[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Monday, May 29, 1995
.1539 
[English]
The Chairman: I'll call the members of the committee to order. We are now considering the main estimates with respect to CIDA.
We have with us the president of CIDA, Madame Labelle, accompanied by Mr. John Robinson, who is vice-president and who has been with us before, and Mr. David Holdsworth as well, who's vice-president of the Corporate Management Branch.
Thank you very much for coming.
Madame Labelle, you told me you had a way you thought you'd proceed, so without more formalities I'll turn the floor over to you.
But I would draw to the members' attention that Madame Labelle had sent to us a letter dated May 18 containing answers to questions that had arisen at her earlier testimony, and I thank her very much for the information she sent to us.
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[Translation]
Mrs. Labelle.
Ms Huguette Labelle (President, Canadian International Development Agency): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would just like to say to the members of the committee that I'm very pleased to be here again and have this opportunity to table the introductory comments that I presented when we last met, several weeks ago. If you agree to append them to the committee proceedings, perhaps I could just make a few brief comments so that we can get the discussion going as quickly as possible.
[English]
I just want to say that over the next months, I think CIDA will be spending quite a lot of its attention on ensuring that our programming is in complete line with our program priorities, as stated in Canada and the world.
Second, in looking at our programming, we will, with renewed vigour, try to find avenues for getting even greater impact and therefore select interventions that do bring the greatest possible impact. We want to do this at all times, but in times of resource reduction it becomes not only important but crucial. Of course, included in that are very special activities over and beyond the work we have been doing to renew the institution and of course to keep on managing the institution.
I would also like to mention that a few weeks ago was the high-level meeting of the OECD development committee, and I was present. Just for members' interest, one of the three topics that were discussed and debated at that meeting was new directions for development cooperation. I think there's a sense around the world that we all need to continue to put our heads to that.
The second topic was gender equality. Again, there have been many reports published in the last years demonstrating that one of the ways of getting bigger impact for resources spent was in supporting this particular question.
Third was conflict, peace, and development, an area that I know members of this committee have been concerned about. We certainly are going to try to make the link between these three and hopefully look at development as an important tool for prevention of conflict.
[Translation]
Mr. Chairman, those were the only comments I wanted to make by way of introduction. I would now be very pleased to respond to questions or comments from committee members.
The Chairman: Madam President, Mr. Paré has some questions. Go ahead, Mr. Paré.
Mr. Paré (Louis-Hébert): Welcome to the committee, Mrs. Labelle. The last time you appeared, some time after the NGOs involved in educating the Canadian public heard the bad news, you said that the agency was considering introducing a new program in May to allow these NGOs to requalify. Would it be possible for you to comment on that program?
Ms Labelle: With pleasure, Mr. Paré. We are currently discussing the terms of access to such a program with a number of outside interveners, because we would like the program to be in place by the end of June.
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We hope we won't lose certain very positive aspects of the programs which have been abolished, that is to say, programs which used to fund certain organizations.
Second, we would also like to begin by quickly studying projects which were almost ready to be presented or projects which were presented but which had not yet been studied. We are currently holding discussions with a representative of the CCIC, and we hope we will be able to make the program project public within a few weeks.
Mr. Paré: Over the last few years, people often deplored the fact that public money was spread out too thinly in over 120 countries. But given the fact that the last budget slashed approximately $300 million from CIDA's budget, and given the fact that CIDA does not seem to have the intention to reduce the number of countries it helps, won't that situation be aggravated even more?
Ms Labelle: If we have less money available, it's obvious that we won't be able to spread as much around. Given the current situation, I believe that, in terms of percentage, we will be in the same position we were in during previous years.
Approximately 70% of the budget for Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas will be distributed in 27, 28 or 29 countries. But we will have much less money available for the other countries. In a relatively high number of countries, money will only be available from the Canadian fund, a fund managed by the embassy on behalf of Canada and with Canada's help, to provide program guidelines.
So it's clear that it will be harder to work in many countries with less money. Furthermore, we have pretty compelling reasons not to withdraw from most of those countries, at least for now, whether it be from Africa or the Americas.
Mr. Paré: The policy statement underscored the first objective of foreign aid, which is the reduction of poverty. However, in 1993, some bilateral programs were dropped in some of Africa's poorest countries. Given the fact that reducing poverty is still our first objective, do you think that decision might be reversed?
Ms Labelle: Yes, Mr. Chairman. It seems that CIDA will make bilateral relations between countries a priority, as well as support to the bilateral sector.
So, a certain number of countries will surely stop receiving bilateral aid within the next year and a half or two years, whereas others will keep on receiving it. For instance, at the moment, we are working with Ethiopia, Eritrea and Tanzania, poor countries which in principle would not receive any bilateral aid any more.
But we are reviewing the situation to see if it is possible to maintain our bilateral programs.
Mr. Paré: Given the fact that the first objective of Canadian assistance abroad is the reduction of poverty, can you tell us how this objective will be maintained, given government cutbacks?
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Ms Labelle: We are currently looking at each country on every continent. We are doing so on the basis of a certain number of indexes published by the UNDP, including per capita income, literacy and mortality rates, as well as the economic index. So we are studying each country's situation. As well, we are trying to find areas where Canada can provide special aid. Depending on what a country needs most, it might be easier for us to help one country instead of another through our expertise and what we specifically have to offer.
So we are looking at all these factors to decide how much we should spend in each country. I don't know if this kind of systematic approach has been done in the past, but I don't think it has been done this way in the last few years.
Within the next few months, we will have studied every country using this approach.
Mr. Paré: I'd like to stay on the same subject, but change the focus a little bit. Is CIDA in a position to tell which approach is more effective to reach our goal of reducing poverty? Is it through the volunteer sector, or through multilateral or bilateral aid? Are you in a position to answer this question? If so, what kind of tangible decisions would that entail?
Ms Labelle: Mr. Chairman, when the government received your report and took up the issue to develop its foreign policy, which includes development... It's a question we also asked ourselves. We studied each aid mechanism at our disposal - bilateral aid, multilateral aid, partnership through institutions, grants - and we asked ourselves this question: Should one mechanism be abandoned because it is much less important than the others?
We realized at that point that each of these mechanisms complement each other, and we concluded that it would be useless to eliminate any one of them. That being said, in the course of current negotiations, the government decided to reduce its contribution to international financial institutions, not because the banks are not doing the job only they can do in terms of major infrastructure projects, but because the cutbacks which happened in the past are ongoing. Our budget was skewed when we did business with a bank, because when the bank issued demand notes we had to pay. After that happened, we didn't have any choice but to reduce our support in that area.
When that happened, we always had to compensate by reducing our support for bilateral and partnership programs, and in some cases, our support for certain UN agencies, such as the UNPD and UNICEF. In other words, the banks always came out on top.
Therefore, the government decided that in current and future negotiations, it would reduce its support for the banks. Canada does not want to be out of the picture, rather, it is still important for Canada to be present on the boards of directors of these banks as long as money is being paid out. Therefore, the government decided to greatly scale back its level of support.
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More specifically, Mr. Paré, we have concluded that we cannot do away with these mechanisms without causing serious damage, and that each has a role to play, although there may be some complimentarity. Very often, the use of a Canadian partnership program leads to our supporting a bilateral project, which quite often means ensuring a good development project through the World Bank or UNDP abroad, and also spinoffs for Canada, looking at both sides of the equation.
[English]
Mr. Martin (Esquimalt - Juan de Fuca): Thanks Madam Labelle and Mrs. Robinson. Thank you all for coming again today. I have just three simple questions.
In the partnership program here we've all seen significant waste at the end point. The moneys we have given have often gone into the pockets of private groups and not where they were originally intended, which is always disappointing for all of us.
I'd just like to know what controls we have started to develop to make sure the moneys we give through the partnership program actually get to the people for whom they're intended - just to get rid of a lot of the waste we've all seen in our experience.
My second question refers to a dream and a plan I tried to institute some years ago. We have a tremendous pool of professional individuals in this country who are prepared to step out of their professional roles in hydrology, agriculture, medicine, or whatever to donate their services for two, three, or four months. Have we looked at any way to allow them to use their transportation costs, for example, or basic expenses as tax write-offs, to give them an incentive to actually donate their services? Perhaps this would be a relatively inexpensive form of aid that we could provide.
My last question is about conflict prevention, which we all have a very big interest in. What specific programs has CIDA been tossing around with respect to this? Are you liaising with Stan Carlson down at the UN crisis centre?
Many times in the preceding months to years before a large conflict blows up we see this negative, hateful propaganda being put forth by the leaders of belligerents. Are we looking at investing some of our money into developing systems to deal with that? I know the UN has an embryonic system to deal with that, but I don't think it's put into effect early enough to offset this negative propaganda that occurs.
Finally, the whole aspect of population growth is a big interest of mine - the burgeoning world population and the impact it has on development. What programs are we involved in there? Are we going to spend a greater percentage of our dwindling aid dollar on this issue, which I think is often given short shrift across the world?
Ms Labelle: I will try to be brief. These are five very important questions, Mr. Chairman, and please stop me if I overstep boundaries of time.
Your first question was how do we ensure that the funds we use really go for the purposes for which they are intended. This is very much at the heart of not only effectiveness but of being the custodian of the Canadian taxpayers' dollars. It certainly has not been my experience - and I can speak since I've been in CIDA since 1993 - during that period that there has been any evidence that the funds we were giving to an NGO, for example, were not being used at the other end for the purpose for which they were intended.
In terms of bilateral projects, where we invite proposals or respond to good proposals coming to us, again we have put in place quite an intricate system of following not only the project but the resources with very regular audits along the way, just to ensure that the funds go for the purposes for which they were intended.
So it's not just reporting by the organization that delivers the project or the program, but, in addition, we have our own tracking system.
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In your second question you talked about a pool of professional individuals giving up their time. We have quite a lot of that, and I'd be interested in the views of the committee as to how we could increase that. But right now we work through a number of professional associations and unions.
Special organizations like CESO take executives who are ready to give of their time. What we really do at CESO is pay the out-of-pocket expenses, such as transportation. Very often the country pays for the living accommodations because it has to see that this is important as well.
We also have some projects with the bar associations, where professional lawyers give of their time for the same purpose. Right now we're working with the Quebec Bar Association on Haiti. We've been working with the Canadian Bar on a number of similar projects. So we do this with a number of professional organizations.
Interestingly enough, the Canadian Labour Congress has a project with unions under its umbrella, where employees contribute a small amount of their pay each year to match what we are funding for special projects around the world. They're development projects that help the poor, to go back to Mr. Paré's point earlier.
Mr. Martin: I was wondering if they could be made tax write-offs, rather than having you pay the expenses. I wonder if that would be a more cost-effective way of providing this. That was really the root of the question.
Ms Labelle: I have noted that because it's a question I would really like to pursue, unless my colleagues have the answer. I think it's one I would really like to look at in terms of the current regime and whether there is some opportunity.
Mr. Martin: I don't know the answer. That's why I was asking, because it's an intriguing possibility.
Ms Labelle: I don't know either, but I'd like to pursue it because there is a chance of creating greater leverage here.
The Chairman: I can assure you there are no tax lawyers on this at the moment, but we'll get some research going on that one.
Ms Labelle: It's a very important incentive that one could look at.
Your third question was about conflict prevention. The various crises that have recently emerged in eastern Europe and Africa have really increased our interest in looking at this issue much more carefully than perhaps we have in the past. We are doing so from a number of points of view.
First, what are the regular development aspects? What aspects or dimensions of what we do should have the greatest potential for preventing deterioration of a situation in a country?
I go back to the poverty reduction aspect. We know that in many countries where people are nomadic, land is a big issue. It was fine to be nomadic when there were fewer people for the same amount of land, but now with the population growth it's becoming much more difficult for people to make a living that way.
Beyond land there is the question of food security. The heads of state of a number of countries have said the most explosive issue in their countries is the fact that people may not have food tomorrow. Therefore there is little to lose in how they behave as communities and groups.
So I think this is something we need to be quite cautious and careful about. What are the areas most likely to create downstream problems that we need to address anyway in terms of reducing poverty and getting people on a more sustainable track?
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You raised the question of early signals. I think that takes us to that second aspect. When you begin to have early problems of conflicts, they're usually quite localized. One of the things we're looking at is how we might use indigenous local approaches to solving these, knowing very well that usually these work better than if we try to parachute in people without the same culture, because very often it's a very informal approach to try to get people to work together. We've also been working with the UN, especially in looking at Burundi, for example, to see what kind of approaches we could use together as these signals get to be more than just early warnings and you get closer to a potential crisis that will erupt.
Then, of course, the other point is the management of the crisis in a way that is not likely to extend that crisis for any longer than necessary and, finally, the reconstruction part. The reconstruction and rehabilitation is nearly as important as the management of the crisis itself, because if we don't succeed in supporting that country towards coming out of that essential reconstruction, we have evidence that very often they just return to an acute state of crisis.
The example of Haiti is a very interesting one, Mr. Chairman, that one could look at one day - I hope looking back successfully - in what happens when a group of donor countries with multilateral institutions come together on time and deliver on time some of the reconstruction required for a particular country. The jury is still out obviously, but let's hope we can look back to some success for that particular country at least.
Your last question was on population growth. With a world population increase of 90 million a year there's no question that it is one of the major issues that we face. At CIDA we are re-examining all the programming that we do now, both direct and indirect, in order to see how we can enhance that part. By indirect, Mr. Chair, I mean we have, for example, a very interesting project with UNICEF in 15 African countries. We are trying to get young girls to return to school or to go to school because we know by all accounts that if young girls can get a basic education, the likelihood is that they will have fewer children, they will marry later, they will be able to sustain their family economically and they will have healthier children. That's the indirect part, of course.
We're also doing some interesting work on the more direct part. We have not taken a pause, but we are re-examining right now what we are doing on population so that it's not just business as usual, but that we can critically determine whether we need to enhance - and if so, where - what we're doing.
The Chairman: Thank you. You got it all in in time - amazing. I think there may be some follow-up questions on those areas.
Mr. Alcock.
Mr. Alcock (Winnipeg South): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wish to return to perhaps a less lofty area and just deal with a few questions that affect some of the organizations here in Canada.
Any time one makes the kinds of decisions that the government has had to make across the whole range of programs, you are forced to make difficult choices, and CIDA has had to do that also. I'm sorry I wasn't at the earlier meeting because you may have covered some of this, but I'd like to get a couple of answers for myself.
I'm from Manitoba, and in Manitoba we are particularly proud of the work that's done by the Mennonite Central Committee, both in the province and of course overseas.
In making the choices, it appears to us that they received a very substantial cut where other organizations that would appear to be doing similar work did not. This is a cause of concern, and we'd like to get some idea of the process that CIDA went through in arriving at those decisions.
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Maybe I'll stop after each one and we can deal with each one in turn. So we'll deal with that one, and then I have a couple more I want to ask about.
Ms Labelle: Mr. Chairman, if the member wouldn't mind continuing, I'd like to double-check through my colleague here on the exact amount for the Mennonite Committee.
Mr. Alcock: Secondly, in the PPP program, which is a relatively small program, again a number of difficult decisions were made. There are a couple, though, that raise concerns, particularly when you come from the other regions of Canada.
Given the focus, for a variety of reasons, of international programs in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal, when you begin to cut back, you create a secondary effect of centralization. People in the regions who have been active or interested in these programs feel cut out of them. That's very much the case in Winnipeg, where they simply feel they no longer have a part to play. I was interested in your response to Mr. Paré - something about a requalification.
The third area is that as we approach the whole topic of the reform of the United Nations, it seems odd on the surface to eliminate all the support for the United Nations associations in western Canada.
Ms Labelle: Support for?
Mr. Alcock: United Nations associations. I will start with those.
Ms Labelle: Mr. Chairman, on the process for arriving at the budget of each of the development organizations, the Mennonite Central Committee is one of the development organizations that we work with and have been working with for quite a period of time. There are, I think, three Mennonite organizations we work with, and at least two of them are in Manitoba, if I'm not mistaken.
What CIDA did was to work with our various partners on the NGO side to try to arrive at criteria that could be utilized to look at each association in determining future budgets. This had been a criticism of the development NGOs to CIDA in the past, that no matter what the effort was on the part of the organization, people kept receiving whatever they had received the year before, and if there was a cut, it was applied right across to everyone. It was based on that, and for quite an extended period of time there were discussions where people arrived at a set of criteria, which is what we used at the time of budget review. Each organization was looked at in terms of those criteria, which are, to name some, the effectiveness of the development work, the alignment with program priorities, the quality of the management, and the capacity to mobilize resources in their own community.
At the time we applied those criteria, we also had an independent consultant, who was agreed to by CCIC and with whom we tested the list of names, observing how we were proceeding in order to ensure that there was some fairness. There were three levels of review to determine whether the criteria were applied in a fair way. So that's the approach that was used.
On the PPP program, I think the point you raised is one that we have to be very careful about, in that the new program project facility we are now working on, which is an alternative to organizations that receive funds from CIDA on an annual program basis, organizations that will be able to come to us with single projects to do as they were able to do with the other organizations that we stopped funding.... We will have to ensure that the criteria for that project facility, as well as the approach, are as accessible to groups in Nova Scotia and British Columbia as they are to people from Ontario and Quebec, because I think that's a fair worry that people have.
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The third point you raised concerned our support to UN organizations. We are currently urging development organizations that are already being funded to try to find within their programming, within their way of working, a greater capacity to do public education in Canada, recognizing the importance of public education. Because the government felt, and we certainly were of one mind, that when you have less money - our our mandate is development - that although public education as a separate program was important, the government really has to focus on money going to the countries where we are working.
Mr. Alcock: Yes, certainly I understand there are tough decisions to be made. The PPP program has not disappeared, it has been reduced - or has it been eliminated entirely?
Ms Labelle: The program that was called support to public education in Canada, where organizations could come to CIDA who were not working in developing countries but who were only doing - I don't mean ``only'' in the pejorative sense, but those who were doing public education in Canada will no longer be funded. That was the tough part; it was a difficult decision in order to preserve the funds for development in the Third World.
Mr. Alcock: Thank you.
The Chairman: I'd like to go back to Mr. Alcock's point because it's certainly one that has been made to me by a lot of organizations, that perhaps an unintended consequence, but a consequence nonetheless, of the decisions will be that the large NGOs located in the Toronto-Montreal-Ottawa axis will largely be the ones that will be dealing with CIDA and that there will be an effect in the rest of the country: not as much of a relationship with CIDA and, as a consequence, not as much of an understanding of the importance of development in other parts of the country and the very nature of what we're trying to do. This seems to us to be a very serious consequence because our aid program is an extremely important part, as we said in our foreign policy review, of our understanding of our values, and it's very important that our citizens understand both what we are doing and why it's important. Have you been reflecting on that at all as being a possible result of this?
Ms Labelle: If you took an association or a group like PAC, Partnership Africa Canada, or SAP, they were quite centralized in one part of Canada. If then we had the regional organizations, and I think we had six of these in Canada who were in different cities across the land who were receiving proposals for projects - What we need to do is to ensure that we create the same sense of proximity for all Canadians as might have been created by having, for example, a regional group in Manitoba.
On the other hand, we also had a number of provinces where there was no one. Some of the NGOs that have talked to us have indicated that depending on how we do this, if you live in Sudbury it's not any more difficult to liaise with Ottawa than it is to liaise with Toronto. If you are in Kamloops, you still very often have to use a telephone and to fax. So we have the fact that the regional group is in Vancouver and it may not make the proximity total and complete. By the approaches and the processes that we use, we will have to find ways to bridge the fact that there will be a greater distance in certain cases.
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Mr. Alcock: I have a couple of other -
The Chairman: Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt your question.
Mr. Alcock: Actually you were helping to give me time to remember the two other points I wanted to make.
You made the comment about NGOs requalifying. Could you speak very briefly about that?
In the earlier case, in the decisions taken relative to overseas development, is there a review, an appeal process? Is there any process by which an organization's representatives can come back to you and say they'd like to discuss this with you a little further?
Ms Labelle: Do you mean in terms of the future projects facility that we are planning?
Mr. Alcock: I mean in terms of the size of the cuts that were made.
Ms Labelle: We have been sitting down with each organization to review the impact of the cuts to try to see, for those where we are stopping our funding, what is most reasonable in terms of interim support or transition support. That's one kind of discussion that we are having.
The second kind is for those organizations that are continuing to be funded, to make sure there is no new information they can provide us with to add to the information on which we based our judgment. We can therefore make sure we can enter into new agreements with those organizations. Basically, that's how we are doing our work right now. Some of the organizations have come to us to see whether there are alternative ways for them to able to do the work that they were doing. As well, we are looking at that with those organizations.
At this stage there has been no reversal of the decision to start funding something where the decision was taken to stop altogether.
Mr. Alcock: Was your question about requalifying referring to programs like this, or was that some other item altogether?
Ms Labelle: There are organizations such as PAC, which was providing project assistance for Africa, SAP, which was providing assistance for Asia, and the environmental group SEN, which was also acting on our behalf in providing project funding. The Canadian organizations had already prepared projects and tabled them with these organizations thinking they would be reviewed some time this spring.
I guess I was saying that these are some of the ones we have to look at as a first priority when we have the project facility in place because they have already done a lot of their homework. They were ready. They had submitted projects in good faith, although these had not been approved. But their work has been done, so we want to make sure we give those projects a very rapid review at the beginning of the new program.
Mr. Alcock: If my information is correct, the PPP program was only about $2 million.
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Ms Labelle: No. This was quite a bit larger.
We'll come back to it, Mr. Chair, because I want to give you the precise number. No, it was quite a bit larger.
Mr. Alcock: Have you done any regional analysis as to how those resources or resources that you spend within the country are distributed? Has the department undertaken that?
Ms Labelle: Do we have a regional analysis of what?
Mr. Alcock: Do you have an analysis of the support the department provides to organizations within Canada?
Ms Labelle: Yes.
Mr. Alcock: Could you provide me with that?
Ms Labelle: A lot of the organizations that we support on a development basis are national in scope, although they have headquarters throughout the country.
For example, we have some in Winnipeg that are national institutions. We have others in Montreal, Toronto, Alberta, and in various places in the country in terms of headquarters, but they are national institutions.
In terms of projects, one would have to look at the projects to determine their regional aspect.
One of the things we're consulting with organizations right now about on the project facility is to see whether we should review projects by region, in order to ensure that all regions of the country are considered in a fair way, and to avoid the point that you made earlier of having everything centralized or disproportionately in Ontario and Quebec.
Mr. Alcock: We like Ontario and Quebec too.
The Chairman: We're comforted to some extent, Mr. Alcock.
Mr. Alcock: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Before I give the floor to Mr. Paré, I would just like to pursue the discussion on a couple of issues he raised, and particularly the idea of concentrating aid.
In the course of preparing our report on a review of Canadian policy, as I recall, a number of witnesses we heard from made the point that many countries simply are not equipped to receive our aid. In other words, in order to be as effective as possible, we should be providing aid money where it can be spent intelligently. With the kinds of cuts you have had to make recently, I imagine that requirement is even more important now than it was before, and I do think it would be a good idea to try and ensure that the countries we do provide aid to are in a position to make proper use of it.
Ms Labelle: Mr. Chairman, there are a number of countries where CIDA was active ten or more years ago and from which we withdrew precisely because the political situation was not conducive to our aid dollars being used effectively. We do provide some humanitarian aid when circumstances are appropriate, such as when all donor countries are expected to lend a hand because people have nothing to eat. At various times in the history of CIDA, we have in fact withdrawn from certain countries because they just were not capable of using the funds effectively. I am thinking in particular of Haiti. For a number of years, we provided no aid other than emergency aid to Haiti, because we knew the funds would not be properly used.
I was mentioning earlier that we look at each country on an individual basis. I didn't mention that one specifically, but it is important. We don't only look at indicators for a specific country. We also try to see where Canada's assistance can have the most impact, and at the same time, we consider the country's ability to make good use of the kind of resources we provide.
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The Chairman: If I understand correctly, in this way, aid provides a sort of encouragement to governments with good policies. We are encouraging good policies and discouraging bad ones, if I can put it that way.
Ms Labelle: Yes. Specifically, we meet annually with other donor countries, banks and UNDP officials in order to have a look at each country. We go where we have sufficient programming. We prepare very carefully for these meetings and go with a mandate. We talk to our colleagues from the other donor countries before hand. In many cases, together we exert pressure on a country to reduce its military expenditures or better yet to redistribute money it already has within the country. The economic growth of the country may be quite acceptable, but we find that money is not adequately distributed between the rich and the poor. This is my second example.
The Chairman: We all know that we do not provide assistance to the United States, Ms Labelle.
Mr. Paré has the floor.
Mr. Paré: In the final part of your brief presentation, I understood you to say that the upcoming months will be a period of intense re-evaluation for CIDA. Why was this re-evaluation not possible before the budget was brought down? Secondly, do the choices made in the budget not colour in some way the efficiency or inefficiency of certain vehicles of Canadian official assistance?
In this regard, given that the NGOs, partnership and voluntary sectors in particular, suffered major cuts, are we to understand that they suffered the torments of CIDA's judgement? Otherwise, are we to understand that the squeeky wheel gets the grease? I assume this is not the case and I'm therefore left somewhat confused, all the more so because I find things somewhat contradictory in a CIDA document contained in our folder and entitled, 1995-1996 Budget: Highlights of the Budget, Canadian Partnership Branch.
Part II of this document, entitled ``Principles underlying the new budget'' provides:
- The principles underlying the decisions are as follows:
I understand all this. However, when I compare this with other parts of the same document I feel there are contradictions.
The third part of this document discusses the criteria used for resource allocation and talks of benefits for Canadians at criterion (d). However, elsewhere the document provides that priority has to be given to projects in developing countries and not to activities in Canada. It seems therefore that there's a bit of a contradiction between the two. The importance of education in development is stressed. A bit further on, in Part III, the document provides that henceforth, recipient agencies will have to apply certain priorities, including:
- (b) CIDA's priorities in Canada, i.e. public education and information and the
involvement of young Canadians.
- How is it possible to both claim that these are the priorities and cut 100% of the aid
allocated to NGOs working to inform and educate the public? I see a bit of a contradiction here.
- (d) the voluntary sector is absorbing 71% of the budget cuts of the Partnership Branch.
- It represented 70.5%... It is essentially the same.
Industrial Co-operation absorbed 11% of the cuts, but represents 20% of the 1994-95 budget and will represent 23%. NGOs took 17% of the cuts, whereas their budget represents only 6% of total official assistance.
I come back to my question of a few minutes ago. Was this done any old way, in a slap-dash manner, - I assume that this was not the case - or was some value and efficiency assessment made? Earlier when I asked you which of the three or four vehicles was the most efficient in fighting poverty in the world, you appeared to say that they were all somewhat inter-related. I must confess that I have a hard time following the whole business.
Ms Labelle: Initially, you were talking about re-evaluation. At this point, we are making sure that our programming is in line with the policy document entitled Canada in the World. The re-evaluation, on a general basis, was done in large measure before the budget was delivered, during the foreign policy review in the course of your hearings. We followed this very closely and, at the same time, analyzed the effectiveness of what we'd done and the various delivery channels.
As regards the NGO sector, the cuts imposed on NGOs were essentially the same as those made to the CIDA budget.
Secondly, in reference to the work we do with volunteer agencies, it is very important to look at the bilateral side and not only the partnerships. There was a significant increase, particularly last year, on the bilateral side, in the use of volunteer agencies to carry out the various projects they proposed to us.
What goes to the volunteer organizations must be looked at as a whole, beyond that which comes from the partnerships, which is a special mechanism for the volunteer agencies. Nevertheless, significant amounts went to NGOs on the bilateral side.
You raised a question concerning benefits for Canadians, and I think it is an interesting point. On the one hand, we must indeed stretch our resources as much as possible within our mandate to help people in developing countries and to reduce poverty.
What is important to remember when we talk about benefits to Canadians is that, when we decide on the type of project and the means to be used, we must ensure that we consider Canadians first. At one point I used the following example. If we are looking to buy wheat or powdered milk, we will look first in Canada before turning to countries like France or the United States. This is the context in which we have to act.
If we have a project and a given country asks us to help it in the area of basic education, we will look to see whether we can send groups of Canadians to help this country. This affects all aspects of what we do.
At the planning stage of a project in a given country, we examine priorities, programming and the project itself. In terms of the project, we always look first to see whether the expertise required can be found in Canada. This is how we are concerned about the effects on Canada, because we are using Canadians' money. We must first begin by looking for the necessary technical expertise in Canada before we look elsewhere.
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Mr. Paré: To use your example of wheat, would it not be more rational, if the aim is to reduce poverty, to buy wheat from a developing country that grows it for another developing country?
Ms Labelle: In fact, this is the sort of thing we do, because, very often, when there is great urgency in a given country, with the World Food Program, we often go to the closest source possible, that is in developing countries.
However, in Africa, a given country's foodstuffs are often essential to that country and therefore we almost always turn to donor countries rather than to developing countries.
Right now, we are looking at ways to work trilaterally, that is with a country in transition, an emerging country, in order to help a less well-off developing country. We have taken this approach because it has given us particular expertise. The emerging country was in the same situation a few years previously. At the same time, we are beginning to ask emerging countries to become donor countries in order to broaden the pool of available resources. Finally, this approach often permits neighboring countries to start working together. There are indeed a number of reasons why we take this approach.
Mr. Paré: I refer again to the document provided by the Canadian Council for International Co-operation, which contains a bit of an alarming sentence I would like to put to you.
- Thus, the huge cuts in INGO's budgets will go to support Canadian companies abroad.
Ms Labelle: I don't think it is the case, Mr. Chairman. I would perhaps like to hear it again. We have indeed reduced our contribution to international agencies, non-governmental organizations working in the international field, and we did it because a choice had to be made at the time. It was either this or further cut the funds given to Canadian development agencies working in developing countries.
This then was a choice: non-volunteer international organizations had greater cuts than Canadian development organizations. This was a very deliberate choice, because our organizations were also very good. We said at the time that it was easier for Canada to work through organizations based here and working abroad, which inclue OXFAM, Care Canada, the Jules-Léger Foundation and the Mennonites. As we said earlier, a lot of Canadian organizations operate abroad.
[English]
Mr. Lastewka (St. Catharines): Mr. Chairman, I apologize for being late. I was at another meeting.
I notice your graph on the page where you have operating budget and budget reductions for the various areas. When you were here with us previously - and I always thank you for coming so we can hear about the progress of CIDA - there was a discussion concerning the number of direct NGOs CIDA works with. There was some thought of putting the smaller NGOs or similar types of NGOs under an umbrella program. I'm not quite sure that in your report you've covered that on a total basis, not just in certain areas of the world. Could you expand on the number of NGOs, which then fits into the number of administration and so forth, going back?
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Ms Labelle: I think you are talking about the new project facility we are in the process of planning, which will replace a number of funds CIDA was funding across the country, both regional and thematic.
In terms of this project facility, we are now in consultations with some of the NGOs that we think could be helpful in making sure we do not lose the regional dimension, that we do not lose the various important themes that were there, such as environment, that it becomes a true alternative, and that we retain the best of what was there. We're still on target to have the new facility in place by the end of June.
There will probably be quite a few hundred organizations that may come and have access to that facility. We do not anticipate that these are the kinds of projects that are big projects, based on the experience with the regional funds and with the thematic funds. They were much smaller projects, usually over two to three years, and therefore a sum can be stretched quite a distance in terms of supporting many organizations.
Mr. Lastewka: Maybe you could just expand on the fact that CIDA is such a big organization and works with so many NGOs.
During our briefings, when we travelled across the country and in many of the sessions we've had here, it was always fascinating to me to understand that we have so many contacts to work with and so many projects. I wonder whether, by reducing the number of initial direct contacts and ``umbrella-ing'' the projects, we could save some of the administration and those other items and be able to put more into the projects themselves. I'd like to hear your comments on that.
Ms Labelle: I'd like to respond by talking about the bilateral and then talking about the partnership program as two mechanisms we have. On the bilateral side, I think we are finding that we usually get the greatest mileage with each project if these projects are integrated, if they bring together as many elements as are feasible.
I'll give you an example of a community reforestation project in an area where the desert is taking over the land in a part of Africa. As opposed to being only that, we usually now graft some literacy, some food production, some water management. This becomes a whole, which means that the reforestation is much more sustainable because we have been able to deal with some of the aspects that contribute to the sustainability of it. So as opposed to having just very small, single issue projects bilaterally, we try to do this in a more comprehensive way.
This is bringing about a new approach for our Canadian partners on the bilateral side, where now you will see a number of consortia being formed because you require multiple skills in order to bid on a particular contract. You will see a private sector linking up with an NGO, linking up with a university very often; they come together to bid on this project. So on the bilateral side, indeed, we have increasingly this sort of approach.
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On the partnership side, in terms of its configuration in July, on the voluntary aspect of NGOs, we will have support to development of NGOs on a yearly or multi-year basis. They do programming, they come and sit down with us, we agree to the programming, and they are then funded on that basis. These will be about 65 organizations in Canada. These are your bigger ones.
We will also give our support to universities and colleges and to some professional associations. This is not a large group, but groups that have been working, doing development, and, as we said earlier this afternoon, that provide a lot of volunteer time. We will have the volunteer sending organizations, like Crossroads, Jeunesse Canada Monde, CESO, as I was saying a few minutes ago, and unions, cooperatives, and finally the project facility I spoke about.
Where all of these other ones are primarily funded on a yearly basis or a multi-year basis, the project facility will be to consider projects as they are proposed to us by Canadian NGOs.
Mr. Lastewka: It would be very interesting, as you discussed, to see more integrating of projects. To me that would mean, as I would see on the surface, that from the dollars we put into that integrated project, we would get a lot more out of it. Somehow it would be interesting to know that shift. How much did we get on our worth? I know it's not easy to report card it, but I think that's an item we have to explain to more people. By doing those projects like that, integrating them, we're getting more for our dollar somehow.
It might be a good idea to have some examples so we could show people back in our ridings, who are looking at why we're spending money and so forth - It's always good to have a living example so we show what Canadians are really doing in various parts of the world.
Ms Labelle: That's a good idea. Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Lastewka.
[Translation]
Mr. Paré: We certainly couldn't allow the meeting to end without at least a few questions about human rights.
Ms Labelle: Why not?
Mr. Paré: That would be unconscionable.
In a written statement sent to us on May 16, the Minister of Foreign Affairs indicated that one of Canada's priorities under the aid program is to protect and promote human rights. In the light of that statement, perhaps you could indicate what decisions have been made by CIDA to act on the minister's comments? That's my first question.
My second question is this: How can we possibly reconcile that statement and the massive aid that Canada is currently providing to Indonesia and China?
Ms Labelle: Mr. Paré, as far as we are concerned, all human rights issues are of the utmost importance and are certainly one of our highest programming priorities. We have been taking such issues into account in a number of ways for some time now - directly, in some cases.
In China, for example, we are currently developing the second phase of a project intended to help Chinese women understand their rights under laws that have been enacted to protect them. That is a project we will be carrying out in China. As far as we are concerned, it is a very important project, because it represents an important breakthrough.
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In addition, we have been working in Indonesia for a number of years to support the government in introducing equality between men and women there at the government level and elsewhere. Our program in Indonesia was very interesting in this regard.
I chose these two countries because you mentioned them, but we could take a very interesting tour of countries around the world where we are directly supporting projects to change what is occurring in the area of human rights.
We are also acting through Canadian NGOs, which are working directly with partners abroad to develop private companies in these countries and help them defend their rights.
We achieve this end by supporting a number of projects aimed at improving the management of justice in a number of countries. Obviously we did this in very special projects in Haiti and Rwanda in order to reestablish a non-existent system of justice. This has considerable impact on human rights, because, without it, people will remain in prison. We do not even know whether they have been arrested and whether they are guilty or not. Others have been arrested, quite often without grounds, and imprisoned for months. This therefore is another way of directly attacking the issue.
Then we do it indirectly. I am thinking of Bangladesh, where we have major projects to help women acquire a certain level of equity. We have micro-enterprise projects to support women, particularly those in Bangladesh, in order to help them reach a certain economic level. Women are beginning to be able to express themselves a little more.
The same thing is true for the education of young girls. It is a matter of a lack of rights. In some countries, young girls are taken out of school at the age of seven, whereas young boys continue in school to the age of 14 or 15. We are working with these countries - I mentioned 15 countries in Africa a while ago - in an attempt to rectify this situation. It also involves making a little fairer a situation that is currently unfair.
We are involved in human rights on different levels and in different ways according to the country and the absorption capacity. In many instances, when we cannot act directly, Canadian NGOs become very important, because they can be there, when we cannot on a government to government level. We hope that they will be able to pave the way for programming that will produce more significant change.
We are working in India - this is my final example, Mr. Chairman - or at least with certain Indian states, to develop a system of land sharing, which would give various communities access to land, at least to the soil, if not to ownership of it, for 20 to 25 years, in order to develop the land and live off it. In the past, these communities had no access to it. They could be bumped off overnight.
Therefore, there are a number of approaches possible. We must increase our chances of building on the opportunities that present themselves. When we see that a door has opened slightly, we must go in quickly in order to establish a climate suitable for changing laws, for ensuring that laws are obeyed and for establishing functional systems of justice. This matter is huge and of great significance.
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[English]
Mr. Volpe (Eglinton - Lawrence): Mr. Chairman, I was almost pleased that we were going to come to a point where we were just going to be talking about the estimates, but Madame Labelle is always an engaging kind of an intervener, so I guess we're to be talking about the policy aspect of CIDA for a bit, anyway.
Madam, we've had interveners here who have suggested that perhaps some of the moneys expended by CIDA through NGOs in some countries is not well placed because it is perceived by the authorities in the countries where the NGOs are operating as going to organizations that use the concept of human rights, as indicated by our colleague Mr. Paré, and in your response as well, as an umbrella for action that is destabilizing.
Have you openly encountered, first of all, that kind of criticism? Secondly, do you have a mechanism whereby you filter out some NGOs that engage in what we'd like to call the development of world governance and civil societies, etc., but what host countries view as political interference?
Ms Labelle: Mr. Chairman, as an agency of the Canadian government I think we have to be quite conscious of not creating a situation to destabilize countries, and as we review each year the programming of each of the organizations we work with, we certainly are quite conscious of that.
So when I was saying when it is not appropriate or easy for us to work from government to government, we see NGOs being able to be in a particular country.
I would like to use Cuba as an example, where the Canadian government decided not to be in Cuba but where there were a number of Canadian organizations, through their own programming, that were in Cuba and assisting in a number of ways. I don't think they were creating a difficult situation, but what they were doing was exposing, in a sense, by helping. Their direct reason for being there was to help. We had a number of universities twinned with universities in Cuba, but what they were doing was exposing Cuban people to people from outside of Cuba and therefore hopefully beginning to build bridges between the people of that country and Canadian people for the betterment of both.
So it's not necessarily NGOs working directly in the field of human rights. Very often it is NGOs helping a community. It can be with sanitation problems, it can be with water problems, it can be with literacy. But as they do that, I think they help these communities come together and help themselves. They help them help themselves, but they're also a link with the rest of the world, and I think they're able to see that there is an opportunity for greater equity if they help themselves.
Mr. Volpe: That's like an argument that has a lot of validity, because I hear it used in various tones and with varying degrees of grammatical difference by the business community, as a justification for going in and opening up markets with governments.
Madame Labelle, can I take you from what you just said to one other aspect of your response to our colleague Mr. Paré, and that is the involvement of CIDA in the development of human rights, particularly as they relate to women and especially with respect to women's role in the evolution of civil societies and different political systems.
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Could you just elaborate for a minute on the kinds of successes that some of the NGOs have as they target their activities on the participation of women in societies, where the religious background and the cultural background is inconsistent with some of the expectations of those in western societies. What those of a Judeo-Christian background, perhaps, have come to expect as the appropriate socio-political standing of women in society comes to be viewed completely differently in other places.
Do we have a yardstick by which we measure success in the context of the societies where these NGOs are operating? Or are we right in expecting that they might engage in aspirations for those women who might go to the other extreme of transforming the society completely in the image of the western generators of this aid?
I was trying to be politically correct all the way, Mr. Chairman. I don't know whether I succeeded.
The Chairman: You chose your words with such care, Mr. Volpe. We were concerned about where you were going.
Mr. Volpe: I even confused myself.
Ms Labelle: I'm going to try to be equally politically correct, Mr. Chairman, in responding.
I think this is a serious issue and one that I think we have to be careful with. We should accompany the people of the country. We should not try to change them to our image, because it doesn't work, and you can create greater problems than you can solve if you're not careful.
To me, accompanying really means working with governments and with different groups in those countries in order to be able to find out what the needs are, what the priorities are, and how we can best meet them.
Obviously, in the situation you have mentioned, as in other similar situations, where you may have groups that for religious purposes or other purposes may not view women in society in the same way as we do in the west, we really have to keep in mind that we are accompanying these people. We are not trying to make them in our image.
So in the projects we develop, if it's on the bilateral side, we do that with the government of a country. We agree on priorities. We agree on needs. We agree on the types of projects that we will do and then we, with them, mastermind these projects.
Remember that the NGO side, or the cooperative side - projects that they do on their own - are part of annual programming that we review with them. So we always have the capacity, as part of the agreements we have with the partners we work with, that if something goes off the rails, we have the capacity to intervene very rapidly. We would not hesitate, and we have done that at different times.
Mr. Volpe: So the focus then would be on alleviation of material need - sometimes defined as urgent material need - and the development of material economic organization, rather than on social development.
Ms Labelle: When we look at our first priority, which is basic human needs, where the government indicated we would be spending 25% of our resources -
Mr. Volpe: As a minimum.
Ms Labelle: Yes. There you really have health - which is partially social - education, shelter, water and sanitation as important areas.
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On women in development, which is another program priority, again we will see a cross-reference with the first priority, because a lot of education, maternal health, micro-enterprise, economic support or their capacity to become self-supporting economically....
You have to remember that in many countries, Africa especially, because men go to work in other parts of the country or in another country, the women are there alone raising the family. They look after food, animals, or whatever, because their communities are very often rural. So the support to women is very important.
The infrastructure and the environment, human rights and governance are our priorities as well. But again I return to accompanying as opposed to telling people what's best for them.
Mr. Volpe: That's a new word I will put down in my dictionary, Madame. Thank you.
The Chairman: On the basis of my experience in Parliament, I think my wife could get a CIDA grant on the grounds that her husband is absent.
Ms Beaumier (Brampton): I would like to make a quick comment.
We talk about human rights, and I think we have to define a new kind of language specifically to deal with human rights. It is beginning to be very overused in many areas. Some violations are absolutely abhorrent. Others are maybe a circumstance that exists that we can alleviate gently, whereas in the others we may not be able to be so gentle in our approach.
Ms Labelle: I would agree with that situation.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Madame Labelle.
Ms Labelle: Thank you.
The Chairman: The meeting is adjourned until tomorrow morning at 9 a.m. when we will be hearing the Auditor General in respect of the future audit plans of the department.