIDA has lots of capacity to administer. Our projects are administered extremely well. We have embraced results-based management, and I think by the norms of results-based management, you would find that all our projects are solid and they do make a significant contribution to development objectives.

As I said, if one were to explore the thought further, I think the question would still remain about the extent to which strategically we have focused our thinking, focused our activities, focused our resources. I think that question is still very much out there.

• 1155

Let me just give you an example: capacity-building. We talk about capacity-building in developing countries, and a significant number of projects within CIDA's portfolio are devoted to capacity-building of one kind or another in developing countries. As we go forward in other areas such as environment, with a lot of these international multilateral environmental agreements on ozone or climate change, developing countries are saying they need more capacity. We're in a position to help provide that.

In an area such as trade, part of the reason developing countries are as disenchanted with the WTO as they are is they don't really understand the WTO; they don't understand the opportunities.

The Chair: I think after Seattle, nobody understands the WTO, least of all those of us who were there. But anyway....

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. Len Good: They've missed a lot of opportunities that exist under the completed Uruguay Round, and they need to do more thinking about what they'll get out of this next round of negotiations when it starts up again. And again, they need capacity.

The reason I make these points is that capacity-building is a theme that goes through a lot of what we do and through a lot of the needs developing countries have, but I don't think, as a country and as an institution, we've brought capacity-building together with as high a profile as we need to. Canada is not seen, nor is CIDA seen, as an institution that is in fact a leader with respect to capacity-building.

In part it's because our projects are diverse and dispersed. We need to bring them together. We need to ask ourselves what's missing. We need to give it some profile. I think on that basis we'll do much better as an institution, and to come back to the communications question, I think we'll communicate much better, because it is very difficult to communicate the benefits of a thousand projects, and at this point our six priorities are quite broad.

But it's not a question of capacity, sir.

The Chair: Those are a lot of difficult questions, and we'll be pursuing them in the future.

I want to assure you that I'm confident that.... Well, perhaps if you've seen the Reform Party's foreign policy paper they just released, you'll have seen CIDA is up for the axe. But apart from the Reform Party's position, I think probably you'd find around this table in this committee an all-party anxiety to see CIDA successful and to see lustre return to our foreign aid program, both in terms of the capacity of CIDA to deliver it and in terms of the amounts we're giving.

We really wish you very well in your new position, Mr. Good, and look forward to working with you in the coming years.

The steering committee is meeting this afternoon at 3:30, and the committee is adjourned until Thursday. Thank you very much.