Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs,
Science and Technology
Subcommittee on Post-Secondary education
Issue 11 - Evidence - March 6 Sitting
OTTAWA, Thursday, March 6, 1997
The Subcommittee on Post-Secondary education of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, met this day at 9:05 a.m. to continue its inquiry into the state of Post-Secondary education in Canada.
Senator M. Lorne Bonnell (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, we have with us Mr. Paul McGinnis, an EDUCATION specialist for the Canadian International Development Agency.
Senator Andreychuk felt that you would make a worthwhile contribution to the work of this committee, Mr. McGinnis. Please proceed.
Mr. Paul McGinnis, EDUCATION Specialist, Canadian International Development Agency: Honourable senators, although your questions will be the most important part of my evidence today, I have prepared a few opening remarks.
[Translation]
I was informed yesterday at 1:30 that I was to appear before you, and so I have not had much time to prepare. My presentation will be in English. If you have questions to ask me, I can certainly answer in French.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Yes, I can see that. Thank you.
[English]
With regard to the policy context in which CIDA and the EDUCATIONal institutions work, the government statement "Canada and the World" identified three objectives for its future international actions. They are the promotion of prosperity and employment; the protection of our security within a stable, global framework; and the protection of Canadian value and culture.
From this statement flows CIDA's broad mandate, which is to support sustainable development in developing countries in order to rposte poverty and to contribute to a more secure, equitable and prosperous world. From that flowed six program priorities under which we are doing our work. They are basic human needs; women in development -- CIDA is one of the world leaders in this field -- infrastructure services; human rights, democracy and good governance; private sector development; and the environment.
The document outlines that the Canadian government is committed to strengthening partnerships domestically as well as in developing countries. The academic and professional communities engaged in development assistance programs were singled out as important components of our overseas systems.
Honourable senators may ask how universities and colleges get involved in our programs. The tertiary institutions are funded through the CIDA Partnership Branch, one of our programming branches, and the three bilateral branches of Asia, Africa and the Americas. Some development assistance is also being directed to Central and Eastern Europe.
In the Partnership Branch, the universities and colleges develop their own programs in collaboration with partner institutions in developing countries. They come together and talk to partner institutions and prepare a proposal which is then submitted to CIDA for funding. CIDA selects certain of those proposals and funds some of those activities. CIDA also funds some general scholarship programs to bring students and trainees to Canada for short-term training.
CIDA also supports the Partnership Branch, composed of six centres of excellence. You may have encountered some of these in your travels across the country. There is the Centre PARADI at the University of Laval. This centre focuses on economic analysis and research as it applies to developing countries. Cities and Development, at the University of Quebec at Montreal, McGill and the City of Montreal, is involved in urban issues in developing countries. The International Centre for the Advancement of Community Based Rehabilitation is at Queen's University. There is also a centre for refugee study at York University. Participatory Development is at the University of Calgary and the International Centre for Human Settlements is in Vancouver.
The bilateral branches which manage the government-to-government assistance programs also engage or hire universities and colleges to deliver some of their projects. The universities and colleges are involved in the six priority areas I mentioned before, some to a greater extent than others, of course. The sectors in which they are involved pretty much cover the gamut of the possible offerings of universities and colleges. The involvement is very widespread. They are involved in all the major countries in which CIDA is involved.
I want to say a few words about the magnitude of the involvement. This is always tricky because the figures keep changing. It is a moving target, but it would be useful for you to have a sense of that.
I have drawn from a CIDA publication called "Services and Lines of Credit." This document is available to the public and provides information on all the service contracts and lines of credit presently engaged in the agency. This is for government-to-government programs, not partnership programs.
This document shows contracts that are over $100,000 where less than 75 per cent of the money is spent. We are always adding new projects and other projects are dropping off, so we had to establish some guidelines. That publication includes project disbursals of less than 75 per cent of their budget. Others may have only disbursed 4 per cent, so we have to take these figures in context. It is a moving target.
The figure for this service is roughly $203 million, which are we now providing to universities and colleges for overseas work on the government-to-government side. It includes 34 projects across the three continents and all five regions of Canada. There is one project in the agriculture sector, four in institutional support and management and a couple in the area of human resources development. In EDUCATION, there are 19, which is not surprising. In energy, there is one. In industry, there is one. There is one program in the area of population of human settlements. In the health and nutrition area, there are three. Finally, in the area of economic and financial support, there are couple of programs. They range widely across sectors, as you can see.
I mentioned the Partnership Branch where Canadian institutions take the initiative, develop their own projects and come to CIDA for support. For 1996-97, there was roughly $23 million approved for universities and colleges and approximately $8 million approved for the Centres of Excellence, major university linkage projects and the International Institute for Sustainable Development. With respect to the number of students and trainees supported by the Partnership Branch in 1995 alone for tertiary EDUCATION or training, about 1,266 students came to Canada and there were 9,505 trainees on short-term assignments in Canada.
As mentioned, I am one of the specialists in EDUCATION at CIDA, and I would like to give you a sense some of future trends.
There have been some experiments in tertiary EDUCATION in CIDA over the last few years, many of them in Asia. I must admit that that is the area with which I am most familiar, so I may be missing some in Africa, the Americas and perhaps in Central and Eastern Europe. Many are in Asia because there is more wealth in some of the Asian countries. There are more possibilities for mutual exchange for institutions in those countries and in our own.
There are several university linkage projects, which is a mechanism we use a lot. The University of Calgary is linked with Chulalongkorn University in Thailand in some particular field. These are becoming much more mutually controlled and mutually funded as the universities in Thailand are able to pay more of the costs. There is more mutual benefit. As well, Canadian academics have more interest because Thai researchers can be doing very interest things.
We are also beginning to develop our tripartite relationships where a Canadian university and, in this case, a Thai university will be linked to a university in Laos or Cambodia. That is a new trend, which will likely continue.
You are probably aware that CIDA has established Canadian EDUCATION centres in developing countries in Asia to attract students from those emerging middle classes to Canada. You heard from Foreign Affairs that they have established similar centres in countries where CIDA is not working, such as Taiwan or Korea. CIDA is establishing centres in places like China, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
I was involved in a project with APEC, which is involved in a huge variety of activities. APEC includes the whole Asia Pacific region. It stretches down to Chile from Canada, to many countries in Asia and through to Australia and New Zealand. It is a very large networking congregation. One project we are involved in is managed by the Conference Board of Canada with the participation of the North-South Institute and the Association of Canadian Community Colleges. This is the type of project that points to the future, where possible.
The ACCC managed what they called a "best training practices" study. They solicited good training practices in each of the regions. Each of them could contribute some of the new training initiatives taking place, be it a developing country or an economically advanced country. This was compiled into a book and sent back to all these countries. It provides interesting information for Canadian educators and trainers, as well as for people in the region.
There has been much more mutuality as developments begin to take place in some regions of the world. As these countries graduate, in a sense, to become newly industrialized countries, the opportunities for true mutuality of interest and benefits becomes possible and desirable.
We must say also that the contacts established by Canadian tertiary institutions, in this case in the Asia region, facilitate this transition. Therefore, the universities and colleges need to meet two different challenges. I have spent some time on these mature types of relationships, but they also have to work in other parts of the world. We can think of sub-Saharan Africa or other places where the level of development is at a different stage and where they must do much more capacity building and institution building in those institutions. They must be able to deal with both those challenges. I think this is a fascinating time for tertiary institutions in terms of CIDA programming.
I would be happy to answer any questions.
[Translation]
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Thank you for your presentation. Firstly, I would like to ask you whether it would be possible to obtain the various documents you mentioned in the beginning?
Mr. McGinnis: Certainly, we can provide that information. First of all, I will look at the list of documents. I can give you one immediately, the one that contains all of the contracts in the regions et cetera. I can certainly give you that now and we can provide further information later about partnerships.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: What is the budget allocated to this EDUCATION effort in developing countries or on the three other continents? Now you are involved in Eastern Europe. What is the amount spent annually for that purpose?
Mr. McGinnis: That is an excellent question, and some people from CIDA actually worked on that yesterday. I have a pile of information which I have looked at. It is difficult to answer you. Sometimes a project is counted twice. I do not have full confidence in these documents because they were prepared too quickly. I have given you approximate amounts for the moment. Bilaterally, the amount spent would be about 200 million.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Is it matched by the other side or is Canada the only country to put up funds?
Mr. McGinnis: No, Canada puts up 200 million. There are costs on the other side as well. It depends on the country involved. If it is a relatively developed country such as Malaysia it may share almost 50 per cent of expenditures. But other countries provide almost nothing. It depends on the situation. Thirty million also went to partnerships this year.
[English]
My worry is that you are going into all those underdeveloped countries. While I think that is great and that there should be changes at the superior level of EDUCATION, $200 million is a lot of money. Most of the citizens of these countries do not know their alphabet and never go to school.
[Translation]
Illiteracy in Canada, by comparison, is negligible.
[English]
Do you evaluate how much of the money goes to exchanges at the superior level and what is given to help people to come up with their basic needs?
Mr. McGinnis: That is a good question. I am heading a study at CIDA on the programming of basic human needs. You have raised an important question.
I have figures on the basic literacy and EDUCATION program. Approximately $120 million was devoted to those projects over the period 1989 to 1996. That is in EDUCATION.
We recently conducted a study which showed that approximately 37.5 per cent of our basic funding is devoted to basic human needs such as primary health care, basic EDUCATION, nutrition, and so on. Quite a bit of that is for food aid and international and humanitarian assistance, which are important as stop-gap measures. The development of basic health or EDUCATION represents approximately 18 or 19 per cent of our overall budget.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: In relation to the $200 million, for how many years have these programs been going on?
Mr. McGinnis: These programs have been in existence since the beginning of CIDA. We have always had a lot of EDUCATION activities in CIDA. The ones I am talking about now span five years. Some are just beginning and some are just ending. A normal project cycle in CIDA is about five years.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Do you do any evaluation of the results?
Mr. McGinnis: I am in the evaluation section at the moment. That is the basic human needs review that we are doing. We will be evaluating various projects. All bilateral projects have a certain small amount, maybe $50,000 or $60,000, devoted to evaluation of the project at its conclusion. The partnership does an evaluation of their partners and how well they do abroad.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Nothing has been formally published yet?
Mr. McGinnis: Because there are so many ways of looking at issues, we will do most of our formal, fundamental evaluations in the priorities areas. Therefore, we would look at basic human needs, in which I am now involved; primary EDUCATION and basic EDUCATION.
When looking at environment, which is another one of our priorities, we consider the role of EDUCATION with environment. I do not know if we will have an overall examination of EDUCATION per se. It will be through the six priorities which have been mandated.
Senator Forest: In how many countries is CIDA operating at this time?
Mr. McGinnis: The 36 core countries of CIDA.
Senator Forest: Those are all over the world?
Mr. McGinnis: Yes. When I say "core countries," all our operations are involved; that is, bilateral, government-to-government, and so on. There are many other countries in which a non-government organization or a university or college is involved and CIDA is funding it, but they are not what we call core countries.
We are involved in over 100 countries. If you think of it in the multilateral sense -- we provide money to UNICEF and UNDP -- then CIDA is basically everywhere.
Senator Forest: In what context do you use the term "tertiary?"
Mr. McGinnis: I use it to mean "post-secondary." In the Canadian context, I am thinking mostly of community colleges, CEGEPs and universities.
Senator Forest: I also did not understand the term "population and human settlements."
Mr. McGinnis: This means looking at issues around urban settlements and population issues. It is a broad area which helps us to assist in planning.
There are enormous shifts in the population moving toward, for example, urban areas. This is becoming more of a crisis area. These are the types of activities with which we are involved.
Senator Forest: Are you planning where changes are taking place?
Mr. McGinnis: Yes, or trying to help some group implement some change or improve some situation.
Senator Andreychuk: Our Post-Secondary education study is to look at the state of Post-Secondary education in Canada. I hope you have received our terms of reference so that you have an idea what areas we are looking at.
Throughout the hearings, we have heard that universities and colleges are changing. They are reaching out for two reasons. One is for market share; that is, other universities around the world are looking at global markets. In other words, European universities are setting up branches in country interests around the world and vice versa. The spin-off effect is not only a shared EDUCATION and technology base from which we will all gain but also a source of employment and expansion for EDUCATION and technology in Canada.
Have you studied whether this is a good thing for Canadian universities and, therefore, CIDA to be funding? Have you looked at it in any systematic way concerning this idea of globalized EDUCATION?
Mr. McGinnis: The study that most approximates the issue that you have raised is the one I worked on concerning China. There was a huge program of university and college linkages with China. It was our biggest program at the time. Marcel Masse, the former president of CIDA, went to China and said that we should be opening our contacts with China. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
China was just coming out of isolation. A lot of linkages were deliberately established. We created many different linkages with universities and colleges. The notion was that this would lead to on-going relationships and linkages between China and Canada. We reviewed that situation and found that that was happening. At some point, Chinese were paying to come to Canada for certain things because they had contacts and information and they knew about Canada and the technology, and so on. From that point of view, a lot of on-going relationships developed, which was the purpose of the program.
If we are talking about sustainable development, this is one type of sustainability.
As China evolves, they will be involved throughout the world, so they might as well be involved in Canada as well. Canada has certain technologies and a certain political image which was useful and good for the Chinese. In that sense, it was probably quite successful.
As I mentioned in my statement, I think the universities must do both. They must do marketing, because that seems to be the way of the world. There are some dangers in that, obviously. They will have the same dangers abroad as they have when they market aggressively in Canada. However, they will have to do some of that in countries where there is interest and potential. At the same time, they will have to deal with issues of institutional development in other countries where, as was indicated earlier, the development problems are much more severe. They will have to try to do both.
CIDA's role will be to help them establish initial contacts in countries where they can maintain those relationships on their own. Hence, they will be sustainable, which is good in terms of intellectual development, exchange of ideas, Canadian markets and so on. At the same time, CIDA will probably continue to support universities and colleges in other parts of the world which need ongoing support for quite a few years.
Senator Andreychuk: CIDA was set up for ODA. We have always struggled with what we mean by that. When we assist other countries, we now say that we must offer sustainable development.
To what extent are all these EDUCATIONal initiatives at the tertiary level, commendable as they are, really part of a broad sustainable development strategy for CIDA? Would it come best from some other ministry or department, leaving CIDA free to do more of the basic EDUCATION?
I see a struggle looming in the future. We have always had creative tension between trade and aid: To what extent does aid assist trade; to what extent should it; to what extent should we not do it? I see this new emerging EDUCATIONal concept having some of the same dynamics about to what extent it is CIDA's role to facilitate and assist globalization of EDUCATION under an ODA mantle.
Mr. McGinnis: That is an excellent question. The issue relates particularly to China and Southeast Asia, where I was working. That is where many of these activities are taking place, for obvious reasons.
We have come to realize in CIDA that we cannot work at only one level of development. There are different levels. We think in terms of the macro, the meso and the micro levels; the broad policy level, the institutional level -- which is the meso -- and the grassroots. We have to be careful because if we do a very good project at the grassroots level it may not be at all valuable if there is not policy support at the higher level.
In terms of strategy, we can look at our investments in universities and colleges in the same way. From where do the thinkers come in various countries who will help with policy in governments? Many governments call upon their academics to help them with policy, for example. Their role is often broader than being only at the university.
There are these different levels and we should probably be intervening at different levels and through different programs in the society to have the greatest impact.
However, the extent to which we should help in the marketing itself is a tension, and that will continue. It will depend on our mandate. Our mandate says things like "private sector" and within that there is potential for these types of programming. In addition to Canadian private sector we are talking about the private sector. That is possible. We would have to look at the broader mandate. EDUCATION is just part of that broader mandate.
With universities and college it is like letting a thousand flowers bloom. We never know what will be of great potential. It is impossible to have a master plan for all these things. In Canada, they have developed in their own way. They have a certain expertise which is now recognized worldwide, and it was not due to a master plan.
Senator Andreychuk: I recall the years that CIDA evaluated many of its projects. Institution-building, Post-Secondary education, teacher training colleges, et cetera, was very much part of the mandate. It came down to determining what was the net effect and net result. That is when critics of CIDA said it should go back to basic needs. The last study was the joint foreign policy study which is three years old. It directed that that is where the attention of CIDA should be. That is where I am coming from.
Second, universities and colleges working overseas certainly look for money from CIDA. When we get to the marketing side, the globalization, the shared information things that you were speaking of, what are the rules of fairness? In trade we set up things like PEMD. There are rules and guidelines. You apply, you go into the pot, and you see what shakes out.
If you do an innovative project in Capilano College, that may not leave money for the Lethbridge University to do some aboriginal EDUCATION in Guatemala or something. Have you thought about that approach, or has that been the difficulty to this time?
Mr. McGinnis: There is a certain recognition that we must be very involved in basic human needs, to address the first part of your point. That is why there is the 25 per cent target and that is why we are reviewing the program right now. It is very clear that we have not done very much in primary EDUCATION. We can find very few primary EDUCATION programs to evaluate. There are new ones beginning, particularly in Africa, but we cannot evaluate them yet because they are just beginning.
In basic EDUCATION, which includes all sorts of different training at the grassroots level, women's organizations, cooperatives and things like that, there has been quite a bit over the years.
How do you make choices? The choices on the government-to-government side are made on a country program level. The Thailand program decides what will be done in Thailand based on its negotiations. They look within the context of a country and try to find the best option. It is fair to say that we do not have an overall strategy for how we invest EDUCATION dollars. The strategy is on a country-by-country basis. It becomes very difficult to compare because it is very country focused.
In partnership they do more of that. They analyze the problems more carefully. Their projects are smaller but they do have some comparisons. In that case, there are good comparisons made.
Senator Andreychuk: To what extent do your objectives or your practices reflect the additional benefit or advantage that Canadians have under a bilingual system?
Mr. McGinnis: It is crucial. We are very involved in what we call francophone Africa. That is a very important program for us. That is a counterbalance for other people working in francophone Africa and it is very much appreciated. That is a great benefit. Other countries are interested in that, such as Vietnam, although they are more and more moving into the English orbit. There is interest in other parts of the world as well in having this potential.
Senator DeWare: Mr. McGinnis, yesterday, at a meeting of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, it was suggested that we should go beyond the individual universities and colleges in promoting EDUCATION. The president of one university stated that Canada was behind the U.S., Britain and Australia in promoting a national higher EDUCATION system overseas, and that they have made it easier for individual institutions to get entry into those countries. Are we behind in this aspect? If so, how far behind are we? How are the efforts of the federal government to promote higher EDUCATION overseas coordinated among departments?
Mr. McGinnis: In terms of marketing Canadian expertise, we are somewhat behind some other countries, such as the United States. Australia has been quite aggressive in marketing its EDUCATIONal institutions over the last 10 years. If you look at it in terms of market share, they have taken more market share relative to that which has been taken by Canada. At one point, there was some reluctance among universities to get too involved in that area. However, that is now changing. What the presidents of universities are saying is accurate. We have very good individual initiatives. However, as a country, there is not an overall strategy. There are historic reasons for that, of course. One of them is that EDUCATION is a provincial matter, which makes it more complicated.
Senator DeWare: We keep coming back to that.
Mr. McGinnis: It is true that we do work with the provinces through the council of EDUCATION ministers, and others. However, it takes a bit of time to develop a national strategy.
Senator DeWare: The Association of Community Colleges expressed how pleased they are with a number of our students who are participating overseas dealing with new technologies, distance EDUCATION and so on. It would be nice if we could get into the marketplace.
Mr. McGinnis: Certainly, there is more and more interest among universities now, and certainly among colleges. It is a more natural bent for the colleges to be doing that. There are many good individual initiatives. Perhaps the coordinating organizations, such as the AUCC and ACCC, support that. I agree that we are not as aggressive as some other countries. The extent to which we should be aggressive is another question.
I did mention that CIDA is also supporting the establishment of Canadian EDUCATIONal centres in various countries in Asia to promote training in Canada. Foreign Affairs is doing the same in countries which do not receive assistance from CIDA, such as Taiwan and Korea. We are doing it in Malaysia and Thailand.
Senator DeWare: Are you bringing people here?
Mr. McGinnis: We are giving information about what is available. Parents are sending students on private funds; or students are paying their own expenses.
Senator DeWare: We also had a complaint about the problems with visas which people need to be able to get into this country. Apparently, it is quicker to get into the United States and Great Britain for access to EDUCATION. We were concerned about that. If there is a holdup, students may decide to go elsewhere. We should look into that. Have you heard any of those kinds of complaints?
Mr. McGinnis: On occasion, there are complaints like that. It requires coordination of work among the Department of Foreign Affairs, CIDA and the Department of Citizenship and Immigration, which has the prime lead. Sometimes this can be worked out more quickly at the embassies abroad. It depends on the situations. I know that in the China program, when there were hundreds of students flowing into Canada at one point, we had to have special arrangements with the Department of Immigration to speed up the processing because there was a huge backlog. That is a problem. It would be useful for you to talk to someone from Employment and Citizenship. They have particular problems, as well, about which I am not very conversant. I know it is not simple.
Senator DeWare: A three-month delay could cost a student one year of his EDUCATION.
Mr. McGinnis: Yes, absolutely.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: You made reference to the "dangers du marketing en éducation." Could you be more explicit? I hate that formula when talking about EDUCATION. In that regard, I am the only dissident in the group. I do not know if it is cultural or not, but when we talk about EDUCATION and helping other countries, we talk about "marketing" our EDUCATION. I do not like the term.
Mr. McGinnis: Yes, I referred to dangers. It slipped out.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Are you sorry now?
Mr. McGinnis: No. Universities and colleges have a mandate. For universities, it is learning. If one were to become too commercially oriented, I fear they would lose some of their mandate. They become too oriented to the market. That is one problem. Another problem is in terms of research. Research is very important for knowledge and, ultimately, development. If their research dollars become too focused on the market, that is another danger.
It is definitely more of a danger for universities. I am sure they are grappling with it, although I do not want to speak for them. I am sure many people in the universities are aware of this.
In colleges, perhaps it is less of a danger. They are more oriented to servicing the community; doing training specifically for the community. In fact, I would say it is one good expertise that Canadian colleges can export. By export, I mean it can be used abroad to link the needs of the business community and other parts of the community into the training institution. We are quite good at that throughout Canada.
Therefore, there is more of a need for them to do marketing, because they are going out to identify what the training needs are in society and then provide those training needs which link into jobs. It is more legitimate at the college level. They have been established more for that type of purpose, rather than basic research and broader learning.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: Is my interpretation correct that, while you are supportive of university exchanges and giving a helping hand to universities in the poorer countries, we should not abuse this term "marketing?" It is probably that to which I am reacting. We are not in business.
Mr. McGinnis: That brings us back to Senator Andreychuk's question, which was to what extent CIDA should be doing this. It is clear that in some of the countries to which I referred, in particular Southeast Asia, and more and more in China, parts of India and South America, there is quite a bit of wealth. Universities from all over the world are competing and interacting. I do not think we should avoid that. If the senates of universities decide that is what they should be doing as part of their mandate, then they should do that.
The question is the role which CIDA should play within that. In developing countries, we have always seen it as providing seed money to establish contacts; and then it is up to the universities to do that themselves. The process as described leads to a more mature relationship between developed and developing countries. However, that is not the case in most of the countries in which we work. The institutions need much more work and it will be years before they are at the expected operating level. CIDA should be supporting well thought out institutional development projects that link into an overall plan.
We should have two different strategies. However, we are out of the picture once universities say they will market abroad. That is their role. I say they have to be careful; there is a danger in that in terms of their overall, broad mandate. That is a decision they grapple with every day.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: You referred to South America, Asia and Africa and you mentioned some countries of Eastern Europe. Which countries are you referring to?
Should post-secondary institutions get involved with Eastern European countries? Should we not leave the development of eastern Europe to more developed European countries and concentrate on South America or Africa?
Mr. McGinnis: The countries in central and Eastern Europe were first part of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was decided they should move to CIDA for administrative purposes because CIDA had more expertise to administer these programs. However, I understand that most of the policy setting is still lodged with Foreign Affairs. It is a broader government policy.
There are some smaller countries which are in fact now eligible for aid because of their economic condition, and others that are not. This program is working in both those types of countries. CIDA tries to separate the information we are providing on countries that are judged to be in need of aid from those that are not. I must admit that I do not know a lot about that program as I have not been very involved in it.
Of course, Europe should be very involved. Much of the pressure to become involved in central and Eastern Europe came from Canadian citizens whose families originated from countries in the region. Those people were interested in providing assistance and wanted some Canadian involvement there. Therefore, Canada became involved as a result of Canadian domestic interest.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: The government must make some choices. We cannot play God to every country in the world. If we try to, we will spread our resources too thin. There is a limit to what we can do. What we do, we should do well.
Mr. McGinnis: You make a good point. From a development person's perspective, I agree with you. It is good to focus on certain targeted countries. That would be the bias of many people in the agency.
The reality is that there are always pressures to be involved in many different countries. CIDA has, therefore, become responsive to the various constituents in Canada and abroad.
Senator Lavoie-Roux: We should withstand the pressures.
Mr. McGinnis: These pressures are internal as well.
Senator Andreychuk: The answer to that was in the foreign policy perspective; that is, that we do not choose countries, because inevitably there will be disagreement on that, but that we look at basic needs. We can no longer use the term "Third World." What is the Third World? There are some countries in Latin America and Asia that are wealthier than some countries in the northern hemisphere. Longevity and basic EDUCATION give some compelling reasons to work in certain countries.
We must focus on a rposted number. I am pleased to hear that you are now working in 36 and not 168 countries, which I think is the last count from the United Nations.
We were falling behind in our international ODA commitments due to our domestic debt and deficit situation. Where do we stand with ODA relative to our comparable partners at this time? If you do not have the answer to that now, could you provide it to us?
Mr. McGinnis: It would be best if I provide you with that answer later. My quick answer is that everyone is falling behind. We are probably all in the same position.
Senator Andreychuk: Three years ago, we were falling behind more than some of the countries with which we like to be associated. I wonder where we stand at present.
Also, how do we compare to our like countries on support for tertiary EDUCATION? Are we spending more or less than Australia, Sweden, Holland, France, et cetera? If those figures are available, I would be interested in seeing them.
Mr. McGinnis: I will get them for you.
Senator Andreychuk: We have heard much from business people, originally at the foreign affairs committee and to an extent at this committee, that the students of the future and the Canadians of the future will have to know more about cross-cultural sensitivities and understand different trade practices, social practices, et cetera. Has CIDA given any weight to that in any of its programs? Have you revised your way of doing cross-cultural training for your own staff and for all the NGO partnerships that are now forming?
The kinds of briefings received before were to identify a country and to tell people that they should be sensitive to another culture. However, the world is much more complex. Is there training and emphasis on that?
Mr. McGinnis: Yes, there is.
Senator Andreychuk: Have you considered that CIDA is a natural place to do more of that training for all those who wish to have those exchanges in all the countries you serve?
Mr. McGinnis: I started at CIDA 11 years ago in the cross-cultural briefing centre, which no longer exists. That centre prepared Canadians who were to work overseas by giving them a short briefing on a variety of different topics. Foreign Affairs still provides that service, although it has been cut back.
There was also a debriefing of people coming back. That was a useful exercise. People shared their experiences of two years abroad.
In certain projects, particularly the China in program, because we thought the Chinese students would have a lot of difficulty, we provide language and cultural training in both Canada and China as well as ongoing support. However, we do not do that with every country. Some students are pretty much left on their own. It depends on the university or the institution. It is hit and miss. There is no overall strategy at CIDA, for reasons I mentioned previously. It is driven at the bilateral level by the country programs. Each country program has its own priority.
There is certainly expertise. I think the briefing centre provided a very valuable resource. It could have also helped students. Some of our universities were developing expertise. St. Mary's was coordinating this effort throughout Canada. They had centres across the country. It does not now exist. In think we are going in the wrong direction in that respect.
Senator Andreychuk: I just wanted that on the record.
Senator Forest: That is a concern of mine as well. We heard quite a bit with respect to Asia, particularly on the west coast, and about how important it is for the people going there to understand the culture before going, rather than learning on the job.
Our people are going to many different countries. How many people from other countries are coming to Canada for training through CIDA?
Mr. McGinnis: On the partnership side, about 1,200 students and 9,500 trainees will come to Canada this year. There would be more on the bilateral side. Together they total close to 15,000.
Senator Forest: What would be the average length of stay?
Mr. McGinnis: It depends on the length of program. The 1,200 students I mentioned will be here for several years. For example, a graduate program is two or three years long. It varies a lot with the trainees, but the average stay would be two to three months.
Senator Forest: In what fields would those trainees be found?
Mr. McGinnis: They are found all across the board, because there is training in specific projects. It could be energy or agriculture. There are many different fields.
Senator Forest: It depends upon the country from which they come?
Mr. McGinnis: Yes, it depends upon the program that CIDA has developed for that country.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for appearing here today, Mr. McGinnis. Please leave the pamphlets to which you referred with the clerk of the committee so that senators can have a copy.
Senators, yesterday the steering committee had its first meeting. We decided that we would try to issue an interim report early in case the government calls an election. We hope to issue a final report by May 15.
We also decided yesterday to meet on March 13 and March 20. On April 10, we will have a full day of hearings with witnesses from Quebec. Senator Lavoie-Roux has agreed to act as chair at that time. On April 16, we hope to hear representatives from Ontario. We will not be travelling to Toronto or Montreal.
Senator Andreychuk: Will we hear from the Minister of EDUCATION from Saskatchewan?
The Chairman: Yes. He will be here on April 17.
We will write our final report sometime after that.
The committee adjourned.