:
Good morning, members of the committee.
As you know, several newspapers, but mainly the weekly Embassy, have, over the past summer, documented the changes in terminology used in Canada's foreign policy.
Included among the more notable changes are the following: the disappearance of the expression “human security” and its corollary the “responsibility to protect”, or “RtoP”; the replacing of the expression “international humanitarian law” with “international law”; the replacing of the expression “child soldier” with “children in armed conflicts”; the replacing of “gender equality” with “sexual equality”, “equality between the sexes” or “equality between men and women”; the disappearance of references to gender-specificity or of the term “gender-specific” itself, in other words, to gender, and, lastly, the disappearance of justice and the fight against impunity as regards victims of sexual violence, and this is specifically reflected in the national plan of action which was unveiled just last October.
If I may, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to give my presentation in two parts. First, I will tell you about the results contained in a small study on the implications of these terminological changes, and second, I will address the potential consequences of these changes.
Concerning what these terminological changes really mean, I have to say that this was rather difficult to document. However, I have been able to establish a couple of trends. To do so, I decided to concentrate on official statements made by Canadian diplomats at the Security Council when it was debating the situation of women, on the one hand, and, on the other, the statements made at the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Further, I limited my study to two themes in particular: first, sexual violence and the fight against impunity, and then gender and gender-specificity. I also chose to work with statements which had been made over the past three years.
Here are the results. During the Security Council debate on women, peace and security in 2008 and 2009 at the Security Council, the Canadian representative to the United Nations insisted on the necessity of ending impunity linked to war crimes, in particular regarding crimes involving sexual violence. He referred to the provisions of resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, which dates back to 2000. He also invited other countries to work with the International Criminal Court to prosecute serious crimes, including those involving sexual violence.
In August 2009, the Canadian representative drew attention to the fact that “amnesty clauses within peace accords, which can be interpreted as exempting perpetrators of sexual violences from being held accountable, directly contravene Resolution 1820 (2008)”. This was a very strong message, given the way diplomatic language is used at the United Nations. The emphasis on the fight against impunity was then renewed in October 2009.
However, when you look at other statements which were made on the same subject, this time in October 2010, you realize that Canada's message has changed. There is no more talk of justice and the fight against impunity. Canada is now emphasizing the participation of women in the peace consolidation process. There is but a passing mention of the primacy of law. This change is all the more worrying because on October 13 last at the Security Council, the discussion dealt with the development of indicators to measure the implementation of resolutions 1325, 1820, 1888 and 1889. But among the indicators related to protection, the Secretary General of the United Nations clearly focused on indicators linked to the prosecution of crimes involving sexual violence.
I have to say that Canada's statement at the Security Council clearly reflects the Canadian plan of action on the implementation of the Security Council's resolutions, which, as you know, was unveiled in October 2010.
If you take a quick look at the plan, you will see that Canada's response to the implementation of the resolution, including the fight against sexual violence, is chiefly based on three things. The imposition of codes of conduct, the training of military and other personnel on women's issues, and peace and security, and evidence contained in diplomatic cables regarding serious violent crimes committed against women by Canadian officials.
Further in the plan, there is only a single reference to the legal and security system, and this reference is worded in an extremely vague and abstract manner.
Then, on October 26, 2010, at the UN Security Council, the Hon. Bev Oda (Minister of International Cooperation), took everyone by surprise when she called on countries to investigate and prosecute crimes involving sexual violence. At the same time, she also supported the creation of a list of experts in investigations and prosecutions.
If you look at what was happening at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, you will see that, on March 5, 2009, Canada declared that the elimination of violence against women was one of the three pillars of Canadian policy, but Canada never provided details about what this meant. Further, nowhere in its statement was there a mention of gender equality or the necessity to take gender specificity into account.
This marked a change compared to the statements Canada had made in 2008. It was also very different from what was said in front of the same body, or at the same session, in 2009, by Switzerland and Sweden, who both insisted on the importance of applying gender-based analysis in policies aimed at fighting discrimination against women.
However, I must recognize that, when Australia spoke on behalf of the group comprised of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the expression "gender equality" was regularly used, and forcefully so, and it was also said that impunity for crimes committed against women in conflicts "could not be tolerated".
So to conclude this inventory, I will present you with a fact which may seem anecdotal, but which basically speaks for itself. The Canadian plan to implement the Security Council's resolutions refers to "equality between men and women", as opposed to what the Hon. Bev Oda said in her speech, when she cautiously referred to the equality between women and men. As I said, this is just an anecdote, but as far as the Canadian plan is concerned, there is no mention of gender, nor of gender specificity. On the contrary, the language refers to taking the needs of women and girls into account. What this means exactly as far as policy is concerned remains to be seen.
What impact will this have? First, in the area of foreign policy, it is clear that our partners feel we are changing our policy. Perhaps—I cannot say for sure, we will have to ask political scientists—we are losing credibility. What I believe is happening is that we may be relinquishing our position as international leaders on this subject.
As for the advancement of women's rights per se, it is not enough to focus on prevention when it comes to preventing sexual violence or helping the fight against sexual violence. You just have to read, for example, the Human Rights Watch report entitled "Soldiers who rape, commanders who condone", to realize that there is no real fight against impunity, that training is not enough to eliminate violence, especially in countries or conflicts where violence has become endemic and has basically become a routine matter—in other words, it has become part of the fabric of society.
As a matter of fact, the Belgian plan provides examples of concrete policy options or good practices which can be developed.
The other problem—and I will end with this—is that, when you talk about sexual equality and not gender equality, not only are you ignoring an entire segment of the population, including homosexuals, lesbians and transgendered people, but you are also discounting the analysis of those things which underpin discrimination against women, that is, the power dynamic which underlies the social and family roles of men and women.
Equality is not a matter of accounting; rather, it involves a change in mentality and a change in society. So if we choose to talk about sexual equality instead of gender equality, it is because we have chosen to ignore, or to not question, the social, family, cultural and even professionnal reasons for discrimination.
Thank you.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for appearing here today. This is a very important study for the committee as it relates to women.
For my first question, I'm going to go back to last Tuesday. Alan Kessel, from the Department of Foreign Affairs, appeared before our committee and stated, “No, there are no changes in terms”, at DFAIT. On Thursday we had witnesses who gave the committee countless examples of speeches, statements, and documents that have been produced by DFAIT over the past few years that specifically omitted the terms “gender equality”, “child soldier”, and “international humanitarian law”.
Michelle Collins, formerly of Embassy magazine, was kind enough to provide me with a copy of an e-mail to share with the committee, which was sent by Jamieson Weetman, a senior official at DFAIT, to nearly two dozen other DFAIT officials in May 2009. Individuals who received this e-mail included assistant deputy ministers, directors general, directors, and many other senior officials at DFAIT, including the witness who denied there were any changes, Mr. Kessel.
The e-mail states, “Some of you will have already noted over the past few months the tendency” of the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs “to change or remove language from letters, speeches, interventions at multilateral meetings, etc.”. I would like to start by tabling this e-mail for the committee and then ask our witnesses if they think an e-mail of this nature demonstrates that senior officials at the Department of Foreign Affairs were aware of the language changes that were taking place.
:
What becomes very clear when you read the national plan which came out in October, is that, in fact, everything which has to do with justice for the victims—including access to legal institutions, to the strengthening of judicial capacity, as well as the presence of women in the legal system—everything which deals with supporting the legal system, and the mechanisms involved in the legal system, for example—none of this appears at all in the national plan.
Further, if you look at the proposals contained in the Belgian plan, you see that there is a big difference. The Belgian national plan sets out extremely concrete actions. It states that Belgium:
- Will support initiatives involving women with regard to access to the legal system, which will encourage women to file complaints, which will offer them protection and shelter;
- Will support the strengthening of the legal system in every country where Belgium is participating in an international mission;
- Will support initiatives which strengthen the position of women (succession rights, ownership, training, forced marriages, etc.) [regarding ownership];
- Will support the International Criminal Court.
These actions could not be more concrete, and this is what the Belgian government is proposing. In fact, it has already begun to implement these measures on the ground.
As far as Canada is concerned, you might know—and Ms. Leclerc from CIDA could certainly speak to this—that there is a project to address the issue of sexual violence, which has already received $15 million in funding.
However, unless I'm mistaken, this fund or program will end this year. Will it be renewed or not, and under what conditions?
The other problem with Canada's plan is that, when you look at the details of the actions which the Canadian government lays out, they mostly seem to focus on training. An inventory will be taken of the training given to people on the ground, and then it will be assessed.
We have between 8 and 11 military personnel in the Democratic Republic of Congo with the MONUSCO mission. How in the world is this training going to change anything? Really, is this what is going to improve the situation and prevent sexual violence from being committed on the ground?
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I thank the witnesses for being here.
However, I would like to go back to the e-mail that Madam made note of, because, quite frankly, as much as I welcome CIDA here, I have a feeling that we have the wrong people here. We need to have political personnel, because this seems to me to be very political.
As I said, I'll go back to the e-mail. It says, “Some of the changes suggested by oMINA”--meaning language related to human rights, child soldiers, international humanitarian law--“are more than simply stylistic changes”. It goes on to say, “So far we have largely been managing these issues as they come in on a case by case basis”.
To be quite frank, I feel as though I'm being managed. I feel very strongly that there is an exercise going on in regard to lowballing the impact of these changes when we should be very concerned about them. Having said that, I do have some specific questions.
My first is to Madam Leclerc and Monsieur Bélec. I have a document here talking about CIDA's overall financial resources for gender equality. It says, “CIDA's total of GE investments (both GE-specific and GE-integrated programming) was $793 million or 4.7% of the $16.9 billion in CIDA-managed ODA between 1998 and 2005”.
I'm wondering what it is now. What is the investment in terms of gender equality right now? Do you know?
:
Within the framework of international law, gender equality goes beyond a mere bookkeeping equality that would aim at establishing, for example, quotas for the representation of women in a parliament or within the armed forces, or peacekeeping forces.
Gender equality will require, beyond a purely numerical analysis, that we review the nature of the functions of these women who were permitted, for example, to have positions within the armed forces or to discharge responsibilities within mediation teams, for instance, such as those that were implemented by the Secretary General of the United Nations or in the operational commands of the United Nations. There is a common command, and then, of course, there are national military contingents.
We want to know the real criteria that allow these women to occupy positions of responsibility that are equivalent to those occupied by men in general. Now, we know, especially in the context of the peacekeeping forces, that the military world is extremely virile by nature. In fact, it greatly glorifies heroism and courage, the courage being that of a soldier bearing arms.
In military history, the role of women has been considered of very little value in wars or in conflicts, apart from the role that they have sometimes played as nurses, for example, or sometimes as spies.
Let us go beyond the anecdotes. Gender equality does not merely consist in having the same number of women and men in a contingent or a command, it means having women occupying positions of equal responsibility.
:
The only minister we have heard from has been the Minister for Status of Women Canada when we asked her to come to the committee to—I'm just reading carefully—“explain the manner and criteria by which funding is distributed by Status of Women Canada through each of the Women's Community Fund and Women's Partnership Fund”. We got a response from the minister that said she had received the letter. She has yet to give us a date to appear. Now, I would like to remind the committee that the letter was written on June 7.
We also have letters written on September 23 to the Minister of Justice and to the Minister of Health asking them to appear: to explain what the Minister of Justice intends to do with the $11 million that was transferred to his department, and to ask the Minister of Health to appear before the committee to explain what she intends to do with the money that was transferred to her department for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
I have spoken to the whip, as I said earlier on, who promised me that there would be at least a courtesy that said “thank you, I got your letter”. We have received neither the courtesy nor anything else.
I repeat and I reiterate here to this committee that this is totally unacceptable. It is not a case, Ms. Neville, of being snubbed. It is a case of a minister having to be accountable. That's a word that is used. That is why committees of Parliament exist: it is to ask ministers to be accountable.
They come to committee to be accountable. This is not a political committee; it is a committee of Parliament, duly made up of all of the political parties. When a minister refuses to even acknowledge the letter, I consider that to be a case, first, that the minister obviously does not care about Parliament and has no respect for Parliament and has no respect for parliamentary committees. And it's rude not to even respond and say, “I got your letter and I couldn't care less”—at least that would be a response—or whatever.
We have had no response at all from these ministers, and that has been now going on for two and a half months. This is unacceptable. I can tell you that as a minister I would not take two and a half months; I would respond to any letter from any standing committee within a week. It is just good manners. It just shows respect for Parliament and parliamentary democracy, which is in this room right now asking a minister to be accountable for moneys that were accepted by this House when it accepted the budget.
This is something that concerns me a great deal. I will tell you that I agree with you that we probably will not get the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but I believe that we should ask ministers to continue to be accountable, and so I will accept Ms. Simson's naming of the Minister of Foreign Affairs to come and speak to this issue.
Now, is there anybody else to speak to this?
Madame Boucher, is it to speak to the motion?