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I call the meeting to order.
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to meeting number 62 of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.
Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of June 23, 2022. Members are attending in person in the room, as well as remotely, using the Zoom application.
I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of the members and witnesses.
Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. For those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your microphone, and please mute yourselves when you are not speaking. Interpretation for those on Zoom is at the bottom of your screen. You have the choice of THE floor, English or French. For those in the room, you can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. I remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.
Members, I ask for your indulgence this morning. I was unable to make the flight for reasons beyond my control.
Today, pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), the committee will commence its consideration of the main estimates 2023-24. Votes 1, 5, 10, 15, 20 and L30 under the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, vote 1 under the International Development Research Centre and vote 1 under the International Joint Commission (Canadian Section) were referred to the committee on Wednesday, February 15, 2023.
Now it's my pleasure to welcome to the committee today the Honourable Harjit Sajjan, Minister of International Development. Moreover, welcome should also be extended to his officials, who will be supporting him today in the consideration of the main estimates 2023-24.
We have several officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, including Christopher MacLennan, deputy minister of international development; Anick Ouellette, assistant deputy minister and chief financial officer; Peter MacDougall, assistant deputy minister of global issues and development; Patricia Peña, assistant deputy minister of partnerships for development innovation; Annie Boyer, director general and deputy chief financial officer of financial planning and management; and Andrew Smith, director general of international assistance policy.
Minister Sajjan, thank you for once again appearing before our committee. You will be provided a maximum of five minutes for your remarks, after which we will open it to the members for questions.
Minister Sajjan, the floor is yours for five minutes.
Thank you to members of the committee.
I'm glad to be here today to discuss Canada's leadership in international assistance.
As members know, the world is facing a rising tide of instability, with the lingering effects of the pandemic's disruption of global supply chains; Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine; the multi-dimensional humanitarian crisis in Haiti; the devastating outbreak of violence in Sudan; more frequent and extreme weather events as a result of climate change; the Taliban's aggressive moves against women and girls; restrictions on reproductive rights in Poland, the U.S. and other countries; and a backlash against gender equality across the world.
These are immense global challenges. Canada has played and will continue to play an important role in rising to meet these needs.
Against this backdrop, I'm proud to report that Canada continues to meet and even exceed its goals for international development assistance under the feminist international assistance policy. In 2021-22, nearly 99% of Canada's bilateral international development assistance either targeted or integrated gender equality—meeting and then exceeding our target of 95% by 2022.
We continue to address the root causes of poverty and inequality by focusing on those most likely to be left behind, and empowering women and girls in all of their diversity.
We're also committed to constantly improving the quality and effectiveness of our international assistance.
These achievements have not gone unnoticed. Canada was one of the first countries in the world to put a feminist international assistance policy in place. Others are now following suit. For the fourth year in a row, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development acknowledged us as the top bilateral donor for gender equality.
Now, looking forward, Canada's leadership is more consequential and needed than ever before. For example, Canada is delivering on its commitment under the Paris Agreement to keep the 1.5°C goal within reach. Our global climate investments are expected to prevent or reduce more than 228 megatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.
Take Canada's support to the Global Environment Facility. As the seventh largest donor, our support is helping more than eight million adapt to climate change and protect almost 99 million hectares of marine biodiversity.
But we know that funding alone is not enough to address the uneven impacts of climate change. That's why we continue to advocate for the resilience and adaptation of developing countries through our engagement in both the Green Climate Fund and the Climate Investment Funds.
At the same time, we continue to work with like-minded partners, including multilateral organizations, to phase out coal and promote investments in clean energy.
We continue to advocate internationally for small island developing states and least-developed countries that contribute the least to climate change, yet are most vulnerable to its impacts.
The most vulnerable countries today are at the front line of some of the most challenging crises of our time, including but not limited to climate change. As we speak, in 2023, over 346 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. More than 100 million people have been forcibly displaced. Over 345 million people are predicted to be food insecure.
Canada continues to be a leader in addressing humanitarian needs that rise year on year.
In 2022, we were the fifth largest humanitarian donor, providing more than $1 billion in humanitarian assistance.
Last year, we allocated over $400 million in humanitarian assistance to respond to needs in sub-Saharan Africa, $227 million to respond to needs in Ukraine, and over $143 million to Afghanistan and the region.
We also allocated nearly $650 million for humanitarian food and nutrition assistance in response to the growing global food crisis. Our assistance helped the World Food Programme to reach a record 158 million people who were food insecure in 2022. It's an impressive 27% increase from 2021.
We also contributed to providing humanitarian assistance and protection to more than 100 million refugees and other forcibly displaced persons through the UNHCR in 2022.
In line with the FIAP, Canada continues to be a strong advocate for gender-responsive humanitarian action.
Canada also remains committed to the triple nexus approach that integrates humanitarian development, peace and security actions to more effectively respond to and ultimately prevent conflict. That is what good development assistance does. It goes hand in hand with peace and stabilization actions.
Global Affairs Canada is constantly working to improve the quality and effectiveness of Canada's international assistance. While the Auditor General's recent report affirms the urgent need for Canada's feminist international assistance policy, it also calls for improved systems to capture and report its results and to better integrate gender equality, human rights and intersectional considerations into our projects to ensure that we are reaching the poorest nd most vulnerable.
Through the ongoing grants and contributions transformation initiative, Global Affairs Canada is also finding new ways of working that are faster, more transparent and more flexible. This will further enhance Canada's capacity to both report on and deliver sustainable results that make a positive change in people's lives.
Meaningful climate action and humanitarian assistance go hand in hand with gender equality and also human rights to build a more just and more prosperous world for all of us.
That is why we are making the most of the transformative potential of Canada's feminist approach to international assistance. It's to tackle the root causes of inequality and poverty to transform the lives of those most in need around the globe.
Thank you very much for listening.
I look forward to your questions.
I want to start today by honouring Kyle Porter and Cole Zelenco, who are two Canadian heroes who died during fighting in Bakhmut after joining the Ukraine international legion. Those who knew them must be feeling a lot of pain right now, but also a lot of pride for the courage these young men demonstrated in this important fight.
Minister, thank you for being here to take our questions.
During the fall of Afghanistan, a -appointed senator issued fake Canadian travel documents. This is, obviously, extremely serious. Emails were sent to you about this at the time, but you said that you didn't read those emails.
As the Minister of International Development today, do you check your emails and would you say that you read all of them?
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Thank you very much for the question.
Sadly, I would say that climate change is already impacting and has been impacting the developing world quite extensively. The most recent examples of this have been the floods in Pakistan and disasters—typhoons—in the Philippines, and, as you know, many places in Africa.
Canada, through its climate adaptation funding and, most recently, biodiversity funding, is doing its part to help nations that had very little impact in creating the crisis to deal with its impacts, not only in responding directly to the disasters, but also in looking at how we can put in early warning systems and at making sure we can provide humanitarian support and then ultimately trying to mitigate some of those disasters. Some of these programs have had very good effects in some parts of the world.
Sadly, some of these disasters are hitting other areas that we hadn't anticipated, but now, through our funding, we will look at opportunities for how we can try to protect and save people's lives but also their livelihoods. For example, agricultural fields are being completely flooded in some areas. In other parts of the country, it's because of drought. We are taking measures on how we deal with this, because ultimately what we're trying to do is deal with the impacts on food security as well.
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For food security, it's a multidimensional approach.
One is that where there's a need, you have to provide direct humanitarian support, something that we have been doing in having to increase our support. In fact, we had to increase our support last year in an off-cycle budget request, which the announced, of $250 million. Some of the funding went to Ukraine, but the majority of it was for the global south.
What we're trying to do now is increase our support on building capacity within nations, working with nations, especially in Africa, to look at their own country plans and to look at what their vision is and how we support them. I also want to emphasize that this is not just about increasing agricultural food products or the blue economy. This is about creating food systems. Where do you grow the food? The storage is a key component. Right now, 30% of food is lost because of lack of storage or of transportation. Also, through this, how do we create sustainable jobs?
We're looking at the entire food system and looking at other barriers to what we can do. Sometimes there are trade barriers. How do we support nations on trade?
It's a multi-faceted approach that we're taking, but ultimately what we want to do is look at building capacity. This has worked well in other parts of the world, especially in the Pacific in previous decades, and is something that now we're emphasizing in other parts of the world.
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Minister, that's what I like to call the “translation break”.
In your mandate letter, the Prime Minister set out as your objective to increase Canada's international development assistance every year towards 2030, in order to realize the United Nations' sustainable development goals. I would remind you that donor countries have been given a target of 0.7% of their gross domestic product.
However, in the last federal budget, the government indicated that 15% of the international assistance budget would be used elsewhere. You were quoted by Radio‑Canada saying that money wasn't everything and that it wasn't enough to simply announce funding, but also to ensure that the right programs were in place in order to get the desired results.
My question is very simple, Minister: do you still believe that the target of 0.7% of gross domestic product is an objective that we should reach and that we should strive to reach? Do you still intend on hitting that target?
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Mr. Chair, Canada will always step up at times of crisis. If you will recall, that $250 million was not in the original budget. That was requested because of the need to make sure that we got people through this year.
We do have funding that we provide for food security within our current budget. We are also working on a wider plan on how we can do our part to increase capacity within many nations. That plan is still being worked on, and once we have that, this is something we will bring through cabinet for greater work.
Money is important, and our government is committed, but we also need to make sure that we have a plan to meet the results we want.
Some of the work is not just about increasing food capacity or giving food. What we want to do is look at some of the research—for example, some of the research that is done in Nairobi that we fund. A lot of the food and beans that are being developed there are more nutritious. I'm always reminded by my nutrition colleagues not to focus just on food; it has to be nutritious food.
Sadly, in some places like a refugee camp I visited, Kakuma refugee camp, food was cut to one meal a day. As sad as that is, at least the food they were cooking was more nutritious.
Given the food security crisis, as the former head of the World Food Programme has said, at times they are taking food from the starving to give to the hungry. This is why we are focused on this issue.
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Thank you, Minister. We will be most interested in any new developments on the issue.
I will now share one of my concerns that I spoke about with my colleagues when we met with representatives of other western countries, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine.
One of the things that we see internationally is that a good chunk of international assistance budgets from western countries has been repurposed to provide assistance to Ukraine, which is absolutely vital, of course, but which deprives the countries of the global south of part of the funding that they would normally have received. The countries of the global south have the impression that the war in Ukraine is a spat amongst rich countries. This is obvious in the voting results at the United Nations. Countries such as Canada have over the years withdrawn from continents like Africa, which left a vacuum for countries like Russia or China to fill. We all know what has happened there and it is obvious in the voting results at the United Nations on the war in Ukraine.
Shouldn't we be increasing our development assistance budget again, rather than redirecting towards Ukraine part of the funding that would normally be given to countries from the southern hemisphere? We would avoid reducing aid for those countries and boost our support for Ukraine with new funding.
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much to the witnesses.
Thank you, Minister, for being here with us today.
As you know, I spent my career prior to politics in the international development sector. I have many questions for you, so forgive me if I interrupt you.
I have to start by saying that some of your words don't match the actions of this government.
You talked about the need for peace and security. The government promised 600 peacekeepers. I believe we have 60 in the field right now. You went to Qatar. You've not spoken out about Saudi Arabia taking weapons and using them against innocent civilians. I worry about that.
You talk about the need for increased international development, but we saw in the budget a 15% cut to ODA. At a time when we have a climate crisis and people around the world are suffering disproportionally, when we have a hunger crisis, when conflict is causing massive challenges and we have a feminist international assistance policy, this country— even though we are already 16 out of 30 of donor countries and so far below where Pearson wanted us to be and below the ambitions that Canadians have for this country—has cut international development assistance by 15%.
Your job as the international development minister is to advocate for international development, to make sure that the caucus understands why international development is so important.
What have you been doing to do that? How have you been advocating for the sector when what we see right now is a 15% cut to ODA?
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Thank you very much, Chair.
I thought I had five minutes, but there you go.
Thank you, Minister, for coming. You've been doing an extraordinary amount of work in a very difficult time with conflicts and crises, food insecurity and crises of health. You have really been trying to keep up with a lot of things, so I want to thank you for coming and spending some time with us.
I want to specifically ask you a question. As you well know, the government has talked about donating half of the $1.4-billion funding to SRHR in areas that have been neglected. You know those areas of neglect are postabortion care, comprehensive sexual education, access to safe abortions and reproductive health and rights.
How are you getting that done? What are the challenges you're facing? That's one question.
Because I only have four minutes, I'm going to throw my three questions at you.
The second one is based on this issue. As you mentioned in your presentation, you know that in Ukraine, access to abortion.... Countries that are receiving Ukrainian migrants, like Poland and Hungary, offer very little access to sexual reproductive health care and rights, even though rape has been announced as being one of the tactics of war, and Ukrainian women are being raped.
How are you dealing with that barrier that you're receiving from those countries?
Finally, if you can, tell me about vaccines we need to prepare for the next pandemic, not after it happens, but before it happens. What are we doing with WHO to deal with access to health and access to vaccine supplies for a future pandemic?
Thank you.
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No, that's quite all right.
The neglected areas of SRHR are a significant concern to me and to our government. In fact, we are currently working on a plan to increase our support to the neglected areas because even in countries where abortion is illegal, that doesn't mean it stops abortion. They still need post-abortion support, so these are the areas we will be increasing. I don't have the plan finalized just yet, but when it is, I look forward to making the announcement.
With regard to Ukraine, when it comes to situations of war and the increased violence and rape that have taken place, it is absolutely horrible. When I was in the region, I made sure, in talking to our team, to give them the go-ahead to be creative in finding ways to provide support to them even if a certain country doesn't, whether it's having them find support in a different country, up to and including even if we had to have them come to Canada.... I know that the teams were focused on this.
When it comes to the vaccine, this is one area that I do want to emphasize because we sadly have been jumping from crisis to crisis, and we can't forget about the previous crisis we had on our hands. When it comes to the vaccine, I've had very good discussions and monitoring.
The reinforcing of the health system is continuing. Some of the funding we have currently put into place, for example, some of the research work that's going into South Africa as a potential vaccine hub..... The goal of this is to look not just at having more vaccine created but at how we make sure that we have regional hubs where there are good systems in place so that if a pandemic were to come back, we're not dealing with the same issues. We have a cold supply chain system in place with people who are trained up to be able to provide those. We have the PPE in place and, more importantly, the vaccine hubs that can actually deliver.
It is something that we are monitoring very closely and working with our multilateral organizations on.
It is a shame that Ms. Fry used the last seconds of her speaking time to make such an editorial comment. I do understand that our resources are limited, but we have committed to bulking up our official development assistance to 0.7% of our gross domestic product. This means that our resources, as limited as they are, should be increased so that we can contribute to global efforts in the fight against poverty.
I agree with Ms. McPherson's grave concerns about the food crisis and I know that there is no improvement in sight. I understand that other funds are being used in the fight against hunger, but I am concerned that despite everything, our overall contribution is reduced.
We have also reduced funding for developing countries to help them adapt to climate change. The amount of $433.2 million will be progressively reduced until 2025‑26, even though the brutal impact of climate change in Pakistan has been obvious over the past few months. We have spoken about this already, Minister. Are we doing the right thing when we know that very often it is the developing countries that are proportionally hit harder by climate change than developed countries?
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Mr. Chair, climate change is one of the existential crises that we have. It's one of the reasons that the authorized a doubling of our climate adaptation funding to $5.3 billion. Certain programs are currently taking place. Some might be expiring, but let's not also forget that most recently our government has announced $350 million for biodiversity as well. We are playing our role. We're also encouraging others to play their part.
I'm happy to say that we're working closely with the on how we look at the work we do in the environment but at the same time tackle some of the food security crises. In some places, what we're doing is making sure that when we're looking at climate adaptation or biodiversity, how do we protect agricultural fields at the same time? That also impacts food security.
Some good work is taking place. What I'm actually very impressed with is that, more importantly, a lot of other nations are stepping up to come up with their own plans. Rather then us telling them what needs to be done, nations are coming up with their own plans. I will be going to the African Union to discuss with them the national plans they're putting forward. Canada can't do it all, obviously, but we are looking at where we can have key areas of focus when it comes to food security. Some of it's also going to be thinking about things like fertilizer.
We're taking a multi-faceted approach in looking at the climate work, trying to link it with food security and to bring things together so that we can maximize our support. We're not just looking at one fund. We're looking at how we're doing food security here and layering on the funding support so that we can have an even bigger impact on the ground.
Maybe the Africa strategy was in an email somewhere.
Minister, I think we're having some challenges around seeing results, to be blunt about it. The Auditor General says you're not measuring results when it comes to improving the lives of women and girls. Bill is deeply flawed. The budget reverses various aid commitments. We have the whole issue of emails being checked during a crisis. That's beyond many of the other issues we've had at the Department of Defence.
I think the challenge from this committee to you is that we want to see results. We want to see outcomes. We don't just want to see good intentions. We want to see positive results.
I want to zero in first on a follow-up to my colleague's questions on the Auditor General. It's not clear to me if you fully accept and agree with the conclusions of the Auditor General in what was a very damning report. I want to hear from you, the minister: Do you accept and fully agree with the conclusions of the Auditor General?
:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for being here, Minister.
I'd like to go back to some of the lines of questioning from earlier from some of the opposition members, with that claim that ODA has been cut.
In fact, in your answer, you explained that it has gone up, in fact, I believe by 49% since 2015, and then it was mentioned that when something happens—like Ukraine or COVID—that is an exceptional thing, a crisis in the world, there then is an exceptional off-cycle ask and that is funded.
Does this mean that in the future we would still be able to do these exceptional off-cycle asks if there are emergencies like those that continue? In essence, nothing has changed other than the fact that we keep on increasing ODA to 2030...?
In fact, as I've explained in previous years, because emergencies do pop up, we need to respond. Regrettably, this is a pattern we're going to have to continue to repeat. The numbers we're talking about are analyzed at the end of the year, and we're starting out a budget at the beginning of the year. The baseline budget has systematically increased. Even in this budget, we're asking for over $100 million above the previous baseline budget as well.
What I would encourage members to do is this: Look at where the line has been going. At the same time, we need to step up when crises come up, which we have done, whether it's Ukraine.... Sadly, it was COVID. It might be something else. I'll remind people we had to do a $250-million budget request. This does not include some of the other challenges we have had. Our government is absolutely committed to increasing our development assistance. We have shown the pattern and the graphs on this. I can show members.
I also want to make a point here on the work that's done. I take the opportunity to visit many projects. We have a lot of work to do when it comes to putting all that information together, project by project. I encourage this committee, if they ever have an opportunity, to go visit those projects. Not only are people in Global Affairs doing absolutely amazing work on the ground, so are our partners. Go see the impact they're having.
I can give you one example. Since the Sudan crisis.... When I was visiting South Sudan, thinking it's an area I needed to visit because the peace agreement was expiring, I went to one place where they had a women entrepreneurship program on farming. They were growing things they weren't able to grow before. It's a small area. I'm originally from a small village. They're able to feed their village and sell the excess food. That excess food is the difference between, sometimes, their children getting medical support or being able to go to school. This is just one micro-example of having an impact on people's lives...or medical clinics in the slums in Bangladesh. The list goes on.
I encourage members to go and visit some of those projects.
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That's the thing. We have the results. We have to get better at being able to pull it together so that, once we aggregate it, we can make even better decisions on this.
I also want to emphasize this, on the feminist approach: One of the key things I'm seeing—and I want the research to demonstrate this—is that, when people ask why we have a feminist assistance policy, it's the right thing to do. We need to send a very strong message. If you want to achieve your results faster, you take the feminist approach.
This is why Germany has now launched their own. Other nations, even though they haven't launched their policies, are taking our example, as well, because it's having an impact. Research has shown that, if you give funding support to women in certain areas, they will have a much bigger impact than if, as done traditionally, it was given to men.
:
MP Vandenbeld, I'm afraid you're out of time.
It now being past noon, I'll thank the minister for having once again appeared before our committee.
Of course, this was for members to ask you questions about the main estimates for 2023-24, but, of course, you answered a host of disparate and different types of questions, as well. We're very grateful.
We will now provide you, Minister, with a few minutes to depart.
I will suspend for two minutes to allow the officials to assume their positions.
Thank you.
[English]
We have been operating within a policy framework of the feminist international assistance policy for the last five years. Within that we have really been looking at how can we address some of the underlying issues that are at the core of some of the development challenges.
One of the signature initiatives within this is Women's Voice and Leadership. Equally with that we have funding to the Equality Fund. What these have in common is a commitment to try to give resources directly to those organizations, to those people working locally in their communities.
That is based on the recognition that they are best placed to know what the needs of their communities are and to be able to make decisions that will benefit those communities.
As part of that work we have really had a chance to see what that impact is. For instance, by giving relatively small amounts of resources to organizations like women's rights organizations in countries, they have been able to directly advocate for laws—for instance, civil society laws, to ensure that they have, first of all, rights in place and are able to address issues around human rights and to have access to property, for instance, to titles.
Every day they are working in many countries in sub-Saharan Africa and globally to advocate for their needs as individuals, as women and girls, but also for their communities.
It's the kind of work that is around empowering them. Underlying all of this is that they are changing the dynamics in their country and very much leading the change.
I would firstly like to offer a rebuttal to comments made by Ms. Vandenbeld. I think numbers can be interpreted in quite a few ways.
I believe that the NGOs working in the field of international cooperation had expressed their desire that the government not use the crisis as an excuse to reduce its contribution but rather increase it. However, despite this, the government uses the crisis as an excuse. The crisis isn't finished yet, as our colleague was saying: the health crisis isn't over, the food crisis isn't over, and the climate crisis wages on. However, the government has cited the supposed end of these crises to reduce its contribution to international development assistance. I will just say that it is most unfortunate that the government has made this political choice that it will have to live with.
I now have a question for the witnesses. First of all, thank you for being here with us. I didn't get the chance to say it before. I know that you probably have many other things to do that are just as important, but you made the time and we are grateful.
A bit earlier, Ms. McPherson asked the minister about the Africa strategy. He seemed a bit surprised by the question, not quite understanding what she meant. I have before me an article from The Hill Times which indicates that the , our colleague Mr. Robert Oliphant, said in July 2022 that he hoped to get this strategy to cabinet before December 2022. However, this article, dated December 7, 2022, states that the strategy doesn't seem to have been provided at that point in time. It is now April 2023: where is the government at with its African strategy?
We can see that Canada's international development assistance essentially targets a handful of countries. In 2021 and 2022, those countries where Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria. In the case of Afghanistan and Ukraine, it is obvious why the government has made those two countries priorities. However, in certain other cases, it is not so obvious. I am thinking about Ethiopia, which is the prime beneficiary of Canada's international development assistance, and where for months on end, the Ethiopian government waged a dirty war against the Tigray.
My question is very simple: Why choose Ethiopia, Bangladesh, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria rather than other countries with which we have closer ties in terms of culture, for example? Haiti comes to mind.
:
Thank you for the question.
[English]
I'll respond and just distinguish between humanitarian assistance and development assistance.
In the list of countries that you cited, we have very large investments, predominantly in humanitarian assistance. Ukraine is obviously much broader than that.
Humanitarian assistance is always neutral. It's always impartial. It operates in contexts, as you said, that are very difficult to stomach at times, with actors that are very difficult to stomach. The underlying principle of it is that we will deliver life-saving assistance to people in need. That is why you see elevated levels of assistance in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and the DRC, as well as some of the other countries you mentioned.
Thank you for being here and sharing your expertise with us today, witnesses.
I just want to respond very quickly to what you said, Mr. Smith, about trade's being an important part. I would suggest that our government has promoted trade over development, over diplomacy and over peacekeeping. Frankly, when you have trade without development, diplomacy and peacekeeping, it is not trade; it's exploitation. I would flag that for the group.
When I was within the sector, I was actually sitting on the TaFIE task force, namely, the task force for improving effectiveness at Global Affairs Canada. Many of the concerns that we raised within that task force have not been addressed by Global Affairs. They are still outstanding. One of them is the time it takes for a proposal to go from proposal to completion.
I'm going to raise an issue right now about the initiative for small and medium organizations. Right now, we have this initiative, which asked for proposals in September 2021. Eighteen organizations were asked to complete a full proposal in May 2022. They have still not received a result. Basically, we have a situation where 18 proposals cannot be evaluated by Global Affairs Canada in a year—which is appalling, of course, especially because of the impact, as I'm sure you all know, that it has on organizations. My understanding is that it takes up to 17 different sign-offs for a proposal to be approved.
I have two questions.
First of all, is this acceptable? Does this meet the standards that Global Affairs Canada has in terms of time frames?
Also, if this is the case, how on earth can we expect that Bill would work in a humanitarian crisis when we require Global Affairs to be able to respond?
Thanks to the officials for being here.
I want to continue the questioning by my colleague, specifically on the information system, which was flagged by the Auditor General, as you've acknowledged. There were delays. Of the 60 projects reviewed, nine projects had partial information and one had none.
I'm going to ask you to sharpen your answer a little. Is this an information system? From my colleague, I understand that these issues existed five years ago. Is it staffing? Is it COVID? Is it a work location?
When it's flagged by the Auditor General in a report, it gets my attention anyway, so I'm going to ask you to respond.
:
I'd be happy to respond to that, Mr. Chair.
What I would say is that the targets that are included in the policy are about allocation, so it's allocating the resources to certain types of programming—as you note, the gender-targeted and the gender-integrated. I have to say that I'm not aware of the 5% for infrastructure, so there may be just some confusion there.
However, in terms of allocating resources, that would drive the project choices that we're making, so the projects my colleague has been highlighting in terms of the outcomes and result statements that are developed are framed around the allocation choices we're making.
In answer to your question, the allocation of resources to specific kinds of gender-equality programming determines the broad nature of the projects that are ultimately implemented.
:
Thank you for the question, Chair.
We are always evolving the projects that we do. We do that both in response to the countries we're working with, making sure we're responding to their needs and what they're looking for, and also, particularly in the cases where we work with Canadian partners, the ideas they have and the relationships they have with their counterparts in developing countries.
We don't have a project exactly like that, but there are initiatives that involve, for instance, bringing in Canadian expertise.
I'll maybe link to a question that was asked earlier. There's a partnering for climate initiative that is currently under way. We did a call for proposals that involves Canadian indigenous organizations. The idea is for them to be able to share their knowledge and expertise and then partner with those communities in countries so that there can be shared learning.
This is part of those evolving projects. Something like that maybe didn't exist before but is very much responsive to the issues that those countries and communities have identified.
Its now being 12:45, I'm afraid that will conclude our session of questions with officials.
Allow me at this opportunity to thank Peter MacDougall, Anick Ouellette, Patricia Peña, Annie Boyer and Andrew Smith for being with us and answering all of the questions posed by the members.
I'll remind the members that at our next meeting on Thursday, May 4, there will be an appearance by .
We will suspend briefly to allow our witnesses to depart and will continue with the last portion of our meeting, which will be in camera.
Members who are attending via Zoom, please use the other hyperlink and connection information that was sent by the clerk.
We will resume in camera in a few minutes. Thank you.
[Proceedings continue in camera]