THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, February 9, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met with videoconference this day at 11:50 a.m. [ET] to study on foreign relations and international trade generally.
Senator Peter M. Boehm (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: My name is Peter Boehm. I am a senator from Ontario and the Chair of the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
Before we begin, I wish to invite committee members to introduce themselves.
Senator Ravalia: Welcome to all witnesses. Mohamed Ravalia, representing Newfoundland and Labrador.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: Amina Gerba from Quebec.
[English]
Senator Richards: David Richards from New Brunswick.
Senator Greene: Steve Greene, Nova Scotia.
Senator Boniface: Gwen Boniface, Ontario.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Nova Scotia.
Senator Cardozo: Andrew Cardozo from Ontario.
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo, British Columbia.
The Chair: I wish to welcome all Canadians who may be watching us across the country today.
What we are doing today under the general order of reference is continuing to mark International Development Week, which is taking place this year from February 5 to 11.
For the first part of our meeting, we are pleased and honoured to welcome Dr. Achim Steiner, the administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, who is joining us from UN headquarters in New York. He is a distinguished international public servant and has much to say and value to add, especially during these turbulent times. Unfortunately, we won’t have him for several hours, but we’ll have a good meeting, I think, nonetheless.
Welcome, Dr. Steiner, and thank you for being with us. It is good to see you again. The floor is yours for your opening statement, and then we will move to questions from senators.
Achim Steiner, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme: May I begin by thanking you for the privilege and the honour of addressing you today and during my visit to Canada at the end of last year. I very much precisely sought opportunities like this to engage with you as part of the United Nations but also as head of the United Nations Development Programme, a decade-long partner with Canada in addressing what at one point were more the development aid priorities of an international community working with developing countries.
One of the key messages to you today is that that era, in many ways, is and has come to an end for many countries. The issues we seek to address through our development corporation paradigm in our age have evolved from that original idea of technology transfer and expertise and training, especially in the context of multilateralism but also against the backdrop of challenges we face in our world today, to evolve that understanding of development and development cooperation as not a one-way transfer but rather a platform in which countries are able to co-invest in tackling some of the greatest risks and threats, not only to individual countries but to our global family of nations and to the 8 billion citizens that we are on this planet.
The 2015 summit led to the adoption of the sustainable 2030 agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, which are viewed as an articulation of aspirational goals. However, if you look at these SDG’s more carefully, they in some ways represent an articulation of the great risks to our future that need to be addressed through cooperation. Now, that may sound a little bit abstract, but when you go into the individual goals, you begin to recognize that in fact they carry within them enormous opportunities for cooperation, for technological and scientific collaboration. Take an issue such as climate change. I do not need to tell you how dependent we are on one another in addressing this, but you can take that same logic to the universe of digital and cyber crime and cyber warfare. On the back of the COVID-19 pandemic, you can take it into the realm of pandemic resilience and collaboration on some of the great threats we face, including antimicrobial resistance, for example. These are phenomena that, however wealthy or large a country or an economy may be, are simply not solvable, or not manageable, without a collaborative approach.
The development corporation proposition in our age I believe is one of co-investment and of codesigning responses that still take into account the fact that there are much wealthier nations and much poorer nations, and nations that, for example, have experienced extraordinary natural catastrophes. Here let me use this opportunity to express my sympathies and condolences to the people of Turkey and Syria who are living through a nightmare in these hours and days. But let me take you to Pakistan, just last year, and to those cataclysmic floods that covered one third of the country, essentially taking a nation of close to 200 million people and an economy to the precipice, on the back of a pandemic. How do we as an international community deal with both the humanitarian response but ultimately also the reconstruction and rehabilitation approach to such a crisis?
The development corporation should not only be driven by crisis. It is about a shared and common interests in finding ways to act together. Canada has been a pioneer. I say this out of personal conviction having been a student of development economics in times when Canada, both through its domestic policies but also its international development corporation programs, was a catalyst for many countries to rethink the approach, for instance, to develop not only through the lens of economic progress, but also looking at the social and environmental dimensions, leading in many countries to very progressive legislation and government policies being put in place.
UNDP has a long tradition with the human development report of challenging that view that development progress is best measured simply through an economic and financial lens. This is today accepted by most. The question is how do you then broaden that lens and understand what makes nations feel they are actually progressing human development aspirations and are becoming more resilient?
I would like to, if I may, chair, just end by drawing attention to the fact that we live in an age where, from a development perspective, we are faced with enormous setbacks. The pandemic, the current cost of living crisis and the energy crisis are all creating conditions where the UNDP estimate is there are 51 developing economies now in debt distress, one step away from essentially defaulting. These are situations in which we have to come together as an international community, particularly in this year when we will have an SDG summit here at the United Nations in September, the midway point to the year 2030.
I think it is critical that Canada also be a voice that allows us to recongregate around the goals that we identified in 2015, remarkably, with all nations adopting them, and not allow the fact that a pandemic and many other crises have not allowed us to meet the targets and indicators and to walk away from this Agenda 2030. It is a unifying agenda. It is, as former secretary general Ban Ki-moon once referred to it, a declaration of interdependence. It is in that paradigm that I believe Canada can play an extraordinarily important role to evolve that interpretation of a development mandate, whether through your bilateral institutions or through your United Nations and multilateral platforms, as truly the key to moving forward together faster.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Administrator Steiner.
[Translation]
Before we proceed to questions and answers, I wish to ask members and witnesses in the room to please refrain from leaning in too closely to their microphone or removing their earpiece when doing so. This will avoid any sound feedback that could negatively impact the committee staff and others in the room who may be wearing an earpiece for interpretation.
[English]
I wish to inform members that, because of our compressed time frame for this panel, you will each have a maximum of only three minutes, and that includes questions and answers. My usual advice to you of being as precise as you can be is even more pertinent. That will allow Dr. Steiner to provide as much information as he can. If we have time, we will go to a second round, as we often do.
Senator Coyle: Thank you very much, Mr. Steiner, for being with us. I know you are a very busy person and that there is much more you could have said to us.
I would like to take you back to your mention of Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. One of the beauties of that global commitment is that it isn’t just like the Millennium Development Goals, which were largely focused on the developing countries of the south. This is an agenda for the world and one not only to cooperate on but to ensure that each other succeeds.
We know the crises are causing all kinds of setbacks. Could you let us know whether there are any bright lights in terms of progress on the SDGs, be they the SDGs as goals or regional areas or countries that are progressing? Also, is there something we can learn — I’m always interested in positive deviance — where things are moving forward well? I’m interested in what we could learn for the next phase or the next big push that will have to happen to get us across the line for 2030. Thank you.
Mr. Steiner: Thank you, Senator Coyle.
I trust we will very much appreciate your recognition that Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals are the first ever agendas on development that truly encompass all nations. That was part of the recognition that in trying to solve the problem in one country, we depend upon the actions of others. That is as true for a developing country — for instance, depending upon industrialized countries — or vice versa. I only have a brief time, so let me give you a couple of bright lights. I think they illustrate that extraordinary things can happen.
One of those was, during the pandemic, seeing how digital inclusion took an enormous leap forward, whether in Canada, in Togo or in Bangladesh. Literally over a few days, we trained nurses and medical personnel to go online because people simply couldn’t move. We were able to provide advice in a country where, over the last 10 years, we had been working with the government to create digital access points across the entire country where no citizen now lives further away than four kilometres from a terminal where they can transact, for instance, the issuance of certificates and access information. In the past, that cost people days to go to a provincial capital to queue up for a land title. That leap forward — the initiative in Bangladesh is called a2i, access to information — is a great illustration of the kind of pivot that is possible.
I could take you to a country such as Kenya. Some of you might be aware that it is one of the pioneers of having brought digital payment systems into action. What is really remarkable here is that it was ultimately a decision by the Central Bank of Kenya to essentially allow a telephone company or operating entity to have overnight cash holdings in order to make cash transfers possible. It was done deliberately because it offered an experiment in broadening the scope of financial inclusion. As a result —
The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Steiner. I’m sorry to interrupt you, but we’re over the three minutes. It’s certainly an interesting topic.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: A few days ago, the United Nations Development Program, UNDP, released a report about the current instability in sub-Saharan African countries. The report points to the fact that, among other things, the lack of jobs is causing people to join terrorist groups. The report calls for international responses to focus on the long-term development of these regions rather than on security issues.
How can the stability and security of these regions be successfully balanced with their long-term development? What is UNDP’s strategy in this regard?
[English]
Mr. Steiner: Thank you.
The report you’re referring to was indeed one we just published, Journey to Extremism in Africa. It builds upon a piece of research work we did in 2017 where we went out and interviewed over 2,100 former combatants in eight countries to better understand what leads people to join violent extremist groups. That report is available now, and I hope you will have an opportunity to perhaps discuss it in due course, because its implications are profound.
First, while religious extremism may be a pull factor, so to speak, to attract people, in the surveys we have undertaken, it comes third or fourth. There are the push factors of trying to get a job and the livelihood desperation that are driving people to join violent extremist groups. You might find it ironic that there is even the expression of a sense that, in the absence of the development services of the state — schools, health, infrastructure, but also policing and courts — violent extremist groups provide communities an alternative to have some form of security and a justice system. Those are factors that we need to understand better in order to comprehend why there has been such an extraordinary expansion of violent extremist groups. We often blame it on the lure of religious extremism. That is too simplistic a response.
The second major conclusion is that a securitized response might, in the short term, create opportunity, but it is actually not a solution. In the Sahara, we witnessed the G5 collapse. We have seen billions of dollars invested in the military and police security apparatus to be able to respond. Ironically, many of the people who cited a trigger factor cited precisely the response with military and security apparatus as creating human rights violations and driving them into the arms of these groups.
Our approach is fundamentally different. We have rethought it in our identity crisis. We call it stabilization. We have to begin to build communities from the ground up — a marketplace, a police station, a school, a health centre — working with local authorities and create the conditions where people believe again in the viability of a nation-state-led process. That is a long journey —
The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Steiner. Sorry to interrupt you again, but we must move on to other questions.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you, Mr. Steiner.
You have alluded to foundational elements for catalyzing local development, co-investment and cooperation. The UNDP has stated that using methods such as foresight and horizon scanning would chart new ways forward. Could you elaborate on what that terminology means?
Mr. Steiner: Thank you.
In many of the developing nations — and this goes back to my point at the beginning — we are no longer dealing with a situation of access to information and technology where people with education are not available in the local labour markets. Institutions and entrepreneurship in many countries across the developing world are thriving. They are solution providers.
But one fundamental challenge they face is access to finance, for instance. We need to better understand how it is that we can co-invest in that young generation of start-up entrepreneurs. In Africa, for instance, surprisingly many go into the health services sector with new solutions and offers that are there. They are looking at the electrification of local transport. In Rwanda today, there is a private company that is introducing battery charging services for motorcycle taxis. The motorcycle drives up, swaps the battery and continues to drive. Those are entrepreneurial solutions. Who will finance those? Africa still pays an extraordinary premium on borrowing capital, which is one reason we are focusing a great deal in UNDP on helping governments raise STP bonds in the market.
Uruguay last year, with a sustainability-linked performance bond to the capital markets, raised $1.5 billion. Its interest rate is linked to its performance on forestry cover and carbon emissions. It over-performs and the interest rate goes down; it underperforms and the interest rate goes up. The finance minister is now involved in the planning and land-use policy decisions of the country. Those are the kinds of approaches — you asked about foresight and horizon scanning — which are techniques to try to help countries recognize possible futures and then work backward into policy decisions today. It’s not magic but a sharper focus on helping countries work with the future possibilities of new digital financial market possibilities, for instance, and then adjust their domestic policy response in the economy of today.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you.
Senator Woo: Mr. Steiner, you reminded us that the new paradigm of international development is not one-way transfer but it’s interdependence. Yet, interdependence is under threat because of growing protectionism, the desire to friend-shore, to shorten supply chains, and because of geopolitical conflict more generally — what might be called deglobalization, to use the cliché. Can you comment on how serious the threat of deglobalization is to the development prospects of the global south?
Mr. Steiner: Thank you, senator. That is a very vital question at this moment in time.
In a very personal sense, let me be, in telegraphic terms, very clear. I do not believe that deglobalization is ultimately a way in which the global family of 193 nations will move. We will see shifts. We will see offshoring and onshoring. We will see politically induced investment decisions perhaps not just going to where the cheapest location for production is in the future. Global supply chains clearly have proven that we have to have a more resilient approach.
I think of the sheer economics of cost differentials where resources are found and also where technology is emerging today. We need to be careful that the age of where technology was only developed in developed countries, OECD economies, is long past. Just take a simple fact: China and its investments in renewable energy. More than 50% of the production capacity for renewable energy technology today is in China, one third of all installed renewable energy infrastructure. India is investing 480,000 megawatts of new renewable energy infrastructure by 2030.
We have the digital economy. I think we need to, in a sense, recognize that there are shifts that are going to occur. We need to ensure that the global south is ultimately not excluded by virtue of dividing the world into what the secretary-general has sometimes called a “G2 world.” I think there needs to be more deliberate decision making, because ultimately my departure point was our interdependence, and the SDGs are, in fact, a very good template to look at the potential risks of deglobalization from the point of view of saying we’re going to essentially retreat within our national borders. I think we need a more deliberate and more strategic investment in our capacity to invest in a global economic pathway to advancing. Otherwise migration, global insecurity and terrorism simply will have even more space to thrive and expand.
Senator Boniface: Thank you for joining us.
My question really follows on Senator Woo’s, which was the question I was going to ask you. You did say in your comments that Canada needs to rally around the goals and has a very important role to play. If you were advising Canada, what would be the three or four steps you would suggest we should be doing?
Mr. Steiner: That’s a very good question and a tough one perhaps to answer because you understand so much better the political arena.
Let me share with you that just 10 days ago I was invited by the German interministerial deputy ministers committee, which is the intergovernmental platform in which decisions for the cabinet are prepared, in order to draft a new SDG strategy for the German economy and the German government. I mention this because Germany has been, perhaps like quite a number of OECD nations, fairly comfortable in its self-perception that actually for us the SDGs don’t bring much new value because we are already there in so many respects. First, that is not true, but out of that arose a certain complacency that this is for developing countries or poorer countries.
In fact, Japan took an entirely different decision, remarkably to all of us. Of adults in Japan, 80% to 90% know about the SDGs. The SDG implementation office was put straight in the Prime Minister’s Office when the SDGs were adopted through multiple administrations. The entrepreneurial sector in Japan is very much engaged in Society 5.0, the next strategy for economic development, and having the SDGs is integral to it.
We need public awareness and public appreciation in Canada that the SDGs, first of all, are a useful way to look at development, at inequalities and at big decisions on sustainability, but as well, they are also the terms of engagement. We live in a world increasingly divided, with many differences. We may have different values, but we need some way of being able to interact and cooperate or at least coordinate with one another. The SDGs are that template that allows us to work together. It is the only piece of, let’s say, a global agenda currently endorsed and adopted by all countries on earth. That’s why I would say the second priority into the summit in September here at the United Nations that Canada’s voice, Canada’s leadership, including bringing together the current financial economic crisis with a renewed stimulus for SDG progress, could be a way forward.
These are two aspects that I think perhaps help sharpen a priority list for Canada, but I do it with all humility, because you know much better what topics may also resonate with Canadian citizens more.
Senator Cardozo: Thank you, Mr. Steiner, for your very informative discussion here.
I’d like to get your advice and observations on public opinion. I was at an event yesterday where members of Parliament from all parties in Canada talked about international development and also mentioned they don’t hear a lot from their constituents about it. I wonder if it’s similar in other countries, in other developed countries, and what your advice might be about how we inform or include people more in this discussion?
Mr. Steiner: Thank you. That is perhaps amongst the most important questions.
I think I will not surprise you if I confirm that, in many developed countries today, there are two kinds of narratives that are unfolding. One is we have enough troubles at home; why should we send money somewhere else? Our schools are not working, our public infrastructure, our health system. But here I think is perhaps also another way of looking at this. Most of our citizens think we spend extraordinary amounts of money on development cooperation. If I may remind you, the current figure for OECD countries investing in Official Development Assistance, or ODA, is 0.33% of their GNP. In the world in which we live, in which we have such fundamental transformations that we are asking 8 billion people to undertake on energy transitions, on pandemic resilience, on a digital-inclusive economy, do we really believe we will achieve that with 0.33%, of the wealthiest nations on earth co-investing in the less wealthy ones? It is a formula that is distorted. You will often find in public opinion surveys that people think we give far more. In fact, Canada also — and I say this with all the respect and admiration for Canada — is amongst one of the lower countries in how much it is actually taking of its own wealth to invest in that global commitment to one another — certain, let’s say, global contracts on helping countries less able to invest in these transitions to be a partner.
We need to rethink the development finance paradigm not just with taxpayers’ money and public finance, but it’s critical that we take that but also private sector investment. I think of co‑investing, creating the conditions for pension funds, for banks, for financial institutions to be more willing or be, let’s say, supported in taking greater risks, investing not just in the great G20 economies of the world is a fundamental part of addressing this. Let me be very clear. It is, in fact, private finance that will be the multiplier for many of these transitions.
We need to have our citizens, first of all, recognize the proportion we are currently investing, and second, how critical a lack of investment is to triggering a crisis on which we will then spend multiples of that in dealing with it. Third, I think our citizens remain fundamentally open to helping others, to investing in others, but if all they hear about are failures, then we’re also making them believe that everything we do is a failure and that the story of development in the 20th century is not a story of failure. We are failing — I include myself and all of us in the UN also in this — to be able to convey to our citizens why these investments have had extraordinary impacts.
The Chair: Thank you. I would remind colleagues we are at three-minute intervals. There are several senators who want to ask in the second round and we’ll try to accommodate as much as possible.
Senator Housakos: In 2015, member states of the United Nations set 17 global development goals to be achieved by 2030. According to a midterm report produced by the United Nations, almost no objectives have been met.
Concerning the life-on-land component of SDG objective 15, the interim report states that around 40,000 species are at risk of extinction over the coming decades. Concerning peace, justice and strong institutions — objective 16 — the interim report states that a quarter of the global population lived in conflict‑afflicted countries in 2020. As of May 2022, a record 100 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide.
Yet here is what Prime Minister Trudeau stated earlier this week:
Canada is also doing its part to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 SDGs to put us on an inclusive and resilient path toward ending poverty and hunger, achieving equality, and creating sustainable economic growth while protecting the planet.
The question is simple: How could the Prime Minister make this claim, and how much longer will we pretend that the money we’re spending and the strategy we’re using are working? At what point do we pivot and find another strategy in order to be able to meet the objectives that we set?
Mr. Steiner: It’s a fair question, senator. My answer is in two parts.
First of all, when we met in 2015, we did not have a global pandemic on our radar. Therefore, the targets and indicators that we designed in 2015 were not without justification, but we faced an unprecedented situation, as you know better than most, that caused all our countries, including Canada, to have to take unprecedented steps to cope with that. In the UN Human Development report, we estimated that by 2021, the cumulative impact of what was happening with COVID has left us somewhere in the year 2016 in terms of development progress. The fact that we faced those setbacks does not automatically put into question the logic of working on the 17 global goals. If you go back to what I said earlier, turn them on their heads and turn them into risks that are essentially facing us as a global community.
Second, the investments we have made so far are fairly minimal. Just look at what we were able, forced and committed to deploying in our wealthier countries to deal with the COVID-19 crisis with energy, security and the energy price crisis. We have taken volumes of finances that are without precedent in order to help us through this crisis. For most developing countries, there is no more fiscal space. They are indebted right now in just having to cope with this crisis.
If you do not, in a sense, negate the logic of these topics being critical to our common future, then being able to invest in a recovery and, by all means, also rethinking where there are some priorities — that can work. You cited the report in terms of the SDGs underperforming, and when you add everything up and divide it by the number of countries, the averages are always below where you want to be, but there are extraordinary success stories. Hundreds of millions of women today, because of digital technologies, have access to the financial system for the first time in history. A country like Uruguay is already producing more than 95% of its electricity today with renewables because investments were made. There are tremendous breakthrough stories, such as in India with 480,000 megawatts of renewables being put in place. Every Canadian citizen in the future will be a beneficiary of that decarbonization of India’s system. Those are not —
The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Steiner. I apologize for intervening again, but we’ve gone over there.
Senator Richards: Thank you, sir, for being here.
You just answered my question, which Senator Housakos just asked. However, I will ask it in a different way. I agree with you. All the help we can give the world is great. I just don’t know if it’s working. Do we know that the foreign capital we give to the people that it was supposed to help is actually helping? These are interdependent projects, but the countries have their own political desires and ambitions. Since this has gone on as long as I’ve been alive, if the plans of development were going to work, they might not have already worked in a better way. Peru, for example, is in a deep political crisis but still needs our international aid. We don’t know what’s going to happen there with the military and the new president. How do we focus on these things to make these entrepreneurships work in ways that will benefit the most people?
Mr. Steiner: Thank you, Senator Richards.
Again, obviously those are challenging, complex topics, and your question would require a sophisticated answer. However, let me first ask this: Is the story of development really such a story of failure? Let’s not even look across international borders; let’s go back to Canada. The story of Canada is an extraordinary story of development success and also some spectacular development failures, sometimes in public policy, markets or business. But no one would deny that the story of Canada’s development over the last 100 years is a phenomenal story of success and progress, whether in terms of life expectancy, health or infrastructure.
Frankly, the same is true for other nations. We often forget that 250 years ago, there were 1 billion people on this planet. Nine out of 10 of those 1 billion people lived in extreme poverty. Today, there are 8 billion people on this planet. We are able to feed ourselves, and only 1 to 2 out of 10 live in extreme poverty. This is the story of 100 or 150 years of modernization and development. We sometimes judge too harshly the struggles that developing countries have. There are setbacks. We had the Second World War in Europe. We have another war in Europe right now. There are those terrible moments where we as humans commit grave errors. It is continuing to happen in individual countries. You cited Peru. It’s in the midst of an extraordinary crisis, but then there are other countries that have reformed and put social programs in place or advanced economically. I don’t think the statistics and the underlying track record of development corporations and development investments are of failure.
However, to go back to the earlier question, it is a debate we have to take back into the public so that we don’t only talk about the deviant factors that went wrong. The underlying progress is also a fact of our common heritage as nations having worked together after the Second World War.
The Chair: I have one quick question that I would like to ask as chair.
Given the tremendous impacts the pandemic has had — its knock-on economic effects, the fact that some emerging economies might be slipping back into an ODA-able status, the food security crisis and ongoing concerns in terms of the displacement of peoples — are the donor countries, in your view, being creative enough in looking at the future and how to adapt their development policies accordingly?
Mr. Steiner: To be very frank, chair, the answer is “no.”
There is the fact that we have been trying for years to figure out a better way to deal with GDP per capita and the notion of graduation, for instance, of developing countries. There is an alternative concept that is being looked at, which is the multidimensional vulnerability index. Take small island developing states in the Caribbean. In a matter of six hours, you can have 10%, 20% or 30% of your GDP wiped out, but they are considered middle- or upper-middle income countries that don’t qualify for the kinds of support that would allow a country to recover from that.
We need to look broader. The UNDP in the last few years has invested in a risk insurance and finance facility because we are working with some of the leading insurance companies around the world to deploy actuarial science and bring insurance as a way of mitigating the risks from extreme weather events or, for instance, through better pricing of risk, to make micro-health insurance a bridge for countries to be able to give their citizens better opportunities to access health care without having to wait for a national health service being financeable.
The bottom line is that the financing of development is essentially stuck in the 20th century aid mode. We often say that developing countries will not act unless they receive funding. Look at the climate negotiations: $100 billion promised for over 10 years now to the developing world. You know that developing countries are investing hundreds of billions every year in the energy transition. We need to change the optics.
I will go back to where I began: We need to co-invest in one another. Public funding, private sector capital — it’s the only way that we can actually succeed in making these transitions happen.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Administrator Steiner. On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you for joining us today and enriching our deliberations during International Development Week. I suspect we might see each other next week in your native country.
Colleagues, moving to our second panel, you will each have a maximum of four minutes for the question and answer, so a little bit more leeway.
Joining us today — and we’re pleased to welcome — from Global Affairs Canada are Christopher MacLennan, Deputy Minister, International Development; Peter MacDougall, Assistant Deputy Minister, Global Issues and Development; Patricia Peña, Assistant Deputy Minister, Partnerships for Development Innovation; Christopher Gibbins, Executive Director, Afghanistan-Pakistan; and Sébastien Sigouin, Executive Director, Haiti.
Mr. MacLennan, we are ready for an opening statement.
[Translation]
Christopher MacLennan, Deputy Minister, International Development, Global Affairs Canada: Thank you very much, Mr. Boehm. It is a pleasure to be here again. I am very pleased that you have made the decision during this International Development Week to hear testimony to learn more.
I was appointed Deputy Minister of International Development a year ago, and I can tell you frankly that the past year has been full of geostrategic upheaval in the world, given that we are increasingly talking about crises.
[English]
It has been, over the past year, an interesting year for those of us who are immersed in global affairs and international issues. I think we’ve all recognized that we are living through a very particular period, a period that has destabilized many aspects of the world. We’ve seen war in Europe, which many thought would never occur again. We are seeing increasingly the impacts of climate change across all aspects of global development and the global economy. We’ve seen a setback in women’s rights in places like Afghanistan. It has been a tough year.
What I can say is that it has been a year in which developing countries are also struggling to adapt, shift and deal with these overlapping crises that started probably with COVID-19 in terms of making the issues acute. I know you just heard a great deal about issues around debt from Mr. Steiner.
I can say that for the Government of Canada, having the Feminist International Assistance Policy is a bit of an anchor in what are, quite honestly, seas that are pretty rough right now. It provides a clear feminist approach to addressing and seeking out ways to reduce poverty in the world, to ensure the most vulnerable are focused upon and that issues around gender equality and human rights are at the centre of all of our development interventions.
These interventions are broad-based. We do a great deal around the world. We work a great deal in the areas that you all know well: global health, sexual reproductive health and rights, education — education particularly for girls and young women in refugee and crisis areas.
But we’re increasingly looking to do more, and we’re doing more through our climate change. We have had to adapt our climate financing to adjust to climate-smart agriculture with the food crisis that has kind of sprung up over the past year, but one that actually pre-exists the war in Ukraine.
It has been a year in which we have had to respond to and accept that developing countries are now also setting the table for conversations. It is no longer a conversation about what the donor world can do for developing countries and that developing countries weren’t often even invited to those conversations, but rather it is a world in which we are seeing developing countries set the table for conversations on energy transitions, food security and what’s required in the world.
In one of my other duties, I am also the G20 representative for the Prime Minister. This year and last year, it was hosted by developing countries. It was India this year. Next year, it will be a developing country, and the year after that it will be a developing country. Different perspectives are at the table, and it better informs Canada’s foreign policy and our role in the world.
With that, I will stop. I wasn’t sure if there was a particular element of international development you wanted to speak to, so I thought I would keep my remarks at a strategic level.
The Chair: Thank you very much. There will be many elements, I think, that will come forward in the Qs and As.
Senator Housakos: The government has a strong rhetorical commitment to the UN international development goals, but Canada has fallen short, in my opinion, compared to many Western countries. We invest far lower compared to other Western countries in terms of our GDP. I would like to know your opinion as to whether our aid is concentrated enough, and maybe it is too broad in the way we’re working right now. I know the previous government wanted to concentrate aid more in specific cases, similar to what Australia does.
The second question comes from Montrealers of Haitian descent. They are very concerned that in Haiti a criminocracy has developed and that there are number of individuals who are taking advantage of Canadian taxpayers’ money at the expense of the Haitian people, and, of course, are now using it to launder that money while living comfortably back here in Canada.
Can you address both those questions?
Mr. MacLennan: Your first question is a very good question, and it goes to heart of one of the debates that exists in international development assistance, and it has existed from the beginnings of development aid, going all the way back to the Marshall Plan and the Colombo Plan. That is, there are fewer resources than there are needs. That’s a bedrock statement of fact. So the question always becomes: How best do you focus your limited resources against a large number of needs?
There have been times in our past where we decided we would focus on fewer countries and fewer sectors of activity and do it at a greater scale. That brings with it certain advantages, one being that at a bigger scale, your projects are larger, and presumably, you get more results for the efforts you are undertaking.
However, there are arguments in favour of having a broader approach — for example, regional programming, which often is considered not to be focused. In regional programming, sometimes it’s just the reality that over a period of four, five or six years, you can’t predict political or security challenges you will face. For example, when we work in a place like the Sahel, one thing we think clearly about is if we have to pivot. If an area becomes too dangerous and we can no longer do our programming, are we able to move to a different country and continue to see results? Because things such as, for example, agriculture and trading systems don’t always respect borders. They work in a systemic way in an area. We sometimes think about how to program in an area as a counterpoint.
I don’t think there is an actual right answer to the debate, to be perfectly frank. I think there are occasions where we’re very cognizant of the fact that if we could increase the amount of spending we have and go to scale, we could get greater results in Country X. At the same time, in another country, a small investment can make a world of difference, and being a partner can make a world of difference as well. It’s something we struggle with regularly.
On the question of Haiti, obviously Haiti is an incredibly complex situation right now. It is something that, quite honestly, personally saddens me. This is a place where Canada has invested and has tried, to the best of our ability, to accompany the Haitian people, particularly following the tragic earthquake from almost 10 years ago now. It’s going to require a very multifaceted response. There is no development solution for Haiti. I don’t believe there is a single security solution for Haiti. I think it requires a multifaceted response.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you very much to our witnesses.
To what extent has our support for the war in Ukraine impacted our ability to continue to focus on other flashpoints in areas of need? There is a perception that crisis response and development aid may have underpinnings of cultural and racial bias. Would you comment on that?
Mr. MacLennan: Yes. That has been a common refrain that we’ve seen, quite honestly, over the past year. A lot of it stems from Russian disinformation, attempts by the Russians to make the argument that the West is only responding to Ukraine and that it is abandoning the global south. Quite honestly, there is no truth in that.
That being said, Ukraine required an immediate response from a humanitarian perspective. At the time that it happened, at the time of the invasion, it created at that moment the single-largest displacement of people in the world in very rapid onset. It required an immediate humanitarian response in terms of food security, basic goods and services, shelter and whatnot for the people fleeing. At the same time, and this is outside of my responsibility, but in terms of supporting the Ukrainian government and people, it required military assistance, and Canada and the G7 and NATO, in particular, are proud to have supported the Ukrainian people against in what is an illegal invasion. That has been the core response.
But I can tell you from sitting around the G20 table on a regular basis, we are keenly aware, as are all of the donors, that the rest of the world has also paid a price. The most immediate impact was the shock to the food security system, and it was a shock. I did say previously that the food security crisis in the world predates Ukraine, but what happened in the Black Sea created a shock to the system that lasted for many months. We needed to respond to that by scaling up our food security interventions, and that’s one thing Canada did. We increased the amount of food aid globally by providing support to the World Food Programme as an example.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you.
Senator Boniface: First of all, thank you all for being here, and thank you for the work you do on behalf of Canada.
I was interested in your reference to how you prioritize. I’m coming from a different perspective in terms of security-related issues. How do you prioritize projects? You referred to the macro-level regional basis. Certainly, we heard yesterday about some of the micro projects going directly into local communities that make a difference and help stabilize the security and safety of citizens in that community. Can you tell us about how you make those decisions around those types of priorities?
Mr. MacLennan: It happens at various levels, to be perfectly frank.
One of my daily jobs is the oversight of the entire budget, and that means some rather boring meetings about allocations on a regular basis to all the component parts of Global Affairs Canada, thinking about which partners we work with most closely. Some of those discussions are driven by where in the world Canada wants to be and where are the world’s poorest. For us, sub-Saharan Africa is clearly one of the most pressing global challenges in terms of addressing the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable. We direct more of our funding to those places. In the Americas, it’s Haiti. In Southeast Asia, it’s Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
After that, we follow our Feminist International Assistance Policy and the priorities that the government has set for the department, such as global health, which has been a long‑standing priority of the Government of Canada for 10, 12, 15 years, quite honestly. Maternal, newborn and child health and sexual reproductive health and rights occupy a significant portion of what we do. We have teams around the world. Our teams seek out working with local governments and local national governments and with the partners who are active on the ground to identify what are the very best projects that Canada can contribute to that align with the priorities that have been set through the Feminist International Assistance Policy. There is a huge challenge in ensuring that those are the best projects they can be, but normally — and this is something important to understand — they are anywhere between three and five years in length, so it’s incumbent upon us to work with the partner hand in hand over the period of that project.
Our goal is always to improve it as it goes along, but also to be cognizant of the fact that situations change on the ground. Circumstances will change. You mentioned security as a particular one, and security often has to be built right into our risk assessment of what projects we can undertake in what regions and what are some of the mitigation measures we can put in place to protect the development workers on the ground as well as the recipients. We have had examples of, unfortunately, vaccine workers being attacked. It’s built into every project that we have.
Senator Coyle: Thank you all for being with us. What a great week to celebrate the work that you’re all involved in. It has been near and dear to my heart. I have been involved, as you know, since 1980, which tells you how old I am.
One of the things my colleague raised in the last session was the issue of the support among the Canadian public for Canada’s international cooperation work. Also, this committee, as you know, is looking at our foreign service. When we were in Washington before Christmas, we talked with the State Department people about what they’re doing. One of the things they talked about was State Department staff actually doing what they call “in-reach,” putting more attention to informing Americans in that case about what the U.S. is doing internationally and engaging with people in discussion. I don’t just mean going to the Munk School and talking to the converted. What are we currently doing, either generally in terms of Canada’s work in the world and bringing that to Canadians and having them engage with that, but also on the international development side? We have Ms. Peña here from the partnerships area. There used to be something called PPP, where all of us who were involved in development and Canadian organizations got resources to engage with Canadians on what Canada was doing in the world. I am curious to know what your thinking is and what we’re currently doing and what you think we should be doing.
Mr. MacLennan: I think that’s a fantastic question.
I’ve been working for the Government of Canada in the area of international development for many years, and it is a perennial challenge. We have done some things very well. This week is a great example of one thing we have done very well. It has now been 33 years that we have been doing International Development Week. Its purpose is exactly what you have laid out. Its purpose is to highlight not only what Canada does in the world but the importance of why Canada does what it does in the world — the importance that it means to Canadians themselves, to their safety, security and their role in the world, but also the good that we’re able to do for the most vulnerable and for the poor. This is a great example of that.
We’ve had moments in the past where we’ve ramped up and been more dedicated in our efforts to maintain that outreach. You might be surprised that the Munk School isn’t all that converted all the time for everything we do. I think even with universities there is much that we could be doing to improve. I do recall one time when we had Canadian troops in Afghanistan. We did something called Afghanistan 360, which was a multimedia show that we took on the road to demonstrate to Canadians everything that we were doing in Afghanistan. I think there are opportunities to do more of those types of things.
Patricia Peña, Assistant Deputy Minister, Partnerships for Development Innovation, Global Affairs Canada: You referred to PPP. We do public engagement activities as well. The way we understand this is connecting the whole development assistance package with communicating to Canadians and engaging them in our activities abroad.
I was in Winnipeg last week meeting with Canadian Cooperation members and had a chance to go to a school and see an activity taking place with youth where we were talking about the Sustainable Development Goals but not using the fancy language — if you use some of the fancy language, they turn off. Anyone who has teenagers understands that — speaking to them about issues connecting their domestic experience, their everyday lives in Canada, and saying that same thing is happening elsewhere. Those are small initiatives, but they are important. It’s about building a generation of people who understand that domestic is connected.
We still have it as part of our work. It’s a modest part, so we can’t overestimate it, but it is an important part of what we consider as being part of our broader partnership.
Senator Cardozo: Thank you for those answers. I’d like to go further on the question Senator Coyle asked.
In terms of public policy, you mentioned you have done things that are modest. I would say we need to go beyond modest. I was at an event yesterday where members of Parliament from all parties talked and were in favour of international development but said they rarely hear about it from their constituents at the door. How do we get to the people who are not in international affairs programs in universities? How do we get to the people who are having trouble with their school, or not able to get a family doctor and so forth? How do we convince them that this is important?
If I could also build on Senator Housakos’ question, could give us more detail about who you can be talking to in Haiti? Haitians and Haitian Canadians say, “Don’t tell us what has to be done. Talk to us.” Who is the “us” you would be talking to?
Mr. MacLennan: I will start with the second one. In Haiti, there are ways of finding out what the Haitian people are thinking. For example, we work with a variety of partners on the ground still today. It has been a challenge to continue the programming that we have. We’ve allowed many of our partners to pivot because they have had to adjust to the situation on the ground. Those partners are living and breathing the Haitian experience right now. They are Haitians. There are many in the civil society. I would argue that it’s in the civil society in Haiti where you can get a different view than the one you will get from the current government or from the Haitian National Police. That’s one avenue.
Going back to your previous point, though, both Patricia and I were at the same event. I took due note of what each of the MPs said, and it resonates. We as a government need to do a better job to draw the linkages between what’s going on in the world and how it affects Canadians, and how international development assistance and humanitarian assistance are tools that are used in the interests of Canadians.
The best example of that is COVID-19. Patricia and I have been in this business for a while. We’ve talked about the pandemic. That was fundamentally one of the reasons why we focused on health systems strengthening in the countries in which we work, and it has been, as I mentioned already, a longing-standing priority of the Government of Canada to help in the health sector. One of the things we often raised was that one day there will be a pandemic, and we will be dependent on the surveillance systems that exist in developing countries and their ability to track all of the things that we all learned sitting at home in our basements. We all learned that, all of a sudden, this is what infectious disease control is about. And guess what? You can’t do it by yourself. You are dependent on the rest of the world as well.
To me, it’s about drawing those lines to show that the work we’re doing has a direct impact on Canada as well. But we have to do a better job of it. We’ve tried, and it’s tough.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: I welcome our witnesses. Thank you for being here today.
I have seen the evolution of GAC — Global Affairs Canada — which used to be CIDA, the Canadian International Development Agency. I worked there at one time, too. At the time of CIDA, the industrial cooperation sector had a certain approach to international development.
Today, African countries are advocating more for the development of their infrastructure rather than humanitarian aid. This is a paradigm shift that is in line with the African Union’s Agenda 2063, The Africa We Want. I am wondering — and I’m not asking for a scoop on the strategy that’s underway — whether Canada is taking into account that approach today and these changes that are happening in Africa.
When you go there, you know, you see announcements that talk about Canada’s investments in Sudan, in Kenya, all over the place — we’re investing a lot. However, we have the impression that, on the ground, it is not visible, and even less so here. With regard to the previous questions, we have the impression that this is not producing concrete results even though a lot of money is invested. Aid has gone from 6.1 to 8; it’s going up every day.
What we would like to know, if I take the case of sub-Saharan African countries, is whether their behaviour is being observed. Are we adjusting the Canadian approach to our aid to these countries?
Mr. MacLennan: The answer is yes. In November, Mr. Faki, who is the chairperson of the African Union, came to Canada for a series of meetings.
I attended a meeting with my minister and the Minister of International Trade, Ms. Ng, precisely because Canada wanted to send a clear message that the Canada-Africa relationship needs to move from a developmental relationship to a trade relationship. The two go together.
You mentioned a former program, the Investment Cooperation Program, INC. Since then, we’ve had new programs that help us tremendously.
The first thing is the creation of FinDev Canada, a development finance institution, DFI, with Africa as one of its priorities. These are loans and grants that address Africa’s business needs by touching on priorities like climate change and energy transitions, and so on.
We also have two new programs within Global Affairs Canada that enable us to do more than just provide grants and contributions. They enable us to get into the loan system so that we can fund young women entrepreneurs, for example.
I will stop there.
[English]
Senator Woo: Thanks to the witnesses.
I want to pick up on your comment that you are no longer just providing aid to developing countries but working with them. They’re setting the table, I think was the phrase you used. I want to ask you what Canada is learning from them in terms of development practice, particularly the ones who have graduated or are near graduating. One thing you will know from your many years of work in development is that there are fads in development practice, and one of the things that has come back is infrastructure development. This was the hot thing in the 1950s and 1960s, but it’s back.
Mr. MacLennan: That’s right.
Senator Woo: Are we humble enough to learn from countries that have actually developed very rapidly in the last 20 or 30 years, and what are the things we have learned from them?
Mr. MacLennan: That is a fantastic question.
It requires a change in mindset. As somebody who has had a great deal of experience sitting around G7 tables, G7 tables feel very comfortable. They are our friends. They are our allies. It’s a very comfortable conversation. The G20 table is a less comfortable conversation. There are partners there around that table that, quite honestly, we don’t get along with at all. But, more importantly, there is a difference of perspectives on the global challenges that we all face.
I’ll speak very personally about the value that I’ve been able to bring back to the ministry from listening to colleagues from Saudi Arabia, from South Korea — if you want to choose a perfect example of a country that has managed to develop and has proven it. There is so much for us to learn. I think as part of our Indo-Pacific Strategy that the government has recently announced, that’s an element of it. We know that in East Asia, this is an area of economic growth, this is an area of incredible innovation and dynamism, and Canada needs to be there.
I’ll just leave off on one other note, though, in terms of the question of development. Recently at a meeting, somebody came to me and said, “You know, none of us have actually developed in the world, not sustainably.” Nobody has the secret recipe for what a sustainable development model looks like. We are all trying to get there, and many of us have the 2050 goal of a carbon-neutral footprint, but the truth is, none of us have figured it out, and there is much to be learned from other countries on how we all work along that path to get ourselves there, because Canada still has a long way to go as well.
The Chair: I’m going to use my privilege as chair to ask a question, but first I just wanted to say that sitting around the G7 table is not always comfortable. But I take the point, Mr. MacLennan.
I think you were in the room when I asked Administrator Steiner about creativity in the donor community. I think everyone recognizes that there are so many pressures that require reactions and the unexpected and all of that, but is there any critical, creative thinking going on in terms of how to do things differently? There are countries who are very much invested in international development and have been thought leaders for years. I’m thinking of the Nordic countries; I’m thinking of the United Kingdom, as well, in its time, and, of course, the Americans. I like to think we’ve made a contribution as well. Is there any sort of collegial way to push some of these issues and bring them into a policy dimension?
Mr. MacLennan: That’s a great question.
There is an annual meeting of the heads of development organizations that’s called “Tidewater.” It’s organized by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the OECD, every year, and it’s an opportunity for the heads of the organizations around the world to take two days and just reflect on the year and reflect on what the big challenges are.
The OECD used to play a more preponderant role, in my view, in terms of setting the big agendas of what we needed to talk about in terms of development assistance globally and how we can better use our tools in conjunction with one another. I can think back to debates in the 2000s, for example, around aid effectiveness. They drove that conversation on aid effectiveness. They understood that the quid pro quo for increases in development assistance was that that development assistance had to be effective. But what does “effective” mean? How do you frame that off in a way that we can all speak to one another? My personal view is that recently I have not seen much of that leadership from the OECD over the last couple of years.
COVID did not help. That ability to meet in person is really critical, and the meeting that I went to just this past June was the first one in three years. So that hasn’t been helpful.
There are some areas, though, where I think there is fascinating innovation taking place, and it’s innovation — the best innovation always comes from necessity — in the multilateral development bank world. I think we all recognize that the fundamental purpose of the Bretton Woods System that was created at the end of World War II was to help with reconstruction. It’s called the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, let’s not forget. Its fundamental purpose was, really, to help developing countries move along the path of development. Donors can contribute a great deal, but it’s those banks that act, truly, at scale.
Over the past year, we’ve launched some really interesting work. It was referred to more specifically in the G20 communiqué of this past year as one of the primary pieces of work that needs to be done over the course of this year, and that is how we can rev up the bank system. How can we increase the amount of capital that they can push out to developing countries to push them along their development path? There is a lot of work that needs to be done, because we are shareholders in those banks, but our view is, quite honestly, that they’re not maximizing the capital that they have to deliver greater development results.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
We’ll move to round two.
Senator Housakos: My question goes back to the fact that there are some regimes and some fraudulent players that take advantage of the aid that we send to these countries, with all the good intentions. We have specific examples in Haiti. What kind of processes do we have in place to make sure that we limit the possibility of fraud? More importantly, once we know there are individuals who have infringed upon human rights, that have participated with regimes in fraudulent behaviour and then they find themselves living in Canada — and we have a number of cases of Haitian individuals who are intricately involved with the regime down there and have done some atrocious things and are now living in Montreal. We’re not using tools at our disposal to recuperate the proceeds that they have fraudulently gotten their hands on to send the message that Canada won’t tolerate this behaviour. What are the workings with the RCMP and other departments in order to go after these people?
Mr. MacLennan: Starting with the question of process, it would come as no surprise to you that we work in some of the most difficult parts of the world, some of the riskiest parts of the world. So the discussion around risk tolerance in Global Affairs Canada is a live discussion at all times because we have to try and balance, to the best of our ability, the absolute bedrock understanding that fraud cannot be tolerated under any circumstances, that the misdirection of Canadian taxpayers’ dollars cannot be tolerated under any circumstances, but at the same time, that we work in really difficult parts of the world and that we have to find ways to balance our processes to ensure that we can continue to operate while at the same time taking account of all of that.
Over the years, we have put in place, some would argue too rigorous, processes that lead to long delays and bureaucracy, and we are working very diligently, actually under Patricia’s guidance, to completely revamp our grants and contributions processes, revamping with a view towards making them more efficient, making them easier for the users — i.e., our partners on the ground — to use, but also our partners in-country who have complained about onerous reporting requirements and whatnot. One of the core elements and principles of that is that it cannot at any point make fraud easier. We’ve always built that into the very system that we have, and we have processes to identify when it takes place.
With respect to Haiti, in terms of what we do, I’m personally not aware of individuals that have absconded with Canadian funds and then moved to Canada. I’m unaware of that. We can confirm that, but I’m not aware of that. In terms of how they’re treated in Canada, maybe the Deputy Minister of Public Safety would be better placed to explain what the processes are for responding to those circumstances where there are accusations of fraudulent behaviour or human rights abuses, as you say, in another country, once they are in Canada.
Senator Boniface: I’ll come back to the issue. You may have misunderstood me. I was thinking of the safety of women and the feminist agenda being able to actually do something day to day. That’s where I was coming from, and I’m trying to understand how you balance all of that out.
Late last year I was at a meeting with a number of NGOs that have international funding from all different countries, and what I heard from them is that Canada is one of the toughest to try to get approvals, and I think some would interpret risk averse. I very much appreciate rigour, but what I was hearing was something very different collectively around the table. How are you addressing that? Obviously, you’re aware of it, so I would be interested in how you’re addressing that perception from NGOs.
Mr. MacLennan: I’ll give due warning to my colleague here. I’ll address the first part of your question, and I’ll let Patricia give you greater detail on the process that we have already undertaken.
With respect to the protection of women in-country, I would say there are two distinct ways that we do it. The first one is that every evaluation of a project receives a human rights-based analysis which identifies whether we think this project could actually endanger the lives of women. We take into consideration which part of the world this is actually operating in. What are the mitigation measures that have been put in place by the partner proposing the project to ensure that men and women and children aren’t duly put into greater danger than they already are through the activities of the project? It’s a lens that we apply to everything.
The second one is we have dedicated programs specifically about sexual-based gender violence. It’s a part of our programming since the creation of the Feminist International Assistance Policy and has continued to grow in terms of its importance, and it’s almost always integrated with other work that we’re doing, for example, sexual reproductive health and rights work and other work in terms of gender equality and advancing the empowerment of women and girls.
Ms. Peña: Thank you for raising the issue. It’s not just our Canadian partners that say our processes are difficult. It’s a number of our partners. We’re very conscious of that.
On one hand, a lot of our systems were put in place for very good reasons. It was, in some respects, a control issue and concern about issues like fraud and being able to follow the money, but we’re conscious that we’ve probably over-rotated. We’ve been very good at systems. Now we need to make sure that, in having those controls, we’re not actually leaving development outcomes out and that we’re not stifling the capacity to innovate. As the UNDP administrator said, and others, business as usual is not going to get things done, so we have to think about things differently.
During the pandemic, in fact, we had a really interesting situation where, in order to be able to provide immediate support to programs, we actually adjusted some of our rules and were able to get money out the door. I’ve actually heard from many Canadian partners — and this is something very positive — that in fact we were amongst the first to give them COVID-related money. So what we’re looking at now is how can we take that positive experience and apply it to how we do business.
The deputy mentioned grants and contributions. We are doing a five-year project where we’re looking at transforming how we do our business from beginning to end so that we can become more efficient, more transparent, more responsive and also more tailored to the needs of our development country partners as much as to those who help deliver it. It’s ambitious, but we’re keen.
Senator Coyle: I’m going to pick up again where we left off.
One of the topics that we were discussing yesterday with the representative from Cooperation Canada was the need to keep moving the financial needle in terms of Canada’s commitments to development assistance. We also just had that conversation with UNDP about Canada really not stacking up against other countries with similar capacity. We don’t do as much as others do. We always talk about the dollar amount going up, but we don’t look at it percentage-wise, et cetera, or benchmark us against others. I would like you to talk a little bit about that.
Of course, we’re never going to raise this in any significant way unless Canadians think it’s of value — to them, yes, I get that, but also just of value because it’s who we are as Canadians. This is something of value. I’d like to understand, within the world that you all work in, what it would take to actually get a more significant engagement strategy with the Canadian public going and get it properly resourced and get it creatively designed and work with your partners, all the various ways that you would do that. What would it take to see that happen?
Mr. MacLennan: That’s a good question.
In short, I’m not 100% sure. I’ll be very honest. I’m not 100% sure. There have been numerous occasions where we’ve gone out ourselves and spoken to people, and we see the polling. We see when the rankings take place, when Canadians are asked to rank their most important issues, and international development and humanitarian assistance is rarely at the top. Actually, it’s never at the top. It’s always at the bottom. In a democracy, Canadians get to voice what their priorities are.
What we do at Global Affairs is look at what has been entrusted to us, and what has been entrusted to us is a rather sizable envelope. Could it be bigger? Yes. But what we do is focus on the envelope we have, and we ask, how can we ensure that every last dime of this envelope does the greatest good in the world and does Canadians proud that Canadians are there?
Our government responded very quickly to the terrible earthquake that we just saw. We have a humanitarian assistance team, which, quite honestly, I would say is second to none in the world in terms its expertise and its understanding of how the global systems work. I have 100% trust in that team, and I know that when I make the call, no matter what time of night it is when that earthquake happens, they’re there. I would love to be able to tell that type of story more broadly. This is a forum for doing that — speaking to senators, and when I get the opportunity to speak to MPs, it’s the same thing. The team does an amazing job on behalf of all Canadians. In terms of what we can do, at the end of the day, that’s the best thing we can do to demonstrate to Canadians.
Senator Cardozo: It seems like Senator Coyle and I are playing tag team on this, and we didn’t even plan it.
I want to come back to the issue of public opinion. I am very concerned about major geopolitical shifts all over the world away from international cooperation, whether it’s diplomacy, international relations or international aid being further down the line. Everyone is turning inwards. With inflation going crazy all over the world, how do you tell the family who can’t make rent and decent groceries that your government is sending money to another country?
I actually have a suggestion, not so much a question. I was really impressed by the number of MPs who were there yesterday. There were some of us senators who were there, and we all took a picture together. They called for all the MPs, and I jumped in the picture to fly the Senate flag. Those 20 or so MPs are your best focus group — I don’t know if it is rude for me to say they’re better than us — because they are really in touch. On this issue, I’ll give them the edge because they are in touch with their constituents every day. Mike Lake, the Conservative MP from Edmonton, made the point most articulately that he doesn’t hear the issue very much and that he didn’t have a background in international development and had really become seized with it since becoming an MP over 17 years ago. My suggestion to you is to get together with those 20 or so MPs — they’re all in the picture, so you’ll know who they are — and ask them how to get the message out to the average Canadian across the country. They are perhaps best at understanding what people are thinking about. There’s nothing wrong with those of us who are here and have been working in the field a long time. It’s really the people who are new to the field that we have to be connecting with. That’s my suggestion. Look to those people as your focus group.
Mr. MacLennan: We have some tremendous allies in the House of Commons, and I think in the Senate as well. Your voices actually really matter. This is a house of democracy. This is a place where these things can be aired out and the priorities of Canadians can to be debated, because they have to be debated.
On the first point you made about concern about international cooperation, I’m not so sure if I worry as much about that. The reason I say that is twofold. One, a decision was made 10 years ago to bring CETA into Foreign Affairs at that time to create Global Affairs Canada. Since that time, most of our other donor partners have done the same thing. Australia did it; Norway did it. What it has done is put all of the tools together. International development, which used to sit out on its own outrigger on the canoe, is now in the canoe. It is part of our debate every day when we discuss things like Ukraine or Haiti or when we discuss what’s the proper Canadian response to Russian disinformation in Africa on food security. It is now part of the conversation.
One more quick note: If you look at the OECD website and you look at and track overall global development assistance, it’s tracked upward gradually since the measurement was created. It dipped during one period. It dipped during the 1990s because it was considered part of the dividend. As things get worse in the world, there is actually a very sound argument why international development becomes more important, despite the many other challenges and competitors.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. MacLennan, in particular for endorsing our bicameral parliamentary system. There are a number of us who are quite engaged on this file and I think will continue to be so.
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: I totally agree with you about the importance of international development, and to emphasize what you said: You have fantastic teams.
In my former life, I cooperated and worked closely with some of your teams in Africa and I can assure you that they are good, especially for Canadian companies going into those countries.
Why am I glad to hear that Global Affairs Canada is taking into account the new paradigm of the African Union and African countries? There are 55 African countries, their vote counts, and we have seen the results at the United Nations, whether it is for seats on the Security Council or to support Ukraine; we have seen that it counts and that it hurts. So I am happy that you are considering that.
I have a suggestion: Canadian companies need support. At the time of CIDA, support was provided within partnerships. That’s what’s being sought today in Africa.
Today’s Africa represents more than $3 trillion in potential GDP for Canadian businesses. That’s more than 1.4 billion consumers for our companies, which represents significant opportunities. I look forward to the eventual economic direction that will be taken, as our businesses will benefit.
In fact, the previous witness, Mr. Steiner, was defending the fact that there is a need to co-invest in Africa. That is what other countries are doing, notably China and Russia — which are authoritarian countries, as we know. And then we are surprised to see a wave of authoritarianism coming to Africa.
My question is this: Is Global Affairs Canada still considering setting up Canada teams, which were excellent?
Mr. MacLennan: I will be quick.
When Mr. Faki came here, Minister Sajjan and Minister Ng committed to going back to Africa and going to Addis Ababa together to talk to the African Union officials about how we can combine all our efforts in Africa. That trip will take place this year.
Senator Gerba: Thank you.
[English]
The Chair: I would like to thank our witnesses on behalf of the committee. This was a very interesting meeting from the chair’s perspective, and also maybe a little bit nostalgic, but I’ll save that for another time. I would like to thank Deputy Minister MacLellan and Assistant Deputy Ministers McDougall and Peña for being with us. I also want to acknowledge that with them we have two individuals who have been doing some pretty heavy lifting, Christopher Gibbins, Executive Director for Afghanistan-Pakistan, and Sébastien Sigouin, Executive Director for Haiti.
Before we adjourn, I would like to inform members that next Wednesday’s meeting on February 15 will be our last with witnesses on our sanctions study. Originally scheduled for February 1, we will welcome, all in person, former Senator Raynell Andreychuk from 4:00 to 4:45, and from 4:45 to 5:30, Brandon Silver and Amanda Strayer. Each panel will only be 45 minutes in duration so that at 5:30 the committee can discuss drafting instructions for our report. Our analysts will prepare an outline and it will be circulated in advance of that meeting.
(The committee adjourned.)