FAAE Committee Report

Conservatives thank all of the witnesses for appearing before the committee, as well as all members for their engagement with this important topic. We also wish to recognize and thank the committee staff and analysts. Although there certainly are some areas of agreement, we respectfully dissent from the main committee’s report and submit the following dissenting opinion.

It was the previous Conservative government that sought to re-orient our development assistance towards defending and advancing the rights of women and girls. The historic nature of Stephen Harper’s Muskoka Initiative is widely recognized within the development sector. That recognition is sadly not reflected in the committee’s report. Liberals have a habit of renaming Conservative programs and then trying to take credit for them. Although there are differences between the Liberal and Conservative development policies, the emphasis on women and girls in international development is demonstrably a Conservative legacy.

The Muskoka Initiative received high praise from witnesses. For example, Beth Woroniuk from the Equality Fund described the Muskoka Initiative as “an important step forward”. Julia Anderson from the Canadian Partnership for Women and Children's Health told the committee:

“As someone said, success leave clues, and I think we should look closely at the success of the Muskoka Initiative for clues as to how we invest and engage in international development. The Muskoka Initiative was committed by the Canadian government, $3.5 billion over five years. It was a flagship initiative around our official development assistance. It moved the needle significantly by engaging other donor countries in supporting the initiative with a clear and accountable framework for what counted as an investment in Muskoka and what did not count. As well, there was a diplomatic push and effort in ensuring that these two elements of the then-millennium development goals that had been largely forgotten in maternal health and newborn health would be engaged in. It was somewhat comprehensive in including nutrition, especially in including researchers in the private sector.”

The genius of the Muskoka Initiative was its direct engagement with the needs of countries in the developing world. The various projects within the Muskoka Initiative were different from one another because they sought to address the unique needs of the 26 countries which they served. What remained constant across the 51 projects funded through the Muskoka Initiative was the continued advancement and promotion of the concrete wellbeing of women and girls.

One of the Muskoka projects, The Mother Care and Child Survival in Underserved Regions of Mali, Mozambique and Pakistan, exemplifies the concept of “direct engagement” well. The project involved allocating nearly nine million dollars to enhance maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition at the local level. It aided the Mopti region of Mali, Cabo Delgado in Mozambique, and Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan where lack of food and malnutrition related diseases are prevalent.

In countries like Burundi where HIV and its transmission from mother-to-child are common, funds delivered to the Quebec-based Aide Medicale Internationale a l’enfance (AIME) provided essential services to HIV-positive pregnant and breastfeeding women. Such resources helped address the spread of a fatal virus and increased awareness about the importance of HIV prevention in African countries.

In Afghanistan, Cambodia, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Laos, Nepal and Zambia where clean drinking water is often hard to access, the Muskoka Initiative provided funding to improve access to potable water for nearly 400,000 people. Of all those helped from this enterprise, 79 per cent were women and children. Access to clean drinking water improved hygiene and sanitation, ultimately advancing maternal and child health.

The Muskoka Initiative was an example of responsive and effective development assistance policy.

From the outset of this particular study, it was clear that in their consideration of the global situation of women and girls, Liberals and New Democrats were too narrowly focused. This narrow focus did not reflect the witness’s testimony, which reinforced the need to support a wide range of priorities affecting the reproductive health of women and girls.

Conservatives believe that a discussion of the health and rights of women and girls must be much broader in scope. It must recognize the social and cultural context in which women exercise their autonomy and the need to empower women to fully live their chosen path in a way that reflects both their values and their inherent dignity. In particular, for framing this understanding, we note the testimony of Dr. Maria Cristina Rodriguez Garcia from the National Women's Civic Association. She told the committee the following:

“Sexual and health reproductive rights places most of its measures in the genital aspect of sex. However reality show us that sexuality is much more than the use of genitals and includes aspects like affectivity, desire of transcendence, bonding and past experiences of trauma and abuse. Furthermore, all these conducts happen in different stages of life, so we mustn't isolate conducts like if it wouldn't matter when, how or why these conducts happen. In my experience working with children and teenagers to prevent teenage pregnancy, and listening the framings different countries and developing public policies, this focus placed solely in the sexual act overlooks the cultural expectations, emotional pressures and lack of education in recognizing healthy relationships, among other factors that hinders individuals' capacity to make choices that have a long-term effect in their well-being.”

We agree with Dr. Maria Cristina Rodriguez Garcia that the Government of Canada should consider a broader understanding of autonomy that seeks to ensure that the voices of all women are heard in all aspects of their lives and their sexuality.

Listening to women must also include a recognition of the importance of applying their own values to decision making, rather than imposing external agendas on them. Empowering women must mean empowering all women to speak about their priorities and concerns, rather than seeking to elevate the voices of some while repressing the voices of others.

As it relates to listening to women in developing countries speaking about their own priorities and concerns, one of the defining trends in international development is “localization”. Localization is about rejecting the mentality that sees outsiders as potential saviours, and instead supporting local people (especially marginalized people) to tell their own stories and shape their own priorities. During its hearings, the committee heard from western NGOs who championed one approach to this issue, but also heard from women leaders and academics from the developing world who expressed a different view from western NGOs. Women leaders from the developing world noted in particular how well-funded western organizations routinely fail to respect local laws and push priorities that were out of step with the priorities set by local women.

Conservatives believe in the importance of localization as part of international development. Conservatives believe in the universality of human rights and believe that human rights can be best advanced through local democracy and through mutually respectful dialogue. Witnesses from Africa affirmed that human rights are universal, but also insisted that western-dominated NGOs not seek to arbitrarily reframe long-established understandings of human rights without the inclusion of African voices. When the Government of Canada funds organizations that don’t necessarily reflect the priorities and values of local women, they are failing to engage in the vitally necessary mutually-respectful international dialogue or to respect local democracy.

Our view is that a proper emphasis on localization should support the development and participation in decision-making processes of women leaders, regardless of perspective. We should empower and support local women to set their own development priorities.

One important area of discussion during this study was family planning – the way that people are able to make choices about the number, timing, and spacing of children. Committee testimony revealed a significant concern among women in the developing world about the safety and side affects of hormonal contraception. This was acknowledged by Dr. Sully from Planned Parenthood, who, commenting on the testimony of another witness, said that they had “touched on an important point around contraceptive side effects. We see that women report that as one of the reasons for not using methods of contraception.”

In the Conservative dissenting report on international vaccine equity, we made a similar observation – that the uptake of western pharmaceutical products can often be low in developing countries even when such products are available, because of a lack of trust and concern about side effects. This lack of trust is exacerbated when the products promoted in the developing world by the west are not at the standard being used in the west itself. This lack of trust often flows from the history and continuing reality of colonialism in the developing world – a sense that the lives and the values of people in Africa and other parts of the developing world are not being treated with the same respect as the lives and values of people in the west. This is yet another reason to reject the continuation of colonial structures and mentalities and ensure actual constructive engagement with women in developing countries regarding their priorities.

Conservatives believe that Canadian international development should recognize the importance of autonomous family planning and should explore supporting family planning strategies that align with local values and traditions. Family planning requires that women are able to refuse sex, whenever they want and for whatever reason regardless of marital status, and that women have the economic security to be able to choose to live independently.

As we seek to understand the broader context for advancing the rights of women and girls, we also need to recognize that in many contexts a primary threat to reproductive health and rights is coercive population control, including forced sterilization and especially the horrors that we see in the ongoing Uyghur genocide. The government continues to refuse to acknowledge the Uyghur genocide, and the main committee report makes scant mention of the problem of coercive population control. It is deeply unacceptable for states to implement coercive population control.

In search of an approach to this area that takes into consideration the broad range of needs, realities and experiences and in search of an approach that respects local communities, cultures, and decision-making processes, the committee should have looked to the approach taken by the previous Conservative government under Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Under Conservative leadership, Canada led the world in championing the Muskoka Initiative. The Muskoka Initiative brought about concrete improvements in the quality of life of women and girls around the world. It was an approach designed to make a difference on the ground, rather than to score political points at home. This approach reflected a consensus within Canada, aligned with local laws and priorities, and empowered women and girls in the developing world regardless of their political persuasion. All Canadians can be proud of that legacy.

On a final note, Conservatives wish to highlight the testimony of Ukrainian Member of Parliament Ms. Lesia Vasylenko. She shared horrific stories of sexual violence by Russian soldiers targeting Ukrainian women, as part of Russia’s genocidal war of aggression. This testimony about the use of rape as a weapon of war underlines the need for Canada to be steadfast in its support of Ukraine and to work with our allies to bring all who have committed or are committing war crimes to justice. We hope to see the committee return soon to its vital work on Ukraine, which has been too long interrupted.