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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, April 23, 2002

1540

The Chair (Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke--Lakeshore, Lib.))

Mr. Martin (Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca)

The Chair

Mr. Day

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day

The Chair

Mr. Svend Robinson (Burnaby--Douglas, NDP)

The Chair

Mr. Svend Robinson

The Chair

Mr. Robert Fowler (Personal Representative of the Prime Minister for the G-8 Summit and Personal Representative of the Prime Minister for Africa, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade)

1545

1550

1555

1600

The Chair

Mr. Len Good (President, Canadian International Development Agency)

1605

1610

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. Robert Fowler

1615

The Chair

Mr. Pierre Paquette (Joliette, BQ)

1620

Mr. Robert Fowler

1625

The Chair

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.)

1630

Mr. Robert Fowler

The Chair

Mr. Svend Robinson

Mr. Robert Fowler

1635

The Chair

Mr. Svend Robinson

Mr. Robert Fowler

Mr. Svend Robinson

Mr. Robert Fowler

Mr. Svend Robinson

Mr. Robert Fowler

Mr. Svend Robinson

1640

Mr. Robert Fowler

Mr. Svend Robinson

Mr. Robert Fowler

Mr. Svend Robinson

Mr. Robert Fowler

The Chair

Mr. Robert Fowler

The Chair

Mr. Keith Martin

1645

Mr. Robert Fowler

Mr. Keith Martin

Mr. Robert Fowler

1650

The Chair

Ms. Diane Marleau (Sudbury, Lib.)

Mr. Robert Fowler

1655

Ms. Diane Marleau

The Chair

Mr. Svend Robinson

The Chair

1700

Mr. Len Good

The Chair

Mr. Len Good

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day

The Chair

Mr. Robert Fowler

1705

The Chair

1710

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. Robert Fowler

The Chair

Mr. Svend Robinson

1715

The Chair

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

The Chair

Ms. Aileen Carroll (Barrie--Simcoe--Bradford, Lib.)

1720

The Chair

Mr. Pierre Paquette

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day

The Chair

Mr. Svend Robinson

1725

The Chair

Ms. Aileen Carroll

The Chair

Mr. Svend Robinson

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

NUMBER 071

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Tuesday, April 23, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹ (1540)

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke--Lakeshore, Lib.)): Welcome. Pursuant to Standing Order 106(2), we want to begin with the election of a vice-chair.

Can I have a nomination?

Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca, Canadian Alliance): Madam Chair, I nominate Stockwell Day for the position of Vice-Chair.

The Chair: All right. The committee needs to understand that Mr. Pallister is no longer a member of the committee, and therefore we have to proceed with that nomination.

Ms. Carroll seconds.

Mr. Stockwell Day (Okanagan--Coquihalla, Canadian Alliance): My only hope, Madam Chair, is that it is more successful than my last outing.

The Chair: So it's moved by Mr. Martin, seconded by Ms. Carroll, that Mr. Stockwell Day be the vice-chair of the committee. Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt that motion?

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: Welcome, then, as vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Mr. Stockwell Day.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, members.

The Chair: If our witnesses will bear with us, we'll do one other matter of business, and that is the motion of Mr. Svend Robinson.

Mr. Svend Robinson (Burnaby--Douglas, NDP): I'm wondering whether, Madam Chair, we might dispose of the motion after we've heard the evidence of the witnesses before the committee.

The Chair: Is it the committee's desire to proceed with that motion and get it out of the way? We have to also keep in mind the fact that we have votes and the bells will begin around 5:15. We hope all witnesses, at that point in time, will bear with us.

Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Madam Chair, I'd be prepared to proceed with the motion following the evidence of Mr. Fowler.

The Chair: The clerk says that if the mover is not moving the motion, we can't proceed with it. So the motion stands down at this point, and we'll go to our witnesses.

We have Mr. Fowler, the personal representative of the Prime Minister for the G-8 summit and personal representative of the Prime Minister for Africa, and Mr. Len Good, the President of the Canadian International Development Agency.

We'll ask you, then, Mr. Fowler, to begin.

[Translation]

Mr. Robert Fowler (Personal Representative of the Prime Minister for the G-8 Summit and Personal Representative of the Prime Minister for Africa, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade): Madam Chair, members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be here again to provide the committee with information on preparations for the G-8 Summit to be held in Kananaskis, Alberta, on June 26-27 of this year.

As you know, I've been asked by the Prime Minister to prepare Kananaskis as an informal retreat that addresses in a substantive and serious way some of the most pressing global challenges we face.

I propose today to do three things: first, I'll provide an update on the policy preparatory process as it stands now, including on the Prime Minister's recent trip to Africa. Second, I'll address some of the issues that the witnesses, whose testimony we have been following, have raised. Third, I will provide you with my impressions of what I've heard as I have spoken to Canadians about the summit, and tell you more about the non-governmental activities that we are supporting as part of the summit preparations.

Madam Chair, since I last briefed you, I have participated in several preparatory meetings, two with the so-called G-8 sherpas and three with the G-8 Africa personal representatives. I have had a number of meetings with interested Canadians as well as citizens of G-8 and African countries to engage them in discussions of the summit priorities.

And, perhaps most significantly, the Prime Minister made an unprecedented trip to Africa to engage committed African leaders in a discussion of the new partnership for Africa's development. As you have heard the Prime Minister say repeatedly, the centrepiece of the Kananaskis Summit will be the adoption of the G-8 Africa action plan.

A series of sectoral G-8 ministerial meetings will be held before the summit. The first of these, a meeting of Environment Ministers, was held in Banff 10 days ago. Ministers' discussions focused on health and environment, environment and development and governance, in the lead-up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development taking place in Johannesburg later this year. Ministers expressed a strong desire to work with African countries on the environmental components of the New Partnership for Africa's Development. Ministers also had an informal exchange on the status of actions and debate on climate change within each G-8 country. Other ministerial meetings will be held in the coming days and weeks.

As the preparatory process continues, your report will play a valuable role in preparing the Prime Minister for the Summit. I look forward to reading and reflecting on your conclusions and recommendations.

As I outlined during my last briefing to you on January 29, 2002, the three agenda items which will be discussed at Kananaskis are: strengthening global economic growth; building a new partnership for Africa's development, and fighting terrorism.

Let me deal with those issues in the order that I expect them to be dealt with at the Summit. I'll begin with terrorism.

Mr. Graham will be speaking to you on the preparation for the G-8 Foreign Affairs Ministers' meeting in two days' time. Counterterrorism will be a major focus of this meeting to be held two weeks before the Summit, in Whistler, British Columbia, as well as a range of regional issues, principally current hot topics.

You will recall that shortly after September 11, G-8 leaders asked their Foreign, Finance, Justice and Interior Ministers to strengthen counterterrorism cooperation in a wide range of specific areas.

At Kananaskis, G-8 leaders will review progress in the global campaign against terrorism and will discuss how to sustain it over the long haul—including the vital challenge of preventing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear terrorism. G-8 leaders may also address how to ensure that improved security measures facilitate, rather than inhibit trade.

[English]

¹ (1545)

Madam Chair, some of your witnesses have drawn linkages between terrorism and poverty, but also between counter-terrorism and good governance. I fully support the notion that countries with good governance, where human rights are respected, and where there is justice in the form of an accountable political and judicial system have a better chance of not only dealing with security threats, but also channeling dissent into legitimate political expression.

I must, however, express caution about the notion that poverty inexorably breeds terrorism. As I have often said, in the case of Africa we can all agree that it is simply not wise to allow an entire continent to sink into ever greater hopelessness and marginalization. But we need to be careful, I would argue, about drawing casual connections between being poor or being marginalized and becoming a terrorist. Look at the middle-class background of many of the al-Qaeda terrorists involved in the September 11 attacks, or indeed, that of Osama bin Laden himself, who comes from a wealthy Saudi family. Consider the fact that many rich countries have homegrown terrorist groups. Connections between security and economics and politics are complex and don't lend themselves to easy conclusions, I would argue. We need to understand them better, of course, but we should be careful about jumping to conclusions.

Providing assistance and building a new partnership with Africa will help lift significant numbers of marginalized and desperate people out of poverty and give them a sense of hope. I don't think we need a counter-terrorism argument to justify this behaviour.

As for the agenda item, Madam Chair, on strengthening global economic growth, the outlook for the global economy is improving. According to the IMF's latest forecast, global growth was 2.5% in 2001, and it is expected to strengthen to 2.8% in 2002. Among G-7 countries Canada is forecast by the IMF to have the strongest growth at 2.5%, with overall growth in the G-7 economies averaging 1.5%. Leaders will want to discuss what needs to be done to strengthen growth prospects and consolidate this recovery in our own economies, as well, of course, as in the wider world.

This broad economic discussion, the essence of economic summits, is a large issue. Leaders, I imagine, will want to talk about a wide range of related issues, such as those addressed recently at the fourth World Trade Organization ministerial conference in Doha and the UN conference on financing for development in Monterrey, Mexico, as well as through the preparatory process for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which will take place in Johannesburg at the end of August and the beginning of September.

Clearly, poverty reduction remains at the centre of these discussions. G-8 leaders are faced with the challenge of creating the right environment for economic growth at home and around the world and ensuring that its benefits are indeed widely shared. This means encouraging national governments to put in place the policies and institutions, in the context of an integrated global economy, needed to promote sustained economic growth and poverty reduction. For G-8 countries this also means achieving greater coherence between our aid, trade, and economic policies. Some of your witnesses, Madam Chair, have highlighted the importance of action by developed countries on market access and trade-distorting agricultural subsidies. Your subcommittee on Trade's related consultations on access to Canadian markets for goods from the least developed countries are very significant in this regard, and I wish you well also in this important work.

G-8 leaders may choose to move from this broad discussion on poverty reduction and the global economy to discuss the recommendations of the G-8 education task force, as well as the results of G-8 work on bridging the digital divide. I know Len Good will elaborate on the education task force, and I know you've already spoken to Peter Harder on his work with the DOT force, which, of course, now extends well beyond the G-8 membership.

¹ (1550)

Madam Chair, this brings me to the G-8 Africa action plan. As you know, I've recently returned from joining the Prime Minister on his recent and highly successful trip to Africa. Mr. Chrétien's principal message in Africa was that African issues have all but fallen off the international political and economic agenda, and this needs to be changed. Canada and the G-8 are committed to being effective partners for Africa in the areas of investment, trade, and development assistance, provided that African partners make appropriate efforts to get their own houses in order.

Expectations on both sides must be realistic for this partnership to work, but we are ready to respond pragmatically to the NEPAD proposals to bring Africa into the mainstream of the global economy. The Prime Minister went to Africa to hear from his African counterparts, listen to their concerns, engage them on their future plans, and develop his own thinking on the best way to respond to their offer of a new partnership. But he also made the trip to send a strong message about how much building this new partnership was a personal priority for him and a national priority for Canada.

Our Canadian diplomatic posts abroad, as well as both African and Canadian media, have reported that the Prime Minister did succeed in getting Canada's message across to our African partners. African media, diplomats, and a variety of representatives of African civil society spoke of the Prime Minister's frankness and encouragement, as well as of the promise and hope he elicited. His discussions with heads of government in each of the countries he visited saw the PM in a vigorous and committed mood. He engaged his colleagues in discussion about the importance of good governance, of democracy, and of human rights, and of the need to get the African peer review process right in support of a strong, enhanced partnership with G-8 countries. Each of the 14 heads of government and two vice-presidents with whom he met urged Mr. Chrétien to help build capacity in Africa to allow Africans to enter the mainstream of our globalized world. Obviously, I was pleased that several commented that his visit made clear the strength of Canada's commitment to Africa and emphasized Canada's effective leadership in responding to NEPAD.

However, during his African trip the Prime Minister reiterated to his African counterparts that despite Canada's $500 million commitment to support the G-8 Africa action plan, that plan would not be only, and indeed, not even primarily, about new resources, but rather about changing the paradigm of our relationship based on ownership and mutual responsibility, on rewarding success rather than reinforcing failure, that is, on providing Africans and Canadian taxpayers alike with some examples of successful development with those countries who walk the talk in their commitment to their own NEPAD undertakings.

The G-8 Africa action plan will be discussed on the second day of the Kananaskis summit. Several African leaders will be included in these discussions, along with the Secretary General of the United Nations. Again, witnesses and members of the committee have raised important issues here in their discussions with you. The G-8 commitment to Africa is not a response, as some have suggested, to criticism about the record of the G-8. Yes, the G-8 is an economic summit, but for the past several years G-8 summits have had at their core a poverty reduction agenda. This is exemplified by the Cologne debt initiative in 1999, the announcement of the global fund for AIDS, TB, and malaria in Genoa last summer, and, of course, the commitment made in Genoa last year to develop a concrete plan of action for Africa, in response to the NEPAD, to be adopted at Kananaskis.

I'd also like to respond to some questions relating to what lies behind the G-8's emphasis on governance. Governance issues will be important in the G-8 response to Africa, not just governance as a means to attract investment and allow for effective development, but also in respect of its more normative foundations, like democracy and human rights. At the same time, let's recall that this is not just G-8-imposed conditionality. The NEPAD, written and created by African leaders, makes a commitment to good governance as a way to ensure stronger economic growth and to better alleviate poverty. It's their plan, their commitment, and their priority. They're doing it for Africa, not for us.

¹ (1555)

Finally, I would like to take a moment to tell you a bit about my own discussions with Canadians and people in a number of G-8 countries about the Kananaskis summit. Engaging in this dialogue with Canadians has been, from my perspective, extremely rewarding. It has challenged my own thinking on a number of issues relevant to the Kananaskis agenda, like the sustainability of development and the role of democratic participation in the development process in Africa, and it has helped me perform my own task as sherpa more effectively. I spent a great deal of time on these discussions. I have heard a variety of opinion across the full spectrum, and I have been gratified by the interest demonstrated by many Canadians to meet with me and discuss these issues openly.

During our sessions, but also in our general approach, we have been transparent about our priorities and the challenges we face in preparing the summit. Canadians conveyed a strong interest in doing better in dealing with marginalization of Africa. They have a strong belief that we should be doing more in dealing with issues like HIV-AIDS, proliferation of small arms, education, particularly for young girls, and conflict resolution. I also heard of the needs and priorities of the Stoney Nakoda Nation near Calgary. All of this has helped me a great deal as I do my work in advance of Kananaskis.

Clearly, NEPAD needs to be better known and better connected to the people of Africa. While we must recognize that this is primarily the responsibility of African leaders, we can still help, and we are doing so. In addition to CIDA's funding of local outreach initiatives by African civil society, the G-8 summit office is working with the NEPAD secretariat to develop their own capacity for outreach and consultation, a priority they fully recognize and want to address more effectively. It is my hope that this will help strengthen the long-term debate at a national and local level in Africa about how this remarkable plan, endorsed by every one of the OAU leaders, should be made reality in each country and region of the African continent.

We're also providing significant funding to non-governmental activities in Canada now, as part of the preparatory process, and in the days immediately preceding the summit. We'll look at how they can strengthen follow-up to the summit as well. We are looking at innovative ways to help the University of Calgary, the host of a number of parallel summit events, in addition to direct funding, for example, providing a shuttle bus for the media and plugging them into our web and host broadcast facilities for key events. Also in Canada and the Kananaskis region, the summit office is making a great effort to reach out and talk to community groups, schools, business associations, and the like, in order to be open about not only the policy process, but also hear and respond to questions and concerns about the impact of the summit and related activities on local communities and the Kananaskis environment.

Many Canadians, Madam Chairman, have raised issues with me that have implications far beyond the agenda of the Kananaskis summit. I have a sense that a desire for participation in the preparations for international summits reflects a desire to be more actively engaged in public discussions more generally. Through your work and through my own discussions, I hope we have helped address this interest.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for your attention. I look forward to your questions. Of course, I would be happy to appear again in front of this committee if you deem it useful, because I believe your report will be critical in determining and articulating the views of Canadians on the summit in a way that only those who represent them can do.

Thank you.

º (1600)

The Chair: Thank you, Ambassador. It's your second visit with us, and we appreciate the fact that you're here. We also appreciate the fact that you did separate the issues into the three areas, which made quite clear the progress of the work you're doing right now.

We'll go directly to Mr. Good before we start on oral questioning.

[Translation]

Mr. Len Good (President, Canadian International Development Agency): Thank you, Madam Chair. I do not intend to make a formal speech. But I do have some comments.

[English]

As Ambassador Fowler noted, the G-8 in recent years has been increasingly focused on development issues and poverty reduction. He spoke this afternoon about its focus on Africa. He mentioned that last year the G-8 focused on the global health fund that dealt with AIDS, TB, and malaria and announced that it would create the task force on education, of which for the last many months I've been the chair.

Globally, education has been on the development agenda for many years, and I would go back as far as 1990, when in Thailand the first major conference on education took place. Throughout the decade of the 1990s development agencies have been working on education and making some progress, but not as much as people might have hoped. In the year 2000 in Dakar, Senegal, there was an attempt to give a renewed momentum to the emphasis on education. Out of that international conference in Dakar emerged something called the Dakar framework for action, the highlights of which included six important goals for education. I think the most important were the focus on universal primary education, girls' education, and gender equality. Also at that conference there was a tremendous emphasis on the way in which countries should go about achieving those targets, tremendous focus on the importance of nationally owned, country-driven education for all plans. And finally, there was a commitment, which has been reinforced since, that no country with a credible education plan would be thwarted for lack of resources.

I give you that brief history simply to make the point that in creating the task force on education, the G-8 was looking for ways to support an ongoing education-for-all process.

Other institutions have also been forcefully promoting education for all. There has been a very strong campaign by international non-governmental organizations, led by OXFAM International. The World Bank itself has been doing some exceptional analysis on education over the past year, and as recently as this past weekend in Washington all the countries, 100-odd countries, were represented to emphasize the importance they attach to education for all, in particular to push for accelerated action.

Where do we stand now with education for all? I'm speaking here primarily with respect to developing countries. We've made some progress over the decade in the developing world. Primary completion rates seem to be emerging as the single most important statistic or measure of progress, the completion of five or six years of primary schooling. Those primary completion rates have increased from 68% to 73% over the decade. In Africa, however, they remain at only 55%.

The World Bank did some detailed analysis of 155 developing countries, and its conclusion was that there are 88 countries that are not on track to achieve primary completion by the year 2015. Of those 88 countries 29 are seriously off-track. They also noted that of 130 countries they looked at 35 won't reach the gender parity goal that had been set for 2005.

The World Bank has done a lot of good work on what they refer to as benchmarking the more successful countries and looking at the kinds of parameters that exist in countries where education for all is on track. They've created something called a indicative framework. It looks at various kinds of indicators. It looks at pupil-teacher ratios and sees what they are typically in successful countries. It looks at average teachers' salaries relative to per capita income and what they are in successful countries. It looked at what the best countries are doing with the amount of their budget they devote to education, which is typically about 20% of their recurrent budget, and the proportion of it they typically devote to primary education, which is about half of that 20%, or 10%.

º (1605)

Based on that kind of financial analysis, the Bank produced a useful piece of analysis about the financial resources that will be required to meet the education-for-all goals that were set out in Dakar. I can give you a bit of background on it, but let me skip right to the bottom line. With external financing provided by developed countries to developing countries, taking into account that they should be devoting 20% of their recurrent budgets to education, the Bank estimates that about $2.5 billion a year will be required in order for countries to meet the education-for-all goals. As I say, in Washington on the weekend that analysis was all on the table. The global community was definitely pushing hard for accelerated action in countries that have good education-for-all plans.

That's the background the G-8 task force on education has as it considers its proposals to take to the G-8 in Kananaskis in June. The task force has met five times already in well-known places, Paris, Rome, Costa Rica, Cairo, and Amsterdam. Our final meeting is in Paris next month. We've had very broad consultations. We've met with a large number of United Nations institutions, UNDP, UNICEF, ILO, others. We've met with the World Bank on several occasions, with regional development banks. We've met with a host of NGOs, and we've met with a significant number of developing country representatives. We're still working on our report, but very briefly, there are four key points that I would make to you about its structure and content.

It very much parallels the kind of thinking Ambassador Fowler described in the context of NEPAD and flows out of what's now increasingly called the Monterrey consensus, with its focus on partnership, which emphasizes the responsibilities of developing countries and of developed countries. That's the essence of the partnership, and that theme will be very much highlighted in our report.

Second, our report is very likely to emphasize the critical importance of country-owned, country-driven education-for-all plans. It is within those country plans that all the issues you might think of need to be addressed: HIV-AIDS and its impact on students, on teachers, on the educational system; the importance of girls' education; the importance of teacher training; the importance of educational infrastructure, of books, texts, and other materials. All those specific issues need to be handled, and are handled, within country-owned national plans. It's to those plans the international community needs to bring its support.

Third, our report will talk about what we see as necessary improvements, not to put too fine a point on it, in governance at the international level. I can elaborate on that. It's a little bit bureaucratic. It's very important, though, the way in which international institutions like UNESCO and the World Bank work together. Not working together can impose very significant costs on the system, so we'll be dealing with that issue.

Finally, and most importantly, I suppose, from the perspective of many, there's the issue of financing. There are, as you might guess, great expectations, particularly with the World Bank having put into the public domain its views on the size of the financing gap that needs to be filled in order for countries to meet the Dakar targets. As Ambassador Fowler said, we don't see the exercise as primarily financial, but certainly there are expectations.

º (1610)

I would conclude by saying there is a considerable degree of hope. Those of you who followed the Monterrey conference on financing for development will be aware of the increases in financial resources that the U.S. brought to the table, that the European Union brought to the table, and that our Prime Minister mentioned in his address.

Thank you very much.

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

Stock, I think we'll start with you. You have five minutes.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I appreciate the comments from both representatives. Ambassador Fowler, your comments related to the unacceptability of linking poverty and terrorism are well received, and I appreciate that observation.

Talking about poverty, I'm looking at the anticipated cost of the G-8 summit. Some media reports indicate that these costs could easily run over $300 million for the three-day conference. If that's the estimate, chances are they will. I realize costs of security and everything else are huge on something like this, but when you look at the final price tag for that beautifully located weekend, which it will be, it could be more than a third of a billion dollars. That's starting to approach the entire half billion dollar poverty package for all of Africa the Prime Minister is committing himself to. Surely, the intelligent minds--and I say that sincerely--in the offices of these eight world leaders can find a more innovative and appropriate way of sitting down around the table to come up with solutions for poverty. I appreciate the budget is probably expended on this particular summit. But can we get, through you back to the Prime Minister and the other leaders, some kind of commitment that before we budget the next one, there will be some innovative, out-of-the-box thinking on how to put together a round table that isn't going to cost over half of what we're going to propose to alleviate poverty for starving children in Africa, some different, innovative approach to this?

Mr. Robert Fowler: Mr. Day, I don't know what the summit is going to cost, and I don't think we will know until all the bills are in. There are a lot of uncertainties out there. There are a variety of numbers out there, I agree. I'm not suggesting for a moment that it won't be expensive, but we need to know more about the kind of protest, we need to know more about the harder threat from al-Qaeda etc. That will determine to a significant extent the kind of response by the RCMP and the police. In addition to that, we don't know enough yet, and we won't know until after the summit, about things like liability and compensation. These are things of course we're discussing in detail with the folks of Alberta, principally in Calgary, the Kananaskis Valley, Canmore, etc. The government has, I think, a pretty strong record in making available after the fact the actual cost of the event, and I don't think we'll have a good picture of it until then.

With respect to the comparison you're making between the size of the Africa development fund and the cost of the summit, I would point out a number of things. First, our answer to Africa is going to be far more profound than the half billion dollars of the Africa fund established last December. As I sat there in Monterrey, I was pleased to hear some truly remarkable commitments on the part of almost all our G-8 partners. The Americans committed themselves to increasing their aid by 50%, from $10 billion U.S. to $15 billion U.S., forever. That's going to produce $80 billion Canadian in the next 10 years for development assistance. And in the American documentation they stress that a great deal of that will go to Africa and to Muslim countries. At the same meeting the Europeans committed themselves to raising their ODA performance from 0.33% of GDP to 0.39%, on average, over the next five years. They can't estimate precisely what their growth rates will be, but they conclude that it should produce something in the range of an additional 27 billion euros over the next five years. On top of that, as Len mentioned, Mr. Chrétien committed us to an increase of 8% a year on top of the $500 million, on top of the CIDA budget, which means that in somewhere between eight and nine years we ought to be doubling our ODA performance.

If you add all those together, you get a number very much larger than half a billion dollars. And I am suggesting that our work on NEPAD, our response to the African innovative proposal, has had a lot to do with building that consensus for increased commitment.

In addition to that, I think the numbers you should be juxtaposing with the costs of meetings are numbers like 700 people dying a day of AIDS in Africa. I think you should be thinking about the 400 million people in Africa who have no access to clean water, the fact that life expectancy in Africa is 16 years lower than in the next lowest part of the world and has declined 3 years in the last 10. These are the issues the summit is designed to deal with.

I've taken careful note of your question about ways of designing a more cost-effective meeting. I must say, I don't have one. I don't believe anything will replace face-to-face encounters. These are vitally important issues, the most important issues of our day. They affect every single member of this planet, and I think our people expect our leaders to be dealing with them directly. Unfortunately, we have kept saying our world had changed since September 11, and it has, and there can be no compromise on the basic security of international participants at such a meeting.

º (1615)

The Chair: Thank you.

We'll move to Mr. Paquette.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Paquette (Joliette, BQ): Thank you, Madam Chair.

Though I am well aware, as you are, that there is no direct cause and effect relationship between poverty and terrorism, we must concede that poverty is a good breeding ground for terrorism. In the example you give, the people involved were obviously middle-class, but they come from Middle Eastern countries where they are not getting anywhere. We see examples of that every day. Reducing poverty therefore remains very important in the fight against terrorism.

You talk about countries with good governance, where human rights are respected, and where there is justice in the form of an accountable political and judicial system. But a little later, you add:

This means encouraging national governments to put in place the policies and institutions, in the context of an integrated global economy, needed to promote sustained economic growth and poverty reduction.

One thing you must have heard, and which I heard during hearings, was that many NGOs feared that this concept of countries with good governance would automatically include structural adjustment policies imposed by the IMF and World Bank in the past. Needless to say, those policies have not always proved successful.

What do you mean by “countries with good governance”? I would imagine we agree on what this means from the standpoint of rights, but there is also an economic aspect to consider. Does it mean that those countries will have to abide by the diktats of international financial institutions? As we all know, their approach is highly criticized these days.

Now for my second question. We hear about the New Partnership for Africa's Development. You say—as does everyone else—that Canadian and Quebec NGOs have turned to their partners in southern, in African countries, who stated they were not aware of NEPAD.

In your comments, you propose CIDA funding and local information initiatives targeting African civil society. Couldn't we help our own NGOs to promote NEPAD-related activities in association with African NGOs, since we are well aware of the weaknesses in African civil society? That is my second question.

Here is my third question. The Canadian Labour Congress and the Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec have asked for a meeting, not only with the Prime Minister of Canada but with all G-8 heads of state. I understand they have received no answer as yet. Does the Prime Minister intend to meet with them? Will he advocate a meeting between representatives of a major portion of civil society and heads of state at the G-8 Summit?

You answered my last question to some extent, but I would like some clarification. Among the commitments announced by the Prime Minister, this $500 million is new money. So when you say that the action plan would be based neither exclusively nor primarily on new money, you are referring to other forms of support for Africa that already exist and can be developed, in addition to these $500 million. That is what I would like you to clarify.

º (1620)

[English]

Mr. Robert Fowler: Merci, monsieur Paquette.

I know you know what I was saying when I was talking about poverty and terrorism. I recall well what Mr. Chrétien said in New York. He quoted Gandhi in talking about poverty as the worst form of violence. Basically, our entire effort on Africa is to reduce poverty, and I'm just trying to avoid the connection I read in some of the testimony you received that seemed to indicate that the principle purpose of our engagement with NEPAD is to head off terrorism. It's far more profound than that.

With respect to this grand issue of whether we are talking simply here about conditionality in another form, it's a complex question. The essential thing in answering this question and your next question is to recall that NEPAD is their idea, not ours. They didn't consult with us, they didn't negotiate it with us. It had long antecedents, but essentially it is their idea. It is their commitment to good governance for their purposes, not for ours. NEPAD has been endorsed by all the countries of Africa, and its authors understand that they have problems with governance on that continent. They know that to the extent that they do not deal with those problems of governance, they are not going to arrest the downward trend of social indicators in Africa--and almost without exception, those social indicators are on a downward trend.

So the issue is how to, at least in part, arrest that trend. They have proposed as their first priority a fundamental attempt to measure governance in Africa, in its detail, in a manner that is open and transparent. They gave the task to the Economic Commission for Africa based in Addis. The excellent executive secretary of that organization presented his report on a mechanism for governance to the leaders of the implementation committee in Abuja, who adopted in principle the recommendations of the ECA, and they are to be adopted formally at a meeting in June in Rome.

They're not doing it for us. They're not producing this fundamental transparent review of what's good and what's bad about governance in Africa and where it needs to be fixed for us. They're doing it principally for themselves, in the hope that by holding that report card up to the light, it will be easier to fix.

It will also help us, though, in meeting their essential revendication, based on the fact that they have acknowledged in NEPAD that there is no foreseeable amount of aid that's going to fix Africa, that if we continue as we have over the past 40 years, those downward trending indicators will continue in the same direction. In order to change that paradigm, we have to do things differently, and we have to attract investment to Africa. Investment won't come to Africa until governance is fixed, until CEOs can go to their board and say, I've got a good idea, let's spend a few hundred million dollars in Africa, and their board will say, what does due diligence indicate to you about such a proposal? The CEO and we have to be able to answer that question. This good governance report will be a way of answering that question, a way of telling countries what needs to be fixed in a way that will help us in working with them to build capacity.

So yes, there are certain echoes of conditionality in this, but these are not externally imposed conditionalities, this is their own stipulation that governance must be approved in order for investment to be attracted.

º (1625)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Fowler.

Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much.

It's nice to see you again, Mr. Fowler. I'm really happy that you're taking this file.

I don't think, Mr. Fowler and Mr. Good, anybody will argue with the intent of the G-8 summit. We'd like to help African nations as we do other nations. You certainly won't find anybody arguing about the intent of what we're doing in Africa. The issue is how to get maximum bang for our half a billion dollars. I was checking with the staff in Foreign Affairs. I was told there are 58 countries in Africa, and 39 of them are least developed countries, so we should put our focus on those 39 countries, which is fair game. I was very happy when the Prime Minister made the statement a few weeks ago when he was in Africa that we're going to tie the aid to progress in human rights and democratic activities in those countries. This way we don't give them money, as we did in the past, to corrupt governments--we give them money, the next day they have opened an account in a Swiss bank, and there goes the taxpayers' money. I'm glad we're tying it to something, so you can evaluate the benefit of the money we give.

I'm going to propose to you a way to do this, and I want to hear your comment. We have 39 countries. In order to get accountability from these countries, what do you think about grouping the countries with a country of the G-8? For example, Canada can commit itself to take five countries. Five times eight is forty countries. We associate with these countries, we adopt these countries with their programs. So rather than shooting blanks all over Africa, stepping on each other's toes--I won't do this or I will do that--each G-8 country would adopt five African nations, saying, we're prepared to work with these countries on all the issues raised at the G-8 summit. We have five Commonwealth countries in Africa, France can pick up five francophone countries in Africa, and so on. This way, every year, when we come back with the G-8, we could report to the nations there on the progress and continuing focus on certain issues.

So would you comment on the idea of each G-8 nation adopting five countries?

º (1630)

Mr. Robert Fowler: Mr. Assadourian, I'll tell you what I think exactly, and the first thing I'll tell you is that the Africans would not buy this, because it smacks of neo-colonialism, because it smacks of neo-imperialism. Second, it would be really expensive, and who would get Botswana and who would get Nigeria? These countries also want the right to shop around. They want the right to be able to take something from Canada, something from Sweden, something from Australia. They want to attract investment above all, and they want to attract investment from more than one country. So they'll want to maintain their relations more broadly across the world. These countries are sovereign nations; they see themselves in that way and they want to ensure that they're treated that way and act that way. From a cost point of view, if you look at the amount of money we spend in this country on small parts in equalization payments and industrial development projects, you can see that the needs of any five countries in Africa are massive.

In addition, we're getting away from this approach in the response to NEPAD, in the Africa action plan we're proposing. Of course, we keep saying it's not about money, or it's not primarily about money, but it's also about money, and thus we've had that long discussion about who's put how much money on the table. But it is about a paradigm shift. It's about not rewarding failure. It's about reinforcing success and producing a couple of success stories in Africa that will serve as an inspiration to the remaining countries of Africa to follow the same practices. It's to produce champions, it's to produce mentors, if you will. Even Africans don't invest in Africa at the moment. Forty per cent of African savings go offshore--in fact, the number is much higher. So we want to change that, because unless we change that, we're going to be in the aid as charity business for a long time.

The Chair: Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Thank you.

I want to welcome Mr. Fowler back before the committee and, if I may, Madam Chair, just follow up on a couple of points I raised with him during his last appearance before this committee, which I believe was on January 29th, some two and a half months ago. At that time, Mr. Fowler, you indicated that while you weren't in a position to have a final budget with respect to the summit, you did have a working budget, and you would be providing that to the committee. I'm just wondering when we will be receiving that.

Mr. Robert Fowler: Mr. Robinson, I wrote to the committee, but in responding to what I thought was your question then, I focused on the issue of the budget relating to potential support from the Canadian government for non-governmental organizations. I provided information, through the chair, to you on that amount. In answer to Mr. Day a moment ago, I mentioned that we won't know the cost of the summit until it's over and all the bills are in. And I did say that the government would, as it has in the past, provide a full accounting of the expenditures incurred for the summit at that time.

º (1635)

The Chair: If I may interrupt, Mr. Fowler, your response did come in, and it should be in Mr. Robinson's office now.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Well, that wasn't the question that was asked. The question that was asked of Mr. Fowler was not with respect to the issue of support for alternative summits, although that was certainly one of the questions I asked. It was very specifically about the budget for the G-8 itself. I've got the transcript here. Mr. Fowler said he had no idea how many policemen, how many soldiers would need to be present. To my question as to whether he did have a budget that he could forward to the committee, he said he had a working budget and could let us know what they were working on--nothing to do with the alternate summit.

So, Mr. Fowler, you do have a working budget?

Mr. Robert Fowler: Mr. Robinson, I mentioned to you that I interpreted your question as regarding support for the non-governmental organizations, which was very much the context of the discussion we were having. We do prepare all kinds of estimates, but I'm afraid we won't have anything hard until after the meeting, and we will undertake to provide you with a full accounting after the fact.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Obviously, that's a legal requirement. Parliament has to know what's spent.

You indicated that there was a working budget for the summit, not for the alternate summit. In fact, I didn't even ask the questions about the alternate summit until afterwards. There seems to be some confusion, Mr. Fowler, in your chronology. Once again I ask you. You said then you had a working budget. Has that disappeared, or do you still have it?

Mr. Robert Fowler: It all depends on what you mean, Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Svend Robinson: What did you mean?

Mr. Robert Fowler: I meant that I had notionally, in my head, aside from security--and I told you very clearly that we couldn't deal with security--an idea that we would be spending a certain amount on outreach, a certain amount on my travel to Africa and the travel plans of my staff with other people. Basically, we have a notional appreciation of what's needed, and if we need more, we make a request for it. We don't know the actual expenditures that we will be incurring before the fact.

Mr. Svend Robinson: We were told there was a working budget that would be forwarded to the committee. It wasn't.

Let me, then, come to the issue of support in a couple of other areas. Are you in a position to support financially either the Solidarity Village or the G-6B alternate summit?

º (1640)

Mr. Robert Fowler: The Solidarity Village is not something we are considering supporting at the moment, Mr. Robinson. We're in discussion with the University of Calgary regarding support to enable it to host the G-6B meeting. What we're discussing now is the amount of support that is appropriate. Those discussions are going pretty well. I would hope that within a couple of weeks they will have been concluded, and it ought to significantly improve the University of Calgary's ability to act as host to the G-6B summit.

Mr. Svend Robinson: I'm glad to hear that.

I have just two other questions, if I may, in the limited time we have.

Again, at the last meeting on January 29 I asked Mr. Fowler what the participation of African leaders would be at this conference. We have G-8 leaders sitting around the table talking about Africa. I asked Mr. Fowler whether the G-8 leaders were going to invite leaders from Africa to participate, at least in that significant portion of the summit, and Mr. Fowler indicated that at that point Mr. Chrétien was very well disposed to the idea of including Africans in some part of the summit. So I'd like to ask just how African leaders will be involved in the summit.

My second question is on the issue of support for African countries and the poorest of the poor and fighting poverty. Obviously, one of the most critical issues in that is the question of access to our markets in the G-8 countries, among others. Mr. Fowler is well aware of that. In Monterrey, Mexico, last month we heard eloquent pleas from many of the poorest countries, particularly in the areas of access for their agricultural products and textiles, and strong condemnation of the appalling level of subsidies the United States and others engage in, and yet there was no commitment whatsoever, including from Canada, specifically on the issue of market access in those areas. What commitment is Canada prepared to make, beyond just consultation, to improve market access for the products of the poorest countries?

Mr. Robert Fowler: With respect to African leaders, Mr. Robinson, I expect the Prime Minister will be making an announcement within days. He has agreed that African leaders must be included. He has agreed that Kofi Annan must be included, representing the international, multilateral system. He is consulting with the people he intends to invite. I don't want to scoop him on that, but I think it is probably safe to say that he'll be inviting some half dozen African leaders who are crucial in the NEPAD management process to this meeting.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Algeria, Nigeria, South Africa.

Mr. Robert Fowler: As I say, I'm observing the courtesy of letting the Prime Minister issue the invitations.

The Chair: Mr. Fowler, the Prime Minister will announce that.

Mr. Robert Fowler: With respect to market access, the Prime Minister was crystal clear, I think, at the World Economic Forum in Davos when he insisted that Canada will be examining closely its current market access for imports from the least developed countries. He said Canada will be open to business from Africa. He reiterated that same remark in more precise terms at Monterrey. I know, Madam Chair, that your subcommittee on trade, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, has been given the specific mandate to consult, and I am quite convinced, Mr. Robinson, that by the time of the summit Canada will have fundamentally changed its position with respect to market access from LDCs. I think 48 LDCs are formally in that classification, 36 of them in Africa, and at least as regards those 36, I think you will see some significant change, but of course, Madam Chair, that's what you're consulting on.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Martin.

Mr. Keith Martin: Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Ambassador Fowler and Mr. Good.

On behalf of Canadians, Ambassador Fowler, I want to thank you for the hard work you've been doing all over the world for the betterment of some of the most impoverished people. I know your travel schedule has been absolutely gruelling, and I don't envy you.

On the issue of conditionality, I'm really happy that you're putting this on the table at the G-8. Ambassador Fowler, will you be expanding the notion of conditionality to not only issues of governance and corruption, but also issues of protection from both domestic and foreign investors as a precondition for driving that foreign investment that is going to help these countries, and the issues of an independent judiciary, good monetary and fiscal policy, and an investment in primary health and education, instead of weapons?

Second, perhaps you could tell us really what the commitment is of the leading countries with NEPAD. I have some concerns about the authors when they make this wonderful document on one hand, but on the other hand ignore the pandemic of HIV on the continent and their inability to go to the aid of defenceless civilians--and I draw attention to Zimbabwe.

Finally, we have a dizzying array of charters and conventions and resolutions to protect innocent civilians in the face of mass murder, and yet we, as an international community, have been unwilling to come to their defence. In NEPAD there are some wonderful comments about conflict prevention. Will Canada take a leadership role, Ambassador Fowler, with the other G-8 countries that can really drive this agenda, to put teeth behind those resolutions, behind those conventions, which are beautiful words on paper, but really have little meaning in the practical world of foreign policy?

º (1645)

Mr. Robert Fowler: Thank you, Dr. Martin, for your kind remarks. I have followed your travels, and you've been in some pretty interesting places too.

With respect to conditionality, let me make it clear that the proposal is an African proposal. It is their proposal that good governance is a fundamentally vital sine qua non for investment. Investment is what's going to get Africa out of the difficulty in which most countries on that continent find themselves. So it is their commitment to measure governance across the full definition, as you suggest, then to focus attention on where it works and where it doesn't work. We have made it very clear that the governance issue is fundamental to what the G-8 said yes to. The peer review of governance in Africa, coupled with African ownership of Africa's future and Africa's understanding that their future depends on more than ODA, is what caused the G-8 to say yes. Therefore, we are watching very closely as the Africans develop this peer review of governance mechanism, and we are pleased to see the Africans themselves give this number one priority among those disparate elements of NEPAD. As I've said, I expect that by the time we get to Kananaskis, they will have in hand a comprehensive and transparent process that we will all be able to examine. I suspect it will indeed answer all your questions. But the point I'm making is that it's not our conditionality, it's theirs.

In addition to that, of course, we have identified the five themes I mentioned to you in the meeting in January. Let me review those again very quickly. We will have a partnership with all the 53 countries in Africa, but an enhanced partnership with a very few who are able to put the governance in place to meet their own NEPAD commitments, so as to attract investment, an enhanced partnership in which we will concentrate our main development activities, as opposed to the human needs criteria that pertain elsewhere across the continent.

Mr. Keith Martin: The countries that meet those conditions will be the focus of our African development?

Mr. Robert Fowler: Correct.

Nor do I think, by the way, that we have to wait until the Africans have produced all those conclusions before we walk the talk with respect to engaging in those countries that, at least initially, appear to us to be best able to attract that investment.

Thee five areas we will concentrate on are peace and security, i.e., conflict prevention; governance in all its forms--political governance, economic governance, administrative, judicial, etc; knowledge and health, knowledge being more than education and including digital divide, distance learning, distance health, information technology, etc.; health, it goes without saying--and you know that better than most of us--meaning AIDS, malaria, all those diseases that most Canadians have never heard of, trying to engage the phenomenon whereby 90% of the world's medical research is done on 10% of the world's maladies, i.e. those that affect us; trade and investment, trade meaning market access, diminishing export subsidies, opening our markets to their products, and if we expect investment to be one of the major saviours of Africa, when they produce things as a result of that investment, we have to be able to take them; agriculture and water--ten years ago over 25% of our ODA investment was in the area of agriculture, today it's less than 7%, and on the water side, one African in two drinks dirty water, and we have to change that.

º (1650)

The Chair: Thank you.

Madame Marleau.

Ms. Diane Marleau (Sudbury, Lib.): Africa is always a very challenging issue. One of the major problems--and I'll say the word--is corruption, and you know it is. It isn't just corruption with the Africans, it's the facilitation of that corruption by countries and institutions in the north. In light of the recent terrorist problems and the shutting down of terrorist activities, do you believe the G-8 might be prepared to address secret bank accounts, to address those jurisdictions that allow for havens of cash and so on, a very destructive force on this globe, especially for the African countries? It's fine to speak about developing Africa, but I sincerely believe that until the day these kinds of practices are shut down completely, or as completely as can be done, not much will change. The G-8 can and should do something about this. It's very important. I've asked the question before.

Also, can we get the countries of the G-8 to address the issue of sale of small arms, to the African countries in particular? I believe that's another issue, that the major sales of arms are coming from the G-8 countries. Can we get them to even talk about this? Again, this is a major problem, and it feeds a lot of what's been happening on the African continent. So I'd like to know whether you have this on the agenda of the G-8 and what you hope to accomplish with these kinds of issues.

Mr. Robert Fowler: Madame Marleau, thank you for raising the corruption issue right up front. I'm sure you're aware that in the NEPAD they deal straight up with it. They talk about corruption. Again, I suspect that's one of the things we said yes to. You're absolutely right, it's a two-way street, there are the corrupted and the corrupters. Therefore, particularly where we're paying special attention to the importance of attracting investment, we have to make sure it is appropriate investment and the OACD guidelines and Canadian guidelines to investors are understood and respected. Of course, they deal directly with issues like corruption.

Secret bank accounts are, as you well know, an incredibly complex issue, but we are making a very focused effort, in the terrorist context, to deal with secret accounts of all kinds. A number of Africans have said the same thing you're saying: if you can track al-Qaeda money, why can't you attack the ill-gotten gains of kleptomaniacal leaders in Africa, and can you please go back after the ill-gotten gains of the Abachas and the Mobutus? I know finance ministers are looking hard at terrorist financing. We said it couldn't be done in the past with money stolen from Jews in the Second World War, and we made some progress there. We're making some progress with respect to terrorism. In excess of $100 million has been seized already from terrorist accounts in the aftermath of September 11. Are there possibilities here? We're not there yet, but I expect there are.

On sales of arms, you're right. I'm happy to say Canada is not a major arms exporter to Africa or anywhere else, as you know. I have dealt with this issue for close to ten years at the United Nations. I think we had some significant success in cutting off the illegal arms sales to Savimbi in Angola, and I was very pleased to see a peace accord signed in Angola a couple of weeks ago--quite exciting. If that, along with two or three other conflicts, could be fixed in Africa, we would be dealing with a fundamentally different Africa.

One of the greatest oddities to people like us is the fact that there is very little enthusiasm in Africa for cutting off legal arms sales. We make this division between legal and illegal. There is some hope that we might be able to curtail, as we did in Angola, illegal arms sales, but Africans say--I made efforts in New York again and again to come to grips with this issue--wait a minute, if small arms are my only defence against a bully next door, if I can't equip myself properly with the arms I need, I'm going to be walked over by the guys on either side of me, so if you deny me that option, you are leaving me defenceless. It is a fundamental problem.

º (1655)

Ms. Diane Marleau: I understand the problems you face, and I brought it up especially with you. I think you did a tremendous job on the trade of diamonds, and I think we've seen some progress there. You did that while you were at the UN, and I thank you for it. I think there are a lot of profits to be made from some of this, and that's why some of the countries are not prepared to really take action. I think, with new technologies, if the will is there and the G-8 decide that this is the way to go, they could be extremely effective in tracking and shutting down a lot of this. It would be a different world in Africa if we could convince them to do that. So I wish you well. I know it's not going to be an easy job.

We're watching the Palestinians and the Israelis, and it's the same question there: they both needs arms. With an eye for an eye, people go blind. It doesn't take much time. I'm not convinced that we can't do a lot more, not just with illegal arms, but with the sale of legal arms. There's a lot of money to be made by the developing world. We sit back and say we're so good--and I say “we” meaning the developed world--but in essence, a lot of what's happening in these countries has been fueled by legal sales that have been condoned by developed countries. I think we need to do more, as developed countries, in these areas, and I hope you can push for more.

The Chair: Thank you, Madame Marleau.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Madam Chair, on a point of order, I wonder if I could some direction from the chair as to when I might now put my motion. I see we have quorum at the committee. We're scheduled to adjourn at 5:30. At what point would it be appropriate for me to put my motion?

The Chair: I think we have to come to the end of this meeting before we begin to address your question. You did agree at the very beginning that you'd hold it down to the end. Let's bring this to closure before we get into your other interests. We'll see what other questions there are. If we've come to the end of questioning for members, we extend the usual courtesies and get into the other part of the agenda, which would be your motion.

Sorry for the interruption.

There was one question I wanted to ask, simply because it was left on the table. Since Mr. Good is here, I wanted to bring it to his attention. When Roy Culpeper appeared before us, he was talking about the lack of coherence in how Canadian businesses operate in developing countries. He had some concerns about a policy covering how our private sector would conduct themselves in Africa in light of what could result from NEPAD initiatives. He mentioned your name, Mr. Good, as having discussed it with him. Your answer to him was that we don't have the necessary statute to govern this kind of problem, the issue of policies that would apply to labour, to environment, to a whole series of issues that he put on the table.

I wonder if you remember any such discussion, if you can make some clarification on those sensitivities about human rights, conflict prevention, environmental factors, and what statute you might require in order to help our private sector to behave in a fashion that would bring Canadian values to the developed world.

» (1700)

Mr. Len Good: I regret the fact that I have one opportunity for an intervention here, only to say that's not a conversation I recall having or thoughts I recall having expressed. I would not particularly care to elaborate on that at this point. It seems to me it takes us way beyond the policy road in which CIDA operates. I don't know whether Ambassador Fowler, in the context of NEPAD, would like to comment, but it's certainly way beyond anything I recall talking to Mr. Culpeper about.

The Chair: We'll get back to Mr. Culpeper and maybe have a three-way conversation.

Could you tell us a bit about the forum on Africa's development that's going to be taking place, funded by CIDA, on May 4 and 5? Could you speak to this?

Mr. Len Good: There's a major event on May 4 and 5 in Montreal, at which our minister will play a prominent role. Ambassador Fowler, I'm sure, will be there. The intention is to have a number of significant African officials, politicians, and others come and speak to their views on NEPAD. It's part of a major outreach event here in Canada, so that Canadians will have an opportunity to hear directly from Africans, with commentary, of course, from those of us involved in the process, on NEPAD and the way it's unfolding, Africans' expectations. We think it's an important event, and we're looking forward to it.

The Chair: Thank you. You might be able to share some of the findings, recommendations, or discussions with this committee. I think our researchers would be most interested as they begin to write the documentation for us.

Stock, do you have one?

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to get some clarification, if I can, from the ambassador. What are the limits at which our government will say no to governments in Africa on aid? I do appreciate the Prime Minister's comments, the overview about democracy, rule of law, and these types of things. We all know that words are going to require action. This year approximately a quarter of a billion dollars of our over $700 million in aid to Africa is going to be government to government. It's going to countries like Mozambique and Senegal, which have both had reports on them using euphemistic terms like extra-judicial killings, severe corruption.

Also, on the issue of neighbours of Robert Mugabe who are supporting him, at what point is the government going to say, no money, these are the words, and now here's the action, you're cut off? What's the point? I recognize aid for earthquakes, floods, that type of thing, but this is the government-to-government aid that is flowing right now.

The Chair: I think, Ambassador, Mr. Day missed the discussion about the peer review that was part of your earlier discussion with us.

Mr. Robert Fowler: You're right, Madam Chair. I was going to make that point and perhaps reiterate very quickly what we said earlier.

Basically, the G-8 is preparing a response to this African partnership proposal, which has two parts, a broad partnership with Africa based on the fact that Africa should not be allowed to fall off the agenda, based on the fact that the gap between them, the poorest people in the world, and us, the richest people in the world, ought not to become utterly unbridgeable, based on the fact that they shouldn't be held endlessly marginalized from the process of globalization. So we will engage with all of Africa, principally through the excellent work CIDA does, to fulfil our Canadian and our collective G-8 commitments to the millennium development goals: to ensure access to primary education for all; to reduce the number of people who go to bed hungry every year by 400 million between now and 2015; to promote gender equality; to reduce poverty; to help people fleeing from floods, famine, wars, and volcanos.

However, our mainline development assistance will migrate towards those countries that demonstrate that they are clearly willing to live up to that NEPAD commitment and to assume the obligations of good governance they have identified for themselves. And yes, you can fall off the wagon. In other words, if those governments are once judged to be the kind of partner they have identified and something happens in those countries to change that circumstance, they can be cut off. The Africans have committed themselves to a transparent peer review process that will give an assessment of their commitment to governance.

You mentioned two countries that I am going to tell you, from my perspective, are pretty good, Mozambique and Senegal. Perfection is not something we are talking about here, but Mozambique and Senegal, I would argue, are pretty good countries. There are others, I suppose, that we could agree fall into other categories, and it will be, at the end of the day, a somewhat subjective judgment, but one based very clearly on broadly agreed, transparent performance criteria, to be developed in the first instance by the Africans themselves.

Madam Chair, I would just stitch something onto that answer, though all my instincts tell me I shouldn't be doing what I'm about to do, to answer somewhat the question Len was given: what kind of investment are we talking about when we focus our attention on that enhanced partnership, on that group of good performers, as judged by that transparent, objective analysis? I know what I'm about to say could be taken extremely out of context, but I hope here the best will not be the enemy of the good. Investors have choices. You and I, Madam Chair, heard Mr. Chrétien explain in Africa that there is nothing more cowardly than a million bucks, with reference to the extent to which it can move quickly in any direction. Of course, our Canadian investors and our fellow G-8 investors must behave responsibly, and we have guidelines, like the OECD guidelines and our domestic Canadian guidelines, and they are important. But Africa desperately needs investment. With unemployment rates of 50%, 60%, and 70%, we cannot put the bar so high in Africa that no one will go there, as opposed to other parts of the world. In other words, we must do what is right; we know what that is, and we have guidelines that indicate what that is. It would be very easy--and this is a comment, obviously, I make outside this room--to talk Africa out of investment, to scare investors off by criteria that are unrealistic, higher than the criteria we apply in our own country, say. I'm simply saying we must be reasonably cautious as we talk about attracting investment to Africa, so as not to scare it off at the same time.

» (1705)

The Chair: Thank you.

» (1710)

Mr. Stockwell Day: Madam Chair, I would add that with countries that are prosperous, there are reasons that they are prosperous, and vice versa. When I was a minister of finance provincially and working with a South African province, at their request, on ways to create wealth, one of their huge problems was rampant crime. I said to their minister of finance, you're going to have to deal with the crime problem, because investment will not come to you otherwise. He said--and my heart went out to him--I've been in jail as a freedom fighter, so I can't put my own citizens in jail. I said, then you've got a problem. So we need to keep in mind that prosperity for a nation doesn't just fall in, there are reasons for it, there are consequences to certain actions and certain policies.

Mr. Robert Fowler: Mr. Day, I agree with you completely: 24,000 murders a year will not be conducive to families moving to Africa along with investments. But the twinning arrangement between Canadian provinces and South African provinces is an outstanding example of the kind of capacity building we can do to promote this common objective. It's an excellent program.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ambassador Fowler. Thank you so much, Mr. Good. We appreciated your being here with us and bringing us up to date. Hopefully, we'll be talking again and be seeing you again as the work continues. Thank you very much.

We now go to the motion that's before us.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Thank you, Madam Chair, and I will be brief.

First, I will move the motion of which I have given members of the committee notice. The motion is that the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade call upon the Government of Canada to officially recognize and condemn the Armenian genocide of 1915 to 1923 perpetrated by the Ottoman Turkish government, which resulted in the murder of over 1.5 million Armenians; to designate April 24 as the day of annual commemoration of the Armenian genocide; and to press the Government of Turkey to recognize and acknowledge the genocide and provide redress to the Armenian people.

Madam Chair, the members will note that it refers to April 24 as the day of annual commemoration of the Armenian genocide, and that is tomorrow. Armenian Canadians and citizens around the world will be joining in honouring the memory of those who died in the genocide of 1915. There will be solemn ceremonies here on Parliament Hill and elsewhere in Canada.

I want to appeal to the members of this committee to support the motion to recognize the truth of what has taken place. Up until now the position taken by the Liberal government, and indeed governments before the Liberal government, has been to refuse to recognize the Armenian genocide. In fact, just last week, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Graham, in response to a question from a member of this committee, Mr. Assadourian, refused to recognize the genocide. He referred to the “tragedy”. Frankly, this is a terrible insult to the memory of the victims of the genocide. We have to tell the truth about what happened, and in doing so, we would be joining with a number of other countries and jurisdictions.

I noted that the French National Assembly in 2001 adopted a law that recognizes the genocide, the Italian Chamber of Deputies in 2000. The European Parliament on a number of occasions has recognized the genocide very clearly. In fact, in February of this year it reaffirmed the importance of recognizing the genocide and of Turkey's recognizing the genocide as well. The Swedish Parliament in 2000, the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly in April 1998, Belgium in 1998, the United States House of Representatives in a resolution of April 1996, the Greek Parliament, the Cyrpriot House of Representatives, and others have acted also. The Swiss Parliament will be dealing with this issue, I believe, in June, and it is almost certainly going to be adopting a similar resolution.

So I want to appeal to members of this committee not only to honour the memory of those who died in this terrible holocaust, but also to particularly recognize that we owe to those who survived the genocide, the second and third generation survivors, to be truthful, to speak out, not to deny the truth of the genocide. For that reason, I'm calling on this committee to support this motion, and I think it's particularly timely, Madam Chair, on the eve of the commemoration of the genocide, that this committee has an opportunity to speak out and to speak the truth. I would urge members of the committee to support the motion.

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The Chair: Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you very much. I'll take this opportunity to thank the member for presenting this motion.

Of course, it would be very difficult to find any Canadian of Armenian origin or any Armenians around the world who would oppose this motion. If I can make a comparison, if you find a Jewish person denouncing recognition of the Holocaust, you may be able to find a person of Armenian origin in the world who will refuse to acknowledge that what happened in 1915 was genocide.

I want to mention that last January 19 and April 10 I had two meetings with the Canadian Armenian community representatives, one in Toronto, one in Montreal. Armenian organizations would total about 28 or 30, and I want to read for the record some that supported the motion I presented in the House on January 29 for debate as a private member's motion. The groups are: Hayastan All Armenia Fund; Armenian Association of Toronto; Armenian Medical Association; Armenian Democratic Liberal Organization; Armenian Evangelical Church of Toronto; Armenian General Benevolent Union; Armenian Jewelers Association; Armenian Association of Ontario; Armenian World Alliance; Bolsahay Cultural Association; Canadian Armenian Business Council; Canadian Genocide Museum; Holy Trinity Armenian Apostolic Church; Knights of Vartan; Daughters of Vartan; Armenian Cultural Association of Ottawa; St. Gregory Armenian Catholic Church of Toronto; Armenian Social Democratic Hunchakian Party. And other individuals were at the meetings, as I said, in Toronto and in Montreal. The support for this motion, Madam Chair, is unanimous, there is no question about that.

I am glad that our government, for the last seven or eight years, has moved forward from simple “tragedy”. In 1999, in answer to my question then to Julian Reed, parliamentary secretary for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lloyd Axworthy, he said what happened in 1915 was “intent to destroy a national minority”.

As I said, I have nothing but praise and support for this motion. I urge the members to put this question to their consciences and vote on what the motion says, rather than what may be here or may be there. If we vote against this, the Turkish government or the Turkish intellectuals will say, see, the Canadian foreign affairs committee refused this. That will be a setback for the Canadian Armenians and Armenians anywhere.

On the other hand, it's very encouraging to see many members of the Turkish intelligentsia supporting this position now. As a matter of fact, in the last few months many intellectual people from the Turkish Republic were over here, in the States and all over Canada, talking to communities, whoever invited them, saying the Turkish government is wrong not to accept responsibility on this. I think it's only fair that after 80 years the Turks come to recognize that there was a genocide. Hardly any families survived the genocide. I can speak from my own experience, my parents.

So I fully support the honourable member's motion in this regard. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Assadourian.

Ms. Carroll.

Ms. Aileen Carroll (Barrie--Simcoe--Bradford, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

My colleague on this side of the table has drawn our attention to the wording of a predecessor of mine, Julian Reed, when he spoke in June 1999 and did say that we, meaning the Canadian government, remember the “calamity”, much more than a tragedy. We have indeed accepted, as do most nations, that this was a tragedy, something including massive deportations and massacres, and as Mr. Assadourian has said, with the intent to destroy a national group. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were subject to those atrocities. It was a clear recognition on the part of the government then, and I might say that the current Minister of Foreign Affairs fully endorses this statement. In so doing, he has--and I think it's something we need to really focus on here--invited the parties to look to the future and to learn from the events of the past. It's very important that the memory of this tragedy never fades from our consciousness.

I recall, Madam Chair, an old saying, perhaps often repeated, that those who do not remember the past might be condemned to relive it. So there's no sense at all on the part of the government in doing anything but keep that memory and what we may have learned from it front and foremost in all of our minds. What we're trying to do, though, is make sure, at the same as we recognize the past, we don't let the past become an obstacle to the reconciliation and peace and prosperity that we hope will be the future, that we don't let that recognition of the horrors of the past constitute an obstacle or even drive a wedge between two countries such as Turkey and Armenia in their attempts to reconcile and to establish more dialogue between them. And that very much is the objective of the government, Madam Chair.

I realize that the bells are ringing, but I would just further mention that the House of Commons in 1996 dedicated the week of April 20 to 27 each year in remembrance of the inhumanity of people towards one another. That includes this event, as well as other historical events.

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The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Paquette.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Paquette: It seems fairly paradoxical that Canada, which has, after all, had relations with Turkey for a long time, does not have the courage to take that stand, when European Union countries have taken it and will be taking it. Turkey has been asking to be admitted into the European Union, and this could cause some problems in the relations among countries within the same community. However, the process has been underway for some time now, and though we are fairly distanced from the events, I don't see why we should be the very last country to express support. The support for recognition of the Armenian genocide noted by Mr. Robinson is fairly recent.

I believe that we have to be courageous, and courage is something that Canadians and Quebeckers have in abundance. We will therefore support Mr. Robinson's motion.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Day.

Mr. Stockwell Day: I was compelled by the remarks of Mr. Assadourian and the extensive work he's done with the Armenian groups and their support for the government's past statements on this, as Ms. Carroll has already indicated. I'll confess, I'm just on the learning curve of foreign affairs language and the parsing of different phrases and words. I don't understand why it would be back, when the government has been so clear on this one. So a vote against it, I hope, won't be used politically by anyone to say that group of MPs don't recognize what happened. We do, it was awful, it was terrible--use all the adjectives you want. But I'm satisfied with the report I've heard back, through the member, from the Armenian groups that the government has taken a very clear stand on this awful thing that has happened.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Svend Robinson: I'm not quite sure where Mr. Day is coming from, because Mr. Assadourian said all the groups he mentioned are calling on Parliament to recognize this genocide. So if Mr. Day is saying he wants to respect the position Mr. Assadourian is taking, he will vote for the motion, not against the motion.

I have just a brief question for Madam Carroll before we vote on this. She indicated that in 1999 Mr. Reed, who was then parliamentary secretary, stated that the government recognized that the actions taken by the Ottoman Turkish regime in 1915 were taken with the intent to destroy a national group. If, in fact, that was the case, it is obviously an essential component of the crime of genocide. Why is the government not prepared to recognize this as genocide?

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The Chair: We have about five minutes.

Ms. Aileen Carroll: The government statement stands, it is supported by the government today in 2002, as it was in June 1999.

I think we need to call the question, Madam Chair, in view of the ringing of the bells.

The Chair: All right, I'd like to call the question.

Mr. Svend Robinson: I'd like a roll-call vote, Madam Chair, although I note that Mr. Day just left the room.

The Chair: Okay. I put the motion.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 4)

The meeting is adjourned.