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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, May 8, 2002

0745

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

0750

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.)

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth (President and Chief Executive Officer, Securitas Canada)

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth

0755

The Chair

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth

0800

0805

The Chair

Mr. Day

0810

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth

Mr. Day

0815

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth

The Chair

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth

0820

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

The Chair

Ms. Henriette Thompson (East Africa Regional Program Manager, World Vision Canada)

0825

Ms. Linda Tripp (Vice-President for Advocacy and Government Relations, World Vision Canada)

0830

Ms. Henriette Thompson

0835

Ms. Linda Tripp

Ms. Henriette Thompson

Ms. Linda Tripp

The Chair

0840

Mr. Stockwell Day

Ms. Linda Tripp

Mr. Stockwell Day

The Chair

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Ms. Linda Tripp

0845

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

The Chair

Ms. Linda Tripp

The Chair

Mr. Jack Granatstein (Co-Chairman, Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century)

The Chair

Mr. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Jack Granatstein

0850

0855

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. Jack Granatstein

0900

Mr. Stockwell Day

The Chair

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Jack Granatstein

0905

The Chair

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Jack Granatstein

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Jack Granatstein

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day

The Chair

Mr. John Kirton (Director, G8 Research Group, University of Toronto)

0910

0915

0920

0925

0930

The Chair

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. John Kirton

0950

0955

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. John Kirton

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. John Kirton

1000

The Chair

Mr. John Kirton

The Chair

Mr. John Kirton

The Chair

Mr. Wayne Samuelson (President, Ontario Federation of Labour)

The Chair

Mr. Wayne Samuelson

1005

1010

1015

The Chair

1020

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. Wayne Samuelson

1025

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. Wayne Samuelson

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. Wayne Samuelson

1030

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. Wayne Samuelson

Mr. Stockwell Day

Mr. Wayne Samuelson

Mr. Stockwell Day

The Chair

Mr. Wayne Samuelson

The Chair

Mr. Derek Paul (Past President and Coordinator, Working Groups, Science for Peace)

1040

1045

The Chair

1050

Mr. Helmut Burkhardt (Past President, Science for Peace)

The Chair

Mr. Helmut Burkhardt

The Chair

Mr. Grahame Russell (Representative, Rights Action)

1055

1100

The Chair

Mr. Grahame Russell

The Chair

Mr. Nicaises Lola (Coordinator, Study Group on the Reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Community Projects Action and Development (ADPCO))

1105

The Chair

Mr. Day

1115

1120

The Chair

Mr. Derek Paul

1125

The Chair

Mr. Grahame Russell

The Chair

Mr. Grahame Russell

Mr. Derek Paul

The Chair

1130

Ms. Lina Bamfumu (Secretary, Study Group on the Reconstruction of the Congo, Community Projects Action and Development (ADPCO))

The Chair

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Derek Paul

Mr. Day

1135

The Chair

Ms. Rhonda Kimberley-Young (Vice-President, Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation)

1140

1150

1155

The Chair

Ms. Carolyn Bassett (Coordinator, Canadian Peace Alliance (Toronto))

1200

1205

The Chair

1210

Ms. Rhonda Kimberley-Young

The Chair

Mr. Day

The Chair

Ms. Rhonda Kimberley-Young

The Chair

Ms. Carolyn Bassett

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

NUMBER 079

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Wednesday, May 8, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

½ (0745)

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.)): We begin, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), public hearings on North American integration and Canada's role in the light of new security challenges and the study of the agenda of the 2002 G-8 summit.

We begin today, Wednesday, May 8, with a witness from Securitas Canada, Mr. Richard Chenoweth, president and CEO.

Let me welcome you as we continue these two very important agendas facing Canada in terms of its role in the world and in North America. We feel it is essential to hear directly from citizens across the country on key foreign policy challenges arising in the context of the upcoming meeting, the G-8 meeting, and in regard to relations with our neighbours on the North American continent.

As you know, Canada is president of the G-8 during this year and will be hosting its summit at the end of June in Kananaskis, Alberta. In addition to addressing the global economic situation and the international fight against terrorism, Canada is putting particular emphasis on advancing an action plan for Africa based on the African initiative for a new development partnership.

The committee's hearings on both the G-8 summit agenda and on how our North American relationship should evolve are being done concurrently, given time and budget considerations. We've already held hearings in Atlantic Canada and Quebec as well as in Ottawa. This week, in order to complete the national process, one group of committee members is in Manitoba and Ontario, and another group is hearing from the public in the three westernmost provinces.

In regard to the G-8 issues, the committee will be tabling its report by the end of this month, in advance of final preparatory meetings for the summit. In the case of the North American study, all aspects of Canada-U.S., Canada-Mexico, trilateral ties are open for examination, with a final report envisaged for the fall.

You may have read something in the paper a little while ago that said the committee has prejudged the results. The committee has not prejudged any results. We are trying to hear from citizens like yourselves, and we are taking everything that's said to us under consideration for recommendation.

We welcome you here. We thank you for taking the time for coming out so early in the morning to contribute to the committee's deliberations. You will make your opening remarks, followed by some questions from members. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chenoweth.

½ (0750)

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.): Can I make a request of the witness?

Before you make your presentation, would it be possible to say something about your organization? I would appreciate that.

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth (President and Chief Executive Officer, Securitas Canada): In the material contained within the presentation, I've included our annual report, which has just come out. You will find that the corporation is described in a great deal of detail in the first 20 to 25 pages.

Briefly, Securitas is the largest provider of security services both in Europe and in North America. We are a true multinational, operating mostly in the western world. We are the largest provider of security services here in Canada, in the United States, and in most countries in Europe, hence the largest in the world. We provide different types of services in different countries, but as a total company our security mandates include literally almost every form of security you can imagine, ranging from nuclear reactors, airports, and government institutions to gold, cash in transit, office buildings, etc.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you.

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth: I should note before my opening remarks, Madam Chair, that our firm did lose four employees in the 9/11 events in New York City. Many others may never be able to return to their job or work with us, due to the trauma associated with that event.

I come here as a Canadian citizen. I come here as a business leader in Canada. I come here as a security professional. I come here as someone who has great passion on the topic of improving the North American security framework. So let me go into our presentation.

½ (0755)

The Chair: My sympathy goes to the families of your employees and your colleagues. We hope in everything we do and say in terms of security issues, we're making the situation better, not only for your employees, but also for all of us.

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth: Absolutely, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Madam Chair, it is a pleasure to appear before you this morning and to share my views on Canada and its role in the future of a North American relationship.

While my presentation this morning is in English only, I have provided copies as well in both official languages. In addition to these, as background material, I have provided a copy of my firm's most recent annual report, not for the financial data it contains, but for its overview, commentary, and information on security and global issues.

The second attachment I have provided for the information of committee members is a privately published magazine. You will find within it a number of very substantive, fact-oriented articles and information on security trends and issues in the United States, the European Union, and on a western-world basis, including Canada. So I encourage you to peruse it at your leisure.

One of the great challenges this committee and similar committees in other jurisdictions face is the absence of data and coordinated information. That's one of the things our firm has been trying to do on a global basis.

I'm the president and chief executive of Securitas Canada, the largest provider of private sector security services in the country. I hope my presentation will provide members of the committee with recommendations regarding how to improve the domestic security model in Canada. I contend that Canada's long-term relationship with its North American partners depends largely on reforming the regulation and legislation that governs the security industry in Canada.

Given the remarks I have already made, I will skip the discussion about my firm. But I should note that Securitas Canada provides security services in the spirit of our business concept of protecting homes, workplaces, and community. Given that our clients include many of Canada's largest private and public corporations, as well as federal, provincial, and municipal governments, ensuring the safety and security of Canadians is an essential part of Securitas' raison d'être, as it is, of course, of the Government of Canada.

Given the extraordinary circumstances we find ourselves in post-September 11, all Canadians understand that safety and security concerns have become paramount in every walk of life, be it public or private. In the days following September 11, Canada's then foreign affairs minister, the Honourable John Manley, now Deputy Prime Minister, observed that, “The terrorist attacks in the U.S. have profound implications for Canada's security and prosperity; for the way we govern ourselves and for how Canadians will lead their lives from now on.”

While I fully agree with Canada's Deputy Prime Minister, I further believe that the terrorist attacks have profound implications for Canada's responsibility to ensure the safety and security of their North American partners. I believe now, more than ever before, Canada must understand not only its role in the North American partnership, but undertake an examination of how to strengthen it.

As president of the largest provider of private security service in Canada, I believe in strengthening Canada's role in the North American partnership. We must begin at home in our domestic model.

Much of the expert analysis that has followed the tragic events of 9/11 accepts that the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., could have been controlled--perhaps even prevented--if both public and private sector security resources had a more adequate level of cooperation and coordination. With tragic results, the security model in the United States failed to provide adequate levels of cooperation between these two sectors, between national and subnational levels of government, to say nothing of cooperation between neighbouring countries. American experts--and I'm sure Canadian as well--have acknowledged that if municipal, state, federal, and international governments, as well as domestic and international public law enforcement agencies, developed solutions to the maze of domestic security procedures, the events of September 11 may never have occurred.

It is only following the devastating and tragic events of September 11 that American politicians are beginning to discuss how to create a more coordinated domestic security model. It is my strong contention that Canada must begin a similar exercise. In the wake of 9/11, the Americans have raised concerns with the efficiency of Canada's domestic security model. While much criticism is focused on issues relating to the cross-border passage of people and goods, I believe Canada can only fulfil its duty to the North American partnership by first addressing the fundamentals of the domestic security network. Securitas Canada has long believed the domestic security model in Canada is badly broken. In recent months I have written to the Solicitor General of Canada, the Honourable Lawrence MacAulay, as well as to each of his provincial counterparts, to offer recommendations regarding how to pursue security industry reform in Canada.

In the interests of keeping my remarks brief, I have attached, as an addendum a copy of my principal list of recommendations.

It is with great regret that I note that the regulation and legislation of the private security industry in Canada falls within provincial rather than federal jurisdiction. Notwithstanding these jurisdictional considerations, I believe Canada will come under increasing pressure from its American neighbours to address the shortcomings of our domestic security model. I urge the committee to consider how to best motivate Canada's provincial governments to actions. I am hopeful the committee will recommend the provincial governments seriously consider how to harmonize the regulations and legislation governing the private security industry across provincial borders.

Allow me to highlight a number of concerns the committee may consider when drafting its recommendations.

One, the complete absence of coordinated, consistent, or common interprovincial procedural and performance standards is a significant contributor to the weakness of the Canadian private security industry.

¾ (0800)

As a side note, Madam Chair, this magazine provides very good information on the security model you'll find in many other countries.

This province-by-province approach, and lack of consistency, flies in the face of what is deemed to be an appropriate and efficient model in most western European countries. Among Canada's ten provinces, there are ten vastly different regulatory and legislative approaches to security screening, licensing, and a failure to have mandatory professional training and standards of compensation for private security practitioners.

Second, the provincial acts governing private security practitioners are grossly inadequate. Enshrining and enforcing the basic requirements and professional standards required to realistically address the challenges and security needs of Canada is imperative. To underscore this point, many provincial acts are over 30 years old. Most neither regulate nor apply to tens of thousands of individuals who currently perform security guard or security systems functions. Hence, thousands of individuals escape even the most minimal security screening, licensing, training, and performance standards.

Third, nearly every provincial act governing private security is disconnected from the federal and provincial legislation governing the powers and duties of public law enforcement agencies. This disconnect prevents the efficient and effective utilization of both private and public security resources. This, in turn, costs taxpayers and security employers, virtually wasting millions and millions of dollars each year.

Fourth, I have been in direct discussion with provincial government officials, who have begun a fast-track process to modify the legislation and regulation governing private security. Based on my discussions, I have discovered that only the Atlantic provinces are considering regulatory and legislative harmonization. The remaining provinces appear intent on processes that fall short of consulting with any of the other provinces, giving no thought to the creation of a consistent, effective, and efficient national standard for private security resources of Canada.

Currently, there are more than 100,000 private security practitioners in Canada. In my conservative estimation, at least 25% of Canada's private security practitioners are unlicensed and therefore escape current legislation, much less legislation being considered--

The Chair: Mr. Chenoweth, you have two minutes left, so maybe you can just go to the....

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth: To be blunt, the private security model in Canada is badly broken. I urge the government to stop ignoring the perilous situation and to take a proactive role in encouraging the provinces to develop a harmonized legislative framework.

To conclude, I would like to draw your attention to the final addendum of my presentation. It's this coloured chart. The chart is an illustration of research conducted by Securitas in October 2001. While it is simple and rudimentary research, it sought to determine how Canada's security industry compared to the regimes of countries located in North and South America and in Europe. The conclusion, as you can see graphically in the chart, is that Canada's security industry is immature, inefficient, largely ineffective, and far inferior to most other democratic nations.

Thank you very much.

¾ (0805)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Chenoweth.

We'll go directly to questions.

I think you said quite well in your presentation that this is within the provincial domain, with provincial regulatory and legislative powers.

So we'll go to questioning, Mr. Day, taking that into consideration.

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

Thanks so much for the presentation.

Can you give an indication of what the state of coordination is right now in the industry, province to province? Some industries, as you know, through their industry associations, have representations from all provinces and are therefore able to look at things, whether it's codes or minimum rates of pay, or whatever.

¾ (0810)

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth: It's non-existent between provinces on a regulatory basis, or between practitioners and suppliers. The reason it's non-existent among practitioners or suppliers in the private sector is due to the fact that there is no national forum. In other words, as an industry, any attempts so far to approach the federal government about Canada-wide issues have been met with referral back to the individual provinces.

The individual provinces, so far, appear to show no interest in what is happening in any other province. Due to the fact that there are different regulations, licensing procedures, and business procedures in each province, it has fragmented the industry. Because of that, there are very, very few national suppliers. It is extremely inefficient and illogical. I happen to be, as a matter of fact, the only security company that operates in every jurisdiction across the country.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Areas as complicated and complex as building codes, both commercial and residential, fall under the purview of provincial legislation. The various building and construction associations, and trades and non-trades--be they electrical or otherwise--pulled together a number of years ago, with a couple of industry leaders driving them, to the point where.... Every province has its own code, but they're largely harmonized because a couple of industry leaders had simply taken charge and pulled others behind.

With the size and strength of your own workforce and company, if you were able to initiate that discussion and pull the others along with you, would you have an advantage that way? I don't mean this in a negative way but in a positive way.

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth: I can only speak for Securitas today. I have been trying to follow that path for over a year now and have had little success so far. But I shall continue in that regard. Many provinces do not even have provincial industry associations.

I appreciate the point. But again, if you look at many of the security models in most western European countries, they've ultimately ended up with a model that has not regionalized the roles, responsibilities, effectiveness, training, screening, professionalism, and duties of private security.

When you look at our country, for example, you deal with 100,000-plus individuals. This is a huge security resource. There can be an extended or protracted process of trying to harmonize throughout the provinces. To be effective, there comes a point in time when we must rise above regional, parochial interests and act clearly and constructively. As partners in North America, I very much believe we will be receiving much further pressure to do that and to be able to act on that basis.

Mr. Stockwell Day: I certainly encourage you in that direction and share with you that we are constantly on the government's case for being involved in provincial jurisdiction when we think they should be concentrating more on areas of federal jurisdiction. So I would encourage you certainly in anything you do in that way with the strength and the high profile that you do have.

I have one question. Do you operate in conjunction with the RCMP or CSIS in terms of discussions, or are there times where you work together, or do you have some of your people on the scene where they have jurisdiction?

¾ (0815)

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth: Yes. The current environment in Canada is that on the food chain, private security is generally considered somewhere below the amoeba. For instance, since September 11, even though I represent over 8,000 security professionals across the country, the largest security firm in Canada, and protect not just private sector but public sector assets and resources, there has been no attempt to discuss, consult, or allow me to participate in any discussions on national security from any agency be it CSIS, the RCMP, or other committees and forces. I should say, by the way, that that has also been true at the provincial level.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you very much.

Earlier, before you made your presentation, I asked you to tell us a little bit about your company. I went through the annual report of your operation, and I regret to say--correct me if I'm wrong, but the only time I see “Canada” is when you talk about your financial interest in this country.

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth: What page are you on please, sir?

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: I'm making a general observation on this book. The only time you use the word “Canada” is when you speak about your financial interest in Canada, not about your operations in Canada.

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth: No.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: I want to make sure of that....

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth: This is the parent company annual report.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Having made that point, I have another question about this magazine. On page 57, you give a European breakdown, country by country, giving the number of security companies, employees, and the number of police forces.

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth: Yes.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: I notice here--and maybe there's an explanation for it--that in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovenia, all of which are east European countries or former Communist-controlled countries, their security forces are higher than their police forces. Does that say something about the local police force being corrupt, or that you're more reliable than the police force? I'd like the explanation for that. In other countries the number is double, triple, quadruple, whatever. It doesn't say anything about Canada, I grant you; it just says European breakdown. But why is it that in east European or former Communist countries, it's way over, in terms of the ratio of the number of police to security forces in a country like Canada?

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth: If you take a country like Poland, where they have approximately 200 private security and half as many public law enforcement officials, which appears to be it, in Poland the private security individual has to, starting day one, receive a minimum of 100 hours of superior training. That's just to even get a basic security job.

The model in Poland has placed a great deal of the expertise, the professional education, which here in Canada you would find in public law enforcement, the police.... They've left it with the private sector. So in Poland you would find private sector police, for instance, being able to direct traffic or give out tickets, doing some of the traffic activities that our police forces do here and that private security cannot do by law.

If a large local mall with a big parking lot is having traffic problems because it's having a sale or something like that, it cannot, by law, employ private security to direct traffic. It has to go to the professionals, the police officers, to do that.

Poland is an example of a country where the bar has been significantly raised on the resources, professionalism, and expertise of private sector security officers. Second, in doing so, it has found more applications for those individuals; therefore, the police have focused more on their traditional roles of apprehension, etc.

Did you understand my...?

¾ (0820)

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: No, I didn't. Anyway, we can talk about it later.

The Chair: I want to thank you for the question.

Mr. Chenoweth, your presentation has been recorded. It's going to be on our website, and your materials will be read and reread as we do our recommendations. It will also, I would imagine, be picked up by the necessary departments as they pursue their own work.

We thank you for joining us at this hour of the morning and for your presentation.

Mr. Richard H. Chenoweth: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Our next witnesses of the morning are from World Vision Canada. We have Linda Tripp, vice-president for advocacy and government relations, and Henriette Thompson, East Africa regional program manger.

Welcome, and thank you for being here at this time of the morning and accommodating us simply because of our agenda change.

Linda, it's always good to see you. You may begin. You have about ten minutes to make a presentation. Then there will be questions from the members. You've been before the committee several times, so you know the process.

Everything will be recorded and reread. So if there aren't a lot of members around asking a lot of questions, the ones who are here are really holding the fort for everyone else.

Ms. Henriette Thompson (East Africa Regional Program Manager, World Vision Canada): Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and honourable panel members. My name is Henriette Thompson, and my colleague Linda Tripp and I are here today representing World Vision, one of the largest international NGOs in Canada.

Just two weeks ago in Arusha, Tanzania, I attended a workshop with 40 participants to finalize new strategic directions for World Vision's work in East Africa. Participants included leaders from nine World Vision national offices in East Africa, as well as program managers such as myself from various northern offices.

In a thought-provoking session one morning, we were asked to contemplate what it means to begin with the future, or, in other words, what gets worshipped at the end of the development process? Is it physical infrastructure, economic sustainability, technical competence, or community ownership?

In many respects, the same questions are being raised in the context of discussions leading up to the G-8 summit. What kind of future are Africans envisioning, and how will they begin to realize that future? What mutual goals do we value above all others? That's why today's opportunity to provide input into the G-8 action plan for Africa is so appreciated. I'd like to thank the committee for this opportunity to continue making progress in the dialogue on Africa.

World Vision also appreciates the Canadian government's invitation to two of our colleagues from Ethiopia and Senegal to the CIDA consultations in Montreal this past weekend. We are encouraged by the government's commitment to creating and protecting space for African action at the G-8 summit.

For more than 50 years World Vision and thousands of Canadian supporters have had Africa in the centre of their field of vision. The World Vision global partnership itself invests as a whole an estimated 40% of its budget, or about $400 million U.S., in 26 of the poorest developing countries in Africa. In Canada, about 40% of privately donated cash and goods, over $64 million Canadian last year, was allocated to Africa. To give country teams more ownership of development programs in Africa, World Vision works as a federation, with each national office determining strategies for its own country. Some partners in Africa raise a portion of their budget themselves, increasing their long-term capacity to manage their own development.

Through networks of area development programs, World Vision implements an integrated approach to local and district-level development. For greater impact, World Vision partners are increasing their involvement in local, national, and international policy development. In this way, World Vision can contribute more to national development strategies such as poverty reduction strategy papers, or PRSPs, and the development of civil society participation in the emerging governance structures in Africa. It is from this experience and practice that we address the questions raised by the standing committee concerning the G-8 action plan for Africa.

¾ (0825)

Ms. Linda Tripp (Vice-President for Advocacy and Government Relations, World Vision Canada): I'd like to now just address some points on the goals of the action plan for Africa. In anticipation of the G-8 action plan for Africa, World Vision prepared a document called Obuntu, which all of you have received. The Bantu word obuntu means peace and prosperity for all people, rich and poor. The Obuntu paper proposes eight actions for the G-8 and has been distributed to our Prime Minister and to Mr. Fowler. It has also gone to our World Vision offices in other G-8 countries and is being distributed to those governments as well.

We ask you to seriously consider the proposals in this paper, and I just want to highlight a few here. One of them is to support peace promotion and conflict prevention. In other words, we need to stop shipping weapons to Africa, especially small arms, which contribute significantly to the use of children in armed conflict. That could be a whole other topic.

We want to adopt fair trade rules and end resource exploitation, especially with extraction industries like oil and diamonds in Africa.

We need to include young people and women and end social exclusion. We know that women often have a significant role to play, especially in peace initiatives.

And finally, we need to treat preventable diseases. We need to stop the unnecessary deaths of children.

We are sending this one-page summary out to thousands of Canadians, our constituency across the country, in two major publications we send out regularly, asking people to indicate to our government that they do support these eight initiatives and are encouraging our government to do so as well.

Finally, you've received a copy of this magazine Global Futures. This is a publication that comes out of our World Vision international office, but Canada contributes significantly. The issue we've given you is titled “Finance for Development”. You will find articles in there from James Wolfensohn of the World Bank; Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer in the U.K.; Jean-Claude Faure, the OECD's development assistance committee chairman; and the EC director for development, Koos Richelle. Give a deep and serious look at some of the issues we're talking about.

If we begin with the future, we must begin with children. Often, child poverty generates goals that appear as afterthoughts in discussions concerning poverty eradication. Investments in the human or social capital of poor countries are often secondary to the imperatives of financial capital. Yet investment in this area is a key determinant of development progress. An organization committed to building a better future for the world's children, World Vision recommends a comprehensive approach to children in development that assesses not just their access to basic services, but also whether their rights are being addressed.

More broadly, the lessons of the last three decades are that education, primary health care, and resources for income generation can have a profound impact on local poverty reduction. When coupled with economic stability, good income distribution, and stable aid flows, these factors can lay the foundation for both economic and social progress.

Indeed, one of the common features of the PRSP--the poverty reduction strategy paper--case studies conducted by World Vision in Senegal and Ethiopia is the pre-eminence of the rural economy to the majority of poor people and the central importance of issues such as gender. A renewed commitment to education and health, especially addressing HIV and AIDS in Africa at the local level, coupled with the provision of new resources from donors and the release of debt servicing funds for the implementation of long-term strategies, can vastly improve prospects for sustainable human development in Africa.

Henriette.

¾ (0830)

Ms. Henriette Thompson: We have assumed that aid levels are necessary, and yet there's a lot of discussion concerning how much and what kind. I'd like to address that in the next section.

Over the past decade, African and international organizations have worked hard to develop realistic human development goals. These were formally adopted by all governments represented at the millennium UN General Assembly. Failure on the part of developed countries to live up to these commitments is eroding confidence among Africans about any prospect for fair treatment in the global economy. Also, the growing gap between those with wealth and those without shows the need to pay attention to wealth distribution as well as to wealth creation.

Citing a lack of resources among the developed countries is not valid. Several proposals have been tabled to show that the resources can be found if there is political will to do so. Billions of dollars were found for defence budgets on short notice in the last year, despite widespread recognition that military force alone cannot eliminate terrorism or build a just peace. Political leadership is needed to allocate resources to fight the deeper causes of conflict. To be effective in building peace, increased aid should not be tied to specific military objectives.

While G-8 countries portray themselves as generous to Africa, many aid policies are designed to return economic benefits to donor countries rather than to develop the long-term capacity of Africans. Research has shown that tied aid can add between 15% and 30% in costs and undermine local producers. In spite of that, much of the official international development assistance provided for Africa is still tied to purchases of goods and services in developed countries. More than 50% of Canadian aid, for example, is tied to purchases here.

Recent announcements of increased assistance by individual governments, including those of Canada, the United States, and Great Britain, are positive signals. The action plan for Africa can build on these to identify and allocate adequate resources to meet reasonable, existing international commitments, including primary education for all by 2015, reducing infant mortality rates by two-thirds before 2015, and reducing the number of people living on less than $1 a day by 50% before 2015.

The action plan for Africa should also untie aid and provide resources to support local and regional production, a change that is long overdue and fairly simply to achieve. This would be a practical first step toward more effective aid policy. The action plan can strengthen mechanisms by which the people themselves can monitor the implementation of well-developed poverty reduction strategies.

While African leaders rightly challenge northern donors to reform ODA delivery mechanisms and to meet the UN target of 0.7% of the GNP, the G-8 has already indicated that NEPAD will be used to target aid only to a short list of winners in Africa. Such a triage is likely to result in even further reductions in aid to those countries most disadvantaged by the global economy. A more promising approach would be to reinforce governance and democracy by redirecting significantly more ODA to African unions, associations, and human rights groups, for example.

Continued progress could be monitored and assessed. Further aspects of such an approach would include attracting and training competent officials, improving the rule of law, fighting corruption, and building institutions and infrastructure. Furthermore, respect and inclusion for the rich associational and community life of African people are essential to democratic governance in Africa.

¾ (0835)

Ms. Linda Tripp: I'd like to just touch briefly on donor coordination. Recent studies point to the critical importance of consistency in aid flows and coordination among donors. Such coordination could reduce the transaction costs of recipient states. An example of this is again the PRSPs, a single national plan for poverty reduction within each country enabling streamlined conditionalities. A revised PRSP framework should allow for the development of accountability systems, particularly through the capacity-building of local civil society in this field.

Popular support for the action plan is essential in Africa and in the north. To date, a lack of significant reform to international trade, investment, and political regimes has resulted in only a minority of Africans benefiting from greater integration into the global economy. Increased poverty and loss of livelihood have disenchanted many toward the current model of economic globalization. The reality and perception that the action plan will result in a new partnership will continue to require time and commitment to truly engage Africans in building the new partnership long after the G-8 meetings.

In Canada, as new roles in relation to southern counterparts emerge, Canadians need to expand their roles of information sharing, structured learning, and building policy and research capacities. Canadians can support the action plans through strengthening north-south connections; through direct overseas exposure of Canadians to both community-based projects and policy change initiatives arising from these projects; through an approach called deliberative dialogue, which is uncovering shared values through structured discussion; using information and communications technology to facilitate collaborative learning, solidarity networks, and increased participation in both cultural exchange and policy dialogue; and forming new and diverse partnerships that involve youth and volunteer placement programs.

Ms. Henriette Thompson: As mentioned earlier, the past weeks have witnessed intense discussions in Africa concerning the NEPAD. The Prime Minister's visit in April provided further impetus to discussions of future directions for Africa, and this past weekend's CIDA consultations in Montreal provided NGOs and others with active opportunities for individual and group discussions. In brief, our colleagues voiced the following observations and recommendations.

The first is that NEPAD does hold promise for a new partnership, but it does require further discussion regarding aspects such as peer reviews. Also, our colleagues feel the action plan for Africa must increase its attention toward mitigating the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This theme continued to surface as a very key and critical one. They also wanted to see attention on the role of gender and development, and the critical need for food security. Finally, our colleagues said the action plan should expand the role for civil society's participation in the implementation of NEPAD.

Ms. Linda Tripp: To summarize, ladies and gentlemen, World Vision proposes that the action plan for Africa continue to invite full participation of African political leaders, but especially civil society leaders, in future discussions; that there be balance between the financial and social needs of communities and countries; that we support peace promotion and conflict prevention; and that we allocate an increase in new and coordinated resources.

As a Christian organization, World Vision's action is shaped by biblical principles of justice. The poor are entitled to receive a share of global wealth so that they too can invest in a more prosperous future. One law of the Hebrew scriptures called on the people of Israel to devote at least 10% of their own income to the service of the poor. The combination of this tithe with the right to a portion of the harvest would suggest a significant investment by members of society in the future of the poor, an investment that must surely have amounted to a higher proportion of wealth than the modern-day 0.23% of GNP that countries of the OECD currently spend on overseas aid. We believe this, like the year of the jubilee, is a policy worth emulating.

Thank you so much for your attention, and we wish you well in this important endeavour.

The Chair: We also want to thank you for delineating the issues so clearly for us. Obuntu 8 for the G-8 has been circulated among our colleagues. We've all had this for a while, so I think we're very familiar with what you're asking. Also, the public campaign sent us these postcards. We know that campaign is on again, repeating your message. Your message is entwined within the workings of the NEPAD papers. It's the hope that we can work together in partnership to make sure we do this. I think what you're putting on the table is really Canadian values and concern for all of us in this global village. So we thank you for this.

Your paper has found another way into the process through this committee hearing, and it's on the website with all of the other documentation that is before the committee. So there is public awareness of the eight points.

I'll ask my colleagues to be brief in their questioning so that we can finish within the time limit.

¾ (0840)

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the profoundly recognized efforts of World Vision, both in Canada and around the world, and the good work it has performed.

First I have a couple of observations. I think you'll find some significant agreement related to aid, especially in the poorest of jurisdictions, for the most basic of needs, including health, education, primary education, and security of food supply in those areas where, for whatever reason, it's not available.

Beyond that I think there is proper encouragement--and this is articulated by African leaders themselves--to put positive pressure on their own jurisdictions to move ahead with democratic reform, which will lead to the type of economic reform that will allow people to begin to create for their own needs.

When you talk about the civil society groups, do you include in that successful local enterprisers, local people who've been successful at least in providing for their own needs and are able to share that with others? We would call it a chamber of commerce, but culturally there might be some difference there.

Ms. Linda Tripp: World Vision Tanzania does a lot of fundraising within Tanzania, and that's through a lot of partnerships with local businesses and things like that. You can couple that with our work in micro-enterprise development, which is small loans to local people. Then out of this grows a lot of local groups and local initiatives. It would be similar to our chambers of commerce, though not exactly the same. Yes, we very much would include those.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you.

The Chair: Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you very much.

I echo my colleague's tremendous praise for World Vision Canada, and every time I watch TV I get attached to the commercial. It's a really moving commercial. I fully support your work, not only in Africa but wherever there is conflict and you extend a helping hand.

I wonder if you would be good enough to expand on the first point you made in your proposal: support peace and conflict prevention. Then you added, stop shipping weapons to Africa. I grant you that. But what can you do to prevent conflicts?

Ms. Linda Tripp: When we look at the impact that conflict has had especially on children and the whole issue of children caught in war, this phenomenon has only been able to happen because of the proliferation of light weapons. In our Obuntu paper I think we comment that in Angola it's easier for a child to get a gun than a textbook. While Canada is not directly involved in this, we are asking that Canada use as much influence as possible at the international table to stop this illegal flow of small weapons into Africa. That would be a major contribution toward overcoming some of the internal conflict.

There's an area in Ethiopia where a status symbol was to own a gun. Through the work of World Vision and one of our area development programs in promoting education, we saw that whole thing turn around, where the status symbol was actually to have your child educated. Following the law of supply and demand, the demand for guns went down, and suddenly weapons became less of an issue in that area. So through initiatives by NGOs such as World Vision and at the micro-level with Canada at the international table really bringing pressure to bear on those countries that do trade either legally or illegally in arms, we're saying Canada should take a stronger stand.

¾ (0845)

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you so much for joining us this morning, and thanks for accommodating the agenda change. We appreciate it.

Ms. Linda Tripp: Thank you, Ms. Augustine. Thank you, members of the panel.

The Chair: We'd now like to invite to the table Doctor, Professor, Mr. Jack Granatstein.

Mr. Jack Granatstein (Co-Chairman, Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century): I'm not a professor any more.

The Chair: Once you're a professor, you're always a professor.

Mr. Jack Granatstein: I tried very hard to escape.

The Chair: Welcome, and thank you for accommodating us this morning.

For the record, the witness before us is from the Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century, Jack Granatstein, co-chairman.

You have ten minutes to make a presentation, and then, if you would, I'd ask you to accommodate the questions from the members. We've read some of your materials before. Part of our committee is holding hearings in the west, and I think there were some rebuttals to an article you recently wrote, so maybe you might have an opportunity to rebut the rebuttal.

Mr. Jack Granatstein: It's very easy to rebut Mr. Axworthy and company, Madam Chairman.

Thank you very much for inviting me. It's a pleasure to be here at this pre-breakfast meeting. There are a number of issues that precede and arise from the events of 9/11 that pose challenges for Canada's immediate and long-term relations with its superpower neighbour. They merit full public and parliamentary discussion, for all are important questions on which Canadians need to be informed. On behalf of the Council for Canadian Security in the 21st Century I would like to discuss only two today, and the first is national missile defence.

Defence against ICBMs has been of major concern in the United States for years, although the 1972 ABM Treaty between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. constrained research for years. The Bush administration has given the strongest of indications of its intention to withdraw from this commitment and to proceed full speed ahead with research to develop by 2005 a defence against ICBMs from present and future rogue states such as North Korea, Iraq, and others. The Russians and Chinese are unhappy about this, naturally enough, and so are many Canadians. The United States is all but certain to speed up the research and deployment of an NMD system if one can be developed, which is by no means certain.

What should the Canadian position be when faced with this American determination, a determination only strengthened by the events of 9/11? Most Canadian officials downplay the rogue state threat and worry about American unilateralism. If the research failed to produce a useful defensive system, almost no one would weep. But if it does, Canada has been a partner in NORAD, headquartered at Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, since 1957-58, successively renewing its commitments under this agreement every five years. The changing thrust of NORAD is best demonstrated by the replacement a number of years ago of air defence and its name by “aerospace defence”, and it is very likely that the United States will want to put NMDs under NORAD control to take advantage of the existing warning systems NORAD possesses and that Canadian military personnel help run.

If Canada takes a high moral stand against the NMD defensive system, therefore, the Canadians in NORAD could no longer fully participate in the warning and assessment process. The implications of this are clear: the Americans might prefer to close down NORAD as an integrated command or to give NMD to their Space Command, perhaps even amalgamating it with the U.S. Strategic Command. For all practical purposes, NORAD's gutting would take with it all Canadian influence on continental air defence, and it will almost certainly affect the vast flow of intelligence Canada receives from American sources.

If Canada accepts NMD, on the other hand, and missile defence goes to NORAD, Canadian influence might actually increase. No one suggests that Canada will acquire go or no-go authority over NMD if NORAD runs the show, but Canada will have the right to consultation, the right to participation, the right to a place at the table when decisions are made.

As the United States is all but certain to proceed, Canada must choose between high morality and great practicality. In such circumstances, when morality will only anger the Bush administration and hurt Canadian interests, there is no choice. The time for maximum benefit may have already slipped by; nonetheless, the earlier Canada agrees to support the NMD decision, the better.

Similar to the NMD-NORAD conundrum is the question of the Northern Command, the new U.S. military super command announced last month. NORTHCOM is to be activated on October 1 and led by the American general who commands NORAD. NORTHCOM will also be housed alongside NORAD in Colorado. Such an organization, largely for purposes of coordination among the fractious American services, has long been suggested in the United States.

Homeland defence is obviously of great concern to Americans, and should be so to Canadians. NORTHCOM, however, is an American national command, and it is very unlikely that Canada will be invited to participate in joint planning for command. But it would be good sense for Ottawa to press for the creation of an expanded NORAD arrangement that covers both nations' land and naval forces and preserves Canada's status in the binational NORAD.

Such suggestions run up against the DFAIT concerns about sovereignty and autonomy, and likely the finance department's fear that if Canada expands NORAD to cover homeland defence, American pressures for much greater defence spending might be too strong to be ignored. The question, however, must be approached exactly as the national missile defence question. The U.S. is determined to improve its homeland defence and is certain to approach this subject, as it must, from a continental perspective.

The press release announcing the Northern Command declared its area responsibility to be all of continental North America, including Canada, and gave the commander-in-chief of the command the task of security cooperation and military coordination with other countries. Canada thus has the choice to stand back and allow the Americans to plan for the use of Canadian territory or to participate in the decisions.

The Prime Minister's instinctive response was to say, correctly, that the Northern Command was the American's own business, but he then added that the defence of Canada will be assured by the Canadian government, not by the American government. His office issued a fact sheet that suggested that informal discussions thus far do not include the possible creation of a new joint command with standing forces attributed to it.

Your former chairman, the present foreign minister, was more circumspect, noting that the government had advised the U.S. that once they have announced their plan, we will study it and determine to what extent we wish or whether it would be good for Canada to participate.

Once again, there is no real choice. Canada-firsters will claim that Canada is tying itself to the American chariot wheels if it expands NORAD or posts officers to the Northern Command, as it might do in the future. But the basic decisions were made in the Ogdensberg agreement of August 1940 and confirmed by a succession of defence and trade agreements. Do we want some consultation or none on matters that concern Canadian security every bit as much as American?

Some have pointed to existing differences in Canadian and American policy in arguing against NORAD expansion. The Honourable Lloyd Axworthy asked, what does a Canadian soldier do if asked to handle land mines on Canadian soil in contravention of our treaty undertakings? What if we apprehend someone considered a war criminal? U.S. law would prevent them being turned over, while our obligations require it. These are important questions, but they would have more force if the Canadian and U.S. air forces had not successfully worked together in NORAD for 45 years, and if the Canadian and U.S. navies had not seamlessly integrated, daily resolving problems of equal complexity. As long as our troops remain under Canadian command, with Canadians able to decide what they will do and when, if ever, to place them under U.S. operational control, the nation will have more than sufficient power over its military destiny.

¾ (0850)

If operational control is granted to American commanders, it can be withdrawn at any time. Moreover, an expanded NORAD would be obliged to request Canadian forces for particular missions, and the Canadian government would be able to agree or not after assessing all the factors. This is the case in the present NORAD.

Very simply, Mr. Axworthy's concerns are largely wrong in fact. They are certainly not in the interests of Canada and continental defence. By all means, Canadians need to raise their concerns about further integration with the United States military. But in their desire to stay a sovereign nation, they must not forget what is at stake. With almost 90% of our trade going to or passing through the United States, our well-being depends on good relations with our superpower neighbour.

I'll stop there, Madam Chairman. I'd be very pleased to answer any questions.

¾ (0855)

The Chair: Thank you very much. I appreciate that; you had one minute on the clock to go.

We'll start directly with our questioning.

Mr. Day.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, sir, for your thoughtful presentation.

I'll put an observation before a question. I don't know if the language is intentional, but on page 2 you say “...Canada must choose between high morality and great practicality”. You go on to say “...when morality will only anger the Bush administration”. We have had presentations from, I guess, associations leaning on either side of this equation, some who would think it's worthwhile looking at NMD and some who say, no, I don't think we should. I don't think one side has a higher moral ground than the other, because they're all based on what they think is in the best interests of Canada.

I just raise that issue. I don't think that because the Bush administration might take one side, I would necessarily characterize that as an immoral--

Mr. Jack Granatstein: I'm not for a minute characterizing the American or the Canadian position as “immoral”. I'm just suggesting that the Canadian attitude of always pretending to be a moral superpower rather grates on the rest of the world, and particularly on Washington.

Dean Acheson almost 50 years ago called Canada the “stern daughter of the voice of God”, because even then we were preaching, preaching, preaching. It gets a little tiresome to the United States, because they like to think they're just as moral as we are.

Mr. Stockwell Day: That's exactly my point. Thank you for clarifying it. I agree, sometimes, especially with former minister Axworthy, that was the notion that was given, that he tried to attach higher morality to a position instead of getting down to the brass tacks of what's going to be in the best interests of Canadians.

On that point, is it your estimation that the apparent, at least, lack of participation right now in what's happening with NORTHCOM a result of the government's fear of being asked to commit more resources, while their past performance hasn't indicated a tendency to do so?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: Bear in mind what I said, sir, that we will not be invited to participate in NORTHCOM. It is an American national command, like European Command, like Atlantic Command, like Pacific Command, like their Southern Command. They have a whole array of military commands that cover areas of the world. They are wholly American. They might cooperate in some ways. There might be officers from other nations with them, but NORTHCOM is American only.

The question for us, I think, is not how we cooperate with NORTHCOM; the question for us is how we cooperate in continental defence, which I would think requires an expanded NORAD--to make NORAD tri-service rather than simply air force.

I think the issue has been skewed in Canadian eyes because of bad reporting--and, frankly, because of Mr. Axworthy's thoroughly bad paper--to make people think NORTHCOM is something we are being asked to join. We are not.

Mr. Stockwell Day: I have one more question Madam Chairman.

In your view, should Canada wait to see what develops, what the plan looks like, or should Canada be saying, “By the way, U.S., while you're planning things, here are some things we would appreciate you considering”?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: I take the view that continental defence involves Canada and the United States. We are all under threat after September 11, 2001. If we have views on how the continent should be defended, on how Canadians should be defended, we should be seeking discussions at the earliest possible stage with a view to creating an expanded defence arrangement for the continent.

I think we should take the initiative. In truth, we know there are discussions going on at a low level at the moment on how NORAD might be expanded, but whether the government will go that route is another question. We need to move into a new stage of our defence relations with the United States.

¿ (0900)

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you.

First, I didn't find your explanation about not angering the Bush administration satisfactory. That's my point of view.

I'd like to ask you to comment on a statement made by the late Prime Minister Trudeau that the U.S. would have to defend us, if there were threats of being attacked by the U.S.S.R.

Will you comment on that statement? Is that still true?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: I don't think there's any doubt that the United States will have to defend us. We are on one of the routes to their heartland, so they must defend us. The real question is whether that is a satisfactory position for a sovereign nation to take.

There's an old joke that the Americans pretend they don't defend Canada and the Canadians pretend they do. I would much prefer us to be a sovereign state, act like a sovereign state, and have respectable military forces that could actually play a role in the defence of Canada.

Most of the time in our history, with the exceptions of the two world wars and perhaps the first ten years of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that we helped create, this country has been a freeloader. We have taken a free ride on the United States. We've saved the money we should have spent on defence and put it into other things, and the Americans have defended us. What kind of sovereignty do we have if that's the situation in which we live?

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: On my final question, the population of the U.S. is over 300 million--

Mr. Jack Granatstein: It's ten times ours.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: --so is it fair to assume our forces should be 90 times less than the U.S.?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: I think it's entirely fair for us to assume we should have 10% of the military the United States has.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Do we?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: No. We're nowhere near that. We have 60,000; they have essentially 1.5 million, so we're a long way below where we should be. We spend 1.1% of our GNP. We spend $7 billion U.S. a year on defence; the Americans spend close to $400 billion. We are not carrying our weight.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Would you also say that's maybe because the U.S. is the only superpower left? How do we compare with other nations with populations of 30 million?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: We are below virtually everyone else. With the exception of Luxembourg, we are the last in NATO, by percentage of GNP.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: We were sixth in NATO in the defence budget.

Mr. Jack Granatstein: That's in dollars, but per capita and as a percentage of GNP, we are just above Luxembourg. We do not carry our weight; we have not carried our weight. This has been a 40-year process of freeloading by this country. It's a disgrace, frankly, to a nation that pretends to want to play a role in the world. We can't even do our peacekeeping role in a satisfactory way any longer. We are thirty-fourth in UN contributions to peacekeeping at this point.

We don't do a very good job. Our influence around the world has decreased and is decreasing.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Where is the U.S., in terms of peacekeeping contributions?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: I can't give you a precise number, but the Americans have more people on peacekeeping duties than we do.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Madam Chair, I might just observe that's clearly a statistical reality, from all the studies we have done. Only the jurisdiction mentioned by Mr. Granatstein is lower than Canada, and that's why we're losing influence in NATO. Our NATO influence has diminished over the last ten years.

Mr. Jack Granatstein: I don't think there's any doubt of that. We pulIed out of NATO, of course; we pulled our troops out of Europe, and our influence there has decreased dramatically. There may be some chance to increase our influence in Europe if we go into this arrangement we're discussing with the European Union, but essentially we don't have the people to send. We're probably not going to be able to replace our battalion in Afghanistan because we don't have another infantry battalion to send there. We don't have enough resources, in a military sense, for the kinds of roles we want to play.

The Chair: I have two questions I'd like to ask before we let you go, Mr. Granatstein.

I want to take a point from what was presented to the committee out west. They said if there is to be a new, enhanced North American security arrangement involving military cooperation, Canada should insist on the formal participation of Mexico.

In your brief discussion with us, Mexico was not mentioned. How would you respond to the formal participation of Mexico in that entire discussion?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: The Mexican armed forces, while numerous, are a light year behind Canadian forces, and two light years behind American forces, in sophisticated technology and modern war-fighting capacity. They're essentially an internal security force that aims to keep the Mexican people down--you'll forgive me for saying that, but it happens to be true.

I don't think the defence of North America properly belongs to a tripartite arrangement. We can trade in a tripartite way, but in military terms the reality is that the defence of North America is primarily American and secondarily Canadian and American. I think it would be a mistake for us to pretend anything else.

The Chair: Finally, could you make a comment on what we have all heard and read--I'm not too sure we have been given formal notice, as a committee--that Mr. Eggleton, our Minister of Defence, is speaking about a review of defence?

How do you see all of these issues coming into what could be a possible defence? Do you have any recommendations at this time? What is your thinking?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: The Council for Canadian Security published a report last November that called for a review of defence. So we are obviously pleased that the government is moving in this direction. The question is, what's going to come out of that review? What must come out of that review, in the council's view, is a prescription for more money for defence, more people for defence, and more equipment for defence.

I would like to see us move as rapidly as we can toward the NATO average spending on defence--which is exactly double ours in percent of GNP terms--from 1.1% to 2.2% of GNP. If we do that, raise the number in our forces to 80,000 to 85,000, put an extra 10,000 people in the army, an extra 5,000 to 8,000 in the navy, and the remaining 10,000 or so in the air force, and get the new equipment we need, then we will have the capacity to play a role in the world. It will be a better role than peacekeeping; it will be a role in the defence of North America, and a better role in NATO operations in Bosnia and possibly elsewhere. We can't do those things now without subjecting our men and women in the armed forces to extraordinary strain.

The quality of life of the Canadian Forces has deteriorated dramatically. The numbers cannot be sustained at their present 54,000, which is the real strength of the Canadian Forces. In the next two or three years, we're facing a major departure from the forces of our senior NCOs and our officers because of age requirements.

The reality is we're on the verge of becoming virtually defenceless. And if we do that, then there'll be no question of defending North America; there'll be no question of protecting our sovereignty. We will, very simply, have to rely on the Americans for everything. We cannot stay a sovereign state if that is the case.

¿ (0905)

The Chair: Could you make a final, upbeat statement before I say thank you? I don't want to end on that note.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: I have a short question.

The Chair: Yes.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: I will read you this paragraph from my notes: Any agreement should also specifically commit the U.S. to request Canada's specific permission before any U.S. soldier or equipment enters the Arctic or the Northwest Passage. If the U.S. ignores this, for example, and then they move their submarines or whatever through the Northwest Passage, do you expect us to attack the U.S. and defend our sovereignty?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: Of course not.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: So tell me who we are going to fight against?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: Where were you on September 11, sir? Wasn't North America attacked? Isn't there the threat of continuing attacks?

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: You had the same argument before September 11, right?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: Yes.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Increased defence?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: Yes.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: What was the reason then?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: The reason then was that we weren't carrying our weight. The reason now is that we are under threat of attack.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: So you're saying if we had an army and the U.S., in effect, bypassed our sovereignty and went through the Northwest Passage, we should not attack them? What is sovereignty for then?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: Well, I thought sovereignty was the Liberal Party position. Perhaps I'm wrong.

I'm assuming the defence of Canadian sovereignty is our ability to claim and protect our territory. Now, obviously, we're not going to militarily attack an American boat going through the Northwest Passage. We should certainly attack an American boat going through the passage with all of the diplomatic weapons in our arsenal. The problem is we have very few diplomatic weapons in our arsenal with the United States, because, in substantial part, we have no military weapon. Power sometimes actually comes out of the barrel of a gun. You don't have to use it, but if you have it, sometimes you have more power. We lose moral force with the United States and the ability to persuade them we're a serious nation when we don't carry our weight in defence.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Do you think if we have a couple more planes George Bush is going to be scared of us?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: No, George Bush isn't going to be scared of us. We're never going to have anything like the force the United States does. The point is, we can demonstrate we are doing our bit, that we are doing our 10%--which should be our share--and then we can make a credible case that we are not freeloading on the United States.

This has implications across the entire sphere of our relations with the United States. Mr. Axworthy's paper raised the whole question of linkage. He talked about how we would lose control in the north if we don't resist joining the Northern Command--which he's quite wrong in suggesting we want or could do. The point is, if you link these things together, then maybe there's an explanation for our lack of success in softwood lumber, or coming lack of success in agricultural subsidies compared to the United States. It's because we don't carry our weight in defence. If you're not taken seriously as a nation in some areas, maybe you're not taken seriously as a nation in others. That's the concern.

The Chair: Thank you.

Since you did ask for a defence review, can we do a defence review without doing a foreign policy review?

Mr. Jack Granatstein: No, we can't.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Jack Granatstein: But my understanding is there is a foreign policy review under way. It's unfortunately an in-house review. It will not have public hearings, which I think is appalling, but that's what we're going to have.

The Chair: I want to thank you for the time you spent with us this morning and for accommodating our agenda. It was a pleasure having you. Thank you, Mr. Granatstein.

Mr. Jack Granatstein: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Madam Chair, if I might just add, we should get clarification from the minister about a foreign policy review. There are participants who have suggested to us there is a review going on, yet it's not public.

I know the minister has said in the past he would like to see a review done. It would be helpful for us to have a clarification of where we are.

The Chair: Thank you.

I invite to the table then our next witness, Dr. John Kirton, director of the G8 Research Group, University of Toronto.

You've been before the committee before, so you know that we expect about a maximum of ten minutes from you and your accommodation of questions from the members. Everything you say in this room is recorded and will be on our website. You have no rights after that.

Mr. John Kirton (Director, G8 Research Group, University of Toronto): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and congratulations on your appointment.

I'm particularly grateful for the opportunity to come and speak to the committee, and indeed I would like to thank you for including the issue of the G-8 and the Kananaskis summit, amidst your very heavy agenda, with the always present preoccupation of Canada's relations with the United States.

The G-8 Research Group is an institution I founded with your former colleague, Bill Graham, at the University of Toronto in 1987-88, when Canada hosted the summit in this city at that time. We did so, importantly, with financial support from Art Eggleton, then the mayor of Toronto.

As that origin indicates, we have developed an institution that has a mandate of serving as the world's leading independent source of information and analysis about the issues, the institutions, and the members of the G-8. We are then, I guess, parti pris. We are a part of civil society.

As part of our activities we've attended every summit since 1988 as members of the media, in part to assist the media better interpret and understand the event. Within that history we have developed some understanding of the actual operation of the summit, particularly the public face of the summit and how it connects with citizens on the outside.

That of course has become a subject of increasing importance in the past few years in international institutions generally, beginning with the Seattle WTO ministerial meeting in 1999. Just within the past year, we Canadians remember the Quebec City Summit of the Americas and the civil society protests there, and last year's G-8 at Genoa in Italy, where an estimated 200,000 civil society protesters came forward in a process that culminated, unfortunately, in the death of one of them.

Recognizing that others have focused on the substance of the particular agenda for Kananaskis, particularly poverty reduction in Africa, my question is to consider the issue of how we address the practical, domestic political problem of connecting civil society more closely with the G-8 in mutually productive ways.

In thinking of that subject, I start with a paradox. I would argue that since its somewhat modest beginnings in 1975, the G-7/G-8 system of global governance has really grown to be the effective centre of global governance. This is much unrecognized perhaps in a world where people focus on the United Nations system, which is much more visible and much more familiar. In fact, with its administerial institutions and its meetings, a majority of cabinet ministers and their departments in our country and in the governments of our partners are engaged in the G-8 system on an ongoing basis. It's a system that is now functioning daily around the year, and I can speak of its accomplishments if you wish.

At the same time, this particular institution is one of the most invisible, the least well known, and the least well understood, so there's a great paradox between its importance and the information and understanding about it.

To my mind, that paradox is compounded because the G-8 institution was formed with a single, central value very different from that of the United Nations system, namely open democracy, and from it, individual liberty and social advancement. That's the core mission, the very raison d'être, of the G-8.

¿ (0910)

So how do we move to reduce this democratic deficit, if you will, in an age of compounding civil society concern? What I have done over the past year, reflecting on my experience and particularly the cadence of preparations for Kananaskis over the past year, has been to offer what I modestly call a ten-point program of practical proposals. The program is about how we can, now and in the months ahead, including the months immediately following Kananaskis, move to close this civil society/G-8 governors gap.

It begins with a feeling, certainly as of last fall, that in the wake of the death, mass protest, and violence in Genoa, and then in the wake of September 11 and the sudden recognition on the part of many of security concerns for the summit, there's a great tendency to move towards a small, secret summit cut off from civil society. In my view, this is raising the danger of our government in particular making a major mistake. Now, as preparations have advanced, these concerns have lessened, perhaps understandably, the more we get away from September 11. But still there are a number of important things that can be done.

The ten points very briefly are as follows.

First, we do always have to remember the global democratic mission of the G-8, designed to preserve and promote democracy in G-8 countries and around the world. It was from the start a very domestically intrusive institution. As I indicated, its agenda has expanded to embrace virtually all subjects of what were once domestic policies. It's entirely understandable that our citizens should be fully engaged because this is an institution that shapes issues such as aging societies and our pension plan. It is an effective centre of governance then.

¿ (0915)

My second point is what I call “rely on the Alberta advantage”: relax and don't overreact to the prospect of protest. For a number of reasons, even before September 11 and the security measures that it prompted, it was highly unlikely that Alberta would be site of the kinds of protest we saw in Genoa and even in Quebec City. In fact, at Genoa, when Kananaskis was announced as the site and many of our colleagues in the media corps wanted more details about where it was, the instinctive reaction on my part was “thank God for Alberta”, because here we will finally stop this rising cadence and can get back to a civilized discourse.

A third is what I call “inform the public” through very modest measures. As you know, each year the summit has a different host. Typically, that host will create its own website for one year, but it will immediately stop the day the summit ends and there will be a great void. What that does mean is that all the civil society protestors who function year-round basically have a monopoly over information about the summit. Of course, it comes overwhelmingly from a single part of the spectrum, and the information imbalance is extraordinary.

Here the practical proposal is that the Canadian government, having gotten off to a good start this year, as we would have expected and hoped, should stay in the business and work with next year's host so we don't have a six-month information gap. In the wake of Genoa, this was particularly damaging because the story has stayed alive. It was the story of the death and protest that made the information imbalance particularly unhelpful that year.

Next is what I call “put parliamentarians in”. You are the experts here, but let me pose it as a question. Parliamentarians in Canada participate in a number of international interparliamentary groups, including four important international institutions, the Commonwealth, NATO, the United Nations.... Very recently, in part because of our hosting of the Quebec City Summit of the Americas, another summit-level club of democracies, an interparliamentary group for the Americas, was created through your chair and with the support of the committee. My question is, why is there not one for the G-8?

I think there is a role to be played here, even given your very busy schedules. One possibility would be to stay in the business beyond our year as host, to work with your colleagues in other countries, and maybe to encourage them to engage in similar activities. They might come together collectively as G-8 parliamentarians to play an important role both in giving policy advice and also in connecting with your constituents and citizens to explain and critique the forum.

Another suggestion is to generate study centres. I'm conscious of the fact that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which like the G-8 has an annual leaders' meeting, created at a fairly early stage at least one APEC study centre in each of the member countries. In the case of the G-8, there's no such process at all. There are a number of individual experts in various countries, some of them working on our professional advisory council and as part of our network, but each is an individual effort rather than an organized and well-resourced one.

The creation of G-8 study centres could play an important role in preparing an analytic foundation for some of the work of the G-8 but also perhaps for monitoring compliance with the commitments it makes annually. Is it just a weekend of rhetoric that's forgotten when the leaders leave, or are these commitments governments do actually implement in the coming years? I suggest that both citizens and governors would want to know reliably to what extent their commitments are kept.

¿ (0920)

Sponsored G-8 scholarships, somewhat like the Commonwealth scholarships, the Fulbright scholarships, again in a world in which I think Canadian citizens certainly need a better understanding of the full G-7/G-8 family.... While it may appear normal for us to think we well understand one member--for example, the United States or Britain or France--it's been my experience that even the best Canadian students have only the dimmest understanding of Japan, for example, the second most important economy in the world and one that shares many Canadian values.

Another possibility is to educate the citizenry through multilingual courses. We say “courses” as professors quite naturally. The Canadian government is doing a very good program this year at the secondary school level, at the university level. This is something that I would suggest needs to be continued after Kananaskis, and indeed moved beyond the dominant English and, in this year, French language expression, so we can communicate directly to G-8 citizens to begin with, in their native language.

Even in Canada we struggle to give equal prominence to our second official language. But beyond that lie many other languages, and then of course the native languages of the countries beyond who have a vested interest in the work of the G-8.

Another approach is to massage the media, as I call it irreverently. Here I think it's vital that the media be given a full set of briefings, easily accessible, at the annual summit. It is they who really tell the world about what happens at the summit trade. If they're inhibited from easy access to high-quality information, they have a natural tendency to focus again and again on the one car set afire by demonstrators, which the Prime Minister complained dominated the media coverage at Genoa. I think the Canadian government, because of the Kananaskis location, is moving towards a more closed, less rich form of media briefings, and I think this is a tendency that can and should be avoided at all costs.

Another point is to clarify the communiqué. You may have heard from some of our summit managers lines to the effect that the Canadian government intends to dispense with the traditional pre-cooked, pre-scripted communiqué, which in the mythology is prepared by more people than actually read it. That no doubt is factually accurate according to some conception of those particular words, but I'm conscious of the fact that we know, from usage of the various websites that contain the communiqués, that many millions of peoples around the world do read the communiqué. That is where leaders not only express platitudes but make timely, well-tailored, ambitious, significant commitments, commitments that count because they do tend to be complied with to an increasing extent in recent years.

It is important for leaders to be alone together to discuss, but the summit is far more than an executive retreat. It is a source of collective commitment and decision, and I think we're a long way from the world of secret decisions, secretly arrived at. The citizens need to know in great detail what those commitments are, what they are with some precision, what's new about them, and, from that, how governments are implementing them in the coming years.

¿ (0925)

As a final point, we should include civil society on-site at the summit. There's been a tendency to do this at summits in recent years. The Japanese managed to do it very successfully at Okinawa two years ago. In one of the great innovations of summitry, we in Canada developed a citizens' forum just over a year ago at the Summit of the Americas, which met during the summit, as part of the summit. It was chaired most ably by the then chair of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Bill Graham. It met with the ministers of the participating countries in a civil society dialogue, which I was fortunate enough to participate in. I think it added real value both ways.

Is what we did for our democratic family of 34 countries in the Americas at Quebec City not something we can and should do for our democratic family of G-8 countries in Alberta, even amidst the quite important security concerns? One possibility, even at this late stage, is to construct such an event in which civil society leaders could meet--perhaps in Calgary--with ministers of the summit countries as the delegations move from Calgary into Kananaskis for the summit this year.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

¿ (0930)

The Chair: Thank you very much. It is an excellent paper that you've passed out to us, including your recommendations.

I'll ask the members to be brief with their comments.

Mr. Day, could you begin?

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you, Madam Chair and Mr. Kirton.

These are practical and doable recommendations. I don't see any that I think would or should clash with the desire to be open and transparent. Naturally, as a member of the opposition, I feel the government isn't as open and transparent as it should be in many areas. Books have been written about the lack of true parliamentary practice even in our country, so I'm not alone in making that criticism.

When you define civil society and refer even to the possibility of these groups being on-site physically--which is workable--and, more importantly, via the Internet, I can't think of discussions at Quebec that would be deemed classified in terms of security risk. Obviously, if there were certain discussions and presentations directly related to security, then maybe an argument could be made.... I don't know why they're not fully, and in fact simultaneously, available. CPAC or other similar communication organizations should be able to freely and openly broadcast.

As you're aware, amongst some civil society groups, there's an underlying suspicion things are being talked about and something's going to be snapped out from under their feet, and then society itself would be imperiled. So transparency should be key.

But among the groups defined as within civil society, are there some legitimate or legal groups that you see should not be...? Or should any who define themselves as members of civil society be there? Should that be the defining factor, if they see themselves as members of civil society?

Mr. John Kirton: These are important considerations. I do share your sense of the Quebec City Summit of the Americas. We did run into the law of large numbers there. When you have 34 countries, with the particular political traditions they come from...the summit did at times have more of the ambiance of the United Nations: reading formal speeches rather than the genuine leader-to-leader engagement traditionally seen at the G-7 or G-8.

In looking at the civil society individuals, the first thing you have to keep in mind is that they're essentially self-selected. The 200,000 at Genoa chose to come themselves. The civil society leaders inside the civil society format at Quebec City basically were just there. There were so many who had spontaneously become interested and mounted conferences, programs, and research activities in the lead-up to the summit that the decision formula--or how membership was chosen--was relatively easy for our government, which said, “You've already shown you're interested and committed”. That was the test--even though the activities came from a broad part of the political spectrum.

¿ (0950)

It has been my experience, and I think that of my colleagues, that the civil society protestors on-site are largely normal university students who have heard about globalization and basically want to check it out. They're not dedicated or wedded to any particular part of an ideologically-based dialogue. So I would tend to err on the side of openness and inclusiveness vis-à-vis part of civil society, as long as they don't pose a clear and present danger of physical injury, or to the lives of those involved.

As one final point, we do have to remember the al-Qaeda network has targeted the G-7 or G-8 summits since 1996 as the best place to murder the leaders all assembled in one spot, at a time and place they know about a year in advance. So while much of the rest of the world may have discovered al-Qaeda and its threat on September 11, it has been a reality to the G-7 or G-8, which has been dealing with it for at least five years. It has done so even as it has moved, in Okinawa and elsewhere, to make a civil society engagement work through various mechanisms.

¿ (0955)

Mr. Stockwell Day: While it was never the intention of the G-8 leaders, the event itself and the possible violence surrounding it has become the story. It has become a circus unto itself, even though it was clearly not the intention of the leaders. There should be clear and transparent discourse leading up to it, with countries doing what we're doing here and using other mechanisms as well, and also a constant flow afterwards. This would help avoid this great anticipation for a huge event, at which all the world's problems are going to be solved, but after which in fact everybody goes away until next time.

The actual meeting itself is just one in a series, or a continuum, of discussions. The event itself should not be secret but be fully transmitted and communicated on television and be seen as one in a series. Maybe as a result it could become a little bit smaller with some security measures. When the summit is known out there a year ahead, as you say, al-Qaeda and other networks have lots of time to plan.

Mr. John Kirton: I agree entirely. In global governance, the G-8 is a year-round task. The agenda goes beyond what can be dealt with in 30 hours in a two-day span.

That said, I should note that the Canadian government has chosen one of the most ambitious themes to focus on: poverty reduction in Africa. If you wanted a safe summit, that is the one topic you wouldn't choose, given the record of the past few decades.

So the focus is understandable and commendable. But there's a great deal more to be done.

The Chair: Mr. Assadourian, briefly.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you very much.

This time around we focus on three issues: the economy, Africa, and terrorism or security. Do you think this is a good way to do it, through an international conference like the G-8? Or should there be more items on the agenda?

I personally feel this is the way to go, because when you focus on one or two or three items, you'll be more productive than being all over the world, or like a Jack-of-all-trades, but master of none.

Could you comment briefly on this?

Mr. John Kirton: In the great debate over the summit, I tend towards the side that prefers a comprehensive agenda rather than a selective agenda.

For a variety of reasons, I prefer we had three days at Kananaskis rather than just the better part of two days. The leaders have to be free to talk about anything they want. For example, if a new crisis in the Middle East erupts the day before, you don't have much time in the 30 hours to take care of that and deal with Africa, or even a few themes. Leaders can be jet-lagged or ill, so you need enough time at the summit for people to get acclimatized and relax, so they can really do their job.

In terms of Mr. Day's excellent point about a year-round process, I think we should see a more systematic way of having ministerial meetings engaged to deal with the broader agenda.

Here I'll note one imbalance. Our G-7 finance ministers meet three or four times a year; our foreign ministers don't. In effect, they meet only once for dinner at the end of September, at the opening of the United Nations General Assembly. Then, of course, they have their pre-summit meeting in Whistler this year. Holding twice as many meetings would bring them up to what the G-7 finance ministers do, and give them a better year-round capacity to bring to bear political-level judgment on many of the important issues of the world.

There was one year--1999 into 2000--in which an important Canadian initiative had G-8 ministers actively engaged four or five times during the year, with a focus on conflict prevention in Kosovo. But beyond that one year, the G-8 foreign ministers process has atrophied. Given that foreign ministers were at the first summit co-equally with finance ministers, I see no reason why, as a matter of Canadian institutional design, we shouldn't bring our foreign ministers up to the finance ministers' level.

In the larger world when you raise that point, you are of course told there is the United Nations Security Council. But as a Canadian, I reflect on the fact that the permanent five, or veto, members of the United Nations Security Council are all countries with independent nuclear weapons. That's something quite alien to the Canadian approach to security. The United Nations Security Council has found it difficult to deal, for example, with conflict prevention. It rarely meets at the ministerial level.

So I think it's very much in the Canadian interest to develop the G-8 foreign ministers forum as a way of dealing with a broader array of issues. For example, the Middle East and regional security in the Balkans, and many other places, are vital Canadian concerns.

À (1000)

The Chair: Thank you, Professor Kirton.

When you appeared before us in November, we asked you about a foreign policy review. You said one was definitely not needed at this point. Have you changed your opinion? Is your answer yes or no?

I'm going to stop with Mr. Assadourian here, in light of the time.

Mr. John Kirton: The answer is, yes, we need one as of June 28, 2002.

Until then I think we, as a country, should focus quite properly like a laser beam on the ambitious task of reducing poverty in Africa, and the other key themes of Kananaskis. Once we successfully accomplish this, then we can think more freely about a foreign policy review that builds on those Kananaskis successes.

The Chair: Thank you very much, sir. Have a good day.

Mr. John Kirton: Thank you.

The Chair: We'll now call before us, from the Ontario Federation of Labour, Mr. Wayne Samuelson, president, and Mr. Christopher Schenk, research director.

Thank you for waiting, gentlemen. We are very pleased to have you with us. I'm sure you know we've been hearing from several of your colleagues from the labour movement from across the country.

Mr. Wayne Samuelson (President, Ontario Federation of Labour): Yes, we do know, Madam Chair.

The Chair: We appreciate your being with us.

Part of our committee is in a hearing in the west right now. We are here in Ontario, moving from Toronto on to Windsor.

You have 10 minutes to make a presentation, please, and then accommodate some questions.

Mr. Wayne Samuelson: Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. I really appreciate the opportunity to spend some time with you this morning.

I'm going to talk about issues that are clearly important to both my members and communities in the province. I have provided you with a submission, which I'm sure is consistent with the comments you've heard from the Canadian Labour Congress, and probably other organizations. It deals with a range of issues, including the world economic situation, security issues after 9/11, and policies to improve the situations of the least-developed nations.

À (1005)

Rather than read the submission, I'm going to talk to you this morning a little bit about the debate, and, if I may, give some personal points of view based on my background and my involvement in the broader issues of public debate surrounding trade.

I should tell you right from the start, I went to work in a tire factory when I was in my late teens. I've been involved in the labour movement since about my third day in that job. I've participated in many national debates in the last 30 years, and I have very clear memories of the debates that took place around trade issues back in the eighties, as I'm sure most of us do. I can remember clearly the suggestion that somehow--and I'll speak specifically about the work I did back then as a representative of the rubberworkers union--great prosperity, growth, and security would come to our industry. The clear message from our employers of that time was how the industry would prosper.

I should tell you when I visit my hometown, which is about 60 miles down the road, those large plants that were supposed to prosper, grow, and provide security are in many cases today empty. In many cases, they're vacant lots. But more important than those buildings are the people I used to work with. When I walk the streets I see that many of those people never secured good employment with well-paying jobs after those plants and offices closed.

I mentioned earlier that I went to work in the manufacturing sector when I was a teenager. All of my children survive on part-time jobs patched together that provide little security, which brings me to the discussion at hand. The reality is that I sense, and I'm sure you do, the lack of real debate around what's going on in our country and our relationship with other countries as it relates to trade and a whole range of issues.

I was in Seattle, and I was in Quebec last year. I think it's safe to say that the frustration and anger you see in people is very real. I was interested in the previous speaker who talked at length about strategies to have more openness by having more meetings before the summits. Trust me, in Ontario, we have a real sense of what it's like to be pushed aside by a government that is arrogant to the extent they're not really interested in what other people have to say.

The fact is, on a personal level I am tired of people telling me that our health care system is at risk because of some trade agreement or some kind of negotiation that took place that I was not able to participate in.

À (1010)

The same is true for our education system and the changes we hear about daily. In Ontario there's a debate today about public power and the impact it has, not to mention the erosion of our industrial base. I think the sense many people feel is that many of these summits are about pressure from international speculators to force choices on a government that take away their ability to have independent and real choices themselves when it comes to the kind of country they're going to have. In short, I find this quite disgusting.

In many respects I see what my parents built being destroyed, and I put a lot of the blame on our systems of international tribunals and speculators who make decisions that have an impact on me. And I have absolutely no ability to influence them. I have to ask, who is on my side? Who is really standing up for my community? Is there anybody out there who will take on powerful international capital, that has an agenda not consistent with what I believe we should be pursuing in this country?

I am constantly frustrated by this focus on ways of building bigger fences or finding more remote locations as a way of dealing with the dissent, rather than opening up the process and having a real debate in this country about the future of our programs, and our relationships with people who have lots of money and who in many respects aren't even resident in this country.

So while I have provided you with the technical explanation of the issues you're discussing, I think there's a whole other side to this that speaks about democracy and about my ability and the ability of millions of people to feel that they're involved in a debate. I will acknowledge, I think it's important that politicians from all political parties listen to what people have to say, but I think you also have a responsibility to play a leading role in creating a debate about what this country should look like.

On a final note, I'd just like to make it absolutely clear that while trade is an important part of any economy, and relationships with other countries are an important part of any economy--Canada clearly has a role to play in ensuring we help those in other nations--I also think we have suffered as a country in the last 20 to 25 years because of a lack of real debate about what this country should look like. I think many of the changes that have been taking place over my lifetime are a leading and primary cause of much of the dissension and frustration you see on the streets.

I'd be pleased to answer any questions, as would Chris Schenk, who is here with me today.

Thank you.

À (1015)

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Samuelson. The chair is moved by your very reflective presentation. Being on the road, hearing from individuals and looking them in the eye, as they say, is the business of parliamentarians when we come out. I think we need to be reminded every so often about the issues you've raised in terms of our own values as Canadians, our involvement in the process, and the ability to provide input in a transparent way and be inclusive in the work we do. You've opened up the discussion this morning with this, in addition to the brief you presented to us, and I thank you for it.

We'll go around the table with a few a questions from members. Your brief, of course, will be read. What you've done has been put on the record. This will be on the web with the rest of the information and other briefs that have been presented to us.

Mr. Day, you have some questions?

À (1020)

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you, Chairman.

Thank you, sir, for your thoughtful presentation. I agree with you in terms of relationships with other countries. They are absolutely vital and need to be developed. We should open up the process of the G-8, as you heard in the presentation before, to all people. We certainly have the technological capabilities to do that, and we should have the democratic will to do that. We probably share some of the same concerns in that we don't see a full democratic expression with our present government.

That said, I'll just ask you some questions, which you may or may not be able to answer now, but maybe we could correspond later.

First, talking about the American economy creating problems for the rest of the world because of a trade deficit, there are a couple of ways, in my view, to look at that. If you are bringing product in from another country, you in fact are exporting something. You are exporting your money--wealth that has been created locally, regionally, or nationally.

With that realization, going to your comment on page 2 that we should promote economic strategies to make us less dependent on U.S. imports, countries don't trade, unless the governments themselves are foolishly involved in business; people trade, organizations trade, and companies trade. So which businesses, either individual business women or individual corporate groups in Canada, would you be telling not to trade as much with the United States? Because it isn't countries that do this, it's people in the countries. How do you tell people not to take advantage of a market close to them, and how do you do that effectively?

And is it right to keep a citizen from purchasing a blanket for their bed if they can purchase it more economically from a Zambian manufacturer than a Canadian manufacturer? How do you tell them you're not going to let them do that, that they make that blanket cheaper in Zambia, but you're not going to let them help the Zambian economy, they'll have to buy from someone across the street?

So that's one question.

In the area of putting a tax on foreign currency transactors and then taking that tax and using it as a pool of money, I'm not going to get into the full debate on making foreign currency transactions, but I will suggest this. When an individual Canadian, let's say my mother, through her labour has amassed some capital, let's say $10,000, should she not be able to trade that for American dollars if she feels it would enhance her savings--sell those Canadian dollars that she worked hard to earn and buy American? That, in fact, is performing a foreign currency transaction. Should we stop her from doing that?

If the answer to that is no, should we stop someone who has the ability or various skills to determine which currencies are going to increase in value over a period of time, who might trade Japanese for German or whatever? Should we stop that? Where do we stop it?

Second, if we do put a tax on it, it will disappear. People will stop doing it, to a degree, or it will go underground and you will not have a pool of dollars. So I think there's a false assumption of an economy there, and that if you just tax it away, those people will keep risking their dollars, whether it's my mother with $10,000, or a professional with $100,000. How do you deal with that?

I honestly and sincerely ask that.

Mr. Wayne Samuelson: Okay, good. I'll answer you honestly and sincerely as well.

First of all, let me deal with your first issue. Sometimes the debate is placed in the context of purchasing a blanket, and I understand that. However, I think there are broader questions to be asked around our ability to control our economy.

If we have policies that lead to the control of our economy moving offshore to people who make blankets or cars--or any other product, for that matter--we will ultimately start to lose control of our own ability to provide for the services we, as a country, seek.

À (1025)

Mr. Stockwell Day: I have to ask the question, how do we lose control? If I have the ability to buy a blanket from someone who makes it in Zambia, I can use the money I saved, maybe on a Canadian product of some other choice of mine.

Mr. Wayne Samuelson: Well, that could be, but at some point, major portions of the economy start to be controlled by people offshore.

Mr. Stockwell Day: A Zambian blanket maker?

Mr. Wayne Samuelson: The decisions on what you are able to buy start to be made offshore. Correspondingly, the ability of a country to develop policies in the best interests of itself becomes impacted.

I think there needs to be a national debate, which has taken place for many years in this country, about the extent to which we, as a country, are able to control our own destiny. Clearly, as that control shifts to other countries, it becomes more and more difficult.

So, frankly, Mr. Day, I certainly understand your argument. I hope you understand mine. Hopefully, the debate around these issues will help to focus it in people's minds.

I would close by saying I'm really interested in the future, in making sure I have some control, as a person, over what happens in my community. To simply take it down to a dollars and cents argument about whether someone can buy something from offshore leads to an economy I'm unable to influence.

Regarding your second point, about your mother wanting to invest her money, I can tell you, my mother wouldn't have been able to do that because she didn't have the money. But I think the debate about taxing transactions and the capital flying around the world at such a rapid pace is gathering steam. There is growing support for this principle. Again, I think it has a lot more to do with the power of capital, or the ability of capital to move so fast it impacts our nationalism and ability to make decisions.

So it's really not about your mother or my mother, or anybody's mother, but about the ability of capital to influence government policy, and finding a way to put some restrictions on it and, at the same time, help the rest of the world.

Again, that's a debate that I think will go on for a long, long time.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would hope that in the debate you would answer some of the questions. With respect, you haven't answered the question about my mother. You haven't answered the question about somebody who becomes very proficient at doing that.

I bristle a little when you say “we as a country”. It's “we as citizens” who should have the freedom to buy from someone across the street, across the fence, across the river, or across an imaginary line on a paper map. So, please, when you get into the debate, keep in mind it's citizens. What freedoms are you going to take from our citizens to make choices about their future, and the future of their kids and grandkids?

Mr. Wayne Samuelson: Let me be absolutely clear. Maybe there are some citizens who want to buy some American dollars. I think there are a lot more citizens who want to ensure we have a health care system, a medicare system, the ability to make decisions about our economy that aren't left up to capital speculators who move money around the world.

Frankly, while I admire you for trying to bring it down to an individual, it's not really about individuals moving capital.

It's about people who have lots of capital, using it to influence policy in their best interests. I see absolutely no reason why as a country we--we and other countries that are moving in the same direction--shouldn't try to find ways not only to control it but also to try to use it to beneficial purposes.

À (1030)

Mr. Stockwell Day: You don't think people in other countries should have the ability...their governments should stop them from buying products made here in Canada. That's what you're saying.

Mr. Wayne Samuelson: No, I'm not saying that.

Mr. Stockwell Day: If you're restricting us from buying in the United States, then you have to allow other countries to say, don't buy those nasty Canadian products.

Mr. Wayne Samuelson: No, I am not saying that.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you.

The Chair: I'll give you the final sentence here.

Mr. Wayne Samuelson: Good luck, and thank you.

I guess my final comment would be that trade is not about buying blankets. It's not about whether your mother can buy some foreign currency. It's about our ability to control our own destiny. It's a debate that has gone on in this country for a long time. When it comes down to the kinds of issues that in fact lead to increased reliance on international capital, I think that at the end of the day we lose control. That, in the long run, has a negative impact, not only on myself and my friend Chris, but on our children and our country.

Thank you.

The Chair: I thank you very much, Mr. Samuelson. You can see that the discussion is one that needs to be continued. Thank you for joining us today.

We thank you as well, Mr. Schenk, for the brief.

I am very conscious of the fact that members have to be in Ottawa for a vote this afternoon, an important vote we all have to be there for. As a result, we have begun earlier than usual. We've asked witnesses to cooperate with us by coming earlier than we had scheduled them for.

We appreciate you people making the effort, and we appreciate your waiting. What I'll try to do now, just so we have you on the record while we have a quorum, is to bring to the table the groups that are in the room. Everyone gets on the record. You are being taped. Your information will be on the website. Your recommendations and other input will be taken into consideration as we write our reports. Everything will be documented. If the questions are not enormous or numerous for you, know that you are going to be heard, read, and reread, and be assured that the documentation is going to be there.

I'll call to the table now the groups before us. First we have Science for Peace, Mr. Derek Paul, past president and coordinator of working groups. I'll also ask Rights Action, Mr. Grahame Russell, representative, to be with us. From Action et développement des projets communautaires we have Ms. Lina Bamfumu, secretary, to join us. I believe Carolyn Basset from the Canadian Peace Alliance isn't here yet.

We'll give each one of you ten minutes or less. Once you all speak and get on the record, we'll spend the rest of the time in questions. These may be directed to individuals or to you as a group.

We'll start with Mr. Derek Paul, the past president and coordinator of working groups, Science for Peace.

Mr. Derek Paul (Past President and Coordinator, Working Groups, Science for Peace): Good morning. It's a great privilege to be here.

Our group consists mainly of scientists. We are not predominately policy-makers, although we have political scientists and so on in our group.

One of the luxuries I think we enjoy as scientists--and I had a three-year career in industry and a 42-year career in physics departments of various institutions of learning--is looking at fundamentals. It's something I've noticed that people in other walks of life don't quite do, though they often think they're doing it.

I implore you to read the first two sections of our brief, even if you only have to time to read the summary. In the main brief, which is rather large, at 15 pages plus notes, the first two sections are very basic. There's been a big change since I was born, since the early 20th century. There were fewer than 2 billion people in the world, and you will see, as I go, why the increase to 6 billion makes a great deal of difference.

We have tended to analyse things in terms of order and disorder. Disorder and order are very good parameters to judge by, and we're basically suggesting that people in the policy-making area should retain this concept of order and disorder when they make decisions. Canada's foreign policy has tended to support the United Nations, and it turns out that's very good in terms of preserving order.

Disorder and order are scientific terms. The science of thermodynamics includes this concept of disorder, and it turns out to be in complete agreement with disorder, in the ordinary sense of the word and the medical sense of the word. So there's 100% compatibility with the way a physicist uses the term “technically disorder” and when you look out on the world and you see “disorder”.

I'd like to give one very simple example. There was a wonderful picture in a geographic magazine a few years ago showing the savannah in Africa, with the desert encroaching on it. The desert represents maximum disorder and the savannah represents a much higher level of order and less disorder. You could see animals grazing in the savannah in this photograph, and nothing in the desert.

So with the problem of the expanding population in the world, we should be directing all policies toward improving the world order.

À (1040)

Indeed, if you look at Afghanistan after all these years of war they've had, for example, there's very great disorder. People are now starting to try to create order, and there are some very good signs there, particularly in the changes being made in education.

I'll go back to the population situation now. It was taught to me when I was still in high school that the United States passed a point of no return in the 1920s, and what this meant was that it was no longer entirely dependent on its own resources to maintain its standard of living. This concept of “point of no return” and this idea of what you need to maintain your standard of living has much more recently been brought to light by Wackernagel and Rees in a book we cite in our brief about the ecological footprint. My ecological footprint is a measure of how much land it would take to sustain my standard of living.

We have reproduced part of the table in our brief showing that the developed countries, with the exception of Canada, have mostly greatly outstripped their ecological footprint. That is to say, the ecological footprint of the Netherlands is immensely greater than the land area. This means that the Netherlands depends on other countries, other lands and other resources, to maintain its standard. This is true for Switzerland, and you can look all around Europe; it's true.

Canada is the major exception here, so as Canadians we can look at our vast open spaces and some of our unused agricultural lands and so on, and we can say that things look pretty good. But everywhere else they don't look so good, and the world as a whole has overstepped its ecological footprint by something like 80%.

What this means in practical terms is that the whole world is living on its capital. It is not living on its income, and I put it to those of you who are capitalists or who at least understand business that this is a situation that cannot continue indefinitely.

All the conclusions and recommendations in our brief follow in one way or another from that type of consideration, and we've included in the preliminary part and in the first two sections of the brief what we call a “life list” and a “death list”. There are things that move the world toward better and more abundant life, and there are things that move it toward death, possibly even universal death.

We think these lists are important, and we think that the concept of the ecological footprint is important. You don't have to believe it. Maybe Wackernagel and Rees were not completely right, but if that is the case, if their ideas are too far out and cannot be accepted, we think it's sufficiently important that it should be studied. We would propose that where there is skepticism about these ideas, it would be well worth promoting an independent study of these matters.

As to policy, once one understands these matters it's quite easy to see what sorts of policies will enhance life and what sorts of policies will spread doom.

Since we are short of time, would you like me to stop there so you can ask questions about specifics?

À (1045)

The Chair: We'd appreciate that.

I notice your colleague has joined you. Welcome, Mr. Burkhardt.

This is a very thorough brief, and I might say to you that we have researchers whose task it is to go through briefs. The briefs will be read, definitely.

You draw attention to your opening paragraph, and I appreciate that. We'll come back to you with questions after we've heard from the others around the table.

We'll go now to Grahame Russell from Rights Action.

À (1050)

Mr. Helmut Burkhardt (Past President, Science for Peace): I have some brief comments, if I can make them.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Russell, could you let him comment first?

Would you make it brief, Mr. Burkhardt?

Mr. Helmut Burkhardt: Yes.

I think one of the questions was about North American relations. In my view, the best thing the Canadian government can do is lead the United States out of the dark ages of power politics. I think they are lost, and we have to give them some guidance.

They think criminals can be fought by wars. Wars are exactly outside the law, whereas police are supposed to bring criminals to justice. Police, by design, are benevolent and operate within the law. War is outside the law. Sovereign nations tend to disregard international law in war situations.

So the belief is prevalent, it seems to me, in the United States now that military strength can provide security. In the age of readily available weapons of mass destruction, I believe military strength creates insecurity. There is no other way but cooperation of the global community of nations to make a rational and humane policy.

I think one of the major concerns I have is that our neighbours have gone the wrong way. They should support the United Nations to give it the strength to cope with terrorism, rather than unilateral declarations of war.

The other comment I would like to make is about the G-8. There's a tendency, I believe, in the wealthy nations to go beyond the limits or to exceed their ecological footprint, as Derek mentioned. Disregarding these ecological imperatives is like disregarding the laws of physics or the natural laws. Nations can do that at their own peril. Endangering the survival of a healthy ecosystem is endangering the human species.

So I think, for the G8, it is necessary for politicians not to play the role of King Canute, who commanded the tides to stay out and they still came anyway. We should recognize the ecological imperatives today, and make economic actions subordinate to these ecological imperatives. That would be my main message in this direction. We cannot disregard, without peril, these laws of nature. We have to subordinate the economic rules to the natural rules.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Burkhardt.

Mr. Russell, we'll now ask you to make your presentation. If you can keep it less than 10 minutes, I'd appreciate that.

Mr. Grahame Russell (Representative, Rights Action): Yes. I'll be focusing on the G-8 and Canada's role in the G-8.

I work with Rights Action. Our work is in southern Mexico and Central America. I've lived there for seven years. I'm a lawyer by training. We support and get involved with a lot of human rights and community development work in Central America, southern Mexico, and Peru as well.

So a lot of my understanding of global issues comes from the work experience I've had in Latin America and Mexico--southern Mexico, Central America, and a bit in South America.

With respect to the G-8, let me say that I do have misgivings coming here, without impugning anyone's personal intentions in this process. I do refer to a quote from John Manley, that, “Public debate and engagement with civil society is useful as a means of strengthening the legitimacy of the G-8 process”.

I'm very concerned about that, because, as you will hear, I'm very critical of the G-8. My misgiving, coming here, is putting a lot of time and energy into preparing to do something like this, and then I don't think it's going to have a big impact at all; and most of our work and focus will be on education and activism in the street. I think the political processes in place do not provide for a substantive debate, notwithstanding what we're doing here today and without impugning anyone's personal reasons for being here.

But that quote from Manley, in the documents distributed on the web, I take at face value. I'm not quoting it out of context. There's other stuff as well--he wasn't saying only that--but I'm concerned about that element of these hearings.

My misgivings for coming here have to do with some of the chasm of understanding between the assumptions of how different elements of the global order work. So I'm going to make brief comments based on this document that was circulated. I don't know if this is the official Canadian government position or not, but it was circulated, so I'll be working from this.

There are four main points in the G-8 as set out here. One has to do with Africa; one has to do with terrorism; one has to do with global governance; and one has to do with the global economic order, loosely defined.

The one I would talk least about is that of Africa. I very much disagree with some of the assumptions in there, but the point here that gets repeated a lot is that we need to build a new partnership with Africa. So I would ask the committee, what do you think the old partnership was?

I think what's missing in a lot of this is the underlying assumptions. So once again we're realizing there's a mess in Africa--and that's obviously a sweeping generalization--but what is our understanding of where we're coming from? I think the G-8 nations in particular often ignore certain elements of history to then try to paint a pretty picture of the future without recognizing our own role in causing a lot of the problems in the past. So I'd like to know what the committee's understanding is of the old relationship with Africa.

With respect to global governance, my opening position, which I should have said at the outset, is that the best thing Canada could do with the G-8 is pull out. I think it is, for what it sets itself out to be, an illegitimate organization. I don't mean illegal; obviously it's a legally constituted entity. But according to these documents, they use the word “elite”. I see it as simply an elite club of powerful, wealthy nations, and the members of the G-8 are the same powerful, wealthy nations that have been that way for much of the last 500 years.

Again, that's a bit of a sweeping generalization, and there have been other powerful nations that have come and gone, but I see the G-8 as simply an elite club that gets together, historically behind close doors, to take powerful economic and military decisions. I think the only deeply useful thing that Canada could do would be to pull out of the G-8. I know it won't do that, but coming from that point I raise my first question on the Africa issue to ask whether Canada would have a full discussion in Kananaskis or elsewhere on “What about the old partnership with Africa?”

On to global governance. I don't think the G-8 has a role in global governance. It should not and can not have one; individual nations should. I think the G-8 members have violated international law, time and time again, over the last 50 years of history, just to take a short look at history. That's not to say other nations haven't violated international law, human rights law, and so on, but the G-8 nations particularly have.

That's not the G-8's responsibility. That's the responsibility of each of those nations, and then, hopefully, perhaps one day it will be the role of the United Nations.

I have a whole other list of criticisms of how the United Nations works, but one thing that is glaringly obvious is that the Security Council is the most mind-bogglingly undemocratic institution existing at the global level, and the reason the Security Council is undemocratic is that the G-8 nations want it to be so.

À (1055)

So if the G-8 nations want to do something useful, even in an institution as weak as the United Nations, make it democratic. The opposition to making the Security Council a democratic institution at the global level--and it is sort of the only global functioning political entity--is from the G-8 nations. So there's a complete double standard and hypocrisy right there. Would Canada recommend to the G-8 nations that they make the Security Council democratic? I doubt it, but I'd love to hear the answer in writing.

A third point is the whole war on terrorism, and that will be discussed--it's already being discussed. There's clearly a problem with terrorism. Just for the record, those attacks on September 11 were terrorist acts that caused terrible human suffering. I put that on the record because, as soon as one starts to criticize the role of the United States or actions it has done and the role of Canada, people then say, oh, you somehow justify what happened in New York. I hope none of that sort of red herring, manipulative language comes out of this hearing. That was terrorism.

But taking the documents here--without going into the history of them--it's beyond ironic for me that these documents say the G-8 started to take the lead on the fight against terrorism in 1978. That is beyond ironic; that's insulting. Would Canada take to the G-8 a position to say, we want a full study of the role of the United States government in supporting terrorist regimes throughout Latin America--without getting into Africa--after 1978, early in the 1980s, early in the 1990s? No, it won't happen. Why not? There's a double standard and hypocrisy.

What I'm saying here doesn't mean other nations haven't committed acts of terrorism and it's not happening right now and they're not attacking us--they are--but it's hypocritical. It's a double standard to have official documents coming out saying we've taken a lead on fighting terrorism, when the United States has clearly, and Canada indirectly, sponsored and supported terrorism. In the hearings, would you have a full discussion on this notion of aiding and abetting terrorism?

Canada, but particularly the United States, has funded terrorists around the world. What about the Taliban? What about Iraq in the 1980s? It won't happen. It's not coming out in our media, and I would be very surprised if it came out in the discussions in Kananaskis.

So again I go to some of the underlying assumptions here, and there's a whole follow-up discussion we could have on that.

The last point would be to talk about the global economy. The major underlying assumption in this document, with which I profoundly disagree, is that a continually growing economy is what we need.

I think my comments would overlap with some of the ecological footprints. Is the Canadian government suggesting that what we need to do is bring 6 billion people on this planet up to the levels of consumption and production that we have? It would be disastrous. We know it would be disastrous. So concerning that underlying presumption that a good economy means continual growth, there wasn't even a question of that model in here. The whole discussion sent to us is based on the assumption that what we need is a continually growing and expanding economy.

There are many other comments I could make about that section, but that's the underlying huge bogeyman that needs to be questioned, let alone getting into the whole problem of the distribution of wealth, which isn't even touched on here. We have grotesque systems of distribution of wealth in the world inside nations and between nations, let alone that underlying assumption that what we really need is all production, all consumption, all growth all the time. It has to stop.

Again, thank you for your time, and we'll leave it at that.

Á (1100)

The Chair: In there, did you find one thing that was right, one positive note?

Mr. Grahame Russell: I'll answer that in the question period.

The Chair: Okay.

We will move on, then, to our next presenter, Mr. Lola.

[Translation]

Mr. Nicaises Lola (Coordinator, Study Group on the Reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Community Projects Action and Development (ADPCO)): Thank you. My name is Nicaises Lola and I am a member of the Community Projects Action and Development Group. Within this organization, we are part of the Study Group on the Reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, whose main objective is to think of ways and means by which the Democratic Republic of the Congo could emerge from its diabolical crisis.

We were very pleased to discover that the Canadian Parliament was holding public hearings. We are taking advantage of this opportunity to share our concerns with this illustrious assembly.

Honorable members, we would first of all like to salute the Prime Minister's initiative as regards this public consultation and above all the Canadian government's interest and willingness to commit to defending Africa.

You are certainly aware that the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been torn by a war between rebels supported by the Rwandan, Ugandan and Burundian armies, since August 1998. During this conflict, there have been 3.5 million deaths of Congolese civilians who have been the victims of massacres, according to the report published by the International Disaster Relief Committee in April of 2001. This number is so significant that it cannot be found elsewhere in the world, in other such short conflicts.

As we speak, more than half of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is occupied by rebel troops, supported by mercenary armies from Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. During this invasion, two entire villages were razed, hundreds of millions of people have been displaced, the infrastructure has been destroyed and administrative systems have been paralyzed. As a result, our country is facing epidemics and famine, as well as the resulting social problems.

Several inquiries undertaken by various organizations, non-governmental organizations and the United Nations, show that the main reason for the conflict to the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo is for the control of the country's natural wealth.

The predatory obsession of multinational corporations and certain foreign countries such as Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda have been documented by the United Nations commission of investigation led by Ms. Safiatou Ba-N'Daw on the looting of the Congolese heritage and the illegal exploitation of its natural resources. As Congolese of Canadian origin, we are asking the Government of Canada, our adopted country, to exercise its privilege as chair and host of the G-8 Summit to explicitly incorporate the situation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo into the agenda. It is urgent, and in the interest of the international community to finally study this crisis, if we are truly hoping to achieve a sustainable peace in this part of the world. We have seen such resolve in the past in the cases of Kosovo, East Timor, and more recently, in Afghanistan.

As a result, we have a few recommendations to make. Firstly, we are asking the Canadian government to use all its influence, given the importance of its geostrategic role in this region, to support the return of peace to the Democratic Republic of the Congo; secondly, to encourage the democratic process and the establishment of a responsible government; thirdly, to bring those responsible for the massacres and the pillage of natural resources in the DRC to justice before the international criminal court; and fourthly, to provide for a reconstruction plan for the DRC under the New Partnership for Africa's Development. We believe that the most appropriate form of aid would be a cooperation program in which the Congolese-Canadian diaspora can participate. In conclusion, I thank you for your attention.

Á (1105)

[English]

The Chair: Merci beaucoup.

We'll now go to questions.

Mr. Day, I'll keep you to five minutes for questions and answers.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll just quickly pose the questions within the five-minute timeframe if I can, and I will allow time for a response.

I appreciate the views of Science for Peace. Correct me if I'm wrong, as I'm not a scientist, but the second law of thermodynamics says that matter tends to disorganize rather than to organize. Considering that overlay, we need to look at what factors bring about cohesion in society. Otherwise, we will see chaos and disorganization as we do in a number of places around the globe.

As to your comments about the ecological footprint, I'd like at some time to be able to pursue that further. As you know, over a century ago Thomas Malthus said we were doomed because we could not produce enough food; since we could only produce food at an arithmetic rate, we would not be able to keep up with population growth, and in fact we would all die because we couldn't feed ourselves. Because of some degree of ecological concern--not enough--and technological breakthroughs in terms of agriculture itself, we have seen that we have a great capacity to feed not only the world, but we have the capacity to feed a world population many times greater than we have now if it's done carefully. I appreciate your observation there.

In terms of population density and this whole notion of chaos, of course some centres in the world that have the densest population also have a higher standard of living. If you want to talk about Hong Kong, Tokyo, or London...they're not perfect examples, but they have relatively high standards of living. Now, that would be at variance with cities such as Mexico City and Calcutta, and I'm sure Mr. Russell can comment on that. We need to look at what the factors are that allow some societies with very dense populations to be able to live with a relatively high standard of living--health care and education--while others don't seem to. Any help you could give us along those lines would certainly be appreciated.

I can say to Mr. Russell that as a member of the opposition, I share the same skepticism in terms of the democratic capabilities of this government. That's why I'm a member of the opposition.

I do think this G-8 process--and we talked about this earlier--should not be just one great conglomeration of a meeting of eight leaders, resulting in a circus-like atmosphere in which many people feel they're left out. That's why with processes like this, using technology and using the availability of the Internet throughout the year through the proper channels, we can get a very broad spectrum of input.

I happen to share some of the same concerns. I don't think any of it should be behind closed doors. There should be cameras in all those rooms with everybody seeing what the leaders are talking about unless there's some security issue we don't want terrorists to find out about. But those meetings should be open.

Á (1115)

I don't think we should pull out just because of the past history of some of the nations in the G-8 in terms of the violation of human rights. All the nations that are involved were violators at one time or another. Certainly, in the Second World War Germany and Japan were, as was Italy to a degree in terms of the obliteration of human rights and the right to life itself. There's the U.S.S.R., of course, one of the most criminal in terms of governments in this century in terms of human rights.

Let's go back even further. Great Britain at one time endorsed slavery, as did the United States and a number of African states. Some African states still do endorse slavery, so no nation is guilt-free.

But progress--I'm looking at the positive side of human nature--has been evident. Germany, Japan, and Russia don't practise the same human rights atrocities they used to. There has been progress. Simply bailing out because of past history--even Canada has a shaky history in some cases--should not be considered, because there has been good progress, which I think has given some bright spots.

[Translation]

Sir, you have described the great tragedy in your country very clearly, and I think that you have suggested some very important points. I think the most important thing is to encourage a democratic process and the establishment of a responsible government. After that, we will surely be able to do the other things.

Thank you for your recommendation.

Á (1120)

[English]

The Chair: Are there any comments? Mr. Paul.

Mr. Derek Paul: I would like to respond to the comment that we can feed more people than we have in the world today. That's true, but the agribusiness in particular is unstable in the way it's done.

There are two others things. One is that there has been considerable soil depletion as a result of agricultural practices over the last hundred years. For example, there are areas of Saskatchewan where the nitrogen in the soil is way down compared with what it was back a hundred years ago. There's a second factor. Maybe things look pretty good right now, but we have to ask the question, to what extent are we living on capital? This would include the fact that non-renewable resources are used for tractors, and so on.

But I agree that feeding people is not necessarily going to be the most difficult problem. However, there are signs that things are not good; for example, there's the disappearance of cod, which was in tremendous abundance when I was a child. You can still buy cod in the stores now, but it's a fairly precious resource. This is one example.

There's another thing about feeding the people. Our brief has two sections on climate change. The people who argue for and against Kyoto generally avoid looking at the original documents that come from the United Nations environment program. As a scientist I don't pay attention to these comments as much as I do to the original documents and to the best scientific models.

The models, unfortunately, have to adopt a scenario. In order to predict what's going to happen in the year 2100, you have to know how much of this and that is going to be poured into the atmosphere by the human race, and they depend on these scenarios. At the moment the human race is moving along a very undesirable curve of the scenario, and the best Canadian models for the rest of this century suggest that by the year 2090 a very considerable amount of global warming will have taken place, mostly around the Arctic.

So the Arctic will warm much more than the global average. The southern hemisphere won't warm very much at all, but this warm area moves down into Siberia on one side of the globe and down into central North America on the other.

Coupled with the global warming there is a change in rainfall patterns. The rainfall patterns predicted for the year 2090 in the southeastern United States show a very considerable reduction. So you have a big increase in temperature with lower rainfall, and the question is, at what point in this process does the southern United States become a dust bowl or agriculture cease, and so on?

So we cannot count on all of the pasture land, all of the agricultural land we have now, into the end of this century if the present habits of how we do things continue.

These are just added points to what Mr. Day has said.

Á (1125)

The Chair: Thank you.

Does someone else have a comment or a response?

Mr. Russell.

Mr. Grahame Russell: I have a quick comment picking up on some of these issues. Your question was, is there something positive in this? I think the only thing positive in this is the process of discussion and debate. The reason I made all these criticisms is that obviously I think there would be a disagreement as to understanding how the global order works, and I point it out in some of my criticisms.

So I don't see anything good for the planet in the G-8 system. I think it's an elite system, undemocratic for some of the reasons I already said, and there would be others.

The Chair: Would you agree that maybe the G-8 is looking for order?

Mr. Grahame Russell: I think there is a global order in place. I think there's a very strong global order in place and it's a very unjust one. Again, that's a sweeping statement, but I do think there is an order in place, a very unjust order.

There's a reason why people in Zambia produce textiles for pennies a day. That's order. That's part of the system. That's how it works. And then there's a reason why someone would produce textiles in Canada or the U.S. at a much higher rate and have a much better life.

It's not a mistake that people in Zambia or the Honduras, where I work, earn a buck a day. That's how it works. That's an order. It's just an unjust order.

To further an earlier point I was making with respect to the G-8, one of the questions--and I wanted to throw this out--under the economic session is, how should the G-8 work with other international organizations such as the UN, G-20, IMF, and the World Bank? Again, I think there's an assumption going on that I wanted to get on the record. The IMF and the World Bank are not other institutions. They are agents of the nations that control them. There is this myth out there that when the IMF makes a mistake, the Canadian government says, yes, we're recognizing that the IMF made a mistake. The IMF imposes Canadian policy. It's an agent of our government. Canada is not the most powerful government behind the IMF, Japan and the United States are, but it's the G-8 that runs the IMF effectively through the finance department, or the treasury department, or whatever. The executive body of these organizations is made up of our nations.

So again, when we look at poverty around the planet and say, that was a mistake in World Bank policy or a mistake in IMF policy, those weren't mistakes. They were decisions taken by us to keep in place structural adjustment programs, or privatization schemes, or schemes to export your way out of poverty. Those are our policy decisions.

Part of the point I'm getting at is there's no accountability mechanism within the G-8. We are intentionally making it so that the IMF has no accountability mechanism. We set it up as an extra-state entity, saying, “It's over there.” Well, no, it's our policy and the people of the Honduras, and the people of Zambia, and the people of Nicaragua have no way of holding the IMF accountable, or the World Bank accountable, for their policies and programs.

For the record, the World Bank actually does do some good projects here and there. I'm not someone to say the World Bank does everything bad, but its overall policies--and I would include in that the overall policies set out in here--are the wrong economic policies for the planet, in part for the reasons that were set out here about over-consumption, overproduction, and in part because there's no courage in this document to question the distribution of wealth problem between nations and inside nations.

We live in a world where Bill Gates can earn $40 billion a year and a woman in Zambia producing blankets can earn a dollar a day and we say that's good. Our global, political, cultural, economic order says that is the way things should be. And that's a real and serious problem.

Mr. Derek Paul: Could I interject?

The Chair: No, I'm really conscious of the time; my colleagues have flights and they have to be out of the room. I'm trying to ensure that we give a hearing.

Madame Bamfumu, have you des petits mots pour nous?

Á (1130)

[Translation]

Ms. Lina Bamfumu (Secretary, Study Group on the Reconstruction of the Congo, Community Projects Action and Development (ADPCO)): I would like to make a short comment. People may be wondering why we have to be advocates for Africa or the Congo when we are Canadian. I would say that it is precisely as part of international cooperation, as part of our actions as an international community, and not as Canadians, that we can still speak for Africa today.

I'm very hurt to see the international community act so subjectively. I don't know precisely what the criteria are. I don't know how western countries decide to intervene in East Timor, and not in the Congo. We intervene in Afghanistan, but not in the Congo. Some say that it's perhaps an issue of proximity. East Timor is very far away compared to Canada. Just like the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Therefore, we were wondering what the criteria were. On what basis is the decision taken to go to the assistance of the Afghans, and not the Congolese?

I would like Canada to take this into account, because today, Canadians are in Afghanistan. In fact, I am wondering why we are there. Why can we not be in Africa?

That is my short comment.

A voice: May I add something?

[English]

The Chair: I think it's a good question, an excellent way in which you can bring to the discussion the issue of the Congo. We have at this point in time focused on the NEPAD, and conflict resolution is top of the agenda in terms of the initiative outlined in that document.

But we'll keep that issue before us. We have had sections of your group appear before the subcommittee on human rights in Ottawa. Several times we've had individuals and organizations bring the issue of the Congo to the attention of parliamentarians, and I want to encourage you to, as Canadians of Congolese descent, Congolese background. I think you're doing what it is important for you to do, and that is to keep the item of peace conflict resolution in that region before us.

I want to close off by saying thank you.

Mr. Assadourian.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: My question is for Science for Peace. I read page 14 of your document, and I have to say, I agree with most historical points you made to do with Israel and Palestine. I think your assessment of historical fact about injustice to Palestinians is very accurate. But my question to you is about the last paragraph, second sentence, where it reads:

Israel cannot maintain its control of the Palestinian settlements indefinitely without embarking upon a program of eliminating them entirely from the West Bank, and their Arab neighbours would not allow that.

When you say “eliminating them entirely from the West Bank”, are you referring to activities similar to those at Jenin, where there was partial elimination of the population, that will expand to the whole of the West Bank? Is eliminating the problem by eliminating the population, as some other governments in the past century tried--the U.S.S.R., the Nazis, the Turks against the Armenians, the Japanese against Chinese--what you're referring to?

Mr. Derek Paul: Of course, I can't predict the future any better than anybody else, but the policy of Israel for approximately the last 10 years has been to isolate the Arab or Palestinian settlements, and prevent the people from moving. Along with that has been the small-scale, continued Israeli settlements in this area.

I think life has gotten to the point where it is no longer viable in these isolated Palestinian towns or villages. I don't think there's any economic future for them. So whether they move away, or die, or whatever happens, it seems to me there is no future for the Palestinians in the situation that exists there. I'm certain this is why that young mother, some months back, blew herself up with a bomb in some public place in Israel. They've come to the point where they can see they don't have any kind of future.

I think the general public is not quite aware of how bottled up the Palestinian settlements are, that they are not interconnected, but separated by these very wide highways that are patrolled--

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Checkpoints.

Mr. Derek Paul: --checkpoints--so the people in the Palestinian settlements are isolated from each other. None of the settlements I know has a really truly viable economy on its own.

So it's an impossible situation. It's a situation that is bound to lead to change. Whether it will lead to tragedy or not, I cannot say, but I don't think continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank is a humane or viable international solution to the problem there.

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Thank you.

Mr. Stockwell Day: Madam Chair, I appreciate your wanting to move it along.

I think there should be a significant study to look at where the billions of dollars in aid for the Palestinian people--through the Palestinian Authority--has gone. They have not seen the infrastructural development or the development of hospitals and water systems. These are questions....economically they still live under a totalitarian state, with no appreciation of the ability of individual people to move ahead economically. It merits study.

Á (1135)

The Chair: Thank you.

We can continue this discussion; as you can see, the issues are debatable and deserving of debate.

We want to thank all of you for being with us. I want to reaffirm the fact that your briefs will be read and your input will be taken into consideration. The opportunity to have had the few minutes with you is something the committee thanks you for. So thank you so much.

We will now call before us a final group, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation--its vice-president, Ms. Rhonda Kimberley-Young, and her executive assistant, Mr. Rod Albert. Joining them at the table is Ms. Carolyn Bassett from the Canadian Peace Alliance.

We'll have ten minutes or less from each presenter, which will get your brief on the record. Thank you.

Ms. Rhonda Kimberley-Young (Vice-President, Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation): Thank you.

I'll just begin by telling you a little bit about who we are as an organization. The Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation represents 50,000 public secondary school teachers in Ontario, as well as support staff--including psychologists, psychometrists, educational assistants, and some clerical employees and plant support workers--in the public English boards, the Catholic English boards, and the French public and Catholic boards. We have support staff throughout the education system in Ontario.

We've been around as an organization since 1919. As you can understand, being a provincial organization, we don't often take the opportunity or have the opportunity to make a presentation at the federal level, and we do welcome that opportunity today.

We at OSSTF are members of both the Canadian Labour Congress and the Ontario Federation of Labour. And we know that you have received submissions from both of those organizations.

For some years, we've been involved in various types of international projects ourselves as an organization. Internally, we have an assistance fund that we administer through our human rights committee and we are involved, as well, in various projects with education partners in Central and South America. So while we certainly are not experts in international work, we have always believed it to be very important, and we have tried to make it an objective, and we try to do, to the extent that it's possible, at least a small part towards the very significant need that we know is there in education and in development assistance in general.

We do welcome the opportunity to appear before you to speak about the G-8 and about the North American study. As I said, we don't often have an opportunity to speak at the federal level. We've looked very carefully at the submission that the Canadian Labour Congress made and we certainly do concur with the recommendations that are included in it. What we have tried to do in our presentation is highlight some areas where we, as an education union, might have some particular expertise or suggestions.

Starting out in terms of aid, the Canadian Labour Congress has made it clear that they believe that we should put in place a clear timetable to implement that aid objective of 0.7% of GDP. We agree fully; we know that the current average spent by developed countries falls quite short of that target, probably about 0.39%, and we believe it is critical that we, as the developed and wealthy nations of the world, make every effort possible to offer the assistance.

You'll see in our brief that we've made a few references here to the CLC paper, as well as some other studies. The World Bank itself is recognizing that huge disparity between the rich and the poor and ultimately the kinds of problems that this situation causes, not just for the developing countries but for those who live in the developed countries as well.

We know that the G-8 believes open trade and investment drives global growth and poverty reduction and that improving the climate for private investment is the means to that end. But we're not convinced of that. In fact, we think a focus on those goals has had little impact in reducing poverty and reducing the income and wealth gaps within countries and throughout the world.

A study of 91 countries by the World Bank showed that the world's richest 50 million people have as much wealth as the poorest 2.7 billion. Four-fifths of the world's population live below what countries in North America and Europe consider to be the poverty line. We, like the Canadian Centre For Policy Alternatives, which you see referenced in our paper, do wonder how long those kinds of inequalities can exist.

From 1999 to 2000 the G-7 countries actually decreased their development aid by 5%. We strongly believe that we must foster development first and that trade follows; sustainable development must be our goal. When we look at the income gap and the disparity between the developed and the developing countries, I think we can take something from the wisdom of Ghandi, who said, “Poverty is the worst form of violence.”

Our next item is debt relief. We urge for unconditional debt relief for the world's poorest countries and we believe the G-8 should be promoting debt relief to assist developing countries. The heavily indebted poor country initiative has too many conditions and provides, at best, only partial and inadequate relief to those countries. We, like the CLC, believe Canada can do better on that score; indeed, the G-8 as a whole can do better.

I will speak a little bit more about education because it is our area of interest and expertise. We believe education is the single best method of ending poverty.

Á (1140)

Education for All, a program supported by the Canadian Labour Congress and Education International, sees education as a means to help children escape poverty, and we believe in that.

In 2002 in Brazil, the World Social Forum was held. There was a special seminar on education at that event, which we participated in. The declaration from that event is attached. Clearly, the participants brought common concerns and shared goals for education: a desire for adequately funded early childhood education; state-funded education for a minimum of nine years; more equal access to post-secondary education; and education as a tool to prevent health problems, including the spread of AIDS. There was a clear statement and a desire for fundamental principles adopted in public education worldwide. They focus on a democratically governed education system, and developing free and critically minded students.

We call on the G-8 and Canada to undertake concrete measures in an effort to eliminate the poverty and destitution that afflicts many hundreds of millions of children. Today, some 250 million children must work to survive. Millions are exploited, live on the streets, are forced into prostitution or slavery, or are forced to fight as soldiers. The World Social Forum estimates that more than 1 million children have no access to education. The majority of those children are girls. As well, 900 million people--almost one in three adults--are illiterate.

As a delegate to the World Seminar on Education, OSSTF deplores the imbalance between the commercial and societal interests at work with respect to education.

We will talk also about what we see as the commodification of public education. It is our firm belief that education is a right and a public trust. We are opposed to the commodification of education, and there is no doubt that education is seen as a commodity to the business world. According to Merrill Lynch, education opportunity globally is approaching $3 trillion annually and $60 billion of that is in the United States alone. The Canadian Education Centre Network estimates that international education is worth about $3.5 billion to Canada.

Businesses see schools as markets for school-related products and services. More recently, they see them as havens of consumers themselves. Both within countries and through the reach of international trade, education and education services pose attractive opportunities. We believe public education must be exempt from trade negotiations, and its students and the integrity of the public school system must be protected from corporate interests.

Even within a wealthy country and a wealthy province, resources for public education in Canada--and in Ontario--have been reduced. This has led to massive cuts to funding for education and sometimes to the search for funds from other sources. We've seen more corporate incursion into classrooms and into education.

We're opposed to the commercialization of our classrooms, particularly when students become a captive audience for commercial predators. The corporate mentality of exploiting young people in our public schools has no limit. Cradle-to-grave marketing is increasing, and business interests target schools because they house millions of evolving consumers.

Á (1150)

OSSTF believes our schools must be adequately funded so that educators do not feel pressured to enter into partnerships or sponsorships with commercial interests that want to increase their influence over our students.

I've included a couple of quotations here. We believe they summarize very nicely our belief in the value of public education and the importance of education being governed within countries for the interests of the citizens in those countries.

We note, sadly, that the private-school tax credit in Ontario probably represents the most significant step and attempt by a North American government to privatize education, and we urge our representatives at the G-8 not to commodify education. We feel equally strongly about other public services, primarily health care.

We also speak a little about free trade on page 5 of our proposal. Again, we reiterate that health care, education, culture, and public services must be exempt from trade agreements because of their special nature and significance. They form the cornerstone of a democratic society, and any move to include these national services in trade negotiations should occur only after all issues have been widely debated and understood.

Openness and transparency are critical. We applaud the committee for holding these hearings and giving the public an opportunity to speak about the agenda for the G-8, but we hope the same openness and transparency follows the debate at the G-8 and any decisions that follow as a result.

We believe these services should be exempt from international agreements, and they should not be commodified because that puts profit ahead of the sovereign right of governments to govern.

Many people in education fear the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services does pose a threat to publicly funded education in Canada. The Canadian government and the G-8 should work to ensure that public education stays outside the realm of trade negotiations.

I'll make a couple of comments on this point and then conclude on the North American items.

We have included what we, as global unions, see in terms of our position on fair trade. We're not saying that there shouldn't be free trade, but that basic rights and core labour standards should be maintained.

I would just like to conclude with the remarks of the CLC itself in its opening statement, that what the world needs is not more economic agreements to further liberalize trade and investment but a credible and coherent development strategy that prioritizes the improvements of the standards of living of working people, especially the poorest among us.

Thank you.

Á (1155)

The Chair: Thank you. I appreciate your cooperation. You have an excellent brief, and it's too bad we have to get you pacing through it.

Ms. Rhonda Kimberley-Young: Thank you very much.

The Chair:We will now hear from Ms. Bassett.

Ms. Bassett, if you can, keep your remarks brief. You have a thorough brief, about six pages, before us. We'd appreciate it if you could get to the main points of it within 10 minutes.

Thanks.

Ms. Carolyn Bassett (Coordinator, Canadian Peace Alliance (Toronto)): Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Carolyn Bassett, and I'm the coordinator of the Canadian Peace Alliance. We are Canada's largest umbrella peace organization, with member groups from coast to coast to coast. We work for global disarmament, the abolition of war, and the redirection of funds from military purposes to human needs.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I will be speaking today about what the Canadian Peace Alliance thinks the Government of Canada should propose when the G-8 discusses combating terrorism at the upcoming meetings in Kananaskis.

The G-8 meetings provide an opportunity for Canada to work multilaterally to help reorient the approach to combating terrorism. We hope the Government of Canada will take the opportunity afforded by the Kananaskis meetings to re-emphasize the importance of a common or human-security approach and a move away from relying on military security.

I want to begin by highlighting the threat that nuclear weapons continue to pose to everyone's safety and security. We never want to face the aftermath of a September 11 type of attack by a terrorist group using a nuclear device.

Prevention must be the main focus. The only way to ensure nuclear weapons cannot be obtained by terrorist organizations is to eliminate them completely from the face of the earth.

A nuclear explosive device cannot be created without fissile material, which is either highly enriched uranium or plutonium. Therefore identifying, securing, and immobilizing this material is crucial to protect us all from deliberate or accidental nuclear attacks.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, effectively inventories fissile material, and inspects nuclear sites. Although these aspects of the IAEA mandate are working well, the organization's budget for its work in this area is inadequate, which limits its capacity. Voluntary contributions to the IAEA can be earmarked specifically for its critical inspection and verification work. Canada should make a substantial voluntary contributions for work in this area, and urge other G-8 states to do the same. An appropriate amount for Canada to contribute might be $500 million for three years.

The IAEA's inventory and inspection mandate extends only to the non-nuclear weapon states who are party to the non-proliferation treaty. Yet the IAEA could undertake inventory and inspection activities in the nuclear weapon states as well. The Government of Canada should seek consensus at the G-8 to extend the mandate of the IAEA to the nuclear-weapon states.

There are particular concerns about Russian fissile material from dismantled warheads. The Canadian Peace Alliance encourages the Government of Canada to contribute to threat-reduction activities in Russia, such as irreversibly immobilizing these fissile materials. This is the only way to take these explosive materials out of circulation. The G-7 countries--the rest of the G-8--could immediately commit to providing financial assistance to Russia to identify and secure surplus fissile materials in a form like vitrification, which means encasing it in glass blocks in a way that it cannot be extracted or used ever again.

Such support to Russia would reduce considerably the risk of a non-state actor obtaining the fissile material necessary to create a nuclear device. Even if all nuclear materials were as fully secured as possible against the possibility of terrorists obtaining them, we would still be forced to live in fear of the deliberate or accidental use of nuclear weapons by states. Yet if anything, the utility of possessing nuclear devices has been reaffirmed in the post-September 11 context, ironically enough by the very state that suffered the terrorist attacks.

The policies outlined in the U.S. nuclear posture review reaffirm the centrality of nuclear weapons to U.S. security policy, and actually seek to expand the roles for nuclear weapons. Most notably, the NPR seeks to mobilize the possibility of using nuclear weapons as one among many tools in fighting wars. The main thrust of the NPR runs directly contrary to the fundamental principles of Canada's current disarmament policy, most notably the commitment to building multilateral treaties that irreversibly reduce and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.

The Kananaskis meeting provides a multilateral forum for Canada and the other G-8 states to voice their concerns about the NPR with the United States. The Government of Canada should use the G-8 meeting to remind its counterparts of the overriding importance of taking steps towards eliminating nuclear weapons. Let us recall that, according to a 1998 Angus Reid poll, 93% of Canadians want the Government of Canada to take a leading role in ridding the world of nuclear weapons.

The Canadian Peace Alliance believes that all states, especially Canada, have an obligation to help and use mechanisms to resolve conflict without resorting to force. There is an opportunity now to strengthen the framework to address acts of international terrorism in the future. The Canadian Peace Alliance concurs with the Government of Canada's strong support for the International Criminal Court, or ICC.

Once the ICC is up and running, its mandate could be extended to include terrorist acts as crimes against humanity. It would offer a mechanism to deal with cases that cannot be prosecuted under domestic law, and reinforce the principle that acts of terrorism should be addressed through prosecution, not retaliation.

Â (1200)

In light of this, the Canadian Peace Alliance believes the position of the Government of the United States with regard to the ICC is most unfortunate, and it urges the Government of Canada to raise the issue at the G-8 meeting.

Since September 11, 2001, the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly has recommitted itself to drafting a comprehensive convention on terrorism that would incorporate a general definition of terrorism. Indeed, the lack of a generally accepted definition of terrorism was one of the main reasons that the ICC was unable to include acts of international terrorism in its list of crimes against humanity.

The Canadian Peace Alliance concurs that an internationally agreed definition of terrorism is a priority. We feel that the G-8 meeting may provide an opportunity to do further work toward such a definition. We are concerned, however, that any consensus reached may not adequately reflect the views of states that are not part of the G-8 process.

We note that the definition of “terrorism” introduced in Canada denies the possibility that states can engage in terrorist acts and, conversely, defines almost any use of force by non-state actors for political purposes as terrorism. Such a definition does not seem to be likely to achieve consensus internationally.

Although the G-8 meetings may provide useful testing grounds, the United Nations is the forum that is most appropriate for discussing new international mechanisms and approaches to addressing problems of terrorism. The G-8 lacks transparency, adequate representation, and democratic control and has no legal or permanent status. We hope, therefore, that the G-8 will not take over major new areas of global political governance.

The Canadian Peace Alliance was surprised to learn that the G-8 has a 25-point action plan on terrorism that Canada is apparently implementing but has not yet publicly released. We learned this by reading Assistant Deputy Minister James Wright's testimony to this very committee, made on January 17, 2002. As you will recall, he told the committee that Canada is playing a leading role in the implementation of the comprehensive G-8 action plan on counter-terrorism, but this plan does not appear on the Government of Canada's website and the information on the G-8 does not appear elsewhere on the Government of Canada's website, and as you know, the G-8 has no secretariat, so it's not available there as well.

We believe people living in Canada have a right to know the policies of our government. We believe parliamentarians, the group of Canadians elected to oversee the development of policy in Canada, should be able to see the plan and discuss its merits. We hope our government will press for more transparency in reporting G-8 plans and programs as a first step toward greater accountability.

The Canadian Peace Alliance believes the Government of Canada can do more to foster a climate that makes acts of terrorism less likely. Humanitarian assistance, a more just international distribution of income and wealth, and the fair application of international law are critical to wipe out the breeding grounds on which terrorism thrives.

As the developments of September 11, 2001, clearly show, security does not depend on military might. The greatest military power the world has ever known did not prevent the terrorist attacks in the U.S., nor could it have done so. No amount of military capability can prevent a determined suicide terrorist from acting, but a determined effort led by the G-8 countries to promote human security and a fair, transparent international system that offers effective mechanisms to address conflict would go a long way toward keeping people from becoming suicide terrorists.

Thank you.

Â (1205)

The Chair: Thank you. This is a very thorough brief, and you have covered many issues that are of concern to the committee. I also like the way that you've woven in your recommendations, which we'll make sure receive further consideration.

As you know--and I'm going to repeat this--we have to get back to Ottawa. We are trying to accommodate and do the best we possibly can. Since we are on the record, you have an opportunity to make any clarification or to take the time for some more points. We'll give you the time to do so.

We can pursue with some further remarks what you quickly went over as you were trying to get the entire brief on the record. But we can continue to ask questions and have some deliberation with you.

Ms. Kimberley-Young, this is an opportunity for you to make some more comments.

Â (1210)

Ms. Rhonda Kimberley-Young: Thank you very much.

I think if we would reiterate anything from our brief, it would be that in terms of the G-8 agenda, we do believe a goal to meet the 0.7% of aid target is critical and that debt relief combined with that is essential if we're really to do anything to alleviate some of the poverty in the developing world--poverty that, I would add, comes about structurally as much as anything.

Certainly we do have concerns with the policies and procedures of the IMF and the World Bank and do believe unconditional debt relief, coupled with appropriate aid, is critical as a first step towards alleviating those.

In terms of public services, I did speak about education because it is the area with which we are most familiar. We do have concerns that in previous trade agreements, and in the GATT in particular, there are avenues and openings for the sovereignty and the decisions we make as governments in provinces and in our country with respect to education to be challenged. We do see an increasing move toward the privatization and the commodification of education.

In Ontario we've seen disturbing trends of increasing commercialization and corporate interests moving into the classroom, with free materials, free curriculum, and other things they might offer that are increasingly attractive, I think, in an education climate where there are fewer funds and fewer resources available. If we're seeing those trends here in the developed world, in a very wealthy country by any comparison globally, then surely we worry about the implications for countries even less fortunate.

We didn't speak at length about public services in general, but certainly we really do feel equally strongly with respect to areas of culture, health, and so on. We know governments exist for a reason, and that is to make the decisions on behalf of the people in those countries, and we believe the right of a government to govern can't be curtailed by trade agreements and others that would hamper their ability to make the decisions with respect to health care, education, and other social and public services.

We really view--

The Chair: Excuse me.

Mr. Day, before you leave, do you want to leave any questions on the table?

Mr. Stockwell Day: The presentations were excellent, reflecting a number of things we have heard. They will fortify a number of positions that have already been presented.

In the area of education--just to advise--we've had input from representatives of African countries, especially on the education side, saying primary education is a real concern for them. I know you've mentioned secondary; I know primary is a focus, so I'd just pass that on as an observation.

As well, I would hope we wouldn't export anything that would restrict choice in education. Certainly a number of families, by the thousands, in Canada and the United States, perform the public good of either educating their children on their own--according to certain standards, of course--or within their own schooling systems. Certainly in areas like Detroit and Chicago it has been observed that many children who were simply not progressing, with their parent or parents having the ability of choice in terms of schooling systems as long as they were meeting certain basic standards, actually were able to progress where previously they hadn't been able to.

So I would hope we would just keep that in mind in terms of, any time you have a monopolistic or monolithic approach to doing anything, there is a tendency for inefficiency and mediocrity. I would hope these things would be kept in consideration as we're looking to helping other nations with our ideas.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Day. You will have to read the answer.

Ms. Rhonda Kimberley-Young: In terms of the comments we made with respect to education, we do support the world declaration on education, and it does see a real need to focus on early childhood training and on state-funded education in the early grades. So while we certainly support secondary education, we know the greatest gift we can get at secondary education is a well-prepared student who has had all the necessary education to get there.

With respect to choice in education, we certainly don't see public education as a monopoly; we see it as a public trust. We see it as a public investment.

While we do support choice, we certainly support it if it is not publicly funded. If it is receiving any public funding, we would expect that any system other than the public system would have the same kind of accountability and standards as the public system does. Unfortunately, here in Ontario, that's not what we have seen with the private school tax credit.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Bassett, I'm not sure if you've been following the discussion about the national missile defence, the NORAD issue, Mr. Axworthy's statements, Mr. Granatstein's position, command and control involvement. As we discuss Canada-U.S. relationships, I wonder if you could make a comment or two, or perhaps you want to take this back for some consideration and send us a note.

Ms. Carolyn Bassett: I had hoped to have the opportunity to submit a written brief specifically on the North American relationship. I didn't have time to prepare on both for today.

The Chair: We appreciate that.

Ms. Carolyn Bassett: But if I could just mention briefly, on the issue of missile defence in the context of terrorists attacks, we were quite surprised to see in the post-September 11 context a renewed commitment to developing the missile defence program when in fact we know it could not only have done nothing to prevent the attacks that took place on that date, but actually would be virtually useless if a terrorist organization were to even obtain a nuclear device.

I mention in my brief, but didn't present here, that the missile defence program, if it were to work at all, is designed to intercept nuclear weapons that are launched from far away, yet the delivery mechanism itself would be outside the capacity of any terrorist organization. You could not develop something like that secretly. It would be known, and it would presumably be dealt with long before it ever got to that stage.

To us, then, the expense of developing something like that really makes no sense when there are so many more practical purposes to which the money could be used that could have a much more immediate, positive effective on everyone's security, our own security here in North America and everyone's security around the world.

The Chair: Okay, thank you.

Again, I appreciate your being with us today, and any further communication, we'd be more than happy to receive.

Thank you very much to the teachers' federation; continue the good work. I have an affinity, having spent 35 years in that profession. I was very pleased to hear the opinions expressed by members of the federation.

Ms. Rhonda Kimberley-Young: Thank you for the opportunity.

The Chair: To my friends who are working in the area of peace and trying to ensure we build that kind of world, keep up the good work and keep sending us your presentations. Thank you so much.

Ms. Carolyn Bassett: Thank you.

The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.