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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, May 2, 2002

0910

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

0915

Professor Joseph Nye (Dean, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University)

0920

0925

0930

The Chair

0935

Prof. Joseph Nye

0940

The Chair

Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ)

Prof. Joseph Nye

Ms. Francine Lalonde

Prof. Joseph Nye

0945

The Chair

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.)

Prof. Joseph Nye

0950

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day

0955

Prof. Joseph Nye

1000

The Chair

Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)

Prof. Joseph Nye

1005

The Chair

Mr. Pierre Paquette (Joliette, BQ)

1010

Prof. Joseph Nye

1015

The Chair

Ms. Diane Marleau (Sudbury, Lib.)

Prof. Joseph Nye

Ms. Diane Marleau

1020

Prof. Joseph Nye

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day

Prof. Joseph Nye

Mr. Stockwell Day

1025

Prof. Joseph Nye

The Chair

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

1030

Prof. Joseph Nye

1035

The Chair

Ms. Francine Lalonde

Prof. Joseph Nye

Ms. Francine Lalonde

Prof. Joseph Nye

1040

The Chair

Ms. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce--Lachine, Lib.)

1045

Prof. Joseph Nye

Mrs. Marlene Jennings

Prof. Joseph Nye

Mrs. Marlene Jennings

Prof. Joseph Nye

The Chair

Prof. Joseph Nye

1050

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day

The Chair

Prof. Joseph Nye

Mr. Pierre Paquette

Prof. Joseph Nye

The Chair

Prof. Joseph Nye

The Chair

1055

Ms. Aileen Carroll

Prof. Joseph Nye

Ms. Aileen Carroll

The Chair

Prof. Joseph Nye

The Chair

1100

Prof. Joseph Nye

The Chair

Mr. Svend Robinson

1110

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day

1115

The Chair

Mr. Antoine Dubé (Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, BQ)

The Chair

Ms. Francine Lalonde

The Chair

Ms. Francine Lalonde

The Chair

Ms. Francine Lalonde

Mr. Svend Robinson

Ms. Francine Lalonde

The Chair

1120

Mr. Svend Robinson

The Chair

Ms. Francine Lalonde

The Chair

Ms. Aileen Carroll

The Chair

Ms. Aileen Carroll

1125

The Chair

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day

Ms. Aileen Carroll

Mr. Stockwell Day

Ms. Aileen Carroll

Mr. Stockwell Day

The Chair

Mr. Antoine Dubé

Ms. Francine Lalonde

The Chair

1130

Ms. Aileen Carroll

The Chair

Mr. Svend Robinson

The Chair

Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West, Lib.)

1135

The Chair

Ms. Aileen Carroll

Mr. Stan Keyes

Ms. Aileen Carroll

Mr. Stan Keyes

Ms. Aileen Carroll

Mr. Stan Keyes

Ms. Aileen Carroll

Mr. Stan Keyes

Ms. Aileen Carroll

Mr. Stan Keyes

Ms. Aileen Carroll

Mr. Stan Keyes

Ms. Aileen Carroll

Mr. Stan Keyes

Ms. Aileen Carroll

Mr. Stan Keyes

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.)

1140

The Chair

Mrs. Marlene Jennings

The Chair

Ms. Francine Lalonde

The Chair

Mr. Svend Robinson

The Chair

Ms. Aileen Carroll

The Chair

Mrs. Marlene Jennings

The Chair

1145

Mr. Antoine Dubé

Mr. Svend Robinson

The Chair

Ms. Beth Phinney (Hamilton Mountain, Lib.)

The Chair

Ms. Beth Phinney

The Chair

Ms. Beth Phinney

1150

The Chair

Mr. John Godfrey

The Chair

Mr. Antoine Dubé

The Chair

Ms. Beth Phinney

The Chair

Ms. Beth Phinney

The Chair

Mr. Antoine Dubé

The Chair

1155

Mr. Stockwell Day

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

NUMBER 074

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Thursday, May 2, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿ (0910)

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke--Lakeshore, Lib.)): Good morning. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are studying North American integration and Canada's role in the light of new security challenges.

We have with us today as witness Dean Joseph Nye from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. His biography was sent out to you. You can see from the many areas outlined in his biography the eminence of the individual before us. Mr. Edmonds is supposed to be with him, the past chair of the National Capital branch of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. He'll be joining us a little later. I'm mentioning Mr. Edmonds because he's the one who let us know Mr. Nye was in Ottawa. We appreciate the fact that he brought that to our attention. So we've taken the opportunity to get you here, sir.

Joseph S. Nye, Don K. Price Professor of Public Policy and dean of the Kennedy School, returned to Harvard in December of 1995 after serving as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, where he won two distinguished service medals, and as chair of the National Intelligence Council. He's written several books, a couple of recent ones that have caught our attention, Understanding International Conflicts and The Paradox of American Power. Other things he's written have also been part of past committee work. Governance in a Globalizing World and Power and Interdependence have been sources of material for researchers.

So we're very pleased to have you with us, sir. You bring such expertise to this committee.

In March we had two days of consultation in Washington. We met with the Woodrow Wilson Centre, with individuals from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, the Department of State, the National Security Council, officials from the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Congressman Hyde, and members of the House International Relations Committee.

In Ottawa, in the course of our hearings over the winter, we were privileged to have before us several distinguished American experts on Canada-U.S. relations. I'll name a few you might know. Chris Sands of CSIS, Stephen Flynn of the Council of Foreign Relations, Charles Doran from John Hopkins, and Professor Robert Pastor from Emory University. The dialogue with them was most interesting, and most informative and helpful to us.

Next week we are heading to the west and to Ontario, conducting our hearings on the North American study. We hope we'll have this completed for a report to be presented around October or November. Your presence here with us is really to help us along with that work.

So welcome You have some minutes to make your remarks to us. Then we'll take the opportunity to ask questions and to deliberate with you.

¿ (0915)

Professor Joseph Nye (Dean, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University): Thank you, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to be with you. I do not have deep knowledge of Canada, but I have deep affection and respect. It is a real pleasure to be with you.

As I understand it, you'd like me to speak for no longer than 10 minutes, so that we will spend most of our time on questions. So I'll be brief in my introductory remarks.

Canada has a long history of dealing with a major problem. That problem is, how do you live with a giant neighbour? How do you benefit from the interdependence in security and economics that exists on the North American continent, while at the same time preserving independence as a distinct political culture? I would argue that by and large, Canada has walked this tightrope quite successfully.

I did spend a term teaching at Carleton in Ottawa in the 1970s, and I did a study that looked at two decades of Canadian-American conflicts before World War II and two decades after World War II. What I discovered was that when you look at the record closely, Canada does pretty well. The idea that Canada always loses or that Canada is the servant of the Americans just doesn't stand up to the historical test. It turned out, on a case by case basis, to be a relatively equal relationship in the bargaining that went on.

But the world has changed a lot since I did that study in the 1970s, and U.S. power is greater than ever before. With the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War, there was no longer any global balancer of American power, and essentially, we wound up in a world in which there is a sole superpower, or as French foreign minister Hubert Védrine has put it, a hyperpower, hyperpuissance. I think, if one looks at the military balance of power in the world, it is quite extraordinary how unbalanced it is. There's probably no country since Rome that has been that much larger than the rest of the world. For example, the United States military budget is equal to the next eight countries combined. So this is, in that sense, a unique period in world history, as well as North American history.

That's rather ironic in some ways, because, if you remember, a decade ago the conventional wisdom was that the United States was in decline. At that time there was a widespread view that the United States had passed its peak. I remember in the 1992 presidential election Paul Tsongas, the senator from Massachusetts, campaigned on the slogan, “The Cold War is over and Japan has won.” At the time I wrote a book called Bound to Lead, which argued that in fact, the United States would become the dominant power of the 21st century. I was warning against the conventional wisdom at that time. I now worry about a new conventional wisdom that treats American strength as meaning that we're invincible and invulnerable, which leads towards a new unilateralism. The book that has just been published I called The Paradox of American Power. Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone. The paradox is that the strongest country since Rome can't get all the outcomes it wants in world politics by acting alone.

I have tried to illustrate this by saying power today is a little like a three-dimensional chess game. Traditionally in world politics, military power dominated. It tended to homogenize other forms of power. When the U.S. wanted Japan to open its markets in the 1850s, we sent ships, and the black ships essentially led to the Meiji restoration and major changes in Japan. Today the idea that we could use military power to change the exchange rate of the yen or Japanese trade practices is clearly out of the question. So as you look at power today, you have to think in three dimensions.

¿ (0920)

On the top board of the three-dimensional game, military power, the world is indeed unipolar. There is no country that can challenge the United States. In the first chapter of this new book I look at all the potential challengers, China, Europe, and so forth, and don't think any of them is going to be a global challenger to the U.S. But it can be highly misleading if you restrict your attention to that board alone.

At the second level of this game, the economic board, the world is not unipolar, it's already multipolar. The U.S., China, Europe, Japan represent about two-thirds of the world economy. When the United States wants to get an outcome in that area, it has to bargain with these other countries. For example, Bob Zoellick could not get a new trade round at Doha without the agreement of Pascal Lamy and the European Union, as well as other countries. When Jack Walsh wanted to merge GE and Honeywell, two American companies, he obviously got approval of the American justice department, but that wasn't sufficient. He didn't get the approval of the European Union Commission, and the deal fell apart.

The top board is unipolar. The middle board is already multipolar. On the bottom board of this three-dimensional game, the board of transnational relations, of things that cross borders outside the control of governments, whether at the benign end of the spectrum, bankers transferring funds that are larger than the budgets of some countries, or at the malign end of the spectrum, terrorists transferring weapons across borders or cyber-terrorists doing damage across borders, without ever crossing the borders themselves, there is no structure of power. It makes no sense at all to talk about hegemony or unipolarity at this bottom level of the board. The reason this board is becoming more important is the increased role of two deep forces in international politics, the information revolution and globalization.

The information revolution simply means the enormous decline in the costs of computing and communication. As somebody has pointed out, if you took the price of an automobile and had it go down as rapidly as the price of a semiconductor over the last 30 years, you could buy an automobile today for $5. That enormous decline in the cost of communications and computing power means that many groups can now communicate instantaneously at a worldwide level for virtually pennies. So whereas in 1970, to have global instantaneous communications, you had to be a big bureaucracy, like a government or a multinational corporation, today you can do this, essentially, if you have access to a modem and a computer. That has had a profound transforming effect.

One of the things it has done is enable terrorist networks to be more effective. We've known terrorism for a long time, it goes back to roots, in its modern incarnations, in the nineteenth century, but it's worth noticing the increase in capability of terrorism. Technology is putting into the hands of deviant groups and individuals destructive power that was once reserved solely to governments. So if in the twentieth century you had a person who wanted to kill many people, a Hitler, a Stalin, a Mao, he needed the power of a government to do it. Today it's not far-fetched to imagine terrorists getting access to weapons of mass destruction and being able to do that themselves. I've called this the privatization of war. This is a totally new dimension of world politics.

In addition, globalization, by which I mean worldwide networks of interdependence, is shrinking the importance of distance, so events in distant parts of the world are having much more powerful effects than they did in the past. An example of this coming out of September 11 would be Afghanistan. In the 1990s we knew the conditions in Afghanistan were terrible, but the general reaction was, too bad for the Afghans, but what does it mean to us? On September 11 we learned that chaos in poor, weak countries halfway around the globe can make a very big difference to us.

So that combination of the information revolution and globalization is making these events, these actors on the bottom level of the three-dimensional chess board more important. The thing to notice about that bottom level, the transnational level of the chess board, is that most of the issues are multilateral. Very few of them have unilateral solutions. That requires the United States and others to work cooperatively to deal with these issues.

¿ (0925)

Some people disagree with my analysis. For example, the Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer looks at the events in Afghanistan, and in December he wrote a column saying Afghanistan proves that the new unilateralism works. After all, the United States was able to win a military victory in Afghanistan acting largely alone; while it had some help from allies, it was largely proof that unilateralism works. I think this is a profound misreading of the lessons of Afghanistan.

What we see in Afghanistan is that the United States was able to use military power successfully to defeat a weak state sponsor of terrorism, the Taliban, but it was not successful in wrapping up the al-Qaeda network, of which we destroyed or caught a quarter to a third at most. That al-Qaeda network is a network with cells in some 50 countries, many of them friendly countries, where we could not use military force even if we wanted to. The answer to that lesson of Afghanistan is that you must have cooperation in the civilian area. You need to have intelligence sharing, police work, tracing of financial flows, and so forth to be able to cope with this. So I would argue that Afghanistan, contrary to those who say it proved the success of the new unilateralism, actually exposed the limits of the new unilateralism and showed that we desperately need cooperation if we're going to deal with this bottom level of the chess board.

That means there is going to be a new context for Canadian-American cooperation and our famous long undefended border. We have to realize that you can no longer do things at borders alone. Borders are now zones, and as this committee knows from its work on smart borders, the new way of thinking about this is that we have to operate inside your borders, you have to operate inside our borders. Some people will say, isn't that a derogation of Canadian sovereignty? Not in the least, any more than it is a derogation of American sovereignty. It means we have to get away from our traditional concepts of what borders mean and learn to act cooperatively if we're going to cope with the threats that come from the privatization of war and this new dimension of transnational relations.

I believe the concerns about loss of sovereignty often get in the way of clear thinking. The committee asked me to take a look at the paper by Michael Byers about whether the new northern command the United States has announced will have a negative effect on Canadian sovereignty. I must say, no more than NORAD did. I think, in fact, the interdependence in security affairs has been there for some time, and I don't see any reason Canada cannot retain the right to withdraw from activities in other dimensions that it does not approve of.

So I think we need to be careful not to let old concepts, whether they're concepts of traditional politics, such as unipolarity or hegemony or sovereignty, interfere with the thinking we need about how to get the cooperation that will lead us to be successful, both as Canadians and as Americans, in dealing with the new threats that come from this third level of the chess board, the level of transnational relations, particularly the terrorist threats. I think we have to free ourselves from some of our traditional ways of thinking and ask how we can make sure Canada continues its successful walking of the tightrope, to deal with this interdependence, while preserving its distinctiveness as a political culture. I think this can be done, and what's more, I predict it will be done.

Thank you.

¿ (0930)

The Chair: Thank you very much, Professor.

We'll now go to questioning, and we'll start with you, Mr. Day.

Mr. Stockwell Day (Okanagan—Coquihalla, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Madam Chair.

Professor Nye, thank you for your observations and your insights. It's most helpful to us. I wish, in a session like this, we could have a few hours and not be limited by some of the appropriate parameters we do have for discussion here, ten minutes for you, five for me, and five for my colleagues, and a very strict chairman. Your work certainly bears further discussion. I hope we can pursue it in some other arena at some point.

One of the many benefits I see of the high-level and rapid global information flow that's available to all people, as you indicated, for very small amounts of money is that developing nations or restructuring nations have the opportunity to pose to themselves, as they look to their own future, the simple question, what works? Though all reports are biased and seen through the eyes of the beholder, they can observe what is working in certain nations, what works to create wealth, what works to raise the standard of living. Certainly, the negative side you talked about is very real. Terrorists can amass certain information, but so can those who are looking at what works to see the lives of their own citizens improve.

For my questions, rather than reflect on some in-depth discussion about soft power, hard power, things like that, I'm concerned about some direct effects on Canadians, our place in global reality. What do you see emerging? You've made comments about Mexico's relationship with the United States. Some things never change in history. The dynasties still are based on personalities. It seems to be me there was a personal relationship between your President and the President of Mexico, obviously developed for geographical reasons. That leads to certain opportunities for trade, and freedom of trade, I believe, is the basis for the exchange of ideas and the preservation of democracy, because of proper and appropriate positive self-interest. What do you see happening in the future? Is there going to be a deflection of the U.S. administration from interest in Canada? Is there going to be some deflection to Mexico? What can we see happening there in regard to Canadian business interests?

Second, on the question of linkage of issues, you've also made observations about our softwood lumber and other matters. I see, and I don't understand it, with President Bush, a rising sense of protectionism when it comes to the national industries of the United States. Do you see that growth continuing? Is linkage something we should be pursuing?

Finally, I have an observation. Because of my small c conservative fiscal views, and having been involved in governments able to successfully implement them through restructuring, privatization of war just jangles me a little. I prefer words like hijacking and murderous applications of terror by small groups of people. Privatization, of course, has a different meaning to people, and certainly, linking it to this terrorist activity gives it a pejorative sense. That's just an observation.

On those two areas, could you comment and feel free to give us your reflections?

¿ (0935)

The Chair: Thank you.

Dr. Nye.

Prof. Joseph Nye: Thank you.

I'll just clarify the linguistic point at the end. In this book, I point out that as information reaches more people at lower cost, it has both good and bad effects. There are many aspects of privatization that are good. In the ten minutes I had I didn't have time to go into them. I did not mean to imply that privatization is bad, but when it comes to war, it is. I was simply saying that the information revolution is a mixed blessing. It's here, it's a fact. It has some aspects of privatization that are very positive and others that are not. That was all I meant. It was not meant to be a slur on privatization per se.

Let me go back to your point about President Bush's relationship with President Fox in Mexico. The fact that President Bush came from Texas and had known President Fox before obviously meant there was initially in the administration a diversion of attention southward. But I think if one goes to Mexico City today and talks to Mexicans, they would say, what happened? We were supposed to be the focal point of this new administration's foreign policy, and we no longer feel we are. What happened was that the world caught up, and the President is now realizing he has to be tous azimuts, to use the French expression, meaning he has to be looking in every direction at the same time, he has to look north as well as south, east, and west. So the privileged position of Mexico that was touted in the early stages of the administration I think is no longer quite as strong as it first seemed.

On the question of protectionism, you mentioned the softwood lumber dispute, but I would add to that the steel tariffs the president put up. I think this was a mistake, speaking personally, but I think it's also worth realizing that this is probably not related to the new American power in the world. This is as old as Canadian-American relations. As I went back and did these studies of the U.S. and Canada in the 1920s and 1930s, what struck me was how many of the disputes, fisheries, lumber, trade issues, water, were there in the 1920s and 1930s and continue this day.

I think the larger question of protectionism is endemic in all democracies. In a democracy people who feel intense damage or intense concerns tend to be more politically active and mobilized, and they tend to speak to their member of Parliament or their member of Congress and push harder. It often turns out that the producers are more easily organized than consumers. The net result is that all democracies have a certain amount of protectionism—the squeaky wheel gets the grease. I think President Bush is sincere in his statements about free trade, but I think he has succumbed to these protectionist pressures, and I would prefer he had not. But I think this one is not a reflection of the new structure of power in world politics. I think this is endemic in democracy.

With the question on linkage, one of the things that struck me in the study I did of these U.S.-Canada disputes in the past was that the Canadians did very well when they unlinked. When you got an issue and dealt with it on its own merits, you tended to do quite well. Canada was often successful in lobbying in Washington or found an American interest or corporation that would work in Congress on Canada's behalf and so forth. When you link together, you get back to the fundamental difference in size. If you link everything together, you get back to the fact that the U.S. is ten times the size of Canada. So I would think linking is the wrong strategy. If you do linkage, essentially, you are in the domain of overall power, whereas when you do a particular area, you may win some and you may lose some, but you'll find in many areas you're actually quite capable of holding your own.

I would be a little bit suspicious of linkage, because you might say we'll link gas or we'll link water to this, then the Americans may link something even bigger. So before you get it all wrapped in one ball of wax, you ought to ask, is that the best strategy for Canada? I suspect probably not.

¿ (0940)

The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Nye.

We'll go now to Madame Lalonde.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): Thank you very much.

Welcome, Mr. Nye. It is an honour for us to have you here today.

You described the three levels. Are we to understand that the foreign policy of Canada or other similar medium powers can be effective and somewhat influential even though it is different from the foreign policy of the United States? We might even extend this definition of foreign policy to include Kyoto and the fact that Canada committed to sign on to Kyoto and now seems to be somewhat hesitant to follow through on the commitment. Many areas of Canada, in particular Quebec, are pressing the government to move to endorse Kyoto as quickly as possible.

You said that the historical studies that you have conducted have shown that Canada has done rather well. I am not sure whether you would come to the same conclusion if you conducted the same type of study today. I would like to hear what you have to say on that issue. Perhaps I will have some time left over for further questions.

[English]

Prof. Joseph Nye: Your question about whether the results will be the same is a very good one. I was just suggesting yesterday to a Canadian colleague that he should get a young graduate student to do all that hard work. That means going through the archives decision by decision. I'm not sure I know the answer, and I shouldn't prejudge the answer.

What struck me was that Canada often did well because it either had, in some cases, institutionalized something or found an American ally, for example a corporation, that had an interest in helping Canada and would lobby in Congress. There were many ways in which Canada succeeded, and I think it would be interesting to look at disputes in the current period and ask whether those forces are still valid. I would suspect yes, but I'm prejudging them.

On some of the more dramatic issues that relate to the third level of this chess board, the transnational issues, the United States is going to need the help of Canada and others. If we just look at the case of terrorism, we can't police our borders without Canada helping. Sure, we could stop the trucks and they could line up for 10 miles, but we all lose with that, and unless we work as we have been working on smart borders, which is a cooperative approach, we can't do that.

I think that's true for many of the issues. If you look globally at the spread of infectious diseases, just two years ago there was a spraying of insecticides in American cities all along the east coast because of the fear of West Nile fever, and this originated in Africa. It's impossible to keep out all such things. It could have come in with a mosquito that got into an airplane, it could have come in with a passenger who had been bitten by a mosquito in Africa, was bitten by a pure American mosquito, which then bit another American. You cannot possibly stop disease at the border. That means we ought to treat public health in Africa as a larger security interest. In other words, rather than saying we'll solve this at the border, we have to go and work on supporting Gro Brundtland and the World Health Organization and get better drugs for helping Africans.

So there are many issues at this level on which I think the United States will be working not just with Canada, but with others.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: In terms of our foreign policy, and given our position on Iraq and on events in the Middle East, are we in a position to influence the United States? Are they listening to us?

[English]

Prof. Joseph Nye: Yes, though when you get back to issues that relate to the top board of this three-dimensional chess board, you'll find that there the preponderance of power will mean the influence is somewhat less. But there are ways to influence even then. I have been struck by the fact that Britain and Tony Blair have earned a right to be heard and taken seriously in Washington through their actions. There is a respect for Blair because of the actions that he took in support of the U.S. after September 11, which means that when he has met with Bush, according to press accounts, and said, let's go a little bit slower on this, or, let's think of this a different way, he gets a hearing.

I think this may have some implications for the now contentious issue of Canadian participation in the military activities in Afghanistan. I would think that the fact that Canadians are participating adds a little weight to Canada's voice. It's not that Canada is going to have the same power on the top board as the United States, but the question is, how do you get taken seriously, how do you get heard when you have important points to make? I think the type of participation we've now seen probably helps Canada.

I think the United States actually benefits from that. I worry if the United States doesn't listen to its allies. Nobody has a monopoly on wisdom. One of the great dangers to the United States is that it becomes somewhat parochial in its outlook, it talks to itself too much and doesn't listen enough. So having valuable interlocutors among our allies to say, you ought to be more even-handed on your Middle East policy, or, you ought to make the case more clearly that Saddam has violated multilateral treaties and proved that he is denying the inspectors the right to go and show whether he's developing nuclear weapons or not, is very useful.

So even if you don't have equal power on this top board, I think you should be trying to express your influence. But your influence is often stronger when it comes from an attitude that says, we're interested in helping, not just having a purist position outside criticizing. So some way of keeping independent criticism, but proving that you are, if you will, a loyal opposition, not just an opposition, I think enhances allies' influence.

¿ (0945)

The Chair: Thank you, Professor.

We'll go to Mr. Assadourian.

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

There's one thing Mr. Day said I agree with--the only thing. Five minutes is too short a time for this debate. But I hope we get different opportunities to discuss this very important issue.

I have two questions, Professor Nye. You talked about the lack of collateral balance with the U.S. The U.S.S.R. collapsed, and the U.S. is the only military superpower. Then you mentioned China, and they're not able to fill the vacuum created by the vanishing of U.S.S.R. Do you find the world more dangerous now, because there is no balance, than it used to be, or is it just the perception some people have now that the U.S. is the big Uncle Sam with the biggest stake--my way or the highway?

Second, you totally bypassed the UN as an instrument to bring together multilateral levels of government organization to enhance peace and prosperity or cooperation between have and have-not nations in Africa, South America, parts of Asia, what have you. Would you comment also on the UN, because we are very big at the UN? We feel the UN being diminished by U.S. administration. At least, I feel it's no longer as relevant as it used to be.

Prof. Joseph Nye: I certainly think the world is better with the Cold War over. I also think the world is better to have the Soviet Union over. The threat we faced in the Cold War was the prospect of a nuclear exchange that could be totally devastating to our civilization as we know it. The threat we face today, as I put it in this new book, is not that a new empire will challenge us, but that we'll succumb to a thousand cuts from the new barbarians, they being the terrorists. So we have a different type of threat, but it is worth remembering that Rome succumbed not to a new empire, but to the new barbarians. So I actually prefer the world with the Cold War over and no more Soviet Union, but what I'm arguing is that it doesn't mean we're out of the woods. We have another set of threats. It's important that instead of looking at the new threats as, say, China replacing the Soviets as the new enemy, or the EU, we should be looking at where the new threats are really coming from. That was the purpose of my comment.

On the point about the UN, I agree with you. I think the United States undervalued the UN in the 1990s and in the early days of the Bush administration. It was interesting that after September 11 Congress suddenly paid our overdue UN dues and confirmed our ambassador to the UN—better late than never—but it would have been better to have learned it earlier.

There is a paradox that sometimes comes up. People look at public opinion polls in the United States, and you can show that during the 1990s the majority of the American public supported the UN. You actually get figures around two-thirds to three-quarters of the public who support the UN. How is it possible, when the majority support the UN, that the U.S. could go for a number of years, as it did, undervaluing the UN? The answer has to do with the intensity of preferences in a democracy. The people who care deeply about the UN, who think it's a threat to American sovereignty, are the people who show up in the Republican party primaries and vote. Most of the people who say the UN is a good thing are nonetheless thinking about jobs, medical care, whatever, and the UN is about 20th on their list of priorities. So the people with intense preferences speak to their congressman, push hard on their senator, and their views get represented. The people who say, in general, it's a good thing, but I'm not going to vote on that, I'm going to vote on whether my job or my medical care is there, are not heard. I think it'll be important for American leaders to make clear to the American people that we have an interest in a strong UN.

I should also add one more phrase: the UN is far from perfect. We don't want to always tie our policy to the UN. For example, in the case of Kosovo the UN Security Council was unable to act to help protect the Kosovars, who were being ethnically cleansed. At that point we turned to NATO. So I agree on the importance of the UN, but we shouldn't pretend that the UN is a perfect instrument, because it's not.

¿ (0950)

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

We have a number of Liberals who've indicated that they wish to speak, but we'll keep going on the usual pattern. So it'll be back to you, Mr. Day.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I can't plumb the depths of the fabric of American thinking by any means, but at least as I see it, some of the reluctance in the U.S. against quickly paying their share to the UN each year is because the bureaucracy is so enormous and because of the waste of millions of dollars that could be going to truly starving individuals. The waste and bureaucratic inefficiency are huge. It's the same in our government, it's the same in any government, there's always that tendency. So I see some of the reluctance there to attempt to apply pressure to clean up the inefficiency and streamline the operation. That would be a major challenge, for sure.

With your reflections on Rome, we got into that a bit last week here. Pax Romana was always predicated on the military strength of the Empire itself. That's something that needs to be kept in mind. I don't know if we're seeing the same thing related to the Cold War, but certainly, we have the utter collapse of the Soviet system and their incapability of keeping up militarily. I too don't think it's a bad thing that the Cold War is over.

Those are two comments, and my question is this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you had some concerns related to the International Criminal Court, and it's reflected in one of the articles here. The concern we have, from an opposition point of view, is that there are so many principles that are undefined within the area of jurisprudence related to the International Court that we could find ourselves, our soldiers could find themselves, in untenable situations, facing international judges without principles being articulated in a very clear way, so that we know what we're getting into. If there's going to be respect for the law, either national or international, there has to be an understanding of what you're going to face.

I'll try to draw you into a political question here, and we'll feel free to take the advice as friendly and benign. How do we, trying to raise these concerns, avoid being accused of not being concerned about war crimes, for instance? We see, on the international scene, where war crimes have come up, in the Nuremberg trials and the situation in the Balkans. There is a tendency to deal with those case by case. How do we resist this International Court in a proper way, not being seen as not wanting to bring war criminals to task, but being concerned about our own people, Canadians, being affected by issues of jurisprudence we haven't even contemplated before we get into them?

¿ (0955)

Prof. Joseph Nye: Let me give you my views on the ICC, without entering into the Canadian politics of it. I think the ICC, in general, is a good idea. I hope some day the United States will join. However, there are Americans, as I gather there are Canadians, who are concerned about what happens if you get activist non-governmental organizations with a political agenda working with a prosecutor who wants to develop a certain international notoriety or fame or win a Nobel Prize or whatever, and they push, for example, for a war crime trial where we think it isn't justified.

For example, imagine that such a coalition pressed to say the American commander who oversaw the bombing in Afghanistan was a war criminal, because of civilian deaths. Under the principle of complementarity that is in the ICC, the United States would have the right to try that commander first. We would try him and we would say he did not deliberately kill civilians; there were civilians killed, but there was a proportionality in the way force was used, efforts were made to avoid the killing of civilians, so we think there is not a case for trial here. The danger many Americans fear is that this politically oriented group and prosecutor would say, you have tried him, or, you haven't brought him to trial, whichever, you think there's no case. We still think there is, and we will now bring him before the court. The United States asked for accommodation there to have the Security Council make a decision as to whether that was appropriate or not, and that, of course, was rejected by the like-minded states at Rome, on the ground that there should be no veto power. Even if it weren't done by veto, it seems to me it would have been wise to have a majority vote, perhaps by a qualified majority, nine members or something, that would have to approve an action like that. Otherwise, you're in a situation where there is some danger of a politicization of the prosecution. I think that is a problem.

It raises two issues. What can be done now? And how should we handle similar cases in the future? My own feeling is that if the Americans and the Canadians and the Europeans participate, we're more likely to get good procedures, which will avoid that type of scenario coming about. So I think it's probably better to go in and help shape the court than it is to boycott it or resist it. But I think it also sends a lesson about how we deal with similar issues in the future. I think it's too bad that there was not more accommodation to the American position. The American position—I speak now as a multilateralist, in general—under the Clinton administration was to try to join the court, but the Americans also have a set of responsibilities, because of their military power and role in preserving peace, that make them somewhat more vulnerable. I think the fact that the like-minded states decided to plunge ahead in creating the court over the objections of the Clinton administration actually meant that you got a court without the United States, and I think you would have been better to have a court with the United States.

If we think of progress in developing international institutions in a world that's changing, as ours is, sometimes the perfect can be the enemy of the good.

À (1000)

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Godfrey.

Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.): I'm delighted that you're here. I certainly read that Economist article with great interest.

My question relates to the post-September 11 world. It seems to me there are three factors that come together from the point of view of the United States, two of which were already in place. To use your analogy, the top two chess boards were like that before September 11, so military and economic power are in place. The second factor that was already evident was Bush Republican unilateralism. This was not a new phenomenon--it wasn't invented by Charles Krauthammer, who's just another displaced Canadian.

What does seem to be new, which is making life for us very interesting here, is the third factor, which I would call inappropriate triumphalism, with the seemingly easy, early victory in Afghanistan. The President's State of the Union speech, written by another displaced Canadian, suggests we could skate ahead on all of this stuff. In response to that, it seems to me there has to be a fundamental change in the way we, as Canada, react to what our friend does. Rather than finessing things, as we have so often done, particularly during the Clinton years, where we just dealt with things as they came along, being reactive, not particularly proactive, we find ourselves now confronting a series of decisions, the first of which was to participate militarily in Afghanistan. We didn't imagine, for example, that we'd have to deal with prisoners of war. Now we're confronted with the northern command, which requires us to take some stance, if not in May, at least by the middle of June, because the structure's going to be in place by October 1.

My hypothesis is that if we're going to be an effective, soft, middle power, we have to use one of the strongest tools in the tool bag, which is intellectual sovereignty, that is to say, our independent assessment of the facts and of the risks. The challenge we have is that if we were to deploy that intellectual sovereignty on the world's problems, we might come up with a very different list. We might decide that actually, one of the real problems in the world was Saudi Arabia. Since 15 of the 19 people on the planes came from there, one's first instinct might not have been to invite Crown Prince Abdullah to the ranch. National missile defence might be absolutely the wrong lesson to be derived from September 11, which, if it means anything, is the triumph of low technology and high concept, as indeed with suicide bombers in Israel.

What's an appropriate strategy? It seems to me it needs to be an inside-outside strategy. We need to work with nice Americans like you, with whom we agree, to try to make sure this intellectual sovereignty can be expressed in a way that is helpful to the United States and to the world, rather than having the wrong lessons being derived from September 11.

Prof. Joseph Nye: I think those are very good points. I agree with you about inappropriate triumphalism, but I think the important thing is how Canada's voice gets heard. Canada has soft power, which is attractive power, and former foreign minister Axworthy often referred to this. But there is the problem of, as I referred to it earlier, the tightrope Canada walks. If you become so purist and so clear in your moral clarity that you become regarded as shrill and your voice is discounted, all those good intellectual ideas aren't heard. So how do you prove your bona fides, but also speak effectively as a loyal opposition? That is a difficult task. It has been accomplished well in some cases, not so well in others.

Let me give you the example of the land mines treaty, which, of course, grows out of a convention here in Ottawa. I think the treaty is a good thing, but it's also true that you had a chance to get the Americans in and didn't make a compromise that could have done it. The United States and South Korea are the two countries in the world that have a responsibility for dealing with a particular problem, that North Korea has a million men under arms and that 60% of them are within 100 kilometres of the demilitarized zone. That has led the American military to say, we can get rid of anti-personnel land mines all over the world, except in one place. And when Canada and the like-minded group moved the negotiations on land mines out of the committee on disarmament in Geneva, brought it to Ottawa, said, let's get a treaty, whether we have the Americans in or not, that I think was the best being the enemy of the good. I think an exception for, let's say, 10 years for the Korean peninsula, having Americans in the land mine treaty, would have been more effective. The like-minded group of countries didn't do that, they decided they would have a pure land mine treaty, and I think the world is worse off for that, not better off.

So that's an example of what I mean. You can have good ideas, but you need to figure out how you aim them so they're most effective. I think that was a case where you slightly missed the target, and as a result, were less effective than you might have been.

À (1005)

The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Nye.

Monsieur Paquette.

[Translation]

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

Welcome, Mr. Nye. As the chair mentioned at the beginning of this meeting, we are hearing from you here today as part of a study that we are conducting on North American integration. I would like to know your thoughts on the resolve of the American authorities and President Bush, in particular, on the issue of negotiating the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. How does this initiative fit in with upcoming World Trade Organization talks?

We have seen that Mr. Bush is quite resolved to use the fast track procedure in Congress. However, we've also seen that South America takes a very dim view of a unilateral approach.

I have had the opportunity to travel to Brazil and to Mexico. I found that very few parliamentarians, including those from governing parties, are now advocating the creation of the Free Trade Area of the Americas. This initiative was not part of the election platform of any party during the election campaign in Brazil, for example. Politicians almost feel obliged to come out against this initiative. Given the current situation in Argentina, for example, it goes without saying that there's no support there either.

The US position—and I'm not saying that this was premeditated in any way—in the wake of the failed coup in Venezuela has been severely criticized. There are doubts about the genuine resolve of the United States to enforce the Democratic Charter which was adopted in Lima by the Organization of American States.

Consequently, there thus seem to be a certain amount of political will, but the action that is being taken does not seem to really be moving towards the realization of this initiative.

I would just like to raise one final issue which has continually struck us and which we even found slightly shocking. The US is systematically absent from the whole range of American hemispheric organizations, such as FIPA, the Inter-Parliamentary Forum of the Americas, and the Parliamentary Conference of the Americas, COPA.

Could you perhaps talk to us a little about the way you see this initiative developing from the US standpoint? I would also like to know where you think this initiative comes into play in terms of the upcoming World Trade Organization talks.

À (1010)

[English]

Prof. Joseph Nye: I think we ought to be placing our greatest emphasis on completing the WTO round that was announced at Doha. I think there is a legitimate role for regional free trade arrangements, but we should think of them in the context of the old article 24 of GATT: they should be more trade-creating than trade-diverting. A world in which we allowed regional arrangements to divert trade away from global trade would not be a better world. We have to remember a larger perspective, which was expressed at Doha, but remains very important, that half the world's people live on under $2 a day. We talk a lot about aid, and President Bush announced a 50% increase in American aid over the next three years, but frankly, the amounts of money involved in aid are small compared to what we do to the developing countries in trade. I heard Mike Moore, the head of the WTO, estimate that the cost of agricultural protectionism in the rich world is about $350 billion a year, probably about five times the value of all overseas development assistance. So we really have to keep an eye on making sure we don't look to narrow versions of free trade that make us feel better in one dimension and get us off the hook on what we're really doing on these larger questions of bringing developing countries into opportunities to prosper through trade.

If we look at the anti-globalization protests, there's a tremendous internal contradiction among those who want to preserve the sovereignty of their areas, but do so at the cost of poor countries. I always think of the irony when the anti-globalization protesters held their counter-Davos at Porto Alegre in Brazil. One of the heroes they celebrated there was José Bové, who is famous, of course, for his attack on McDonald's. But the problem is that José Bové also defends very strongly European Union agricultural policy, which is costing the developing countries who invited him to Porto Alegre enormously, much more than any damage McDonald's has ever done to anybody.

So when we look at trade and free trade, we have to be clear about the broader perspective. I believe an open international economic system and open trade, in the long run, provide the best prospect for helping poor people in poor countries escape their poverty. It doesn't mean all free trade is perfect, and it doesn't mean there can't be steps to have some limits along the way, but if you look at the countries in the world that have cut themselves off from the open international economy and you compare them with countries that have profited from using the international economy, you'll notice that there are a lot more poor people who have escaped poverty in the second set of countries than the first set.

So I think, as we make judgments like how we should approach hemispheric free trade, how we should deal with our objectives in free trade, we ought to be very careful to ask ourselves whether we are doing something that will lead to a stronger, better international economic system that benefits poor people in poor countries. If you look at the old article 24 of GATT, which encourages trade creation over trade diversion, that's not a bad principle for helping to start that judgment. I'm not opposed to hemispheric free trade, but I just think it has to be put in this broader context. That's why I'm glad that we have at least reached a set of principles for the Doha round. Now we have to implement them, and that's the hard part.

À (1015)

The Chair: Thank you.

We now have Madam Marleau.

Ms. Diane Marleau (Sudbury, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

As you know we're having these hearings in preparation for Kananaskis in June. Our Prime Minister has talked of putting forward an agenda for Africa, and the African leaders themselves have come up with a plan. There are a number of things in that plan where they will more or less police each other in respect of democracy and so on. My question really relates to the powers of the north and the G-7, G-8. Are we prepared to do more to police one another? I say that because, as you know, one of the major problems in Africa has been the issue of large transfers of cash from some countries into secret bank accounts in northern countries. There are corruptees, there are corrupters, and there are facilitators. I believe the only ones who can really do anything about these large transfers are the G-8, and with this new structure of power, we now know we can track and shut down bank accounts or moneys that are transferred for terrorist activity. Do you believe we have a chance of bringing this issue to the table at the G-8 and getting the G-8 countries to move in some fashion to have sanctions against those countries that have these secret bank accounts, are tax havens, and facilitate a lot of these problems?

Prof. Joseph Nye: Those are very good questions.

One of the things that have made it difficult in the United States and in some other developed countries to get higher levels of overseas development assistance has been the feeling that it's misused. As some people have put it, why should working people in rich countries give to rich people in poor countries? The problem of corruption is a serious one. There are some countries that are so badly managed and so under the control of corrupt governments that the aid is largely wasted. There have been some interesting studies done by William Easterly, who has worked at the World Bank and has brought out a book that is quite discouraging about this.

There are some things that can be done and we should be doing. The spread of acts like the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act among G-8 countries, to make it illegal to offer bribes, is now, I think, making some progress. The OECD has worked on that. You have Transparency International, a non-governmental organization, which is using naming and shaming as a way to try to put pressure on this. When President Bush announced at Monterrey that there would be an increase in American overseas development assistance, he said it was for countries that actually do something about this.

I think it's important that we not think just pouring money into African countries, or any countries, without looking at the institutional capacity, will help poor people. James Wolfensohn, the president of the World Bank, has also made this point. Those of us who care very much about a development agenda have to be thinking much more about delivery mechanisms for assistance.

Ms. Diane Marleau: While I understand what you're talking about, and that's true, one of the things we all know, those of us who've been to these countries and have seen how they work, is that the large amounts of money generated by corruption are not taken out of those countries by wheelbarrow or in somebody's pockets. There are people in the developed world who benefit even more by this corruption than the corrupt leaders and people in those countries. What I'm talking about is for us to police ourselves in regard to some of those transfers of cash. A lot of these countries don't have the systems to do it by themselves, and what I'm talking about is how we, as a G-8 and as a developed world, police each other to prevent the facilitating of the transfers of these amounts. If they can't get the money out of the country, it's going to be a lot harder for them to do some of the things they've been doing. I think we could play a role. I'm not sure if we're at that level yet, but I certainly would like us to start talking about it.

À (1020)

Prof. Joseph Nye: I agree with that. I would hope that it is on the agenda at Kananaskis, the question of tracing financial flows. In some cases what I call targeted sanctions, targeted against individuals who are known to have engaged in corruption or violated laws in that way, would make sense.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Day.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thanks again, Madam Chair.

I have just an observation. The views you hear expressed in Canada, as you well know, are not always universally shared among Canadians. I'm not suggesting it is so in this case, but intellectual superiority is sometimes a veil for pseudo-intellectual snobbery. One of the things about America's much maligned character, one of the redeeming qualities, is a lack of intimidation by excellence from people from other places. The American style is usually to observe the excellence, and then buy it. They're not afraid of it. When I think of misplaced Canadians having effect even on presidential policy, I grin with pride. I also reflect on the American character not being intimidated by a foreigner with strong qualities coming and having a positive influence on them.

You don't have to go any farther than the Olympics in Atlanta. I don't know if the professor is aware of this. Who sang the national anthem for the Americans? A Canadian. If that had happened in Canada, we would have hired the culture police and arrested anybody who was involved in bringing an American here to do something of excellence. We would have given the Canadians involved 100 hours of community service building beaver dams somewhere. Not all of us are intimidated by American culture, because we feel the strength of our own culture quite profoundly.

That observation being made, a great relief to my own chest, I come back to a positive self-interest. The farm bill in the United States, the farm subsidy, what will that do, not just to our own product, but as you've quite rightly said, to developing nations? Again trying to get as much insight from an American as we can, what would you suggest on how we attack that issue with the Americans? It is a destructive approach they're taking. Give us some insight, and we'd be happy for it.

Prof. Joseph Nye: I wish I could tell you how to deal with protectionism in democracies. It's not easy, because congressmen and, I would suspect, members of Parliament listen to those who have votes first. When you say, when the farm bill is before Congress, this may be a narrow perspective in terms of what's good for the world, they might remind you that if you're from a given agricultural state, or province in Canada, the votes aren't from the world, they're from the people within the province or the state.

Mr. Stockwell Day: In Canada, broadly, though we have certain supply side areas that have been agreed on in free trade, our own sense of confidence is such that our farmers are saying to us, we're willing to go it without the subsidies, we're willing to take on the world, and also feed the world. Among the American farmers, who should have a sense of technological confidence, why is that not there? Why are they not willing to say that, at least from your point of view?

À (1025)

Prof. Joseph Nye: It is so among many, but not all. For example, take Senator Lugar from Indiana, who is a very effective senator and has taken a very broad view on this question. He was one of the leaders in trying to cut agriculture subsidies. But if you take, say, sugar producers, they would not be able to stay in business without the protection. So it really depends, to some extent, which state and which producers you're talking about.

I think the best we can hope is that through political leaders dramatizing the deleterious effects of this narrow view and the way it is dangerous to our own long-term self-interests in world development, we may set some limits on how far this protectionism goes. If, for example, at meetings of the G-8 we reaffirm our principles, even though we don't always live up to them, nonetheless, principles do matter, they tug us in a certain direction. I think we have to face the fact that in democracies there'll always be protectionism, but turning that on its head, you might say the most remarkable thing is how much free trade there is. It hasn't degenerated into a pure protectionist system in which every group just does its own.

As you look at the public opinion polls in the United States on attitudes toward globalization, you will find general support for globalization, but when you ask the question again and say, “Would you be in favour of it if you lost your job or if it affected your job?”, it turns around. That's always going to be the case, and what we've got to do is provide a framework whereby we help those who lose their jobs to find other jobs, and whereby we create a tension towards keeping an open international system. That tension comes from reaffirming the principles.

People may say, well, isn't President Bush a hypocrite for preaching free trade, but succumbing to farm protectionism, steel protectionism, and so forth? I'd rather have a politician who at least spoke the right principles, even though he found it difficult to practise them in every circumstance, than one who ignored the principles, because it leads you in a direction where at some point you reassert that. I think this is not just an American problem. Canadians may be better placed on some of this than the Americans. If I look at problems of agriculture protectionism, the Americans are certainly no heroes, but the Europeans are even deeper into this problem.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Carroll

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

It's a delight to listen to you. As Mr. Day said, I wish we had you for at least two days, so we could continue this discussion. I look forward to reading the blues, so anything I missed I can read.

I have three points, if I can get them out quickly enough and leave you time to reply.

You mentioned North Korea as, if I can use a crude expression, an off-ramp for the American government with regard to the land mine treaty. I was there a year and a half ago. There may very well be one million people in uniform. I'd like to describe to you the condition of the uniforms and the people who are wearing them. They could use a one size fits all, because they are so incredibly thin and suffering from malnutrition. Most I observed were not behind weapons, but were helping people fix roads by hand, working in the fields, and so on. That's not to disillusion myself, I don't think, or look through rose-coloured glasses at a country whose history I've studied.

Even if America must go down the approach with DPRK that we recognize, I'm dismayed and disappointed that I don't see a parallel course, that I don't see a recognition in Washington of the changes that are occurring there, if not among officialdom, among many influential people. They're very cognizant of that. There's little food going into that country. What goes is largely American, through the United Nations. I was, then, very dismayed to hear them scooped in with the axis of evil, because that reinforced my belief that nothing is going down a parallel course. But then again, it may be, as the press has said, they needed a non-Muslim axis to hook in there. So I'm disappointed in your reasoning as to why they didn't come onside with the land mines. I'd like to hear you there.

My colleague John Godfrey--and I always love to listen to him as well--mentions nice Americans. I think one nice American is Colin Powell. I think he espouses something different. He's certainly someone I hope stays in the tent, having had the opportunity to meet him. I'm parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He matched my very positive preconceptions, very much so. There's a compelling modesty about the man, in addition to an intellectual capacity. So I'd love to hear you tell us about where you see Colin Powell coming from.

Finally, your wonderful article has gone everywhere. The minister spoke at the Canadian Institute of International Affairs and used your chess board analogy. What he said was that while we Canadians have never dominated the two top boards, and for good reason, G-8 status and leadership of the G-20 give us standing well above our simple economic ranking. We can, then, be very aggressively active on the third board, where our highly educated, multicultural population extends our influence considerably. So if you have time, I'd love to hear your comment on that.

À (1030)

Prof. Joseph Nye: I agree with the minister's statement on Canada's weight. I also agree with you on the impressive character of Collin Powell, who I think is a very good Secretary of State.

Let me focus on the point I made about land mines and North Korea. I accept the point that the North Korean military, like the country, is in difficult conditions. What I was pointing out was that this is a regime that has done strange things in the past, and sometimes, when people are in desperate circumstances, they do things that are stranger than ever. After all, if you are on the top of a 10-storey building and it's on fire, and you know that if you stand still, there's a 100% chance you'll die, and if you jump, there's only 1 chance out of 100 that you'll survive, it's rational to jump. So the prospect that North Korea, because it's starving and is in difficult circumstances, would never use force is not one we can afford to risk. Therefore, having strong deterrents to prevent any idea that a quick smash across the DMZ would be a way to escape their dilemma I think is important. As I understand it, the American military said they could not guarantee that without the use of anti-personnel land mines in the next six years. President Clinton said we would try to develop ways to protect against that by the year 2006, so that we would, at that point, perhaps be able to join the land mine treaty. In the meantime the administration has changed, and whether that will remain the policy, I don't know. I think it would have been better for Canada to be a little less purist and let the U.S. in while Clinton was in office. That was the point of my comment.

On Korean policy per se, I agree with you, I think the axis phrase was an excess of rhetoric. Each of these three regimes is a different problem and has to be dealt with separately in a different diplomatic solution. I thought the Clinton administration actually had a reasonable approach towards working with North Korea. Unfortunately, when the administration changed, some of the people in the new administration believed the rhetoric that had been used during the political campaign, that the Clinton folks had been too soft on North Korea. So they essentially pulled the rug out from under Kim Dae-jung when he first made his visit. Remember, Collin Powell pulled back from his initial statements on this. But since President Bush went to Seoul and saw the situation on the ground for himself, the rhetoric has been more restrained, and the U.S. has reinforced its point of being willing to open talks at any place any time, which I think indicates that the new administration realizes that the path the old administration was on was not just out of soft-headedness or soft-heartedness, but perhaps reflected the nature of the reality in the Korean peninsula. So it may turn out that the policy towards Korea will be less dramatically different from administration to administration than it first appeared.

À (1035)

The Chair: Thank you.

Madame Lalonde.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: Thank you very much.

Mr. Nye, following the events of September 11, President Bush has been telling us that he is waging war against terrorism. Consequently, I fail to understand how the United States—in light of its unilateralist foreign policy—has allowed the situation in the Middle East to deteriorate to the extent that it indeed has. For as long as I have been observing the international situation—for quite a long time now—I have never witnessed any other situation as explosive and as conducive to breeding new terrorism, than has exploded over the past few months in the Middle East.

Those who are involved in the war on terrorism in coalition with the United States are extremely frustrated and concerned by events in the Middle East. I would like to know whether you share this point of view and what positive signs you see for a resolution to the whole issue.

[English]

Prof. Joseph Nye: I happen to agree with the President that the war against terrorism has to be a priority. I think terrorism presents a threat to civilization as we know it that we have to take very seriously. What will happen to museums, to urban life, to theatres, to concerts, to all the things we hold dear if there is a terrorist group using a nuclear weapon in Manhattan instead of using an airliner? This is something that really will make a profound change to our culture.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: Oh, I'm sorry. Well, that's exactly what I mean. This is what I fail to understand in the U.S. position.

[English]

Prof. Joseph Nye: Given that, then, because this must have a priority, I think your point is correct. We needed to take more seriously the Middle East situation and deal with it sooner. The administration, I think, was working on a theory that after the breakdown of negotiations at the end of the Clinton administration, it would be better to let the situation ripen towards a point where negotiations could occur, and I think, instead of ripening, the situation got rotten. When Vice President Chaney went to the Middle East about six weeks ago, his agenda was to prepare for dealing with Saddam Hussein, to prevent him from getting hold of weapons of mass destruction. What he discovered was that the agenda of the countries in the region was to deal with the Palestine issue first. I think what we've seen in the last three or four weeks has been that it will be virtually impossible to make progress on the agenda in Iraq unless there is serious progress on the Palestine issue.

The broad outlines of a solution on Palestine are pretty much agreed. President Bush has said in the UN--and it's interesting that this was an advance over previous Presidents--that we stand for a Palestinian state and an Israel with secure borders. When Prince Abdullah announced his plan, which was then backed by the Arab League, that in principle, there would be a guarantee of Israel's security if there were a Palestinian state, this also was progress. The problem is, how do we get from here to there, how do we fill out the details?

My own view is that we can't do it incrementally, as we've done in the past, with a plan for ceasefires that will be broken or a plan for confidence building measures that can't build confidence at this stage. I think it's important to take the Saudi plan or the Arab League plan, add to it the substantive progress made in the negotiations that led up to Taba in January 2001, put that forward as a way to flesh out what a solution would look like, and then try to encourage bargaining on both sides. I don't think we can go back to letting the parties themselves reach that point, because I don't think they will reach that point.

I would agree with you, then, that we ought to do this because of the merits of the case in the Middle East, but we also ought to do it because without that, I don't think the President is going to be able to pursue his larger objective of the war on terrorism. So for two reasons, I agree with you.

À (1040)

The Chair: Merci.

Madam Jennings.

[Translation]

Ms. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce--Lachine, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for your presentation.

À (1045)

[English]

I have three questions. I had a fourth one, which was whether or not Canada could actually be a significant contributor in dealing with the bottom part of the board, but you answered that.

One of my questions has to do with your statement that Canada need not always take a purist point of view, and you used the question of the land mines. When we were in Washington in March, Lee Hamilton—you must know him very well—said the United States has a heightened sense of its own importance and superior power, and that heightened sense of its own superior power makes it very important that its friends speak very candidly to it. Are there any areas where the U.S. government and Congress would actually be inclined to listen to us, in your view?

There was a great deal of consternation recently when it appeared that there were leaked documents showing that the United States was contemplating a new nuclear policy. Its existing nuclear policy, that there would be destruction of warheads etc., might change to simply stockpiling, decommissioning, etc, and its very public stance that it would never use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state might be in the process of being rethought. There were immediate denials on the part of the government, saying, this is just a scenario Defence and the military always go through. I'd like to have your views on that.

The last issue touches on the middle board, which is the economic board. When you were talking about protectionism, you said that notwithstanding the fact that the United States and Canada adhere to the principles of free trade, there are areas where there is protectionism, and you threw in the steel industry. If I understood, you appeared to use that as an example where there's sort of a dispute between Canada and United States.

Prof. Joseph Nye: With Europe.

Mrs. Marlene Jennings: Yes. My understanding is that this is probably the industrial sector that is the most integrated in North America. Obviously, Mexico is there. It is also my understanding that there's a real openness on the part of the industry players to look at even further integration and to try to get the three governments to start looking at common rules of competition. I'd like you to comment on that as well, and if there were a move in that sense, would you see that as protectionism, or simply as a way of strengthening North American integration, in the same way the Europeans did that after the war, France, Germany--and I forget what the third power was--with the steel industry, ultimately developing the European Common Market and the European Community?

Prof. Joseph Nye: Let me take your last point first, on steel. I was simply using that as an example of protectionism, but not in the North American sense. I think a better position, rather than putting up the tariffs, would have been to restructure the steel industry to help it consolidate. One might have done this through taking up their pension plans or other ways to relieve them of some of the debt if they would do the restructuring and consolidation that's necessary. That was the alternative, and I think that would be a better approach.

When can friends speak candidly and be effective? When the prisoner of war Geneva convention issue came up, the President made a statement saying the Geneva conventions were irrelevant. This grew out of the American justice department, at least according to the newspapers, Attorney General Ashcroft not paying much attention to international opinion on this. It's interesting that there were a number of allies who voiced strong concerns, and the President did revise his opinion as a result. It's also said--I'm not sure if it's true; I merely go by the newspaper reports here--that there was a strong position within the administration to de-sign the ICC and to attack the ICC, and that Prime Minister Blair and some others said to President Bush, this would cause you considerable problems with your allies, don't do it. Thus far that has not occurred. I merely go on external press reports. Also, it's reported that when Prime Minister Blair met with the President and had discussions on Iraq, he warned against acting unilaterally without first making the case, through the route of the UN inspections, that Saddam Hussein was violating his multilateral obligations under the NPT and under UN resolutions.

So those are cases where, again just going on press reports,it seems allied opinion has had some impact.

Mrs. Marlene Jennings: Do you have any examples where the Canadian allied position has been listened to?

Prof. Joseph Nye: Because the press accounts I referred to grew out of Blair's visits, I don't know the answer, but it doesn't mean they don't exist. One of the things that struck me was that—

The Chair: A tree falling in the forest?

Prof. Joseph Nye: One of the things that strikes me is that when you look at intelligence cooperation between the United States and other countries, the intelligence sharing with Canada and Britain is higher than with other countries, but that never gets on the front page of the newspaper. So the fact that the newspaper hasn't reported a tree falling in the forest doesn't mean that certain trees haven't fallen.

Finally, on your point about the nuclear posture review, that is not an operational document, it's a planning document. What concerned me a little about it was that it didn't pay enough attention to the importance of the moratorium on nuclear testing. I think that's a case where America's allies, including Canada, should remind the United States that it would be very costly if we were to break the moratorium. What's more, it would be even better if we signed the comprehensive test ban treaty.

Again, I think the United States needs to hear from its allies in these cautionary ways. Going back to Colin Powell, I think you'll find a lot of people in the State Department who are listening.

À (1050)

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Day.

Mr. Stockwell Day: When the professor returns to his native soil, he may take a couple of comments today from my honourable colleagues, They have pointed out some apparent exceptions who are nice Americans, as if insinuating that most are not nice, that it's a nation of unfriendly people. I can assure you that many Canadians don't share that view. In all countries there are people with whom we will not agree. There are good and bad everywhere.

I just leave the professor with a brief anecdote. About 15 or so years ago, when my wife and I wanted to take our sons across Canada so they could experience the breadth and the rich tapestry of Canada, we also travelled down through the States at different parts and drove back north again through Canada; it was north-south, east-west. Upon deciding to return to the west, we gave our sons, who ranged in age from nine to about thirteen, the choice: we can drive all the way back through Canada or we can go down south, it's not a big deal in respect of time, which would you prefer? They unanimously said, we want to go back through the States, much to my consternation. It wasn't the price of gas. They weren't paying it, I was. I said, why is that? They said, Americans are more friendly. This, of course, broke my heart and sent me reeling in shock back to the car. When I share that with some of my academic friends in Canada, they being not as accepting of American friendliness, they say that's superficial friendliness. I say, give me superficial friendliness over profound rudeness any time.

We thank you for your thoughtful presentation. In acknowledgment of the historic friendly relationship we do have with the United States, albeit acknowledging the thorny times in which we will speak for Canadian interests, I thank you for your time and your presentation.

The Chair: Thank you.

Monsieur Paquette.

Prof. Joseph Nye: If I can just make a very quick comment, I've found many friendly Canadians and many friendly Americans. I'm not sure the border is where I would draw the line.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Paquette: I would like to throw out one last comment. Firstly, I just want to tell you that I went to Pôrto Alegre, last February. I can assure you that José Bové had lost the star status that he had at the initial World Social Forum. Even the Brazilians would have preferred to keep him away so as not to detract from the real issues.

I know you are concerned about the democratic deficit associated with the globalization phenomenon. Could you perhaps give us a brief outline of how we could address this issue, and perhaps tell us what role parliamentarians can play to bridge the gap between this seemingly unstoppable process and the decisions that must be made in a democratic fashion. We all know that democracy is a value that everyone holds dear.

[English]

Prof. Joseph Nye: I think parliamentarians travelling, as you just reported you did, and meeting counterparts in other countries is extraordinarily important. I have often urged on my friends in the U.S. Congress that they should travel more.

The Chair: Would you mind repeating that, please?

Voices: Ah, ah!

Prof. Joseph Nye: Parliamentarians and congressmen are the elected representatives. At this stage in world history democracy works within nations. Maybe at some time in the future we'll have other structures in the world, but right now the political communities that sustain democracies are national communities. Parliamentarians are the elected representatives of the people. I think having parliamentarians gain more contact internationally with other elected representatives is the first important step in the direction you desire to go in reducing the democratic deficit. I'm in favour of NGOs, they do many good things, but NGOs are no substitute for elected parliamentarians.

The Chair: Good question, Mr. Paquette.

Ms. Carroll.

À (1055)

Ms. Aileen Carroll: I've got to say, we love getting you going a bit, Stockwell.

You said a lot of people in the State Department are listening, with reference to Colin Powell. I find that interesting. Does that mean the Secretary of State has to speak down to the troops? In that regard, I have heard reference to a thermo blanket that makes me nervous. Is he not leading the troops, or is he captive to the troops? How do the dynamics of being Secretary of State work, in ten words or less?

Prof. Joseph Nye: Actually, Colin Powell has the reputation for having raised morale in the State Department more than any Secretary of State in recent years and being extremely popular because he works very well with people at various levels in the State Department. My friends in the State Department, career foreign service officers, report that the morale in the State Department is extremely high right now because of the feeling of rapport they have with Colin Powell. So I don't think any sense that he's isolated from the rest of the department is correct, and I hope I didn't give that impression.

Ms. Aileen Carroll: No, you didn't.

Thank you, Dr. Nye.

The Chair: Dr. Nye, if you were sitting in front of the G-8 and you had to speak to them, as we hope we would, via the recommendations we're making to our government, and you had to say something about how they should be approaching the whole issue of terrorism, what are some very brief recommendations you might make?

Prof. Joseph Nye: I would like to see the G-8 countries take more seriously means to improve homeland security. Terrorism will be with us, alas, forever, because there will always be deviant individuals and deviant groups in any set of human society. What we need to do is raise the threshold that makes it more difficult for them to do these deeds. There are many things we can do together. For example, when you have systems that are transnational, like the air transport system, it makes no sense for us or for you to ratchet up security in Ottawa airport or Toronto airport if somebody can get on an airplane in London or Bucharest at a lower level. Once they're in the system, they're in the system. So we have to think about how we get common standards for raising the thresholds.

A second thing we should do is try to learn from each other in best practices on homeland security. Many of the things that relate to making our societies and our systems more robust are actually in the private sector. Different governments have worked with their private sectors in different ways. For example, how do you design buildings? How do you make them more robust? Do you put the air vents in places where a terrorist could get access to them or not? That may be done through architectural codes and so forth. I would like to see the G-8 say, let's learn from each other in best practices. Some of our countries have dealt with this better than others. We have a lot to learn from each other.

So both because the systems are transnational and because we have had different learning experiences in different countries, I would like to see the G-8 ministers take seriously the coordination of homeland security and see if we can't improve that and raise a higher threshold overall that these terrorists have to surmount.

The Chair: Thank you, Professor. This has been like having the benefit of a high-level graduate seminar at Harvard University without having to travel there. You've taken us through privatization, protectionism, transnationalism, threats, UN, International Criminal Court, FTAA, WTO, financial flows, the Middle East. We've gone over all the topics that could be agenda items or part of six-week course discussions. So we want to thank you for being with us, for taking the time. We want to thank Mr. Edmonds for having you here in Canada with us. Come again, we look forward to further interaction with you. If you have any further thoughts that are not in your books and you would like to send to us as we make our recommendations and do our report in the fall, we'd be happy to hear from you.

Thank you so much, Professor Nye.

Á (1100)

Prof. Joseph Nye: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I very much enjoyed our conversations.

The Chair: Thank you.

We'll break for a minute. Please don't leave, colleagues, we have some business to do.

Á (1100)

Á (1107)

The Chair: Okay, we have business of the committee, the motion by Mr. Svend Robinson on Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization.

Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

I would like to formally move the motion of which I've given notice, as follows: that the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade call upon the Government of Canada to support Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization at the upcoming World Health Assembly and to support the establishment of a UN working group to facilitate Taiwan's effective participation in the World Health Organization, reaping benefits for both the international community and the Taiwanese through shared knowledge and equality of access to health care information.

To speak briefly to the motion, I would hope this is a motion that can be supported by all members of this committee. Taiwan is a nation of 23.5 million people. It's population is equivalent to that of 50 of the world's countries combined. It's already larger than three-quarters of the member states in the World Health Organization. Canada and Taiwan have a long and thriving bilateral relationship. Taiwan is a major trade partner with Canada, was admitted last year to the World Trade Organization, and is, in fact, the fourteenth or fifteenth country in the world in size of economy. Yet Taiwan has been excluded from any participation in the World Health Organization.

As has been pointed out by many of those who have written to the committee on this issue, including the president for 1999-2000 of the Taiwanese Canadian Health Professional Association, Charles Yang, this is the age of the global village, and epidemics, particularly those of a genetically mutated type, would pose a very serious threat to all nations and peoples, necessitating international cooperation. There are a great many Canadians of Taiwanese origin in British Columbia and throughout Canada, and this committee has received very strong representations from them and from others to recognize that Taiwan should be able to play a role in the World Health Organization.

Taiwan is not asking for full membership at this point, even though, frankly, some of us believe they should be entitled to full membership. What they're asking for is observer status in the World Health Organization, and there's been great support for that. The World Medical Association council adopted a resolution calling on the World Health Organization to grant Taiwan observer status. The World Medical Association further urged its members to call on their national governments to advocate for observer status for Taiwan at the World Health Organization. Just a couple of months ago the European Parliament unanimously passed a resolution calling on its members to support observer status for Taiwan. So the European Parliament is unanimously on board. The United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee similarly, just a few days after that, passed legislation requiring the United States to give Taiwan support for observer status. There have been similar motions of support in many other jurisdictions.

The World Health Assembly is meeting in Geneva later this month, I thinkon May 16. This issue, obviously, must be addressed by the World Health Assembly. So I'm calling on members of this committee to join in urging our government to support Taiwan's participation in the World Health Organization with observer status.

I would note, as well, that the chair of the Canada-Taiwan parliamentary friendship group, John McKay, has circulated a letter—and members of this committee, I'm sure, will have received it—in which he states, and I quote:

There seems to be no principled objection to Taiwan becoming an observer member of the WHO. Disease is not a respecter of jurisdictions. There are a lot of Taiwanese who travel to Canada. It would be comforting to know that Taiwan observes the latest protocols for infectious diseases.

So John McKay, as chair of the Canada-Taiwan parliamentary friendship group actively supports observer status as well for Taiwan.

Á (1110)

The last thing I would say is that this is good not just for Taiwan, but also for the World Health Organization and for the international community. Taiwan has a great deal to contribute to the World Health Organization. Taiwan's medical professionals are internationally respected. I would hope that this committee can send the strongest possible signal to our government that along with the European Parliament, along with many other legislative bodies, we are prepared to support Taiwan's participation and observer status at the World Health Organization.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Robinson.

We have a few speakers indicated.

Mr. Day.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you, Madam Chair.

The position of the official opposition is also to request the government to give support to this, which is why I've raised this publicly in the House of Commons. I have yet to receive an official positive response from the government, though I think it's fair to say that from a large number of persons within the government caucus and cabinet there is support. Of course, since we've already raised this and put it on the table publicly in the House of Commons, we continue to support this motion.

I'd just like to say to the presenter of the motion that I don't want to go beyond what Taiwanese representatives are asking for. In the motion itself it doesn't actually say observer status. I don't want to create any area of discomfort for Taiwanese representatives. They're asking for observer status, and I think that should be clear.

I don't pretend to understand the workings of a working group at the United Nations. Could that prolong the acceptance of Taiwan's request, whereas a speedy vote among participating members could actually accomplish the same goals? So I need more information on that point and wonder if it's necessary to accomplish what the member is trying to do here.

Á (1115)

[Translation]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Dubé.

Mr. Antoine Dubé (Lévis-et-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, BQ): I support the proposed amendment. We're talking about awarding observer status.

This morning, I was present at a breakfast along with several other members of Parliament. Mr. Chen mentioned it in his press conference at the Press Club. Mr. McKay, as Mr. Robinson just mentioned, called on several members to support the initiative. He told me himself that he had secured the support of approximately one hundred members of Parliament. In addition, last Wednesday, about 30 Bloc Québécois members put their signature to a petition. Consequently, there are some 130 members supporting the initiative to award Taiwan observer status at the World Health Organization.

I myself have visited Taiwan, and I recall quite clearly that Liberal members on that trip told the Taiwanese that they could count on their support to obtain observer status in international bodies. I think that it is now high time to put our money where our mouth is.

I heard what the Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific said last week in answer to a question from Mr. Day. We had the impression that he was sensitive to this issue, but that he had taken no action on it. I think time is of the essence. Things are coming to a head on May 13 and not on May 16 as we had thought. That's very soon.

I don't think that I have to say any more on that issue. I won't go over Svend's arguments again but I would like to urge all my colleagues, especially those across the way, to support this motion. If we don't support these people when they ask us to, then any action that we may take, petitions or verbal commitments for example, would not have been worth the paper they're written on.

The Chair: Ms. Lalonde.

Ms. Francine Lalonde: Let me add that it would be incomprehensible that the Foreign Affairs Committee, which was able to reach unanimous consent on a far more controversial issue, a request to lift the non-military sanctions against Iraq, would be unable to state its opinion that Canada should support Taiwan's participation as an observer in the World Health Organization.

Let us not forget that only recently, I heard the Minister for International Trade boast of his support for Taiwan's request to be recognized by the WHO. This is a request for official recognition.

Now, why would Taiwan ask for observer status at the WHO? It is because it needs to establish a direct link with—

[English]

The Chair: Excuse me, Madame Lalonde, we are talking about Taiwan's participation, but we're not talking abut Taiwan's observer status. There is—

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: Let me move an amendment, Madam Chair.

[English]

The Chair: Were you? Okay. I just wanted us to be clear.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: I move the following amendment: “to support Taiwan's participation as an observer in the World Health Organization;”

Mr. Svend Robinson: Madame la présidente, concernant cette proposition—

Ms. Francine Lalonde: I have not finished.

[English]

Mr. Svend Robinson: On that specific point, though, that was the intention of the motion, and to make it very clear and explicit, I would be prepared to accept the suggestion of both Mr. Day and Ms. Lalonde to specifically include observer status.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: I wish to finish what I had to say, Madam.

[English]

The Chair: If Mr. Robinson is talking about amendment to his motion, would we have to completely reconstruct the motion?

Á (1120)

Mr. Svend Robinson: No. We'd just add, after “participation”, “with observer status”.

The Chair: Okay.

Madame Lalonde, continue please.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: Let me add that Taiwan, in its own interest as well as in the interest of the international community, needs to be directly in touch with the World Health Organization. Taiwan has a population of 23 million inhabitants, as well as 10 million people who transit through the country each year. This is a responsible government and it knows that with regard to health and other matters, it needs to be at the cutting edge and to provide the WHO with data concerning health or illness on Taiwan's territory.

Madam Chair, I invite my colleagues to vote in favour of observer status in the WHO. Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: At this point in time we have not put any question forward, we're talking to the motion Mr. Robinson presented, and I just want to make sure we're on the same ground.

Ms. Carroll.

Ms. Aileen Carroll: Mr. McKay spoke just last night at the late show on this matter, and I joined him in responding. He thought my speech was charming, actually, for the record. That was the word he used. First, Canada fully supports Taiwan's access to the many World Health Organization health protection and health promotion programs, which are already available to it. There is no barrier to Taiwan's having free access to health information from the World Health Organization.

I think it's also important to note that there was indeed a resolution passed by the European Union Parliament, but the resolution is not binding on all governments who are members of the EU. The State Department has made it very clear that the congressional resolution passed in the United States is not binding on the United States administration. So we do not mix apples and oranges, it's good to clarify that.

Do you want to give the floor to Ms. Lalonde, and then I can come back after I've been to the debate?

The Chair: We're listening to Ms. Carroll. Ms. Carroll, please continue.

Ms. Aileen Carroll: Okay.

So first, they do have access to almost all that is necessary now. Canada would support a consensus on Taiwan's participation in the WHO, but I have to take away some of the wrap on this and get down to the point the honourable member across knows this has a lot to do with, and that is our one-China policy. In keeping with that, Madam Chair, Canada does not recognize the Republic of China. We do, as you know, and as I said last night in a charming way, maintain significant and growing cultural, economic, and people-to-people contacts. These ties are well demonstrated, with educational programs that we share, many Taiwanese students coming to Canada and benefiting from the education they can gain here. We have the sale of aircraft, we have the economic relations. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet has recently done a tour there. So there's a great deal connecting us with the government and the people of that country. What this is about is observer status, and I have conveyed the view from this side of the table with regard to that.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry about the time.

Á (1125)

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I think the mover of the motion agreed to amend the motion, adding the words “as observers”. Am I clear?

Second, as was mentioned earlier, Mr. McKay passed a petition in the House, and I signed that petition, supporting this principle. So I cannot vote once yes and once no. That's my dilemma.

The other thing is, WTO or WHO membership doesn't require the member to be a country. Taiwan is not officially a country in the world, basically, but it is a member of WTO. So there's no violation of the one-China policy, because Taiwan will come in as a jurisdiction in the world, rather than as a country. So I support this motion, with the amendment, of course.

Further, could the mover explain to me the purpose of the second paragraph, which is the establishment of the UN working group? I don't know what that means, so I'm confused with that paragraph.

Thank you.

The Chair: All right.

Mr. Day.

Mr. Stockwell Day: I have a question to Ms. Carroll, if she's the representative for the no side on this question, related to the one-China policy and jurisdictional status. As I understand it, both the Vatican and the Palestinian Authority have observer status. That does not offend any jurisdictional issues, so why would this?

Ms. Aileen Carroll: Thanks for your question, Mr. Day.

I did make mention of the fact that we would support a consensus on Taiwan's participation in the WHO as an organization that was in accordance with the WHO rules and procedures. We're open to that. This is not moving along in that direction.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Both the Vatican and the Palestinian Authority have observer status.

Ms. Aileen Carroll: Well, I'm happy for them, but I can't really comment on that.

Mr. Stockwell Day: So you don't want to be happy for Taiwan?

The Chair: Monsieur Dubé.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: There are 200 organizations and a number of countries, including Switzerland, which is not a member of the UN, but which feels that its presence is important for health, that have observer status. That must be considered first and foremost. It is a matter of health, at least for us.

Ten million people transit through Taiwan. It is one of the countries that has the highest number of people from abroad in transit. The country has acquired international expertise in the field of vaccination, namely as concerns hepatitis. We should not deprive ourselves of Taiwan's expertise. We are talking about health, not politics.

If 200 organizations have observer status, why would we refuse to grant it to Taiwan? I want to emphasize that and I agree with Mr. Assadourian. The Liberal members opposite, who signed Mr. McKay's petition, must be consistent. Today they have an opportunity. They must support this motion, otherwise everything they do is pointless.

Ms. Francine Lalonde: I am raising a point of order, Madam Chair.

I want to ensure that the amendment we proposed has gone through. I moved the amendment and Mr. Robinson seconded the motion. To avoid any potential problems, I move that we add after the word “Taiwan”, the words “with observer status”. I think that in English, they say “with observer status”. This must be clear.

[English]

The Chair: All right.

Á (1130)

Ms. Aileen Carroll: Mr. Day, in keeping with a good open relationship and ability to converse, what I do not understand is what Taiwan does not get with regard to access to all the health facilities there that this will change. What they are seeking to gain here has, in my view, little to do with access to the health organization and much to do with an enhancement of their identity as a nation state. I would add that what Canada has been doing in the past is urging Beijing and Taipei to engage in constructive dialogue. We have been offering good offices and have been very much reinforcing that, which is a very important part of the secondary thing I've made reference to. I have to say too that our concerns about the threat of military confrontation have been stressed to both sides, along with our strong appeal for continuing movement towards a peaceful negotiated solution.

So I think we need to be clear, unless you have a different view, that there's nothing closed to them that what's being suggested today is going to open.

The Chair: Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Svend Robinson: With respect to the public sector, there are a number of words that come to mind, but to be charitable, I'd just say it's totally inaccurate to suggest that somehow Taiwan has full access to the World Health Organization. That may be on the script the parliamentary secretary has from the department, but it's just simply not accurate.

I'll give one example. In June 1998 there was an outbreak of enterovirus infection in Taiwan that took the lives of 78 children. In the midst of the outbreak parents were obviously very concerned about this, and they turned to the government to help. The Government of Taiwan turned to the World Health Organization, and they were told, no; unfortunately you're not a member, so we're not able to assist in this. In fact, it was the Centres for Disease Control in the United States that ultimately was able to provide some assistance to them.

So this has real impact in human terms, the fact that they're excluded. It's not just a political question, it's a real and very important question. Ms. Carroll has suggested that somehow this is just trying to enhance their status. That's not accurate. It makes a difference to the people of Taiwan that they have observer status.

I want to deal with a couple of other points Ms. Carroll made in the official response. She said the European Parliament may have passed a unanimous motion, but it's not binding. So what? The reality is that when the European Parliament adopts a motion, it's a recommendation to the member governments of the European Union. When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee adopts a motion, obviously--it's a no-brainer--that's a recommendation to the State Department. It doesn't mean the State Department has to adopt it, but--Ms. Carroll might want to check out the way the American political system works--that's a recommendation to the State Department.

That's all we're asking of this committee, precisely the same thing. We're under no illusion that if this committee adopts the resolution, it's going to change to government policy tomorrow. I wish it would. But surely to God, as members of this committee--and I see we've got some new arrivals in the committee; I welcome them--we want to deal with this on the merits. And the merits are that the people of Taiwan, surely, should be recognized for observer status in this organization.

As to the second part of the motion, this was included, actually, because the Taiwanese Ministry of Health--just to respond to Mr. Day--has urged that this might be one way of facilitating Taiwan's involvement in the World Health Organization, to have a United Nations working group look at how this might work in practice.

The last thing I want to say is this. Ms. Carroll has said, well, you know, Canada would support a consensus. Big deal. What that means is that China, effectively, can block Taiwan's involvement, because a consensus means that every single member of the World Health Organization has to agree.

We're calling today on the members of this committee to show some spine, to show some leadership, and to recognize that observer status for the people of Taiwan is long overdue.

The Chair: Mr. Keyes.

Mr. Stan Keyes (Hamilton West, Lib.): I just have some basic questions, Madam Chair, and they'd be directed at the parliamentary secretary or whoever can answer this for me.

If this committee adopts this motion, it doesn't mean, as I understand it, that suddenly Taiwan will have observer status at the WHO, does it? I don't think it does.

Have we learned from Foreign Affairs whether or not Taiwan's participation at the WHO is going to in any way interfere with, make a mess of, or complicate relations with China?

Á (1135)

The Chair: Ms. Carroll.

Ms. Aileen Carroll: Yes.

Mr. Stan Keyes: Yes what? There are two questions.

Ms. Aileen Carroll: Canada has a one-China policy. Canada has extended diplomatic recognition to the People's Republic of China. Canada has--and I will repeat my remark--all the economic, cultural, social, and educational ties developed, as they had been with Taiwan.

Mr. Stan Keyes: Yes, I understand all that, but--

Ms. Aileen Carroll: To be fair, I think it's very important to note that while Canada has diplomatic relations with the People's Republic, it has not therefore had any kind of isolationist or exclusionary policy with Taiwan. Au contraire, it has developed hugely all of what I have described here and described in more detail in the House.

Mr. Stan Keyes: We're not asking for Taiwan to become a full participating member in the WHO, we're suggesting that Taiwan could get observer status at the WHO. Is the answer the same whether it's full status or observer status?

Ms. Aileen Carroll: It would be, in my view.

Mr. Stan Keyes: I'm sorry, your view is important to me, but I want to know the Foreign Affairs view on the separation between full status and observer status of the WHO. Does the government have a position on observer status for Taiwan at the WHO?

Ms. Aileen Carroll: The government's position, the Department of Foreign Affairs being a part of the government's position, is that we do not support observer status for Taiwan at the WHO.

Mr. Stan Keyes: Observer status.

Ms. Aileen Carroll: We do not support the motion before us today.

Mr. Stan Keyes: The motion has been amended to have observer status, so it's a different motion.

Ms. Aileen Carroll: That's right, that is the motion before us today. Now it has been amended to include the words “observer status”. I am answering your question, colleague. The government does not support--

Mr. Stan Keyes: The original motion.

Ms. Aileen Carroll: —observer status for Taiwan at the World Health Organization.

I would say, Mr. Robinson, that I do a great deal as a parliamentarian abroad, and I do think it is important what we do. My mentioning that none of the governments of the E.U. nor the government of the United States had acted was a point of information. For the purpose of this discussion, so as not to be confusing, it's important that everyone around the table know there has been no government action. That's not to in any way denigrate what we do as parliamentarians, it is only to draw a distinction.

Mr. Stan Keyes: Can we have the question, Madam Chair. I think we've talked around this sixteen times to Sunday, and I'm prepared for the question.

The Chair: We have three people who have indicated, so I'll just hear them very briefly, considering that most of what we needed to say has been said. So could you be very brief, Mr. Tonks?

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chairman.

I may not have been a committee member, but I have been to Taiwan in my former capacity as Chairman of Metropolitan Toronto several times and to the People's Republic several times. I just recently was in Taiwan. I came back with a very strong feeling for the aspirations that have been expressed. However, my problem is not with the policies of the WHO or having status, my problem is the matter of process. It seems to me that the whole notion of observer status is implicated with the official position that is currently a part of our national policy. There may be huge motivation, on this side even, to change that, but I really believe it's only fair that the motion should have been asking the government to consider a policy review with respect to Taiwan and its affiliation, in this case, with the WHO, simple as anything, and that would give us an opportunity to think this through.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Á (1140)

The Chair: I'm going to hear two more, and then that's it, Madam Jennings and Madame Lalonde. Then we'll go back to the amendment, make sure we're all clear as to the wording of the amendment, and I'll call the question.

Mrs. Marlene Jennings: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I am clear on Canada's official policy with the People's Republic of China and the Republic of China. What I am not clear on, notwithstanding Ms. Carroll's response, is whether this particular motion, even as amended, could damage or have a significant impact on Canada's official policy and relations with the People's Republic of China. I don't think I have enough information on that.

Second, I don't know enough about the World Health Organization, its constitution, its rules and procedures, to be comfortable in supporting either the original motion or the motion as amended, presuming that the amendment goes through.

Therefore, Madam Chair, I will not be supporting this, for those reasons.

The Chair: Madame Lalonde.

[Translation]

Ms. Francine Lalonde: Madam Chair, as our debate is recorded, let me stress the fact that the behaviour of our colleagues is quite inconsistent. They boast that they supported the motion whereby Taiwan would become a full member of the World Trade Organization—I think that Quebec would be delighted to become a member of the World Trade Organization— and at the same time they refuse to support the motion for granting to the same country observer status at the World Health Organization. This would only give it the same status as an NGO, but would ensure that it get all the reports it needs for its population and for the safety of the international community.

I conclude by saying that this is a recommendation.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Svend Robinson: On a point or order, this committee is the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. We work together on many issues. I'm just seeking clarification on the important question of this vote. We've got a couple of people here I've certainly never seen participate in this committee before, and I'm just wondering what's going on here.

The Chair: Mr. Robinson, we've called—

Ms. Aileen Carroll: You missed a great morning. Dr. Nye was probably one of the brightest men we've ever brought here.

The Chair: Order.

Mrs. Marlene Jennings: You weren't here, Svend, for Professor Nye all morning. How interested are you, as the foreign affairs critic for the NDP, that you didn't show up for that part?

The Chair: Order, Ms. Jennings.

I think Mr. Robinson knows that comment is not in keeping with either the usual way we work or the work of committees. Members substitute for others, members are in for quorum, etc.

I'd like now to clarify the question, to make sure I know who is amending and who moves the motion for amendment, and also to call the question on the amendment.

I understand that the motion now reads that the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade call upon the Government of Canada to support Taiwan's participation, with observer status, in the World Health Organization at the upcoming World Health Assembly.

The second part is as written.

It seems Mr. Robinson is amending his motion.

Monsieur Dubé.

Á (1145)

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: Point of order.

Procedurally speaking, it would be preferable, to have a clearer view of the decision, for us to make a decision on the observer status by voting on the amendment. That way, several could do so. Once the motion is amended, if it is, members could take a stand on the amended motion. The word “observer” is very important. I think it warrants an amendment. That is why I think we must keep—

[English]

Mr. Svend Robinson: I've accepted the amendment.

The Chair: I think we are all clear that Madame Lalonde has amended Mr. Robinson's motion, and Mr. Robinson is accepting the amendment. That's what I understand.

The committee unanimously accepts the amendment, and I'll call the question, with a roll call vote.

(Motion as amended negatived: nays 7; yeas 6)

The Chair: On the third report on Sudan, what we have before us and what we did circulate to you is a budget. We hope there will be approval in principle for the committee travel, as well as the date. So I'll have the chair of the subcommittee speak to this third report.

Beth.

Ms. Beth Phinney (Hamilton Mountain, Lib.): Are we doing the report or the budget? The report first?

The Chair: Well, we call it a report, but it's really the budget and travel plans.

Ms. Beth Phinney: You want me to do the budget before the Colombia report?

The Chair: Yes.

Ms. Beth Phinney: Okay.

Our trip is planned for November 12-22. We're going at that particular time because the ambassador has informed us that the best weather conditions are at that time. Also, part of it would be during the break week. We started it on November 12 so that people won't miss the November 11 ceremonies in their own ridings. We'll be leaving from Toronto. There's some internal travel, and we have to use United Nations planes for travelling inside. Sometimes the travel inside the country is a little difficult.

Á (1150)

The Chair: Mr. Godfrey.

Mr. John Godfrey: With regard to the last point, is the subcommittee going to stop in Sudan?

The Chair: Yes, north and south.

Monsieur Dubé.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: The subcommittee has been examining the matter for a long time, but I think that it is important to point out what was said yesterday by officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and the people from CIDA. I asked them if, in their opinion, it would be a good idea for us to travel there and what the opinion of the Government of Sudan would be in that regard. The official who replied told me he thought that given the current situation, the two parties present, the government and the rebel group, would refuse.

I am not totally against going somewhere as a delegation, but I think that before we put in a request through the House, we must make sure that the parties concerned agree to our visiting them. That was clearly stated. Elizabeth, the clerk who was there yesterday, will attest to that. That is what we were told yesterday.

I do not disagree with our going there, but I think it would be a good idea to look into this again.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Monsieur Dubé. I understand your reservation. At the same time, I think we need to get the budget and we need to get approvals through the process. You know that in those situations it's almost an ongoing, daily change of events. We know the U.S. intervention in recent times has created some conditions, so by the time the dates come around, things may be okay. So what we would like to do is put this through the process, because if we miss the time, we might experience some difficulty.

So I'd like to call the question on that.

Ms. Beth Phinney: For sure, Foreign Affairs will say, don't go.

The Chair: The question is that we approve the budget in principle and that we send it on to the budget subcommittee, which is meeting, I think, in the near future.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: We'll proceed to the Colombia report.

Ms. Beth Phinney: I'd like to present the third report of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Development on the situation of human rights, development, and other matters in Colombia. The report includes a dissenting opinion from the NDP, and the subcommittee recommends that this dissentiing opinion be appended to the main report, which it is--you have that in your hands--when tabled in the House. We had open meetings for almost a year. I, as chair, visited twice, the committee visited once, and there are other people on the committee who also visited more than once.

I think it's a very fair report, and we'd like it to be accepted.

The Chair: The report has been circulated to the committee. We have the dissenting opinions dealt with.

Mr. Dubé.

[Translation]

Mr. Antoine Dubé: I am, clearly, in favour of the report. It took quite some time. I'm a member of the subcommittee, and I do not think that I missed more than one meeting in a year. Some things need to be pointed out. I will not mention parties or individuals, but I find that on the Sub-Committee on Human Rights, there is...

There is one thing I deplore. Often, we were under-represented. If the report was a long time in coming, it is because some members of the subcommittee participated very little or not at all, as Mr. Robinson said. I admire the work of the person who drafted the report, as we put him in a position that was far from normal, when it was a very urgent and important matter. Members who had participated were sometimes asked their opinions, but after the fact, people constantly challenged everything. I would like to encourage members of the subcommittee to be more vigilant and to pick up the pace. Then there were all the subamendments. In the end, I agreed to the report, but to be honest, it took everything for me to sign on. In the end, with time, we weakened the report a lot more than we should have.

I will nevertheless vote for it, but I want to point out that due to the behaviour of certain members of this committee, whom I will not mention... In future, parties should be given their marching orders: when the subcommittee meets or when someone has comments to make, deadlines must be met. There you have it.

[English]

The Chair: All right. We are now at the point of calling the question on the motion that the committee adopt the report of the Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Development and report it to the House.

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: That the chair be authorized to make such editorial and typographical changes as are necessary, without changes to the substance of the report.

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: That pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(a), the committee authorize the printing of brief dissenting opinions. That is done.

That the chair or her designate be authorized to present the reports to the House.

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: That pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee request that the government table a comprehensive response.

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Thank you for the work the committee has done. It's a document with a number of recommendations that I think are important for all of us to note and observe.

Mr. Day.

Á (1155)

Mr. Stockwell Day: I'd like to note for the record that the deliberations of this committee are compelling even for the young people of our nation. We have an observer who is a representative of the young students here in the nation's capital. That shows good interest in the domestic and international affairs with which we're involved.

The Chair: Thank you.

Welcome, and come again.

The committee is adjourned.