TWENTY-SEVENTH YEAR, NO. 1334 CANADA’S POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT NEWSWEEKLY WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016 $5.00

NEWS STAFFERS NEWS DUFFY TRIAL

NEWS DIPLOMACY

NEWS FOREIGN AID

Armenia pushes Liberals to fulfi l election ‘promise,’ open embassy

Aid group famously dumped by Tories seeking help from Liberals

BY CHELSEA NASH

Political staffers, no matter their ambi-tion, don’t always get a chance to shape events outside the walls of Parliament.

In the case of those hand-picked to work for Global Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion (Saint-Laurent, Que.) that’s exactly what they’ve been hired to do. A new government invariably wants to project a new image of Canada to the world. Not just anyone can—or should—be trusted to paint that picture.

Colin Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat, personally knows a few of the people working in Mr. Dion’s offi ce, includ-ing Christopher Berzins, director of policy, and Jocelyn Coulon, senior policy adviser.

Mr. Robertson said he’s impressed with how the new Liberal government has been hiring “fi rst-rate people.”

BY TIM NAUMETZ

Auditor General Michael Ferguson does not intend to conduct an audit on Senator Mike Duffy’s travel, housing and contract ex-penses following his acquittal on 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery last week—unless the Senate requests one, Mr. Ferguson’s offi ce said Tuesday.

A spokesperson for Mr. Ferguson was responding to an unexpected public state-ment, from a lawyer representing former prime minister Stephen Harper, predicting

BY SHRUTI SHEKAR

Armenia’s ambassador to Canada is pressing the Liberal government to make good on what he says was an election promise to the politically infl uential Arme-nian-Canadian community to establish a Canadian Embassy in Armenia.

“This was a political promise during the election campaign,” said Armen Yeganian in an interview with The Hill Times. “But I’m sure that as we’ve seen already with other political promises, such as refugees, this current government is very keen to stick to their promises. So I hope that this one also will be implemented very soon.”

BY MARIE-DANIELLE SMITH

KAIROS Canada, an international devel-opment group famously dumped by a Con-servative federal minister, is looking to build bridges with the new Liberal government.

The government ended its relationship with KAIROS Canada in 2009 after 34 years of federal funding. About $7 million in funding had been approved by top bu-reaucrats with the Canadian International Development Agency, but International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda denied it.

A handwritten “not” was added to the approval document with her signature. As details emerged in 2010 and 2011, the deci-sion became the topic of major controversy on the Hill. Ms. Oda’s answers to ques-tions about the decision were confusing, and opposition MPs in a raucous minority Parliament accused her of lying.

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The people behind foreign policy: A look inside the foreign minister’s offi ce

AG denies Harper lawyer suggestion he will audit Duffy expenses with trial over

NEWS HILL LIFE & PEOPLE

NEWS CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Let courts, mediators decide on mining disputes abroad: Lobby group

BY CHELSEA NASH

Garnett Genuis has been in offi ce for just over six months, and he’s already spoken 44,109 words in the House of Commons.

That’s second only to Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Man.), who sits at 54,663 words, according to Maclean’s Magazine’s “Figures of Speech” data collector.

For perspective, Mr. Genuis, the rookie MP for Sherwood Park-Fort Saskatchewan,

Alta., has spoken more than twice as many words as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and 6,367 words more than the next most frequent speaker in his caucus, MP Erin O’Toole (Durham, Ont.).

Former classmate Shawn Menard characterizes 29-year-old Mr. Genuis, the youngest MP in the Conservative caucus, as a “fi erce debater.”

BY PETER MAZEREEUW

While human rights groups are pushing for stronger government oversight of min-ing companies’ conduct abroad, executives from a national mining lobby group say Canadian courts and existing mediation bodies should be allowed to do their work.

The court system is one of sev-eral tools already in place to deal with confl ict or allegations of wrongdoing connected to foreign projects owned by Canadian mining companies, said Min-ing Association of Canada president and

Continued on page 18

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Only a few months on the job, rookie MP Garnett Genuis has met the Dalai Lama and is a regular at the Foreign Affairs Committee, though he’s not a member. The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia

The youngest Conservative MP with the most to say

EXCLUSIVE POLITICAL COVERAGE: NEWS, FEATURES, AND ANALYSIS INSIDE

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THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY APRIL 27, 20162FEATURE BUZZ

Do you trust your boss more than Justin Trudeau?

More Canadians rate the leader of their company as trustworthy than they do the prime minister, according to the results of an online survey released by Environics Communications Tuesday.

About 46 per cent of the 1,001 Canadians who took part in the survey indicated that they trusted their current prime minister to do “what is right for Canada,” compared to 52 per cent who trusted their CEO or most senior boss.

The survey was conducted between Feb. 29 to March 7 of this year, and looked at how much trust Canadians had for various public and private leaders and institutions.

The higher score for corporate leaders likely has a lot to do with bosses rubbing shoulders with their employees, says Envi-ronics chief Bruce MacLellan.

“Familiarity is a great way to build trust,” he said.

Perhaps surprisingly, Mr. Trudeau (Papineau, Que.) was rated trustworthy by more respondents from Western Canada (48 per cent)—which, outside of urban centres such as Vancouver, is dominated in Parliament by the Conservative Party and NDP—than from Quebec (42 per cent.) Re-spondents from Ontario (48 per cent) and Atlantic Canada (49 per cent) gave roughly the same level of support to Mr. Trudeau as those from Western Canada.

“I don’t think we can categorize the West perhaps the way we have for the last decade, as the bedrock of Conservatism,” said Mr. MacLellan.

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi proved one of the most popular political leaders in the survey; 66 per cent of Calgarian respon-dents indicated that they trusted their mayor.

Almost three in 10 (28 per cent) Canadi-ans indicated they didn’t trust any of the leaders listed. Trust for provincial premiers (34 per cent) was lower than for several other categories of leaders.

The research indicates Canadians trust leaders who are local, communicative, accessible, and value investment in their communities. Nearly one-third of Canadi-ans surveyed (32 per cent) suggested us-ing social media channels to communicate is important to creating trust.

The survey was the fi rst CanTrust Index conducted by Environics.

A Forum Research poll conducted in mid-February found that 57 per cent of Canadians indicated they approved of Mr. Trudeau as prime minister, and 49 per cent would have voted Liberal were the election held that day.

Senate staffer turns author

A collection of about 15 Parliamentar-ians, staffers, and Armenian community advocates gathered in a small room April 20 outside of the Parliamentary Restaurant for the launch of a book by Senate staffer Aram Adjemian.

Mr. Adjemian’s book, The Call From Armenia: Canada’s Response to the Ar-menian Genocide, uses letters, newspaper articles, cartoons, and photos to illustrate the reaction in Canada to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, or possibly mil-lions, of Armenians between 1915 and 1917 at the hands of Ottoman troops.

The book is an updated and illustrated edition of a master’s thesis completed by Mr. Adjemian in 2007, the year before he came to work on the Hill. Mr. Adjemian has worked for most of that time as a staff-er for Senator Serge Joyal. He works as a research assistant to the Senate Liberal.

Mr. Adjemian was commissioned to complete the book by a committee orga-nized by the Armenian National Commit-tee of Canada to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the deaths last year. The ANCC is providing copies of the book to those who are interested.

Mr. Joyal, Arnold Chan (Scarborough-Agincourt, Ont.)—who serves as chair-person for the Canada-Armenia Parlia-mentary Friendship Group—Peter Kent (Thornhill, Ont.) and Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie, Que.) were among those in attendance.

Armenian-Canadians and their sup-porters marched in Ottawa April 24 to commemorate the 101st anniversary of what they consider to be a genocide. Another march is planned for Montreal May 8, and Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly (Ahuntsic-Cartierville, Que.) will partici-pate, her offi ce confi rmed.

The Turkish Embassy in Canada—which does not recognize the Armenian deaths as a product of genocide—released a statement from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan April 24, paying tribute to those who lost their lives.

Trudeau ranks below corporate bosses on

trust survey

HEARD HILLONTHE

BY PETER MAZEREEUW

CORRECTION: THE HILL TIMES, APRIL 20 ISSUE

Re: “Trade Committee embarks

on $100,000-plus cross-country tour, hopes to report to House in December,” (The Hill Times, April 20, 2016, p. 1). The article stated that witnesses who appeared before the committee were selected by each caucus in proportion to their standing in the House. In fact, each caucus on the House Trade Committee selected an equal number of witnesses.

Democratic Minister Monsef speaks at Ottawa Peace Talks

House Speaker Regan hosts taste of Pacific Alliance

Huffi ngton Post Canada’s Althia Raj, event MC, left, with Global Centre for Pluralism Secretary-General John McNee, second from right, and Scott Weber and Sarah Noble of Interpeace. The two groups organized the event, which explored the theme of building peace through diversity.

Sudanese child-soldier-turned-musician Emmanuel Jal, and Hamoon Ekhtiari, Telus’s director of strategy, at the post-event reception.

Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef, a presenter at the April 19 event.

Immigration Minister John McCallum at the event at the Delegation of the Ismaili Imamat.

Ottawa Peace Talks photographs by Andrea Cardin

The Hill Times photographs by Sam Garcia

Sabrina Ruiz Santa Maria, left, her grandmother, right, Peruvian Ambassador Marcela López Bravo, and Conservative MP Ed Fast at the April 12 celebration of Pacifi c Alliance food in the Speaker’s Centre Block salon.

Chefs Juan Pablo Loaiza (Colombia), Raúl Guerrero and Jonathan Luna (Mexico), Lizardo Becerra (Peru), Benjamín Ahumada (Chile), and Tomas Rueda (Colombia).

Mr. García-López and Colombian Ambassador Nicolás Lloreda.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Bob Nault and Chilean Ambassador Alfonso Silva.

Causa Limeña Makis, Peruvian smoked-salmon sushi.

Mexican Ambassador Agustín García-López Loaeza laughs with House Speaker and host Geoff Regan.

Continued on page 19

Author Aram Adjemian works as a research assistant to Senator Serge Joyal. The Hill Times photograph by Peter Mazereeuw

3THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY APRIL 27, 2016

NEWS FOREIGN AID

Jennifer Henry, the group’s executive director, said the orga-nization prepared a subsequent proposal aligned with the govern-ment’s “priorities,” but it was de-nied too. After that, the organiza-tion was “experiencing challenges in even meeting with government offi cials,” so it stopped asking. It does not currently receive any

government funding, Ms. Henry confi rmed, and it hasn’t since the funding fi asco.

The tides may now be turn-ing. The Liberal government’s priorities and its “renewed way of working with civil society” has presented an opportunity, Ms. Henry said.

She was told last week that a funding proposal submitted in January was under what she said was active review at the foreign

affairs department. Her group is asking for the government to fund 75 per cent of a $5-mil-lion project, which works out to $3.75-million.

Under the new government, the organization has already had the chance to meet with some government offi cials, Ms. Henry said. A representative of KAIROS also appeared before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Com-mittee earlier in April, speaking on women, peace, and security.

“We are genuinely hopeful about this new government,” said Ms. Henry. “There’s a tangible change in ways of working, and we have had some good actions off the top.”

The proposed funding would benefi t programs that fall under the women, peace, and security theme in South Sudan, the Demo-cratic Republic of Congo, the Philippines, Colombia, and Israel and the Palestinian Territories.

“We think that our work is complementary to what the gov-ernment’s goals would be in those places,” Ms. Henry said.

Bernard Boutin, the press secretary for International Devel-opment Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau (Compton—Stanstead, Que.), said the department doesn’t comment on projects that are under review.

“Our international development assistance projects are funded based on the development merits of their proposals and not on an af-fi liation, religious or otherwise,” he said. “They are selected following rigorous analysis.”

The backstoryThe Conservative govern-

ment’s explanation for why fund-ing was cut off shifted as time went on.

Less than a month after Ms. Oda’s 2009 decision, then-immi-gration minister Jason Kenney (Calgary Midnapore, Alta.) said publicly that the cuts had to do with ending support for anti-Semitic groups.

But KAIROS Canada had instituted a policy in 2007 saying its member churches and orga-nizations, along with its board, were “against advocating sanc-tions against Israel or a boycott of products from Israel.” It was sug-

gested Mr. Kenney had confused the Canadian organization with a different group in the Palestinian Territories, with which it had no affi liation.

Mr. Kenney later revised his statement, saying the decision had to do with the project not meeting CIDA priorities.

But CIDA offi cials told a parliamentary committee about a year later that they had originally approved funding.

The controversy surround-ing who ultimately made the decision to cut funding, and who wrote the “not,” prompted signifi cant debate in the House of Commons from late 2010 to early 2011. The Liberals, then the House’s third party, tabled a Foreign Affairs Committee report asking for the House Speaker to investigate possible sanctions. The House of Commons Proce-dure and House Affairs Commit-tee began an investigation.

On the third day of commit-tee hearings in February 2011, Ms. Oda appeared and stated she had had the document altered and had acted of her own accord, absent any direction from Mr. Kenney or then-prime minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Heri-tage, Alta.).

Ms. Oda, notorious for having charged $16 orange juice to her expense accounts, stepped down as an MP, and from the ministry, in the summer of 2012.

On the fi ve-year anniversary of losing its funding, KAIROS Canada hosted several parties to celebrate “resilience” and “the fact that KAIROS is still here, dedicated to human rights and ecological justice,” according to its 2014 annual report.

It describes the cut-off from government as sudden and unex-pected, and features a message from comedian Rick Mercer, saying, “congratulations KAIROS on the occasion of you still being a thing.”

The group, which is faith-based and affi liated with the United Church of Canada, reported expenses for that year at just shy of $2.5-million, funded in large part by donations.

msmith@hilltimes.com@mariedaniellesThe Hill Times

Aid group famously dumped by Tories seeking help from Liberals After almost six years without government funding, a proposal by KAIROS Canada is under review at Global Affairs Canada.

NUCLEAR POWER: THE CORE OF CANADA’S LOW CARBON FUTURE.

CNA HILL DAY

Continued from page 1

Chantal Bilulu co-ordinates the Women and Children’s program at Héritiers de la Justice, a human rights organization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The organization is one of fi ve partners for which KAIROS Canada is currently seeking government funding. KAIROS Canada photograph by Ian Thomson

THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY APRIL 27, 20164NEWS EUROPE

BY PETER MAZEREEUW

Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland found herself in the

awkward position last week of defending the EU’s proposed in-vestment court to members of its own Parliament, during the fi rst appearance of a Trudeau minister before the European body.

Canada and the European Union recently renegotiated the investment chapter of their Com-prehensive Economic and Trade Agreement after formal negotia-tions had closed, responding to political pressure—primarily in Europe—to scrap a traditional investor-state arbitration system included in the original deal.

The result was what Euro-peans are calling an investment court system, based upon a system proposed by the European Commission for trade deals more recent than CETA, such as the one being negotiated with the United States.

However, many Members of European Parliament on the political left remain skeptical of the deal’s investment chapter, and grilled Ms. Freeland (University-Rosedale, Ont.) on those and other aspects of the deal during her April 20 appearance before the trade committee.

Several MEPs raised concerns that U.S. companies could use close business ties with Canada to launch investor lawsuits against EU states.

Ms. Freeland responded by argu-ing the investor court would prevent business-to-state disputes from becoming state-to-state diplomatic rows—and lecturing EU parliamen-tarians on Canadian independence from the United States.

‘Talk to us in our own right’“We are independent and we

take our own decisions. That is very much the case with trade agree-ments. This is an agreement be-tween Canada and the EU, it’s not an agreement between the EU and anybody else, and really, you know, I’m Canada’s trade minister. I would like you to please be respect-ful of the fact that we are coming to you as a separate country,” Ms. Freeland told the committee.

“We’re the 11th largest country in the world [by GDP], we’re a G7 country. Talk to us in our own right, OK guys?” she said.

Ms. Freeland did not specifi -cally address the concerns that U.S. companies would be able to launch investor suits against EU governments through Canadian subsidiaries.

Canadian trade lawyers say the CETA text would only allow legitimate Canadian subsidiar-ies of U.S. companies with real

investments in Europe to make use of the agreement’s investor court system. That system is de-signed to give businesses a way to pursue legal action against governments that treat them unfairly compared to domestic companies, or illegally expropri-ate their assets.

The CETA would not allow shell companies established only in Canada to launch a lawsuit to use the investment court, said Matthew Kronby, the former lead lawyer for Canada during the CETA negotiations. Canadian subsidiaries could only launch legal challenges over investments they, not U.S. parent companies, made in Europe, he said.

Canadian trade lawyers Riyaz Dattu and Lawrence Herman wrote similar assessments in emailed statements to The Hill Times, pointing to language in the CETA’s investment chapter that limits what sorts of companies can be considered legitimate “investors.”

MEPs still split on investment chapter

More than a dozen MEPs put questions and comments about the CETA to Ms. Freeland after her introductory remarks to the committee. Scottish MEP David

Martin (Socialists and Democrats) asked whether the new investor court included in the CETA would be strong enough to prevent U.S. companies from using Canadian subsidiaries as a “backdoor” to sue European states.

Belgian MEP Maria Arena (Socialists and Democrats) asked a similar question, while Swedish MEP Christofer Fjellner (Europe-an People’s Party) said he hoped U.S. companies would fi nd a way to use the deal to trade more with the EU.

Some MEPs praised Canada’s government for agreeing to the changes in the investment chapter proposed by the Euro-pean Commission, while others denounced it for changing tack or failing to remove the chapter altogether.

The previous Conserva-tive government had refused to change the investment chapter that was agreed to when the CETA negotiations closed, lead-ing to months of stalling while the deal was supposedly in a legal “scrubbing” process.

“We would have voted against the Canadian agreement if the [investor] system hadn’t been changed,” said Mr. Martin.

Dutch MEP Marietje Schaake

(Liberals and Democrats) said she was “glad you’ve used the momentum of your government to remove one of the important hurdles” to the deal.

Mr. Fjellner, however, was critical of Canada’s government for its U-turn on the deal’s invest-ment chapter after the Liberals came to power.

“I’ve listened to so many Canadian representatives say, ‘No, no, no. Don’t fi x something that isn’t broken. Don’t leave the well-functioning [original] ISDS system to something unknown. And suddenly, you just turned around. And that of course, I think, hurts the perception of Canada,” he said.

German MEP Joachim Schus-ter (Socialists and Democrats) said he still didn’t see the need for an investor-state arbitration system between two jurisdictions with reliable legal systems.

Ms. Freeland defended the CE-TA’s investment chapter, telling MEPs that it would allow com-mercial disputes to be resolved without the Canadian and EU governments having to take each other on in court.

“The country doesn’t always benefi t from every commercial dispute becoming a political issue

and becoming an issue in the state-to-state relationship,” she said.

Canada to ratify child labour, pro-union conventions

Ms. Freeland also promised that Canada’s government was working to ratify two internation-al labour rights conventions that it has ignored for years.

Canada will ratify the Inter-national Labour Organization’s Minimum Age Convention by the end of June, she said.

That convention, adopted in 1973, was designed to prevent child labour, and mandates a minimum working age of 15 years old, or 18 for potentially hazard-ous work. The convention also says each country can exclude “limited” types of employment from the minimum age.

The minimum working age in Canada is currently determined by provincial and territorial govern-ments and ranges from 14 to 16.

Canada’s government is also “on a path” to ratify the ILO Right to Organize and Collective Bargaining Convention of 1949, which protects the right to join a labour union, Ms. Freeland said.

peter@hilltimes.com@PJMazereeuwThe Hill Times

Freeland defends EU’s investment court to its own Parliamentarians after CETA update CETA no ‘backdoor’ to phony US investor-state dispute settlement suits, say trade lawyers.

Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, right, and CETA chief negotiator Steve Verheul, second from right, meet with EU Parliament President Martin Schulz, left, in Brussels. Photograph courtesy of the EU Parliament.

5THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY APRIL 27, 2016

NEWS CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

CEO Pierre Gratton and vice president Ben Chalmers.

The courts, Canada’s Corpo-rate Social Responsibility Strat-egy and CSR Counsellor should be allowed to do their job before they are deemed inadequate, the executives said.

People who say they are victims of violence and wrongdo-ing in other countries and blame Canadian mining companies are looking to Canadian courts for justice. One case was dismissed by a British Columbia court last year, which ruled it did not have jurisdiction to proceed. Another was allowed to proceed in Ontar-io in 2013, and a third is currently before the B.C. Supreme Court.

The fact that Canadian courts have ruled both ways on the tricky question of jurisdiction is a sign that Canada’s civil legal system is working as it should, said Mr. Chalmers.

The process should be left in the hands of the courts going for-ward, say the MAC executives.

However, fi nding justice in Canadian courts is expensive for people who may not have the means, says Shin Imai, a law professor at York University and director of the Justice and Cor-porate Accountability Project. He focuses on Canada’s international obligations to regulate mining companies in Latin America.

Mining companies may spend millions defending themselves against civil actions, while plain-tiffs from other countries may have to look for lawyers willing to work for free, he said.

Those who can’t afford to battle in court should turn to the dispute resolution tools—which don’t assign guilt or levy penal-ties—provided by the govern-ment’s CSR Strategy and OECD contact point, said Mr. Chalmers.

Ombudsman promisedMeanwhile, human rights

advocates and critics of Canada’s mining industry are continuing calls for Canada’s government to step in, despite changes to the CSR Strategy and CSR Counsel-lor’s role made in 2014 under the former Conservative government.

Advocacy groups pressed that message once again in an April 25 open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (Papineau, Que.), which was signed by nearly 200 Latin American organizations and highlighted by Canadian groups MiningWatch and Devel-opment and Peace.

The letter calls on the govern-ment to “more effectively regulate the operations of Canadian min-ing companies around the world” and to guarantee that victims of human rights abuses “caused by” Canadian companies abroad have access to Canadian courts.

Several Liberal ministers with ties to the fi le have shied away from the issue, repeating talking points that the government has high expectations of Canadian mining companies.

The Liberal Party promised dur-ing the election campaign to bring in an ombudsman for the extrac-tive sector, but the government has not indicated yet when or whether it will live up to that promise.

Mr. Gratton said it was not clear what role an ombudsman could play, given the dispute-resolution roles of Canada’s CSR Counsellor and OECD contact point.

Give CSR a chanceThe government’s CSR

Strategy was updated in 2014 to allow it to withdraw diplomatic support to mining companies that don’t work with CSR Coun-sellor Jeffrey Davidson, who is also working with a fresh set of directions after his predecessor, Marketa Evans, was stonewalled by uncooperative mining com-panies.

“It has to be given a chance to succeed,” said Mr. Chalmers.

Mr. Davidson and the OECD contact point practice forms of dispute resolution, whereby com-panies and aggrieved parties are encouraged to come to the table to work out disputes themselves.

However, Canadians rely on well-enforced regulations—not just courts or mediation—to prevent disputes between mining companies and disaffected com-munities in Canada, said Mr. Imai, something that is often lacking in the other countries in which min-ing companies operate.

“It seems like a big task” for Canada to try to compensate for the regulatory shortcomings of other states, he said, but “it doesn’t mean that we don’t face it.”

Mr. Chalmers agreed that regu-latory or legal shortcomings in the countries where mines operate can be a part of the problem. He pointed to the work of the Canadian Inter-national Resources and Develop-ment Institute as part of a solution.

The nonprofi t institute was furnished with a fi ve-year fund-ing arrangement by the previous government in 2013 to help other countries build regulatory re-

gimes that will allow their mining sectors to fl ourish.

The Liberal government has signalled it supports the work of the institute, despite criticisms from advocacy groups that it works fi rst and foremost in the interest of mining companies. The govern-ment has also indicated support for the CSR Counsellor, despite criti-cisms that the offi ce lacks the teeth

to deal with human rights viola-tions once they have occurred.

The CSR Counsellor’s offi ce should be expanded, made more transparent and tasked with pre-venting or resolving confl icts for all industries, not just the mining sector, said Mr. Chalmers.

peter@hilltimes.com@PJMazereeuw The Hill Times

Let courts, mediators decide on mining disputes abroad, says lobby groupMining Association of Canada exec. says courts will handle penalties, CSR tools work for the rest.

Continued from page 1

• The B.C. Supreme Court is currently deliberating whether a case can be heard in Canada that was fi led against Vancou-ver’s Nevsun Resources over allegations that forced labour has been used at an Eritrean mine operated jointly with the Eritrean government. Nevsun has denied the allegations.• The B.C. Supreme Court ruled last year that it did not have ju-risdiction to hear a case brought against Tahoe Resources Inc., which is headquartered in Nevada, by seven Guatemalans

who say they were shot in 2013 by security personnel for a local mine owned by a subsidiary of the company.• The Ontario Superior Court ruled in 2013 that it could hear a case against Toronto’s HudBay Minerals connected to shootings and rapes the victims say were perpetrated by security personnel working for the company’s Guatemalan subsidiary. Hudbay Minerals wrote in an online summary of the case that the allegations are “without merit.”

Mining companies before the courts

Latin American social justice groups sent an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking him to do more to regulate Canadian mining companies working over-seas. Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland is responsible for overseeing corporate social responsibility for the mining sector. The Hill Times photograph by Steve Gerecke

THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY APRIL 27, 20166NEWS DIPLOMACY

During last fall’s federal elec-tion campaign, representatives of all three major political parties committed to Armenian-Canadi-ans to bolster Canada’s diplomatic presence in Armenia, a country of about three million people neighbouring Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Iran.

While the Armenian community in Canada is not huge, relative to other diaspora groups—just under 56,000 Canadians stated Armenian origins in the government’s 2011 National Household Survey—it’s well organized, which gives it political sway. Several community centres, churches, and newspapers serve the population, which is cen-tred in Quebec and Ontario.

The Armenian-Canadian com-munity shows its organizational strength yearly on April 24, when hundreds fl ock to Parliament Hill to mark what they call Armenian

Genocide Remembrance Day.The crowd Sunday blocked

traffi c in one direction in down-town Ottawa as participants walked with fl ying red, blue, and orange Armenian fl ags to the Turkish Embassy in lowertown.

Armenians say about 1.5 mil-lion people were killed by Ottoman authorities starting April 24, 1915. The Armenian government and others, including the Canadian government, say what happened was genocide, while the Turkish government denies the deaths amounted to genocide and disputes the number of people who died.

While Armenian community leaders have been pleased with the Canadian government and Parliament’s genocide recognition, another of their top priorities, a Canadian Embassy in Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, has long eluded them. Currently, an honorary con-sul represents Canada in Armenia and Canada’s ambassador for Armenia is in Moscow, Russia.

An online petition active last fall urging the Canadian govern-ment to open an embassy offi ce in Yerevan garnered 1,351 supporters.

As the election campaign heat-ed up, the Conservatives prom-ised Armenians that “a re-elected Conservative government will es-tablish a new trade and consular offi ce in Armenia,” according to the website of the party’s multi-cultural point-man, Jason Kenney (Calgary Midnapore, Alta.).

Maria Mourani, the New Demo-cratic Party candidate for Ahuntsic-Cartierville, promised the same thing if she were elected to repre-sent the Montreal borough, home to one of the largest populations of Armenians in the city, according to the Armenian General Benevolent Union in Montreal.

Ms. Mourani, though, lost the riding by more than 9,000 votes to Liberal Mélanie Joly, now the heritage minister. Ms. Joly, after a formal dinner during the campaign with members of the Armenian National Committee of Quebec, released a statement Sept. 26 noting, in French, that she was “strongly committed to promoting the establishment of a Canadian Embassy in Armenia,” and that “Canada needs to have an embassy in Armenia.”

Though Ms. Joly’s statement doesn’t explicitly say the Liber-als would, if elected, establish an embassy, Mr. Yeganian said: “I think what the Liberal party was promising was an embassy, and that’s what we read in Hon. Mélanie Joly’s statement.”

It was music to his ears, but he hasn’t seen any result.

“All these parties made a promise, including Liberals who came to power, and I understand it was a political promise,” Mr. Yeganian said. “In my opinion and in the opinion of many of my col-leagues, there is an imbalance in terms of representation.”

Mr. Yeganian said he brought up the establishment of an em-bassy with Ms. Joly as part an April 22 meeting with her.

“[Ms. Joly] answered me in general terms that they will do their best, they will stick to all their promises that they made,” said the ambassador in a follow-up interview. “She said it was up to the minister of foreign affairs, but the Liberal party is in power now and we will stick to all the promises we made.”

When asked about the estab-lishment of a Canadian Embassy in Armenia, foreign ministry spokesperson Tania Assaly said in an emailed response that the department reviews its diplomatic network on an ongoing basis.

“The department takes several factors into consideration includ-ing Canada’s foreign policy and trade interests, development priorities, and budgetary implica-tions,” she said.

Asked this week to explain her Montreal meeting with the Arme-nian community last September and her subsequent statement, Ms. Joly’s press secretary, Pierre-Oliv-ier Herbert, referred in an emailed response to the “offi cial position” provided by the foreign ministry.

Canada’s Moscow-based am-bassador to Armenia, John Kur, travels to Armenia often and is actively working on Canadian-Armenian relations, Mr. Yega-nian said.

The lack of an embassy “cannot impact our very good friendly relations with Canada” said Mr. Yeganian, and Mr. Kur is “incredibly well prepared.” But he suggested an embassy would boost the level of quality of ties, in terms of politics, trade, and culture.

Given the sizable ethnic popu-lation that has a strong interest in Armenia, Canada’s intention to set up an embassy in Armenia can’t be doubted, said University of Toronto international relations professor Aurel Braun in a phone interview, though he stressed that it was hard to speculate and he couldn’t speak on the govern-ment’s behalf.

Girair Basmadjian, president of the Armenian National Com-mittee of Canada, said that not having an embassy is problematic for Armenians in Armenia and Canadians visiting Armenia.

If someone wanted to deal with Canada’s embassy “the only embassy that they can deal with is in Moscow. That’s quite silly.”

He added that there’s a consider-able Canadian-Armenian commu-nity living in Armenia. “There are quite a sizable number from On-tario, and some even from Quebec. And for them to have a Canadian Embassy is the proper thing.”

The Armenian Embassy in Ot-tawa opened in January 1995, ac-cording to the embassy’s website.

“I know that it takes time to open an embassy and it’s not overnight, but because the prom-ise was made with such a serious level, I’m asking my friends in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘What’s happening with your promise?’” said Mr. Yeganian.

news@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

Armenia pushes Liberals to fulfi l election ‘promise,’ open embassyCanadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly ‘strongly committed to promoting the establishment of a Canadian Embassy in Armenia.’

Continued from page 1

People carrying Armenian fl ags walk down Rideau Street toward the Turkish Embassy on April 24 in a demonstration to mark what Armenians call Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. The Hill Times photograph by Kristen Shane

Armenian Ambassador Armen Yeganian, right, says Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly, left, made an election promise to establish a Canadian Embassy in Armenia. The Hill Times photographs by Jake Wright and Sam Garcia

7THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY APRIL 27, 2016

NEWS DUFFY TRIAL

that Mr. Ferguson would audit Senator Duffy’s expenses despite the intense scru-tiny they have already undergone through examination and cross-examination of wit-nesses and other evidence during Senator Duffy’s trial.

There were 69 days of witnesses and hearings and arguments, from April 14, 2015 through to last Feb. 23.

A prominent lawyer who began rep-resenting Mr. Harper in mid-2014—as the RCMP were investigating the cir-cumstances behind a $90,000 payment to Senator Duffy from Mr. Harper’s chief of staff, Nigel Wright, and shortly before the Mounties laid charges against Senator Duffy—said in a published statement Tues-day that an audit by Mr. Ferguson “is likely to proceed” following an Ontario Court of Justice ruling that dismissed all of the RCMP charges against the senator.

“The public has a reasonable expecta-tion, and indeed a right, to the responsible stewardship of its purse by public institu-tions and actors,” Toronto lawyer Robert Staley said in an opinion column posted on the online edition of the Ottawa Citizen.

“As part of his mandate to ensure re-sponsible stewardship, the auditor general has raised valid questions about Senate spending, including about Mr. Duffy. The auditor general’s review of Mr. Duffy’s spending is likely to proceed now that the criminal charges against Mr. Duffy have been addressed,” wrote Mr. Staley.

In his letter posted by the Ottawa Citizen, Mr. Staley also explained that Mr. Harper had co-operated fully with the RCMP during the investigation into Senator Duffy’s expenses, to the point of instructing Mr. Staley, and possibly other lawyers with his law fi rm, to make volumes of secret Prime Minister’s Offi ce emails available to investigators.

The emails ultimately fueled a scathing denunciation from Ontario Court of Justice Judge Charles Vaillancourt of Mr. Harper’s PMO aides, including Mr. Wright, over their backroom actions to “stop the water torture” of the ongoing scandal in 2013.

Mr. Ferguson’s offi ce told The Hill Times shortly after the lawyer’s statement was published on the Ottawa Citizen website Tuesday that no audit of Senator Duffy’s expenses is planned. The audit Mr. Fer-guson conducted on all other Senators’ expenses, following the 2013 scandal that led to the criminal charges against Senator Duffy, has been completed.

“As stated in the scope of the audit of Senator’s Expenses, which examined the period from 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2013, the audit did not include Senators who were the subject of an investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,” Céline Bisson-nette, senior communications advisor in Mr. Ferguson’s offi ce, told The Hill Times.

“Our audit is complete, and we will not be undertaking any further audit work for the same period, unless specifi cally requested by the Senate,” Ms. Bissonnette said in an email response to questions.

Mr. Staley did not respond immediately to questions from The Hill Times, placed

through Mr. Staley’s administrative as-sistant at his law fi rm, Bennett Jones LLP, about his view that an audit of Senator Duffy’s expenses was likely to proceed.

The earlier part of Mr. Staley’s commen-tary reiterated the former prime minister’s view—expressed in the PMO emails and also stated by Senator Duffy during his testimony—that Senator Duffy’s cottage in Prince Edward Island fulfi lled constitu-tional requirements for a residence in the province he represented.

“Commencing in mid-2013, I repre-sented Prime Minister Stephen Harper in connection with the RCMP’s investigation of Sen. Mike Duffy,” Mr. Staley said in his letter.

“So long as Mr. Duffy was facing crimi-nal charges, my client, and anyone acting on his behalf, was prevented by the sub judice rule from making statements that could prejudice court proceedings, includ-ing statements speaking to the merits of the allegations,” said the letter.

Mr. Staley said with the trial over, he could now comment, apparently with ap-proval from Mr. Harper, about aspects that otherwise would be subject to the privi-lege of secrecy between lawyers and their clients.

“From the outset, we were instructed by our client to assist the RCMP in its investi-gation,” Mr. Staley said. “An early decision was made by our client to waive lawyer/client privilege so that all PMO documents relevant to Mr. Duffy, including those refl ecting contemporaneous legal advice, were available to the RCMP.”

“Although this decision was politically inexpedient, it was the right thing to do and was an unequivocal act of integrity and accountability by the prime minister,” the statement continued. “The record also showed that the prime minister was not privy to Mr. Wright’s decision.”

Evidence and testimony in Senator Duffy’s trial indicated that one of Mr. Harper’s closest longtime personal and political aides, Ray Novak, was in a room with Mr. Wright at the time he informed Senator Duffy’s lawyer he would per-sonally cover the $90,000 Senator Duffy required to repay living allowance and per diem expenses for his Ottawa house, while maintaining his season home in P.E.I as his provincial residence.

“As the written record shows, it was our client’s position that Mr. Duffy was consti-tutionally qualifi ed to sit as a senator,” Mr. Staley wrote. “At the same time, our client

held the position that Mr. Duffy’s living expense claims were politically unaccept-able and must be repaid, whether or not they were technically permissible under applicable Senate rules.”

The lead Crown prosecutor for the trial, Mark Holmes, informed The Hill Times on Tuesday that he could not reveal whether the Crown will appeal Judge Vallaincourt’s judgment, or even one or more of the indi-

vidual fi ndings among the 31 counts.“It’s beyond my station to supply infor-

mation, that’s just not a part of my job,” Mr. Holmes said in a brief reply to questions over the phone.

The Crown has 30 days to fi le a notice of appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal as of the date of the verdict, April 21.

tnaumetz@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

AG denies Harper lawyer suggestion he will audit Duffy expenses with trial over The Auditor General’s offi ce says it won’t dig into Senator Duffy’s spending unless the Senate specifi cally requests an audit.

Register at mitacs.ca/en/events

Tuesday, May 11, 2016National Arts Centre, Ottawa

Join Mitacs and leaders from business, government, and academia as we examine strategies to effectively engage and employ our research innovators.

Forum: 1–4:30p.m. Reception: 4:30–6 p.m.

www.mitacs.ca

Harnessing Canada’s research advantage

TALENT FOR INNOVATION

Continued from page 1

Senator Mike Duffy arrives at the court house on day one of his criminal trial in April 2015. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright

THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 20168

EDITORIAL HUMAN RIGHTS LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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Taiwan, Quebec parallels

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The Liberals have been busy in their fi rst six months in offi ce mending Canada’s bruised image abroad.The prime minister’s many trips to the United Nations

in New York, Washington, and other world capitals have earned him a lot of global goodwill. And besides the selfi es, the world is noticing that Canada is now taking seriously climate change and the too-high number of murdered and missing indigenous women here.

But one area the Liberals haven’t touched, where Cana-da’s international reputation remains blackened, is Canadian mining companies’ actions abroad. With Canada home to many of the world’s top mining fi rms, some have been al-leged to have harmed the environment or violated the human rights of people in communities hosting their operations in recent years. That’s not to say every Canadian mining compa-ny is bad—they’re not—but we hear a lot about a few cases of alleged wrongdoing committed either directly by a company or its subsidiaries or security forces on its behalf.

That latest was a New York Times cover piece on Mayan village women in Guatemala who allege they were gang-raped by men who had come to evict them from land they said belonged to a Canadian fi rm. One of the women is suing Hudbay Mineral Inc. The company, which was not the mine’s owner at the time of the evictions, denies any wrongdoing.

While the allegations are unproven in court, the case is seen as a test for how far Canadian courts are willing to go to hold companies accountable for their actions abroad.

Last week we reported that the Liberal government so far appears mostly uninterested in changing the way min-ing fi rms are held accountable for alleged abuses in poor countries. Several ministers with related fi les dodged our

questions about change to mining-sector accountability, or declined to say whether change was needed. The Liber-als have endorsed a controversial offi ce of an extractive-sector corporate social responsibility counsellor and an extractives institute brought in under the former Conser-vative government.

But the Liberal government shouldn’t be satisfi ed sticking with the status quo, or just waiting to see what the courts de-cide. It should actively examine whether the current account-ability system works effectively. A lot of voluntary measures were put in place for corporations by the past Conservative government that human rights advocates deemed lukewarm and without teeth. There have been campaigns for an inde-pendent ombudsperson, and for human rights to be sewed into trade deals in a more meaningful way. These options deserve careful study. The government must also look at how to better prevent abuses from happening in the fi rst place, not just ensure accountability after they’ve taken place. Ulti-mately this will benefi t rather than burden Canadian mining operations. In an increasingly globalized world a well-earned good reputation is always a worthwhile investment.

The Liberals love consultations. They’ve turned to them on the Trans-Pacifi c Partnership trade deal, and defence and foreign-aid policy reviews. The government should show it’s serious about “continually assess[ing] its CSR policies,” in the words of a foreign ministry spokesperson, and consult Canadians with a view to improving the cur-rent fl awed system. Ultimately this will also benefi t rather than burden Canadian mining operations. In an increas-ingly globalized world, a well-earned good reputation is not just a worthwhile investment. It’s a necessary one.

In the last century, the mere mention of the word polio would strike terror in mothers. Although it strikes primarily children

under fi ve years old, even the most powerful man in the world, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, succumbed to it.

But times have changed. Since 1988 when the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched, the number of cases have been reduced by 99 per cent. Today, there are more than 13 million peo-ple walking who would have otherwise been paralyzed by polio.

However, even though Canada has been declared polio-free since 1991, we still vaccinate our kids because until polio is eradi-cated around the world, no one is totally safe. This is an apropos reminder during this year’s World Immunization Week.

The GPEI has set out a viable roadmap to do just that by 2019, but it requires an extra US$1.5 billion from donors. At the risk of using the over-used phrase “too big to fail,” failure would jeopardize 25 years of hard work and US$9 billion of invest-ments. Polio could come back with a vengeance with cases skyrocketing to 200,000 annually within 10 years. Conversely, countries like Nigeria are already planning for a post-polio world where the human and technical polio infrastructure could be used to support other health programs.

Like a marathon runner who draws on their own resolve to fi nish the last mile of a race, Canada, who was at the starting line of GPEI’s marathon, must also fi nd its own resolve to help GPEI cross the fi nish line by making a top-up pledge of $150 million. We can be a part of this great human endeavour to eradicate only the second disease in history, smallpox being the other. Let’s put polio where it belongs: in a museum.

Stephen St. DenisOttawa, Ont.

Re: “Ministers, parliamentarians at Taiwan event anger China,” (The Hill Times, April 20, p. 1). Echoing in my mind

more than 40 years later are Charles de Gaulle’s words, “Vive Montreal! Vive le Quebec! Vive le Quebec libre!” and the roar of the crowd caught half in disbelief that someone had the gall to give public voice to their cherished beliefs.

It is no surprise that Bloc Québécois Members of Parlia-ment support the independence of a province in a far-away land; but the other parliamentarians are also upholding the democratic right of a group of people to choose separation from a state to which it historically belongs.

Andrew RomainOttawa, Ont.

Poliomyelitis is a highly contagious disease that affects children under fi ve years. And, once infected, there is no cure. One in

200 cases results in irreversible paralysis and 5 to 10 per cent of those cases result in death. Luckily, there is a vaccine against po-lio, which is safe and available at immunization clinics in Canada.

While the global effort to fi ght this disease decreased new in-fections by 99 per cent since 1988, there are two counties where polio is still endemic: Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although far away from Canada, today’s frequent international travel can contribute to disease spread and bring it home to us.

April 25 to 29 is World Immunization Week, raising aware-ness that providing vaccination—including in the poorest countries—is important to protect us against deadly and crip-pling diseases. Only with the combined effort to keep everyone vaccinated will it be possible to eliminate polio by 2019.

We have the power to eradicate polio and protect chil-dren against polio-related paralysis.

Get vaccinated and support international immunization campaigns.

Karolin KlementCalgary, Alta.

9THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016

INSIDE DEFENCE PLANS & PRIORITIES

OTTAWA—Earlier this month, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced that

the Liberal government would consult experts and laypersons in advance of Canada drafting its fi rst real White Paper on defence since 1994. It is not expected that such a policy paper will be released before the end of this year.

Of course, those fi rst out of the gate at-tempting to bend the government’s ear will be the usual defence lobbyists and military boosters who are major stakeholders by virtue of their professional livelihood. The old chestnut they will no doubt roll out is that Canada’s defence spending should be a percentage of our gross domestic prod-uct, or GDP.

At roughly $22 billion, the Canadian defence budget represents just over one per cent of our current GDP. Armed with pie charts and graphs, the warmongers ar-gue that as a member of NATO we should live up to the alliance’s stated objective of defence spending equalling two per cent of GDP. This would mean the Liberal govern-

ment would have to fi nd an additional $20 billion per year to spend on military hard-ware and salaries.

As much as I am a proponent for Cana-da maintaining a modern, effi cient military, with service members being well paid and cared for, as a taxpaying Canadian citizen I cannot support doubling our defence bud-get to meet an arbitrary NATO-prescribed percentage of our GDP.

Instead of determining how much we should spend on defence or which piece of equipment we should purchase, the current round of public consultations should exam-ine the really big picture of what we want our future military to do.

Geographically, we are blessed in that we share a single land border with the world’s largest superpower to our south. With vast oceans and the frozen Arctic buffering our other three borders, we have no foreseeable threat of foreign invasion on our soil from those quarters.

Since America spends more on defence than the rest of the world’s countries, there is no longer even a Canadian contingency plan for attempting to fi ght them off. Back in the 1920s, Canada actually had a daring strategy should a war with the United States erupt. The plan was to mobilize quickly and invade Vermont, which we would then use as a bargaining chip until Britain and France could come to our aid. We even sent spies into Vermont to scout the best possible inva-sion routes. But I digress.

Canada is a former colony, and while a member of the British Commonwealth, we do not have an imperial legacy on foreign continents. Since the Cold War concluded

and we closed our bases in Germany, Canada does not station soldiers perma-nently on foreign soil.

We still have the moral obligation to the collective defence of Western Europe as a member of NATO. However, despite the media doing their level best to paint Russian President Vladimir Putin as the next Hitler, Russia is not about to annex anything more than Crimea.

This means that Canada as a nation has the luxury to pick and choose which confl icts it wants to contribute military resources to.

If one is to learn from past mistakes, then we should be getting quite clever by now. We had a 12-year commitment in Af-ghanistan, fi ghting a war we never should have fought, propping up a corrupt and hated regime. Reluctantly, senior offi cials are now fi nally admitting that the interven-tion was a complete failure.

In 2011, Canada led the NATO charge in Libya to depose President Muammar Gaddafi . We liberated the Libyans from a tyrant, but delivered them into a state of armed anarchy in Gaddafi ’s wake. That country is now a failed state in the midst of a second civil war, with evildoers from Daesh (also called ISIL, ISIS, and the Is-lamic State) thriving in the power vacuum that we created. Very reluctantly, senior offi cials are now admitting that Libya was a massive mistake.

While Canada has ended the combat air campaign against Daesh targets in Iraq and Syria, we are continuing to provide training and support to Kurdish fi ghters in northern Iraq. Given that the Kurdish Peshmerga

(which we are training) are fi ghting to estab-lish an independent Kurdistan, which runs counter to Canada’s stated foreign policy of supporting a reunited Iraq, this mission is fatally fl awed in its very conception.

Now there is whispering in Ottawa that the Liberal government wants to take a lead role in a United Nations peacekeeping mission, possibly in Africa, with the thinly veiled intention of boosting our chances of obtaining a seat on the United Nations Security Council.

Given that we literally have the luxury to choose our battles, why do we keep rushing from failure to failure?

Scott Taylor is editor and publisher of Esprit de Corps magazine.

news@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

LONDON, U.K.—The good news is that the killing in Burundi has not yet grown

into a civil war like the one that killed 300,000 people between 1993 and 2005, let alone a genocide like the one that killed 800,000 people in neighbouring Rwanda in 1994. The bad news is that Burundi is getting there.

It’s hard to speak well of Sepp Blatter, the disgraced former head of FIFA, the in-ternational football federation. But Africa would owe him a large debt of gratitude if he had persuaded Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza not to seek a third term, and instead to accept a job as FIFA’s “am-bassador for football” to the world.

When the story came out recently in Blatter’s autobiography, the Swiss foreign ministry (which asked Blatter to make the offer) explained that “The intention was to contribute to a peaceful solution in order to prevent the current crisis in Burundi.”

It might even have worked. Nkurunziza is a keen footballer, and he certainly has put aside enough money to retire on. But he chose to stay on and run for a third

term, and started Burundi on the road back down to hell.

African presidents suffer from two be-setting sins. One is the belief that they are irreplaceable: almost two-thirds of African countries had two-term presidential limits in their constitutions by 2000, but since then 10 of them have seen attempts by their presidents to remove the limit.

But Pierre Nkurunziza’s excuse was particularly pathetic. He became president at the end of the civil war in 2005, when the peace was precarious. There was no time for a presidential election, so he was elected to the presidency by a parliamentary vote.

On the basis of that, Nkurunziza be-gan claiming last year that his fi rst term shouldn’t count towards his constitutional two-term limit because he was chosen by parliament and not by the people. Even Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe (seven terms and counting) saw the humour in that. “They say the fi rst term was not a real term,” he said at an African Union summit last June, “but you were there for fi ve years!”

Burundi’s Constitutional Court accepted Nkurunziza’s claim, however, as it would have been hazardous to the members’ health to do otherwise. (One of the judges fl ed the country, saying that they had all been bullied and threatened into giving that judgment.) The opposition parties all boycotted the elec-tion last July, so Nkurunziza “won,” and by then the level of violence was rising rapidly.

The killing started after a failed military coup that tried to stop the sham election, and the reported death toll is now around 400. The known victims are mostly political activists and ordinary citizens murdered by the police in Bujumbura, the capital, but the real total of the killings must be far higher. Rural killings are rarely reported, but a quarter-million people have fl ed the country in the past year and now live in refugee camps in neighbouring countries.

The one consolation in this dreadful situation until recently was that it wasn’t a tribal confrontation. In both Rwanda’s genocide and Burundi’s civil war the ma-jority Hutus (85 per cent of the population) were on one side and formerly dominant

Tutsi minority on the other. Since the civil war, however, Burundi’s army has been evenly divided between the two ethnic groups, and the opposition groups have also included both Hutus and Tutsis.

The other besetting sin of African presidents, unfortunately, is that if they come from the biggest tribe (as they most often do), when they get into deep political trouble their default solution is to fall back on tribal loyalties. That is what Nkurunziza is doing now. The army is being purged of Tutsis, and the very same language used by the Hutus in the run-up to the Rwanda genocide is now being used by Nkurun-ziza’s Hutu backers in Burundi.

Révérien Ndikuriyo, the president of the Burundian senate, has been referring to the regime’s opponents as “cockroaches” (the same word used for Tutsis by the Hutu ex-tremists in Rwanda). He has even called on the government’s supporters to “start work,” which was the code word used in Rwanda for the launch of the 1994 genocide.

Nkurunziza is trying to turn a political confrontation he might lose into an ethnic confl ict that he could win, but the cost would be another genocide. The future of an entire country of ten million people is being put at risk by his personal ambition.

The African Union offered to send 5,000 soldiers to help quell the violence, but backed down when Nkurunziza objected. There are 19,000 United Nations peacekeepers just across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the political will to send them in is lacking.

So far the opposition parties (which are, of course, mostly Hutu) are resisting Nku-runziza’s attempts to scapegoat the Tutsis, but in one of the world’s poorest countries many ordinary Hutus will be tempted to go along with the regime’s lies in order to steal their Tutsi neighbours’ land. We may be weeks away from Africa’s next genocide.

Gwynne Dyer is a United Kingdom-based independent journalist.

news@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

How to focus the defence review

Burundi: The next genocide?

We literally have the luxury to pick our battles.

The future of an entire country of 10 million people is being put at risk by the president’s personal ambition.

GLOBAL AFFAIRS PEACE & CONFLICT

SCOTT TAYLOR

GWYNNE DYER

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon meets with Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza, in the country’s capital, Bujumbura, on Feb. 23. United Nations photograph by Eskinder Debebe

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, pictured in January, should focus public consultations on the big picture rather than spending or equipment, says Scott Taylor. The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia

THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 201610INSIDE POLITICS DUFFY TRIAL

MONTREAL—The ripples of the ac-quittal of Senator Mike Duffy on 31

corruption-related charges should be felt well beyond the parliamentary pond.

The verdict is a stark reminder to all of Canada’s political class that the Crimi-nal Code is no substitute for an ethical compass.

Public offi cials—be they elected or not—are held to a higher standard than just a clean rap sheet. Being found not guilty of a crime does not de facto make one an ethical person.

In the Duffy affair, for instance, the cover-up engineered by Stephen Harper’s palace guard was a scandal of epic proportions even if none of its PMO

proponents was charged with a criminal offence. In his ruling, Judge Charles Vail-lancourt expended some of his harshest words on the manipulations Harper’s offi ce undertook to avoid blame for the free-spending ways of a Conservative-dominated Senate.

The subtext of the verdict is an indict-ment of the practice of lowering the thresh-old for what is acceptable ethical behavior at the partisan whim of an accountability-adverse government.

Harper was not the only or the fi rst prime minister to conveniently determine that the responsibility for a major ethical malfunction lay with the offender(s) and the courts and not with his oversight or absence of it.

Jean Chrétien was a fi rm believer in shipping off fi les to the police that called into question the ethical culture of his gov-ernment. The inference was that if no law had been broken, nothing really bad had actually happened. On that basis, he would not have set up a public inquiry into the sponsorship scandal.

Just this week, Trudeau’s Liberals ar-gued there was nothing wrong with Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould attending a Liberal fundraiser hosted by a promi-nent law fi rm because she did not break Parliament’s narrow confl ict-of-interest rules. And yet her participation in the event clearly contradicted the spirit of the current government’s self-imposed code of conduct.

With Harper out of offi ce this story could have short political legs in the cur-rent Parliament. But the acquittal verdict does lend additional acuity to the unre-solved issue of senatorial accountability.

It was the Duffy saga that led Trudeau to endeavour to make non-partisan ap-pointments to the Upper House. But absent a party affi liation, Trudeau’s senators will be not once but twice removed from being held accountable by the electorate.

If Duffy had to win back his Senate seat in an election, would he even run? Had they had had to face voters at regular in-tervals, would he or his Senate colleagues have been less profl igate in their spending?

There is a factual answer to those rhetorical questions in the shape of the case of former Conservative minister Bev Oda. She resigned after spending habits surfaced that failed to pass the public-opinion smell test. Had she been a senator, Oda’s expensing of a $16 glass of fresh orange juice would not have been a career-killing move.

A word in closing on the bullying management style of the Prime Minister’s Offi ce: Harper did not invent it. He only perfected it. Over the years it is not just senators who have agreed to act like pawns in the hands of PMO chess masters. From ministers on down, government MPs—with only too few exceptions—have had a long and not proud history of spineless compli-ance.

Just this week Conservative leadership candidate and former Harper minister Kellie Leitch told the CBC that she should not have accepted to front the announce-ment of a controversial “barbaric cultural practices” tip line in the last election. And yet this well-educated medical doctor did agree to sell a promise that—in the context of the niqab debate—could only come across as doubling down on a highly divisive issue.

Being elected under a party banner should not involve placing one’s intellectu-al honesty and good judgment in the hands of the high-level political operators who staff the PMO. If voters wanted to watch trained seals and clown acts they would buy tickets to the circus instead of electing MPs to the House of Commons and having their taxes fund the Senate. Looking at the latest sequel in the Duffy saga, their pock-etbooks would be the better for it.

Chantal Hébert is a national affairs writer for The Toronto Star. This column was released on April 23.

news@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

Not guilty doesn’t mean ethically cleanLife in Parliament shouldn’t mean placing your good judgment in the hands of high-level political operators. If voters wanted trained seals they’d buy tickets to the circus.

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CHANTAL HÉBERT

Chantal Hébert asks: If Senator Mike Duffy, pictured, had to win back his Senate seat in an election, would he even run? The Hill Times photograph by Cynthia Münster

11THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016

PLAIN SPEAK MARIJUANA

OTTAWA—Well, it didn’t hap-pen like the Conservatives

said it would!Remember leading into the last

election campaign those Conser-vative Party of Canada ads that all but suggested Justin Trudeau and his Liberals would be peddling dope on a corner near you? So far, as best we can tell, none of that ilk has been busted for selling dime bags of weed in schoolyards.

While in New York last week, the Liberal government’s seem-ingly home away from home, Health Minister Jane Philpott announced that Canada would introduce legislation next spring to spark the process of legalizing

and regulating marijuana. The Conservative Party in the midst of a leadership race and a rebrand now has to deal with this issue in a Modern-Family not Leave-it-to-Beaver kind of way.

Conservatives can howl at the moon, as they did in the last elec-tion, and stand pat on the criminal-ization of marijuana, or they can take a strong, mature, proactive role in dealing with this inevitabil-ity. One long-shot candidate for the leadership of the Conserva-tives, Maxime Bernier, has already signalled he was leaning toward supporting the Liberals here.

Recently on CBC’s Power and Politics, Bernier said on the matter of the legalization of marijuana that, “I am more for it...It depends how the government will do it...But I am more toward—for—that.”

Rona Ambrose, interim leader of the offi cial-opposition Conservatives, said in January in British Colum-bia that, “The bottom line is there’s a huge faction of people in this country that want—that are mostly adults, to be frank—that want access to pot and they want it legalized and it’s for recreational purposes.”

Ambrose and Bernier are open-ing a door to a major Conservative

policy change. The membership of the party should charge right through it and sketch out what a Canadian plan for legalized ganja looks like. One that makes sure grannies don’t rage and kids aren’t on a path to become burnt-out stoners. Also one that moves away from moralizing about marijuana use and deals with the fi scal opportunity that legal weed presents to governments.

Just look south of the border. In February, CNBC reported that legal U.S. pot sales skyrocketed to $5.4 billion for 2015, up 17.4 per cent from $4.6 billion in 2014, according to data from the ArcView Group, which tracks the cannabis markets.

The tax revenue derived from the sale of legalized pot would split about $5 billion per year between federal and provincial coffers, according to a recent report from CIBC World Markets, based on the apparent size of the current underground market and how legalization has played out for the state governments of Colorado and Washington.

Conservatives could lead the debate on the taxation policy; this would be a natural fi t for Bernier. He and his party could spell out how money derived from the sale of marijuana could be directly re-invested in Canada. Perhaps more

dedicated funding for mental health and wellness, something Conservatives have comfortably championed for years.

If you are a Conservative, look at the potential benefi t of hav-ing another leadership candidate (also not a shoo-in), Kellie Leitch, weigh in on this matter not in the normal manner as ardent party gum-fl apper but as a respected physician, which she happens to be. Leitch, whose initial posture seems to be for the antiquated status quo, could alternatively offer some thoughtful guidance on safety, education, distribution, and product testing.

Conservatives could even re-turn to their sweet spot—law and order—and work with Liberal MP Bill Blair, who is playing a key role now shaping the future legislation. Instead of the usual opposition claptrap, they could lead the way on a realistic legal framework.

The worst thing Conservatives can continue to do is retain their 2015 electoral position. Coming across as a bunch of prudes in poorly fi tting blue suits with bad buzz cuts will see them get rolled.

Tim Powers is vice-chairman of Summa Strategies and manag-ing director of Abacus Data.

news@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

Conservatives: Update pot policy or risk looking like prudes in poorly fi tting blue suits The party has to deal with this issue in a Modern-Family not Leave-it-to-Beaver kind of way.

OTTAWA—Deferential to authority as always, Canadi-

ans for the most part have tiptoed around the curious role of the RCMP in the Mike Duffy affair.

You don’t have to accept Ontario Court Justice Charles Vaillancourt’s depiction of Duffy as a victim to see the weakness of the case brought against him by the state in the form of the RCMP and the Crown.

In fact, it was obvious long before last week’s court ruling that Duffy was very unlikely to be con-victed on all, or very many of, the 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust, and bribery he faced in the wake of the Senate spending scandal.

That’s because, as Vaillancourt repeatedly made clear in his riveting judgment, the Senate’s administrative rules were open to

wide interpretation and therefore largely incompatible with the ex-acting standards of proof needed for criminal convictions.

Vaillancourt’s across-the-board acquittal of Duffy was still surpris-ing, with the judge stating the police and Crown prosecutors had utterly failed to prove their case against the Conservative senator. And he coupled that with an unprecedented attack on Stephen Harper’s former senior PMO staffers for their heavy-handed attempt to cover up the spending irregularities and hide the scandal from the public.

On the weekend, Duffy’s lawyer, Donald Bayne, told in-terviewers the case should never have been brought forward by the police and Crown.

In any case, the overwhelming not-guilty verdict will do little to re-vive public confi dence in the Sen-ate or, for that matter, politicians as a class. It’s obvious to everyone, including Vallaincourt, that Duffy and others were engaged in ques-tionable spending in recent years. While not necessarily illegal, this habit of throwing taxpayers’ money around by the luminaries of the Senate is obviously inexcusable.

As to the politics of it all, Vail-lancourt gave a new focus to the astonishing backdrop of the entire affair—the secret plotting in Harp-er’s offi ce to use almost any means

possible to put a lid on the uproar over Duffy’s questionable spend-ing. The attempted cover-up was always the real political scandal of the Duffy saga and the judge’s account gives Canadians their fi rst comprehensive, unbiased look at the manoeuvring behind the scenes by Wright, other PMO staff, senior Conservatives, and Tory senators. It was, as the judge shows, a project driven entirely by political expedi-ency with no regard for ethics or accountability.

But no answers have yet been forthcoming to the question that underlies the entire legal case: What led the RCMP and the Crown to pursue charges that proved so fl imsy in court? In particular, why was Duffy alone charged with brib-ery in connection with the $90,000 cheque at the heart of the PMO’s cover-up strategy?

There was always consterna-tion about the fact that Duffy was cited for bribery when former PMO chief of staff Nigel Wright was not charged. The longtime Conservative insider wrote the cheque as part of a secret plan to get Duffy to lie to Canadians about how he had supposedly paid back his questionable expenses.

Back in 2013, in a court submis-sion to obtain documents in the case, the RCMP alleged it had “rea-sonable grounds” to suspect both

Duffy and Wright of having com-mitted bribery, frauds against the government, and breach of trust.

But the investigation of Wright was dropped in April 2014. The RCMP said “the evidence gath-ered does not support criminal charges against Mr. Wright.”

It was widely assumed the police made a deal with Wright to obtain his testimony against Duffy or that they felt Wright lacked the so-called guilty mind needed to sustain a conviction. But who knows what was really going on?

As NDP MP Charlie Angus said at the time: “You cannot make a payment to a sitting senator” under the Parliament of Canada Act. “That’s an indictable offence, but apparently if it’s done in the Prime Minister’s Offi ce, the RCMP say it’s not a problem.”

Asked on CTV’s Question Period Sunday if Wright should face criminal charges, Bayne said, “It’s hard not to come to that con-clusion when you read [Vaillan-court’s] fi ndings.” But Bayne added that boat sailed a long time ago.

Wright has maintained he act-ed legally and in the public inter-est and wrote Duffy the $90,000 cheque to make sure taxpayers weren’t on the hook for the sena-tor’s questionable expenses.

It’s worth noting in passing that had the RCMP laid criminal

charges against the chief of staff in Harper’s offi ce, it would almost certainly have been the end of Harper, politically, then and there. As it turned out, of course, the Senate uproar contributed to the public’s decision last October to vote out the Conservative regime.

While that may have closed the case, as it were, in the minds of many people, Canadians still deserve to know what transpired with the charges against Duffy. Despite the expenditure of millions of dollars in investigative and court time, the case did nothing to clarify the mess in the Senate.

“The judgment is also very se-vere with regard to the behaviour of Stephen Harper and his offi ce, and I think that they should start providing answers because I’ve never seen that in a judgment,” the NDP’s Thomas Mulcair said. “The judge was very severe on Mr. Harper and I think he should provide an explanation.”

And there’s the issue of whether the RCMP acted independently and without political infl uence. Shortly after the police decided in the spring of 2014 not to charge Wright, RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson took the unusual step of writing a letter to Angus, the NDP MP, complain-ing that the Mounties were being unfairly accused of doing the PMO’s bidding. Paulson sought to reassure Angus, saying the reasons for drop-ping allegations of bribery against Wright over the $90,000 cheque for Duffy would come out publicly at some point. But no compelling ex-planation has been heard so far, and I wouldn’t hold my breath.

news@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

Judge’s ruling demands answers from Harper, RCMPQuestions about treatment of Wright remain.

NEED TO KNOW DUFFY TRIAL

TIM POWERS

LES WHITTINGTON

A worker at Tweed Marijuana Inc. tends to pot plants in 2014. Conserva-tives could spell out how money derived from the sale of marijuana could be directly reinvested in Canada, says Tim Powers. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright

THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 201612OPINION FOREIGN AID

In his mandate letter to International Development Minister Marie-Claude

Bibeau, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emphasized the importance of “making Canada a leader in development innova-tion and effectiveness” and examining “new aid delivery mechanisms and part-nerships.” The government’s early progress against these aims bodes well for at least one area vital to stability and prosperity abroad: global public health.

Last week, in Ottawa, I had the privilege of standing alongside leaders in govern-ment and other partners as we presented shared efforts to improve health in some of the world’s poorest and most vulner-able communities. On that stage and well beyond it, Canada’s leadership in driving a new level of engagement and action in global health was clearly evident.

This leadership is evident in the ear-nestness with which Canada is testing and establishing new aid delivery mechanisms and partnerships for the health of women and children in developing countries. My company, Johnson & Johnson, is proud to be among those organizations participat-ing in such partnerships under Canada’s leadership, with two groundbreaking ini-tiatives now underway. Importantly, these collaborations are building community-based models for health that prioritize both prevention and care. Both initiatives bring new heft to the fi ght against pressing health challenges.

“Born on Time,” for example, is a Canadian-led initiative that aims to reduce rates of pre-term birth, which now stands as the leading cause of death for children under age fi ve. This effort brings together Johnson & Johnson, Plan International Canada, World Vision Canada, and Save the Children Canada to work together on this issue in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, and Mali.

Johnson & Johnson is also collaborat-ing with the Canadian government, the Micronutrient Initiative, and other partners to prevent and control soil-transmitted helminthiasis—intestinal worm infec-tions—among at-risk children and adoles-cents in Bangladesh. This affects as many as 92 per cent of school-age children in parts of the country, and its effects include iron-defi ciency anemia, chronic diarrhea, impaired growth, impaired intellectual development, and poor school performance among children.

Both initiatives also bring to life so-called Blended Finance and Blended Knowledge models for collaboration, pool-ing resources from multiple partners to support a shared goal.

On Blended Finance, Richard Samans of the World Economic Forum has said this:

“Expanding public-private co-operation in the form of Blended Finance is one of the most important ways the international community can support developing coun-tries as they seek to generate signifi cant amounts of domestic and foreign invest-ment required to meet their Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.”

Similarly useful, the Blended Knowl-edge approach represents a new collective mechanism for shared information and insights, supporting innovation in on-the-ground implementation and research. In making these models a reality, Canada has lit a path for other countries to follow.

Canada’s example is well aligned with Johnson & Johnson’s new global public health strategy, launched just a few weeks ago. This strategy mobilizes the full breadth of the company’s global public health capabilities behind a unifi ed, multidisciplinary effort to deliver sustain-able, measurable impact against signifi cant public health needs. Our commitment to global health combines innovation skills with our core values to put the needs and well-being of the people we serve fi rst—wherever they may reside, and whatever their circumstances.

Looking ahead, I echo the message United States President Barack Obama of-fered to Prime Minister Trudeau in March: “Guided by our values, we can do even more together to advance human devel-opment around the world.” I applaud the Canadian government for its leadership in global health to date, including its en-gagement of values-driven, private-sector companies like mine in this work.

Together, we can further light the path to ensuring that mothers and children survive, and to achieving and sustaining health across communities around the world.

Jaak Peeters is global head of Johnson & Johnson’s global public health organiza-tion. He is based in Neuss, Germany, and New Brunswick, New Jersey, U.S.

news@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

Canada: Lighting the path forward in global public health In working with the private sector and promoting knowledge sharing, Canada is leading.

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A mother and her child at the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2011. Intestinal worm infections affect as many as 92 percent of school-aged kids in parts of the country. UN photograph by David Ohana

13THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016

OPINION RESPONSIBLE CONVICTION

A few weeks ago, Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion

delivered his fi rst major speech since he was sworn in more than four months ago. Speaking at the University of Ottawa, Mr. Dion sought to lay down a foreign-pol-icy rock on which the new Cana-dian government would stand.

What he had to say was not par-ticularly unique or startling. Much had been discussed earlier and refl ected historical Liberal Party attitudes towards the world. How-ever, his March 29 speech did put an end to lonely walks on several dead-end roads created and lauded by the previous government.

The United Nations and the European security body OSCE were back as valuable assets for Canada’s involvement in the

world. The silent treatment of regimes that did not live up to our standards such as Russia and Iran was discarded.

The idea that religion needed its own unique offi ce in the bureau-cracy was dismissed by fi nancial fi at. Going forward, religion would be bundled and defended as one among the “universal, indivisible, interdependent, and interrelated” rights detailed in the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Ac-tion for human rights.

There are no contentious is-sues with the United States so the minister was able to state Canada will act in “a wise and profession-al way.” He would not repeat the “strident, awkward and, fi nally, ineffi cient way” of the previous government.

Saudi deal damageBut even before the minister

spoke in late March, the guns of the arms deal with Saudi Arabia were zeroing in on the new government.

The sale was fi nalized by the previous government. Since the election, the Liberal government has been dogged by questions on why it would allow the sale to go forward.

The sale of such equipment to Saudi Arabia was inconsistent with the image the new govern-ment has tried to portray. Unfor-tunately, the government is yet to learn the lesson that if you try to

straddle too many fences at the same time you are bound to be wounded in tender parts of your political anatomy.

The reasons for supporting the deal were numerous. Unfor-tunately, it was hard to fi nd a principle Canadians might fi nd acceptable.

First, the contracts, if can-celled, “could result in Canadian taxpayers having to pay costly penalties and damage the cred-ibility of the government of Canada’s signature.”

Then using the hard facts of electoral politics, the minister suggested the cancellation “would have a ripple effect in an industry on which 70,000 jobs in Canada directly depend.” And using a line made familiar by ministers of the previous government, these jobs included “many veterans.”

Backstopping these arguments was the historical record of such sales. Canada had sold thousands of the armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia since the 1990s and “to the best” knowledge of offi cials “there have been no incidents where they have been used in the perpe-tration of human rights viola-tions,” according to departmental documents quoted by the CBC.

The West in the Middle EastNowhere in these arguments

is there any refl ection on or refer-ence to the mess in the Middle East that is largely the result of military interventions by Western governments that, in their cur-rent phase, go back a hundred years. Throughout that period London, Paris, and Washington,

often supported by other coun-tries including Canada, sought to direct developments that had little relevance to the people of the region.

For the most part, these inter-ventions refl ected the exercise of raw power. The rights of the people, human and otherwise, were of little concern. Today, of course, we try and dress up such interventions in the respectable clothing of human rights, in the hope that there might be some success.

There has been no success. Stretching from Afghanistan to Libya, the region is sinking into quicksand and human rights are relegated to ethereal discussions in Geneva.

Sadly, the only government in the region that retains some mea-

sure of legitimacy both domesti-cally and internationally is Saudi Arabia. It is involved in a nasty proxy war with Iran in Yemen and with its own people in its Eastern Province. The West can only hope that it will prevail. If it does not then what we have seen so far in the region is the prelude to a bloodier future where concern for human rights will recede deeper into the quagmire.

The sale of military equip-ment to Saudi Arabia is by far the lesser of the evils available to countries such as Canada. It will not do much for the human rights that do not exist in the region but it may offer some promise of a slightly better future.

In his speech, the minister spoke of his new “guiding prin-ciple” that he would follow in the conduct of Canada’s foreign policy. It was “responsible convic-tion,” a hybrid formulation from the work of Max Weber of more than a hundred years ago. Mr. We-ber is often referred to as one of the fathers of sociology.

Mr. Dion must have had Ste-phen Harper fi rmly in his sights with this idea, especially as the former prime minister did not “commit sociology” nor see “socio-logical phenomenon” as elements in his eschatology of government. Unfortunately, “responsible con-viction” suggests neither responsi-bility nor conviction.

Gar Pardy is retired from the Canadian foreign service and recently published Afterwords: From a Foreign Service Odyssey.

news@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

Do no more harm The Saudi arms deal is the lesser of the evils available to countries such as Canada.

GAR PARDY

Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion, pictured in December, has suggested ‘responsible conviction’ is the foreign-policy rock on which his government will stand. Instead it’s been slip-sliding away, says Gar Pardy. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright

The government is yet to learn the lesson that if you try to straddle too many fences at the same time you are bound to be wounded in tender parts of your political anatomy.

“

THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 201614OPINION DIPLOMACY

OTTAWA—Canadian parliamentarians and cabinet ministers attracted the ire

of the Chinese Embassy for attending a reception on April 13 hosted by the Taipei Economic and Cultural Offi ce in Ottawa—al-though the annual Taiwan Night has been held for 20 years. According to The Hill Times, Liberal MPs Hedy Fry and Wayne Easter referred to Taiwan as a “country” in their speeches, and Conservative foreign affairs critic Tony Clement declared that Tai-wan should be “a full member of the family of nations.” This bothers Chinese diplomats.

None of this should be controversial. A country is above all a geographical space, and the 36,000-square-kilometre island of Taiwan is defi nitely that. A nation, according to Benedict Anderson, is “an imagined politi-cal community—imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign.” Taiwan fi ts the bill. According to polls from the Election Study Centre of National Chengchi University, 59.5 per cent of people in Taiwan claim that they are Taiwanese and not Chinese.

Sociologically speaking, a state is a monop-oly of the legitimate use of physical force. The Republic of China (the offi cial name of Taiwan) maintains control effectively with autonomous military, police, and immigration authorities—all under the jurisdiction of a democratically elected government. Even Quebec and Nova Scotia courts have ruled that the ROC (Taiwan) is a state. It is a simple fact. The problem is that China is looking for foreign support for its goal of annexing Taiwan.

Given that the People’s Republic of China has never ruled Taiwan since its estab-lishment on Oct. 1, 1949, China’s claim to Taiwan is aspirational. Through the “One

China” policy, Canada and China agree that there is only one China. Whether or not Taiwan is part of China, however, is a totally different question. When Canada was con-sidering how to recognize China, Minister of Foreign Affairs Paul Martin Sr. wrote that “the effective political independence of Tai-wan is a political reality.” This is even more evident now that Taiwan has democratized.

This situation explains why Canada re-sisted Chinese pressure to recognize Taiwan as part of China. The 1970 communiqué signed between Canada and China says, “[t]he Chinese Government reaffi rms that Tai-wan is an inalienable part of the territory of the People’s Republic of China. The Canadian Government takes note of this position of the Chinese Government.” As negotiator Mitchell Sharp explained afterwards to Parliament, this meant that “the Canadian government does not consider it appropriate either to endorse or to challenge the Chinese govern-ment’s position on the status of Taiwan.”

If Taiwan were really a part of China, then Taiwan Night would be no more controversial than Chinese politicians attending an event held by the Quebec Offi ce in Beijing. Voices of protest from the Chinese Embassy suggest that the substantive relation between Canada and Taiwan is in fact one between two states, even in the absence of formal diplomatic relations.

Taiwan has not asked Canada for diplomatic recognition, and has become Canada’s fourth largest trading partner in Asia without it. There is no need to ask for such recognition, which would require the ROC to fi rst relinquish its own anachronistic claim to the Chinese main-land. In fact, the status quo maintains the pos-sibility of eventual unifi cation when conditions are ripe on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

The protocol for Canada-China relations, with its corollary of maintaining only sub-stantive relations with Taiwan, has proven for decades to be an effective formula for strong business and people-to-people relations with both mainland China and Taiwan. It was skill-fully crafted by diplomats under the watch of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Unless China challenges the status quo, there is no need for change under the leadership of his son, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Scott Simon is a professor at the Uni-versity of Ottawa and former chair of Tai-wan Studies. He has conducted research in Taiwan since 1996.

news@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

No reason for China to be upset over Taiwan Night

A country is above all a geographical space, and the 36,000-square-kilometre island of Taiwan is defi nitely that.

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Parliamentarians and other VIPs raise a glass at Taiwan Night on April 13. The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia

15THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016

OPINION ENERGY

TORONTO—Last week’s signing of the Paris climate accord marks the

start of a new age, with huge implications for Canada. The fossil fuels that power the global economy today are entering a permanent (if slow) decline. Gone are cozy assumptions of endless growth in oil exports. Winners in the high-stakes global energy market of the 21st century are those countries that can scale up exports of cutting-edge clean-energy technology.

Canada’s clean-tech sector is poised to compete. But it won’t win without support. We need an Own The Podium strategy for clean energy.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. The global clean-energy market is more than $300 billion annually, and estimated to grow to a trillion dollars by 2020. Other countries that see the sector’s potential are beating us to the punch. Canada had a decent head start, but is losing ground fast. Between 2008 and 2015, during the years of Ste-phen Harper’s govern-ment, our market share dropped by nearly three quarters. That adds up to more than a hun-dred billion dollars of lost business.

We can get that market share back. But it will take more than a healthy startup environment, where venture capi-tal and a bit of luck can make a winner. Clean-tech ventures are nothing like web startups. Entrepreneurs can’t disrupt the energy industry with a clever new app. Think Bombardier, not Uber. It takes a lot of time and capital to build a company capable of competing in global energy markets. Winners need to sell utility-scale equipment that can beat fossil fuels at their own game.

Clean-energy projects, like traditional infrastructure, are highly capital inten-

sive and are built using debt fi nance. Whether it’s a solar farm in Africa, energy storage system in California or biofuel factory in China, developers bor-row money to build energy systems. It’s bankers who provide the debt who ap-prove technology choices. That’s a prob-lem for innovators because bankers are allergic to technical risk. They love old stuff, not new. The trick to selling cutting-edge technology is to give those bankers comfort the debt will be paid back. In other words, back the loans.

That’s precisely what Export Develop-ment Canada has been doing successfully for decades with established companies exporting into traditional markets. It has long provided a backstop so Canadian companies’ customers can borrow the money they need to make the purchase. But EDC is not set up to support new sec-tors like clean tech. It can’t play ball if the Canadian seller doesn’t have a large bal-ance sheet. In other words, EDC helps old, established industries—not new ones.

That’s where creative public policy comes in. Targeted incentives can help Canadian champions stretch to EDC by providing support for fi rst commercial projects in global markets. A loan guaran-tee or other incentives to lower the barrier to traditional capital can get companies through this valley of death. That’s not picking winners, but backing them: an

Own The Podium for our proven up-and-comers. It’s a catalyzing role,

not permanent support. By the time the company wins the second or third contract EDC and the private sector can step in to play their tradi-tional role.

Canada has precious few potential global cham-

pions with proven tech-nology, big markets, and the capacity to disrupt global energy flows.

It’s taken a decade of patient pub-

lic and private

capital to build them. Without targeted support they will undoubtedly get snapped up by innovation-hungry Chi-nese conglomerates or cash-rich global corporations, who are already sniffing around. Other countries will lower their emissions using technology we devel-oped. Which is great for the planet, but lousy for the Canadian job market and for our own potential claim on those reductions.

The collapse of the oil and gas indus-try has already cost Canada a lot of jobs. Scores of coal companies across North

America have gone belly up. Alberta’s high-carbon bitumen will remain at risk. We need to fi nd new and growing export opportunities.

In a world starting to grapple with climate change, clean-energy technology is a good bet. Canada has maybe a dozen clean-energy champions on the verge of global success. To

win in this market we need to get behind those winners. And own the clean-energy podium.

Tom Rand is managing partner of ArcTern Ventures, a senior adviser at the MaRS Discovery District and sits on the board of a number of clean-energy compa-nies and organizations.

news@hilltimes.com

We need Own The Podium for clean tech Backing Canadian clean-tech winners could help make up for lost ground.

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Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains are two of several ministers tasked with boosting Canada’s clean- technology sector. The Hill Times photographs by Jake Wright

Illustration by Melanie Brown

THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 201616NEWS FOREIGN AFFAIRS

“They’ve recruited people based on subject matter expertise and ability to get on,” he said. Getting along is important when you’re working with an adminis-tration that touts government by cabinet, he said. Inter-departmen-tal relations are important, but so are a ministerial offi ce’s relation-ships with civil servants—the people actually implementing the policies government decides on.

“One thing this government, I think, does want to do differ-ently is I think they want to work well with the civil service,” Mr. Robertson said. The ministerial mandate letters handed out by Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau noted ministers—includ-ing Mr. Dion—should engage in “meaningful engagement” with public servants, something they accused the previous Conserva-tive government of doing poorly.

Mr. Dion was named a cabinet minister right off the bat when he became an MP in 1996, serv-

ing as intergovernmental affairs minister under Jean Chrétien and later as environment min-ister under Paul Martin, before his stint as Liberal Party leader from 2006 to 2008. Ergo: he is no stranger to staffi ng offi ces on the Hill. He seems to be hiring from a more pragmatic standpoint, Mr. Robertson said, something that could be attributed to his previous academic background.

“The people I have met have been hired probably less for their political conviction than for their policy smarts. Which I think is a good thing. In that sense I think this will be a much less ideologi-cal government than the last one.”

Take Julian Ovens, for in-stance, Mr. Dion’s chief of staff.

Mr. Ovens comes from a min-ing background, having spent 14 years in the industry. He worked for Canadian mining company Alcan before moving to BHP Billi-ton, where he stayed until Novem-ber 2015 before moving into the minister’s offi ce, according to his LinkedIn profi le.

Mr. Robertson said that experi-ence is relevant for the business side of foreign affairs. “I think that probably gives him a highly practical sense of ultimately one of the goals of foreign policy, which is to protect Canadians and advance the national interest. You

advance the national interest by generating opportunities for us to do business,” he said.

Canadian mining and interna-tional business go hand in hand, of course. Mr. Ovens previously told The Hill Times that he had travelled to more than 60 coun-tries in his life. His work in the mining industry took him abroad to Paris, London, and Singapore, as well as all over Canada.

Mr. Dion has also recruited several serious academics to work with him in advancing Canada’s international agenda.

Pascale Massot, for in-stance, is a policy adviser who recently completed her PhD at the University of British Colum-bia in comparative politics and international relations, with a focus on political economy and Chinese politics. Her supervisor, Yves Tiberghien, had nothing but glowing things to say about her, raving that she was “really the complete deal.” He said she’s a “very thoughtful, deep thinker,” good at rationally assessing situ-ations and “very savvy in terms of human relations, social issues, and policy issues.”

Mr. Tiberghien said he’s not surprised in the slightest that she was recruited by the minister’s offi ce because she really has the eye and the interest for policy.

“Pascale is not at all your typi-cal academic,” he said.

Mr. Robertson said as much about Mr. Dion himself. “I re-member briefi ng him and he was extremely rigorous. He came in looking like a bit of a student, he had his backpack on and the rest, but when we sat down it was like doing the defence of your thesis.”

Jocelyn Coulon, Dion’s senior policy adviser, was recruited with a specifi c emphasis on peace op-erations—“which is of course one of the things that the new govern-ment wants Canada to get back involved in,” Mr. Robertson said. Mr. Coulon also served on Mr. Trudeau’s International Council of Advisors, set up in December 2014 ahead of last year’s federal election campaign.

Mr. Coulon was in the media recently for penning an op-ed in La Presse about the government’s controversial arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

“Let’s not be naive. The Saudi and Iranian regimes are two dictatorships—the fi rst decapi-tates women accused of murder and the other stones them for adultery,” he wrote in a column published Jan. 10.

Six weeks after that, Mr. Cou-lon was hired to the department. Despite Mr. Coulon’s previously-stated opinions, it wasn’t long after that that Mr. Dion took es-sential steps in fi nalizing the deal.

In April, Mr. Dion signed per-mits allowing $15 billion in light armoured vehicles to be exported to Saudi Arabia. Though the con-tract itself was signed by the previ-ous government, Mr. Dion’s offi ce came under criticism for implying there was no turning back—and for only releasing the export permits publicly when a lawsuit required the department to do so.

Mr. Robertson said, “Anybody who joins government knows that ultimately, government is about compromise. And if you’re that

uncomfortable, then you resign or you don’t take the job.”

Other policy advisers in Mr. Dion’s offi ce include Jean Boutet, who was with Mr. Dion when he was environment minister. After the 2006 election bumped the Liberals into opposition status, Mr. Boutet worked at the environ-ment department before return-ing to Mr. Dion’s offi ce.

Joseph Pickerill is Mr. Dion’s director of communications. Most recently, he worked as commu-nications director for the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He was only there for about three months before being approached by the minister’s offi ce. Tammy Bender worked under him at CIGI, and said he was an admirable leader and an “extremely effective communica-tor.” He was incredibly well-liked there and they were sad to see him go, she said.

Dahlia Stein is Mr. Dion’s director of operations and also comes from an academic back-ground. From Calgary, Alta., she used to work as a senior policy adviser for Health Canada. Ac-cording to her Facebook profi le, she studied the economics of climate change at the University of Cambridge.

Rounding out the top staffers in the offi ce, Jamie Innes is Mr. Dion’s director of parliamentary affairs, and is the only one in the offi ce with a strictly political background, having made his way up through the Liberal Party of Canada.

Chantal Gagnon serves as Mr. Dion’s press secretary.

Mr. Robertson told The Hill Times that Global Affairs Canada has approached him for advice on staffers who might have good expertise on both the Americas and the Middle East, as they are still looking.

cnash@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

The people behind foreign policy: A look inside the foreign minister’s offi ceFormer diplomat says ‘fi rst-rate people’ are working for Stéphane Dion.

Continued from page 1

Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion walks down to the House of Commons chamber with his press secretary, Chantal Gagnon, on budget day, March 22. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright

Mr. Dion’s chief of staff, Julian Ovens. Photograph courtesy of Julian Ovens

Policy adviser Pascale Massot. Photograph courtesy of Pascale Massot

17THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016

OPINION DEFENCE

OTTAWA—There may at last be light at the end of the tunnel of war in

Ukraine. The NATO-Russia Council, which had been dormant for two years, met last week to discuss the peace process in east-ern Ukraine. It was better late than never.

There was no great leap forward. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg voiced the requisite assurance that the meeting was “no return to business as usual.” United States General Philip Breedlove, the head of the U.S. forces in Europe and NATO’s supreme allied commander, added that, despite the talks, NATO reinforcement in Europe would continue. Afterward, Stoltenberg advised that the discussion had done nothing to change the “profound and persistent disagreements” between Russia and the NATO states.

All this notwithstanding, the revival of the NATO-Russia Council is a major step to-ward peace for Ukraine because, unlike the Minsk peace process, which is focused on the mechanics of the confl ict and its possible resolution, the Council must focus on the larger picture, in which the root causes of the confl ict need diagnosis and remedy.

The Council’s deliberations are also a ma-jor test for our new government. The subject matter is crucial. Canadians have fought two no-holds-barred world wars for Eurasian se-curity. We cannot fi ght another, not ever, not with NATO and Russia both nuclear-armed. If our new leaders have any new ideas about how Canada might help avert Cold War II, now is the time to voice them.

We know our policy is not going to be more of the same. We’re re-engaging with Russia, for one thing, and surely we won’t carry on campaigning, as our last government did, for further NATO growth, even unto the Caucasus. But just what will our new policy be?

The essential elements of peace in east-ern Ukraine include not only the substance of the Minsk plan but also a larger peace between NATO and Russia, an agreement to stop the tug of war for Ukraine and start giving that tormented state a chance to make the best of its circumstances, between East and West, rather than go on making the very worst of them.

That larger peace requires better fences between NATO and Russia—in our minds and on the ground—than the ones we’ve got, particularly now with NATO so far ex-tended, the EU at (if not beyond) its limits, and Russia back on its feet. These parties need better boundaries. They need what Robert Frost called “mending walls.”

To build them, NATO would have to es-chew further growth. The West would have to recognize that Crimea was Russian. The government of Ukraine would have to decentralize and work to regain the trust and loyalty of the Donbas. With Ukraine looking these days like another case of failed U.S.-backed regime change, the West would have to step back, stop pouring billions into Kyiv with obvious political intent, stop choosing leaders and running major ministries there and stop feeding exclusive Ukrainian nationalism.

Russia would have to stop interfering in eastern Ukraine, stop the hybrid war, stop holding Kyiv to ransom and start making

normal life possible along its 1,920-kilome-tre border with its Slavic neighbour.

Both sides would have to commit them-selves to restraint in rhetoric and in action. Both would undertake to negotiate trade agreements freeing Ukraine to resume its natural, age-old commerce with both east and west.

Both sides would have to acknowledge that, with much of the political and natural world falling apart before their eyes, there are much, much better, urgent things to do than spend new billions on arms to scare one another—arms they know they dare not use.

A new deal is not all available tomor-row morning. The council’s meeting last week did not shake the earth. Formidable political and diplomatic obstacles still lie in the path to such a peace.

But these essential elements of peace had better not be just pipe dreams. The long-term stakes are too high. The West has many more interests in common with Russia than it has reasons to squabble. The time is right for us to try to turn the rising

tide of new cold war.Chris Westdal is a former ambassador

and current fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. He is also a con-

sultant, corporate director, and occasional commentator on Canadian foreign policy.

news@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

Might NATO and Russia make peace for Ukraine? A lot needs to happen to cement peace, but the time is right to try to turn the rising tide of the new Cold War.

MAY 107:30-9:00 AM

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This session will explore why there has been a decline in women-owned small to medium sized enterprises, the percentage of women serving on corporate boards and the importance for teaching financial literacy to women and girls.

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CHRIS WESTDAL

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks to reporters following the fi rst NATO-Russia Council meeting in two years, April 20. Photograph courtesy of NATO

THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 201618NEWS HILL LIFE & PEOPLE

It isn’t hard to see why. Mr. Genuis appears to dive into debate at every chance he gets, whether in question period or in committees—even committees he’s not a member of.

Offi cially, Mr. Genuis—pro-nounced like “jean-us,” in case you were wondering—sits on the Stand-ing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. However, you can almost always fi nd him at the Stand-ing Committee for Foreign Affairs and International Development, which he attends on a regular basis.

“It dovetails well with the work I’m doing as the deputy critic

on human rights and religious freedom,” Mr. Genuis said in an interview with The Hill Times. The primary critic for human rights is David Anderson (Cypress Hills—Grasslands, Sask.). Mr. Anderson, who has uttered 4,959 words in Parliament, sits on the House Sub-committee on International Human Rights; Mr. Genuis does not.

Mr. Genuis’s perseverance at participating in each foreign affairs committee meeting could come in handy if the Conservatives ever need a committee member replace-ment. Conservative MP Peter Kent (Thornhill, Ont.), who sits on the foreign affairs committee, sug-gested that once the Conservative leadership race takes off, a spot on the committee may open up.

“Tony, of course, has been named as a potential candidate,” he said, referring to foreign af-fairs critic Tony Clement (Parry Sound—Muskoka, Ont.). “So I think Garnett’s only doing the wise thing and I think he would be ready to sub in in any event.”

Mr. Menard said Mr. Genuis excels at that kind of strategic thinking. “He thinks long term, ahead of the game and will set himself up to have a big profi le,

for sure,” Mr. Menard told The Hill Times. “I think he’s very skilled at that sort of thing.”

The two crossed paths at Carleton University, where Mr. Genuis attended the Public Affairs and Policy Management program. Mr. Menard was president of the student union at the time. He said he and Mr. Genuis frequently en-gaged in lively debate on anything from changes to the student union constitution to whether or not a pro-life group that advocated crimi-nalizing abortion had the right to exist on campus. (Mr. Genuis was for; Mr. Menard was against.)

“Heated debates that defi nitely aren’t easy, he’d be in the thick of,” said Mr. Menard, laughing. As soon as he saw Mr. Genuis’s name on the riding nomination for what was considered a safe Conservative seat, he said, “I could expect that he was going to win that, just because of his sort of forethought and stra-tegic thinking ability. Certainly he uses those things to his advantage.”

Mr. Genuis’s wife, Rebecca, said she was fi rst “warned” about his aspirations to enter federal politics on their fi rst date six or seven years ago.

“I think he really just cares, to be honest,” she said. “The number of hours that he’s spent campaigning, and that he spends reading and learning. Like, the budget comes out, and that’s his pleasure reading for the next little while. Everywhere we go, the budget is coming with us.”

‘Where do I begin?’Mr. Kent has had quite a few

chances to observe his young colleague, in committee and in

caucus. When asked what he thought of Mr. Genuis, he laughed and said, “Where do I begin?”

Mr. Kent said it’s “not typical” for an MP to sit so regularly on a committee they are not a member of, but “he’s a great colleague on the Foreign Affairs Committee.”

“It refl ects enthusiasm, inter-est and wanting to stay abreast of what the committee is doing, so that when he does sub in, he’s not just fi lling a chair or provid-ing a vote for our opposition three members, that he’s there engaged,” he told The Hill Times. “Very few rookie members have hit the ground running as effectively and enthusiastically as he has.”

Mr. Genuis said he sees simi-larities between himself and his colleague Jason Kenney, cited by some as a potential leadership candidate. “Many of the things I’m trying to bring attention to on the human rights front are things he has been continually advocating for and talking about. I have a lot of admiration for him.”

For example, he said, Mr. Ken-ney is a vocal advocate for a more principled approach to relations with China, and has been openly sympathetic to Tibet.

It’s no surprise, then, that Mr. Genuis has secured a footing as deputy chair of the Canada-Tibetan Parliamentary Friendship Group. He met with the Dalai Lama early in his mandate as MP, before taking on his role with the friendship group. He credits the prolifi c meeting to “just a matter of being in the area and asking.”

He added, “I don’t know what’s standard and what isn’t, I just put in the request.”

Asked about his interest in human rights and freedom of speech, Mr. Genuis talks about his family. His grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, he said, and his wife’s family immigrated to Canada from Pakistan, where they were part of the Christian religious minority.

“What is important about the conversations I’ve had with my grandmother-in-law is that it helped me understand that the situ-ation is not hopeless. Some people want to just say, ‘well, the human rights violations are just part of the culture over there.’ That’s not true...By trying to have a construc-tive human rights dialogue, we’re not trying to introduce ideas that are foreign,” he said.

Russia and China are two geo-political giants that Mr. Genuis said Canada should be “calling out.” He said Canada should be “willing to risk those relation-ships” in the name of human rights, something he doesn’t think is happening now.

“I think we should be willing to talk about human rights in a way that challenges the Chinese directly. I don’t think we should be so concerned about offending them that we either don’t bring up human rights or we only bring it up in a sort of cursory, formulaic way,” he said.

Mrs. Genuis said he “always has a lot to say about everything,” but that it’s just how he was raised.

“When we have family din-ner with his parents, we don’t sit around and talk about the weather.”

cnash@hilltimes.com@chels_nash

The Hill Times

The youngest Conservative MP with the most to say Those who know him say rookie MP Garnett Genuis is a ‘fi erce debater’ and a strategic thinker who planned his political foray far in advance.

Continued from page 1

MP Garnett Genuis talks about his passion for human rights. The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia

19THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016

FEATURE BUZZ

A swarm of colourful characters blanket-ed the lawns on the Hill to smoke pot, listen to music, and lounge in the sun, as is tradi-tion on April 20, known as 420. The marijua-na-themed celebration—peaking, naturally, at 4:20 p.m.—happens around the world each year on that day, though no one has pinned down for certain why that number has be-come synonymous with marijuana.

A band played on the steps, with about 20 police offi cers standing watch above. One offi cer carried an assault rifl e, though he and his colleagues appeared relatively unconcerned about the weed enthusiasts on the Hill. A countdown to 4:20 p.m. sparked a haze of smoke that drifted into downtown Ottawa. One woman was seen handing out fake moustaches to passersby departing the gathering, though it’s not clear why.

Health Minister Jane Philpott, (Markham-Stouffville), coincidentally or otherwise, told

a UN session on drug policy April 20 that the government would fulfi l its promise to introduce legislation to legalize marijuana in early 2017. Even the dominion carillonneur got in on the act, playing on the Parliament Hill bells stoner favourites such as Puff, the Magic Dragon by Peter Yarrow and Imagine by John Lennon.

Haiti NGOs show off photo skills on Hill

Senate Speaker George Furey fêted Canadian NGOs working in Haiti April 21, hosting an exhibition of photographs taken by volunteers for the aid groups during their time in the country.

About two-dozen Senators, diplomats, staffers, and NGO executives attended the reception, which was held in the Speaker’s Salon in Centre Block on Parliament Hill, said Haitian Ambassador Frantz Liautaud.

Four of the aid groups represented at the event have been running the govern-ment’s Volunteer Cooperation Program Supporting Governance, Education, and Economic Development in Haiti. They in-clude the Centre for International Studies and Cooperation, World University Service Canada, the Canadian Executive Service Organization and the Paul Gérin-Lajoie Foundation. Team Broken Earth, a volun-

teer group of Canadian doctors, nurses and physiotherapists, was also represented at the event, according to a press release from Mr. Furey’s offi ce.

The photos, many of which feature volunteers themselves, are a “testimonial to the work that they do over there,” said Mr. Liautaud.

peter@hilltimes.com@PJMazereeuw

Bongs, bells, and fake moustaches take to the Hill

HEARD HILLONTHE

BY PETER MAZEREEUW

Continued from page 2

A haze of marijuana smoke drifts across the Hill during the annual gathering of marijuana enthusiasts on April 20. The Hill Times photograph by Peter Mazereeuw

Senator Elizabeth Marshall looks at a photo taken by a Canadian volunteer working with a government development program in Haiti. Photographs courtesy of Neil Valois

Senate Opposition Leader Claude Carignan and Francois Gérin-Lajoie, president of the Paul Gérin-Lajoie Foundation.

Memorial University Faculty of Medicine dean Dr. James Rourke, Haitian Ambassador Frantz Liautaud, and Dr. Andrew Furey, Senator Furey’s son. Both doctors have worked as part of Team Broken Earth’s Newfoundland team.

Speaker Furey, Paul Gérin-Lajoie and Senator Serge Joyal.

Senate Speaker hosts photo exhibit of Canadian volunteers in Haiti

Immigration Minister John McCallum has bulked up his

ministerial staff team in recent weeks, including hiring an execu-tive assistant and communica-tions staffers.

Félix Corriveau joined the minister’s offi ce on March 9 as a senior adviser for strategic com-munications. Before joining Mr. McCallum’s team, Mr. Corriveau was working as a freelance re-porter based in Toronto, according to his LinkedIn profi le. He worked for Games News Service covering the 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games in Toronto; as manager editor for Canada at Newzulu Limited; and as a reporter for the CBC and Radio-Canada, La Presse

Canadienne, La Presse, and News 98.5 FM in Montreal. He’s also worked with TV5Monde.

Mr. Corriveau reported abroad on the 20th anniversary com-memorations of the Rwandan genocide, on refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo in Rwanda, and on alleged abuses by mining companies in the DRC, among other things. In 2014, he was awarded a Forum Freelance Fund bursary to get training on reporting in crisis zones from Columbia University’s Gradu-ate School of Journalism for his reporting from the DRC.

His chief of staff, Mathieu Bélanger, also has connections to Rwanda, having worked as acting country representative for the east African country for the Glob-al Green Growth Institute.

Mr. Corriveau previously worked for Quebec’s public secu-rity ministry for just over a year starting in September 2001, and worked for a time in Paris, France as a communications project man-ager at the France-Canada Cham-ber of Commerce, providing advice to Canadian companies wanting to

do business in France. Mr. Cor-riveau studied for a bachelor of arts in political science and govern-ment at Université Laval and later earned a journalism certifi cate from the school. He’s also studied at Paris’s La Sorbonne university.

Bernie Derible, previously reported by Hill Climbers as direc-tor of issues management to Mr. McCallum, is also wearing the hat of director of communications and deputy chief of staff in the offi ce. Mr. Derible was previously manag-ing director of Leadership and Life Coach Solutions, and has also been a senior governance and man-agement consultant for the San Francisco-based Asia Foundation.

In other international work, he served for a time as country director for the RMA Group Com-pany Ltd. in Afghanistan, where he’s also worked as a geo-polit-ical risk assessment consultant and in 2008 served as an adviser to the Afghan deputy minister of youth, among other experience, according to his LinkedIn profi le.

Francesco Biondi-Morra also started working in Mr. McCal-lum’s offi ce on March 9 as a

special assistant.A recent graduate of the Uni-

versité de Montréal, Mr. Biondi-Morra, 23, is a dual citizen, via his Italian-born father, and for a time while growing up lived in Rome. In December 2011, he took a year-long break from his studies to serve in the Italian Army, becoming a corporal in the armour division, during which time he took part in patrols in Italy with military police after a few months of training in southern Italy. He’s originally from Montreal, and is no longer enlisted.

He told Hill Climbers he decided to enlist as it “was a family tradition” on his father’s side, and he also thought it would be a good experience “for discipline and organization and opening up to the world in a different manner.”

Mr. Biondi-Morra’s new gig in Mr. McCallum’s offi ce is his fi rst on the Hill, but he’s been active with the Liberal party, including until recently serving as vice-president of policy for the Young Liberals of Canada in Quebec.

He said he was drawn to his new job by “the opportunity to [participate], to be a part of it, and help in this [Syrian refugee] crisis and help this new government.”

It’s exciting, he said. “It’s really the best environment, frankly, to participate in politics, to contrib-ute in this change.”

Olga Radchenko is a special assistant for parliamentary affairs for Mr. McCallum. Until recently, she worked on communications and public engagement for the Canadian Red Cross in Toronto and is a former consultant with Hill and Knowlton Strategies. For four months in the spring of 2015 she served as a junior research fellow at the NATO Council of Canada, and in 2014 was a part of Canadian Election Observer Mission delegation to Ukraine. She speaks both Russian and Ukrainian.

Among her other past jobs and internships, Ms. Radchenko is a former program assistant for en-

tertainment programming for the Canadian National Exhibition.

Brandan Rowe is assistant to the minister’s parliamentary sec-retary, Liberal MP Arif Virani, the MP for Parkdale-High Park, Ont., after having served as Mr. Virani’s campaign communications direc-tor during the 2015 election.

As well, Stephanie Speroni is now executive assistant and scheduler to Mr. McCallum, and Hursh Jaswal is a special assis-tant in the offi ce.

Kerry Cundal is director of case management to the min-ister. A lawyer who previously worked as an adjudicator with the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, she appears to have run as the Liberal candidate for Calgary-Signal Hill, Alta. in last October’s election, losing to Con-servative Ron Liepert.

Zubair Patel is now a senior special assistant to Mr. McCal-lum, having previously worked for Liberal MP Arnold Chan.

As previously reported by Hill Climbers, Mr. Bélanger is chief of staff to the minister, whose offi ce also includes Jennifer Bond, direc-tor of the Syrian refugee initiative; Camielle Edwards, senior special assistant; Nathalie Guay, senior special assistant; Kyle Nicholson, policy adviser; Bernard Morin, special assistant and driver; and private secretary and scheduling assistant Denise Jackson.

Bains hires tech guru Gunn as innovation policy adviser

Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains has hired three more staffers to join his ministerial staff team, including former departmental staffer Kelly Acton, who was previ-ously stationed in the minister’s offi ce on an interim basis.

THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 201620HILL CLIMBERS POLITICAL STAFFERS

Immigration Minister McCallum bolsters staff

HILL CLIMBERSBY LAURA RYCKEWAERT

Immigration Minister John

McCallum, pictured centre,

has hired communications

and parliamentary affairs staffers

in recent weeks. The Hill Times photograph by

Jake Wright

Félix Corriveau is Mr. McCallum’s senior strategic communications adviser. Photography courtesy of CNW Group/Canadian Journalism Forum on Violence and Trauma

Félix Corriveau joined Immigration Minister John McCallum as a senior adviser for strategic communication.

Ms. Acton is now a political aide to Mr. Bains, working under the title of director of strategy and delivery. She was previously a senior offi cial with Industry Canada, until recently holding the title of director general. Since Mr. Bains was appointed minister last fall, she’s been helping out his offi ce on an interim basis, including act-ing as chief of staff and communications director.

She previously worked under Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government as a com-munications aide to Jane Stewart, who was at the time minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, as the department was called.

Nathon Gunn is now a policy adviser for innovation in Mr. Bains’ offi ce, and he brings with him an impressive and long resumé of experience as a high-tech entrepreneur.

Until recently, he was working in Cali-fornia and Toronto, wearing multiple hats: as founder, product launcher and mentor of X-Pollinate, a Silicon Valley company which helps “founders in the world launch and grow their products,” according to his LinkedIn page; as a senior business strategy and fundraising adviser with Sin-gularity University in California, helping advise startups; as director of the board of the provincial government agency Ontario Media Development Corporation; and as founder and CEO of Lightning Platform until last December.

Mr. Gunn also worked for Blackbox Accel-erator LLC up until April 2015, and is a former CEO and founder of Social Game Universe, and CEO of Bitcasters, among a wealth of other past experience, including as a former fellow for Queen’s University’s Centre for the Study of Democracy and as a co-founder of Miramax Films New Media Division.

He’s worked with companies like Dis-ney, Universal, the CBC, the United States Agency for International Development (including on a project to improve civic engagement in Jordan), and Lionsgate, among many others.

Among his political experience, Mr. Gunn served as a lead for net strategy for Paul Martin’s 2003 leadership campaign and then in his offi ce as prime minister. He also previously worked with former Trudeau (Sr.) speech-writer and aide Thomas Axworthy at the Charles Bronfman Foundation in Montréal as lead on digital and technology initiatives.

Mr. Gunn studied for a bachelor’s de-gree in image arts, studying computer visu-alization, animation, fi lm, and photography at Ryerson University in Toronto. He spent years living abroad as a youth, including in Australia, Malaysia, and New Delhi, India.

The Globe and Mail reported this week that he’ll have a lead role in shaping the Liberals’ innovation agenda.

Nilani Logeswaran is also now working for Mr. Bains as a special assistant for par-liamentary affairs and issues management. During the Liberal Party’s 2015 campaign, she served as a communications assistant and before that was press secretary to On-tario Education Minister Liz Sandals.

Ms. Logeswaran was also previously press secretary to Ontario’s former con-sumer services minister Tracy MacCharles, and served as a legislative assistant and issues manager to her predecessor in the portfolio, Margarett Best. She studied po-litical science at the University of Waterloo.

Public Services Minister Foote hires assistants

Public Services and Procurement Minis-ter Judy Foote has welcomed a number of new assistants to her ministerial staff team in recent weeks, as well as a new policy adviser, Mary-Rose Brown.

Until March, Ms. Brown was working for the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation since the spring of 2013, most recently as an “Innoweave” program manager, which is aimed at helping community organizations “learn about, assess and implement” ap-proaches to “social innovation,” according to the foundation’s website, which describes it-self as aimed at “building a more innovative, inclusive, sustainable and resilient society.”

Before that, Ms. Brown worked for the Public Policy Forum, during which time she helped put together a report on the outcome of a pan-Canadian roundtable put on by the forum, Building Authentic Partnerships: Aboriginal Participation in Major Resource Development Opportunities. She is a former Balsillie Fellow at the Centre for Internation-al Governance Innovation in Waterloo, Ont., as indicated by her LinkedIn account.

For just over a year and a half starting in February 2007, she was a special assistant to then-Liberal MP Ken Dryden. She’s also a former administrative assistant with Carleton University’s Centre for Trade Policy and Law, and during the summer of 2006 she interned in the Ontario Liberal caucus services bureau at Queen’s Park, according to her online profi le.

Christina St. John is now working in Ms. Foote’s offi ce as assistant to Parliamen-tary Secretary Leona Alleslev, the MP for Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill, Ont. Dilys Fernandes is now a special assistant for op-erations. Ms. Fernandes describes herself as a Blue Jays fan and “life-long student” on Twitter and was active with the Liberal Party during the 2015 campaign in Toronto and the GTA.

Joel Tallerico is now a legislative assistant in Ms. Foote’s offi ce. Originally from Calgary, Alta., Mr. Tallerico fi rst moved to Ottawa to get a bachelor’s degree in public affairs and policy management at Carleton University, and later studied for his master’s in political management. Since moving to Ottawa, Mr. Tallerico has interned for Liberal MP Wayne Easter, and been a clerical assistant to Lib-eral Senator Elizabeth Hubley.

He was data chair for Marie-France Lalonde’s campaign in Ottawa-Orléans, Ont. during the 2014 Ontario election and later became her constituency assistant. During the 2015 election, he was campaign co-chair for now Liberal MP Bob Nault in Kenora, Ont., helping defeat former Con-servative minister Greg Rickford.

Mr. Tallerico also previously was a consul-tant for The ParkHill Group, according to his LinkedIn profi le, providing advice to “Liberal nomination candidates across Ontario” from August 2014 to May 2015. He’s also a former vice-president of policy for the Young Liberals of Canada, among other experience.

AJ Cheema has been hired as a special assistant for the Western and Northern desk, meaning he’s providing regional advice to Ms. Foote. Mr. Cheema was most recently working as a realtor with Sutton Group West Coast Realty in British Columbia. Among other experience, he spent more than fi ve and a half years as a South Asia market manager for RCI Capital Group’s immigrant investor program. He lists Hindu and Pun-jabi among his languages on LinkedIn.

Meanwhile, Victoria Windsor is now a spe-cial assistant for Atlantic Canada to Ms. Foote. Until recently, she was a national fi eld orga-nizer for the federal party in Newfoundland

and Labrador. During the summer of 2008, she was a parliamentary intern in the United King-dom’s House of Commons, and during the sub-sequent fall semester she interned in the major narcotics bureau of the Kings County District Attorney’s Offi ce in Brooklyn, New York while a student at New York University, studying a bachelor of political and political economy.

She’s since pursued a master’s degree in the history of international relations at the London School of Economics in the U.K. and most recently studied for a bach-elor of laws at the University of Edinburgh.

Finally, Government House Leader Dominic LeBlanc recently welcomed Barry Lacombe as a special adviser in his minis-terial offi ce. And Hill Climbers has learned that staffer Sabrina Atwal, already report-ed as an exempt staffer to Mr. LeBlanc, is working under the title of press secretary.

Vince MacNeil is chief of staff to Mr. LeBlanc.The Hill Times

21THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016

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Bernie Derible is Minister McCallum’s issues management director and deputy chief of staff. Photograph courtesy of LinkedIn

Olga Radchenko is a special assistant for parliamentary affairs for Mr. McCallum. Photograph courtesy of LinkedIn

Nathon Gunn is now a policy adviser for innovation in Mr. Bains’ offi ce. Photo courtesy of Twitter

AJ Cheema has been hired as a special assistant for the Western and Northern desk for Minister Foote. Photograph courtesy of LinkedIn

THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 201624FEATURE PARTIES

Successful and impressive women fi lled a ballroom at the Westin hotel in Ottawa

for the Famous 5 Persons Case Awards lun-cheon celebration on April 21, from resilient politicians to admirable academics.

Party Central estimated the room consisted of about 20 per cent men and 80 per cent women—in-teresting, considering women are used to being greatly out-numbered on the Hill, with only 26 per cent of seats in the House of Commons held by women.

The honorees of the event were an impressive force: for-mer health minister Monique Bégin, the fi rst woman from Quebec to ever be elected to the House of Commons; Marie-Thérèse Chicha, who has devoted her life to researching the sys-temic discrimination of women and other minorities; Dee Dooley, the youth award recipient, dedicated to achieving equity for marginalized groups; Ruth Martin, a fam-ily physician and advocate for the health of incarcerated women and their infants; and Ottawa’s own Sheila McIntyre, a tireless activist who has fought her entire life for women’s rights.

Each of the women had received a Persons Case Award from the governor general earlier that day. The award was created in 1979 to mark the 50th anniver-sary of the well-known so-called persons case, in which fi ve women from Alberta fought a legal battle to have women as well as men recognized as “persons.” Until then, women were not permitted to be appointed to the Senate because they were not ac-knowledged as “persons” by the state.

“Like many of you, I am reminded of their fi ght every day as I climb the steps to Parliament Hill,” said Globe and Mail reporter Michelle Zilio, who delivered re-marks, having been honoured as the Nor-ton Rose Fulbright Mentorship Program recipient.

She explained to the crowded room, “how far we still need to go to break through that glass ceiling to ensure that every woman has the ability to fulfi l their full potential in all aspects of their lives.”

Each of the recipients wore the medal she had received from the governor general earlier that day. While they were grateful to be honoured, each of them ac-knowledged that the awards meant much

more to their causes than it did for them personally.

“Actually get[ting] nationally celebrated as opposed to stigmatized or catcalled or told to sit down or told to be reasonable—instead of that, what you have is ministers and senators and lawyers and a whole pile of families all saying here ‘This matters.’ I think it’s fantastic,” Ms. McIntyre told Party Central.

Ms. Dooley was incredibly honoured to receive the award, she said, but like many people that day, acknowledged there was

still a long way to go to achieve equality for women.

“It was interesting when I looked at the other recipients and noticed there were no women of colour, no indigenous women,” she said.

During a mod-erated discussion, Ms. Bégin said she supported the idea of gender parity in the Senate as well as in cabinet, while Ms. Chicha retorted that if the Senate were to consist of 50 per cent women, then the sal-ary would be reduced. The joke, which al-

luded to the widely acknowledged pay gap between genders that exists in Canada, was met with knowing chuckles.

The lively discussion lasted the dura-tion of the meal, which consisted of a salad, herbed chicken, garlic potatoes, and roasted vegetables, as well as a straw-berry apple crumble. The recipients later turned to questions from the audience, in which former minister Sheila Copps, in the absence of a microphone, shouted out a question to Ms. Bégin about how universal health-care could be saved in the current political climate.

Ms. Martin, seated at the same table as Party Central, had fl own in from Vancou-ver the night before to accept her award. She told the table that all the women had been quite nervous the night before as they added the fi nishing touches to their accep-tance speeches.

“I’m still in a bit of shock or awe about it,” she told Party Central, “because it’s not why I do this work. I feel very humbled and honoured and surprised.”

Party Central spotted ministers Caro-lyn Bennett, Maryam Monsef, and Patty Hajdu, former senator Marie Charette-Poulin, MP Hedy Fry, MP Marilyn Gladu, author Charlotte Gray, and president of the Canadian Foundation for Healthcare Improvement Maureen O’Neil. University of Ottawa president Allan Rock was there, as was journalist Norma Greenaway, and Famous Five Foundation director Shauna Frederick.

cnash@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

A room full of famous women

PARTY CENTRALB Y C H E L S E A N A S H

W E D N E S D A Y E D I T I O N

Five women from across the country were celebrated at the Persons Case Awards luncheon on April 21.

Monique Bégin, one of this year’s recipients of the Persons Case Award, walks up to the stage at the annual Famous Five Luncheon. The Hill Times photograph by Sam Garcia

Canada Bulgaria inter-parliamentary group launches

Wine experts sip a taste of Argentina

Sheila McIntyre of Ottawa, one of the recipients.

Ottawa Region Bulgarian Foundation vice president Ralitsa Tcholakova performs at the April 20 reception in Centre Block.

Global Affairs Canada’s Olivier Nicoloff in conversation with Ms. Martin.

Ms. Nascimbene de Dumont with Argentine third secretary Franco Senilliani.

Argentine Ambassador Norma Nascimbene de Dumont clinks glasses with the LCBO’s Mark Mason at a reception her embassy hosted April 18 to celebrate Argentina’s popular Malbec wine.

MP Hedy Fry with Famous 5 Ottawa Chair Isabel Metcalfe.

Senators Raynell Andreychuk, Joseph Day, and Salma Ataullahjan, Bulgarian Ambassador Nikolay Milkov, EU Ambassador Marie-Anne Coninsx, Senator Victor Oh and Senator Yonah Martin, co-chair of the Canada Bulgaria Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Group.

MP Marilyn Gladu and Kelly Ouimet.The Hill Times photographs by

Sam Garcia

The Hill Times photographs by Sam Garcia

The Hill Times photographs by Kristen Shane

25THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016

ENVOYS SAINT KITTS & NEVIS

Shirley Skerritt-Andrew is an environmentalist, a feminist,

and Saint Kitts and Nevis’ new high commissioner to Canada.

Ms. Skerritt-Andrew arrived in Canada in mid-August last year, as the fi rst resident high commission-er of the Caribbean nation’s new diplomatic mission in Ottawa.

She said in an interview she wants to focus on boosting invest-ment, deepening partnerships outside the tourism sector, and working with the Canadian gov-ernment to ensure “green growth.” Foreign Minister Stéphane Dion is her hero, she said, because of his long-time commitment to tackling climate change.

Saint Kitts and Nevis is a dual-island state in the Caribbean home to around 52,000 people.

“We’re small, we’re vulnerable, we cannot afford to destroy our environment,” she said. “We’re tourist destinations, we depend on an environment that’s pristine for our livelihood.”

Another top priority for her is the lifting of visas Canada slapped on Saint Kitts and Nevis after security concerns were raised in 2014. An Iranian businessman arrived in Toronto

claiming to have purchased his Saint Kitts and Nevis diplomatic passport for US$1 million from the country’s controversial buy-a-passport program. It offered a passport in exchange for invest-ment, but the program’s users didn’t even have to set foot in the country to gain it.

Convincing the Canadian government that Saint Kitts and Nevis has lived up to its com-mitment to overhaul its passport system and tighten security is one of Ms. Skerritt-Andrew’s goals during her term here.

The country has since re-called all passports and included the date and place of birth of its citizens on the document, as well as any name changes. Saint Kitts and Nevis citizens still have visa-free access to the European Union and the United Kingdom.

Ms. Skerritt-Andrew said the visa is a challenge because almost everyone in Saint Kitts and Nevis has relatives in Canada. She has an uncle and too many cousins to count here, she said.

“We gave Canada our best,” she said. “Some of them came for educational reasons, and stayed on. Some of them came up for work but they were people who had done well academically at home. That’s a profi le of some-one coming from Saint Kitts and Nevis to Canada.”

Canada’s visa application has a reputation for being particularly tedious, which complicates things further.

“They ask about your parents, whether they are deceased or not, they ask about all your siblings, their jobs, you know, where they live, and all that. Not even the

Americans do that,” she said, laughing. “I’m not criticizing it, eh? I’m just stating a fact.”

Ms. Skerritt-Andrew said a government minister from the dual-island nation (she refused to give a name) was recently declined for a visa application because he applied too late. It was a last-minute trip, and under the previous restrictions he would have been able to come with just his passport, she said.

“All I have to say is that it’s having a terrible effect on people-to-people contact, which is what we want to encourage,” she said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vacationed in Saint Kitts and Nevis with his family in Decem-ber. Prime Minister Timothy Harris of Saint Kitts and Nevis greeted him at the airport.

The Conservative Party of Canada released a statement at the time noting that a local news-paper in Saint Kitts had reported that the country’s PM and foreign minister had brought up the visa issue with Mr. Trudeau during the visit. The Conservatives sought to know whether Mr. Trudeau made any commitment to lift the visas, which they saw as being neces-sary for security.

Ms. Skerritt-Andrew said it was just a courtesy greeting, and that nothing offi cial was discussed.

“You don’t have a head of state coming into your country and you pretend that he’s not com-ing in. As a courtesy, both the prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs met him, shook his hand, you know, said hi, have a great time, and that’s it.”

Ms. Skerritt-Andrew also made it clear that the visa issue wasn’t the only reason the high commission was established in Ottawa. The decision was made in 2012, she said, shortly after a joint diplomatic mission of the Or-ganisation of Eastern Caribbean States was shut down for eco-nomic reasons. Other states that were under that umbrella mission have separately since sought indi-vidual diplomatic representation in Canada, including Saint Vin-cent and the Grenadines, which is accredited through its mission in the United States.

Before Canada, Ms. Skerritt-Andrew was posted to Brussels as the Organization of Eastern Ca-ribbean States ambassador, and she was cross-posted to Sweden. She maintains the latter posting, she said, even in Canada.

Because Canada and Saint Kitts both recognize the Queen as the head of state, she didn’t need to present credentials to the governor general to start offi cial duties, but she did give a letter of introduction to the prime minister on April 11.

Ms. Skerritt-Andrew, a widow who is in Canada on her own, said she has “a lot to be grateful” to Canada for personally. Her fi rst interaction with Canada was as a university student, when she at-tended the University of the West Indies on a Canadian bursary.

Ms. Skerritt-Andrew said she would like to see a multilateral as well as a bilateral relationship blossom with Canada. Canada’s involvement in the G7, G20, and OECD is something she values. “We look to Canada, as we have in the past, to raise our issues in these arenas,” she said.

cnash@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

Climate change, visa-lifting key for Saint

Kitts envoy

DIPLOMATIC CIRCLES

BY CHELSEA NASH

STATUS OF GOVERNMENT BILLS

THE WEEK AHEAD

HOUSE OF COMMONS• C-2, An Act to Amend the Income Tax Act

(committee)

• C-4, An Act to Amend the Canada Labour Code, the Parliamentary Employment and Staff Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations Act and the Income Tax Act (committee)

• C-5, An Act to Repeal Division 20 of Part 3 of the Economic Action Plan 2015 Act, No. 1 (second reading)

• C-6, An Act to Amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act (committee)

• C-7, An Act to Amend the Public Service Labour Relations Act, the Public Service Labour Relations and Employment Board Act and other Acts and to provide for certain other measures (report stage)

• C-10, An Act to Amend the Air Canada Public Participation Act and to provide for certain other measures (committee)

• C-11, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act (access to copyrighted works or other subject-matter for persons with perceptual disabilities) (second reading)

• C-12, An Act to Amend the Canadian Forces Members and Veterans Re-establishment and Compensation Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts (second reading)

• C-13, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act, the Hazardous Products Act, the Radiation Emitting Devices Act, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, the Pest Control Products Act and the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act and to make related amendments to another Act (second reading)

• C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying) (second reading)

• C-15, Budget Implementation Act, 2016, No. 1 (second reading)

SENATE• C-14, An Act to amend the Criminal Code and to

make related amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying) (Senate pre-study)

ROYAL ASSENT RECEIVED• C-3, Appropriation Act No. 4, 2015-16• C-8, Appropriation Act No. 5, 2015-16• C-9, Appropriation Act No. 1, 2016-17

Visas imposed in 2014 over security concerns are ‘having a terrible effect on people-to-people contact,’ says the new high commissioner.

Shirley Skerritt-Andrew attended the University of the West Indies on a Canadian bursary. Photograph courtesy of the Saint Kitts and Nevis High Commission

• Parliament is not sitting this week. House and Senate business resumes the week of May 2.

MONDAY, MAY 2• The House will continue debating at second reading

Bill C-14, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code and to Make Related Amendments to other Acts (medical assistance in dying), and will begin debating at second reading Cathay Wagantall’s (Yorkton-Melville, Sask.) private member’s Bill C-225, the Protection of Pregnant Women and Their Preborn Children Act (Cassie and Molly’s Law).

• The House Offi cial Languages Committee will meet at 3:30 p.m. in room 7-52, 131 Queen Street, to work on a review of the status of offi cial languages in minority settings across Canada. It will hear from offi cials from the Offi ce of the Commissioner of Offi cial Languages, including Commissioner Graham Fraser, assistant commissioners Mary Donaghy, Ghislaine Saikaley, and Mario Séguin, acting director and general counsel in the Legal Affairs Branch Pascale Giguère, and fi nance and procurement director Colette M. Lagacé. At 4:30 p.m. the committee will discuss the relevant portion of the Main Estimates 2016-17, and hear from the same witnesses.

• The House Citizenship and Immigration Committee’s Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure will meet in-camera at 6:30 p.m. in room 237-C of Centre Block to discuss committee business.

TUESDAY, MAY 3• The House will continue debating at second reading

Bill C-14, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code and to Make Related Amendments to Other Acts (medical assistance in dying), and will begin debating at second reading Gagan Sikand’s (Mississauga-Streetsville, Ont.) private member’s bill, C-247, An Act to Amend the Criminal Code (passive detection device).

• The House will take deferred recorded division on the business of supply opposition motion by Ruth Ellen Brosseau (Berthier-Maskinongé, Que.) on the Canadian dairy industry.

• The House Citizenship and Immigration Committee will meet at 11 a.m. in room 253-D of Centre Block for clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-6, An

Act to Amend the Citizenship Act and to Make Consequential Amendments to Another Act.

• The House Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee will meet at 3:30 p.m. in room 253-D of Centre Block for a briefi ng on the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. It will hear from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation’s Ry Moran, director with the University of Manitoba; the U of M’s vice-president, research and international, Digvir S. Jayas; and Lakehead University vice-provost for aboriginal initiatives Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux. At 4:30 p.m., the committee will have a briefi ng with the Specifi c Claims Tribunal Canada, hearing from the tribunal’s Harry Slade and Alisa Lombard.

• The Senate Transport and Communications Committee will meet at 9:30 a.m. in room 2 of the Victoria Building to discuss the development of a strategy to facilitate the transport of crude oil to eastern Canadian refi neries and to ports on the East and West coasts of Canada. Canadian Energy Pipeline Association president and CEO Chris Bloomer will appear before the committee.

• The Senate Energy, Environment, and Natural Resources Committee will meet at 5 pm. in room 257 East Block to work on a study on the effects of transitioning to a low carbon economy. It will hear from Max Gruenig, president of the Ecologic Institute US, and John Kousinioris, chief legal offi cer of TransAlta Corp.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4• The House will begin debating at second reading Bill

C-15, the Budget Implementation Act. It will also debate at second reading Rob Nicholson’s (Niagara Falls, Ont.) private member’s bill, C-233, the National Strategy for Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias Act, and Ron McKinnon’s (Coquitlam-Port Coquitlam, B.C.) private member’s bill, C-224, the Good Samaritan Drug Overdose Act.

• The Senate Modernization Committee will meet at 12 p.m. in room 257 of East Block to discuss methods to make the Senate more effective within the current constitutional framework. Witnesses from the Senate’s Chamber Operations and Procedure Offi ce will appear before the committee.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, left, and Finance Minister Bill Morneau, pictured March 22. The budget implementation bill will be debated in the House once it reconvenes next week. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright

THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 201626FEATURE EVENTS

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27Donner Canadian Foundation Award Ceremony—

The 18th anniversary of the Donner Prize to reward excellence and innovation in public policy writing by Canadians for 2015-2016, will be held on Wednesday, April 27, 2016 at 6 p.m. at The Carlu, 444 Yonge St. in Toronto. Invitation only.

Strengthening NATO: The Warsaw Summit and beyond—This conference on NATO is organized by the Embassy of Poland, the Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine at the Munk School of Global Affairs and the NATO Association of Canada. Munk School, 1 Devonshire Pl., Toronto, 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Email ot-tawa.info@msz.gov.pl for more details.

The Netherlands celebrates its national day. The date marks the birth of King Willem-Alexander. For information on any celebrations, call the embassy at 613-237-5031.

Sierra Leone celebrates its national day. It gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1961.

South Africa celebrates its national day, commemo-rating the country’s fi rst post-apartheid democratic

election in 1994. For information on any celebrations, call the High Commission at 613-744-0330.

Togo celebrates its national day. It gained indepen-dence from France in 1960. For information on any celebrations, call the embassy at 613-238-5916.

THURSDAY, APRIL 28Conservative MP Tom Kmiec Fundraiser, Trudeau

2.0: How Conservatives Must Respond—Cocktail and private dinner with Conservative MP Tom Kmiec, April 28, cocktail reception at 5:30 p.m. and dinner at 6:30 p.m. The Polish Canadian Cultural Centre, 3015 15 Street NE, Calgary, Alta. Special guest speaker: Conservative MP Jason Kenney. Tickets are $100 and are available at http://tomkmiec.ca/april28

Community Liaison Offi cer Group, April Meeting—Open to all embassies in Ottawa, this group is a union of people who handle the welcoming and transfer into other postings of employees of their own embassies. Featuring a monthly guest speaker and information exchange. British High Commission, 80 Elgin St., 2:30 p.m. Potential members may contact Steffen Ringwald for more info, vw-dma@otta.auswaertiges-amt.de

Common Security and Defence Policy Sympo-sium—Join the delegation of the European Union in Ottawa for its third symposium, bringing experts and policymakers from Canada and the EU together. They will discuss strategic partnerships in global security, as well as women’s role in the prevention and resolution of confl icts. Featuring John McKay, the parliamentary sec-retary to the minister of national defence, and Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of foreign affairs. Victoria Hall, John G. Dief-enbaker building, 111 Sussex Dr. from 8 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. For more information, visit eucanada40.ca/events/strategic-partners-multilateral-security-environment/

Physician-Assisted Dying Panel Discussion—Join the Ottawa Society for the Arts and Sciences for a panel discussion on physician-assisted dying. Panelists include Ann Alsaffar (inaugural president of Canadian Family Practice Nurses Association); Francis Bakewell (senior emergency medicine resident at the Ottawa Hospital); John Johnson (president, Council on Aging of Ottawa); Shannon Kehoe (division of oncology, Ottawa Hospital); Angela Sumegi (associate professor of reli-gion, Carleton University). Free. Ottawa Public Library Main Branch auditorium, 120 Metcalfe St. at 7 p.m.

FRIDAY, APRIL 29 Empire Club Luncheon—The Empire Club of

Canada hosts a luncheon with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains (Mis-sissauga—Malton, Ont.), who will speak on “The Inno-vation Agenda.” Toronto: Arcadian Court, 401 Bay St. at 12 p.m. For more information, call 416-364-2878.

SUNDAY, MAY 1Marshall Islands celebrates its national day. It gained

political independence from the United States in 1979, with the US Congress ratifying a Congress of Free Associa-tion in 1986, granting it formal independence.

MONDAY, MAY 2Electoral Reform in 2016—NDP MP Nathan Cul-

len and Conservative MP Scott Reid will talk about electoral reform in 2016. Hear what the NDP and Con-servative critics have to say about keeping the Liberal government accountable as their voting reform initiative goes forward. Let’s build a politically legitimate reform that works for all parties and all Canadians. Fair Vote Canada local chapter AGM; open to public; free admis-sion. Tom Brown Arena, 141 Bayview Road. Doors open 6:30 pm, AGM business 7-8 p.m.; speakers 8 p.m.

Melanoma Monday Skin Cancer Screening Clinic and Reception—The Honourable Geoff Regan, Speaker of the House of Commons, Liberal MP Bill Casey and the Canadian Dermatology Association will host a skin cancer screening clinic and reception from 3-6 p.m. in 216-N, Centre Block. For more information visit dermatology.ca or email info@dermatology.ca

Great Canadian Debates: Syrian Refugee Resettle-ment—The Macdonald-Laurier Institute hosts the Great Ca-nadian Debates. Tonight, Green Party leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands, B.C.) will argue in favour of the reso-lution: “Mass resettlement to Canada is the best thing for the country, and the best thing for Syrian refugees.” David Frum, a former presidential speechwriter and columnist-at-large in the United States, will argue against. 7 p.m. at the Canadian War Museum. $15 for students and seniors, $20 for general admission. Register online via macdonaldlaurier.ca or contact events@macdonaldlaurier.ca.

TUESDAY, MAY 3Auditor General to Table Spring Reports—Audi-

tor General Michael Ferguson will release the spring reports on May 3. The reports will cover: venture capital action plan; detecting and preventing fraud in the citizenship program; the governor in council appointments process in administration tribunals; drug benefi ts and Veterans Affairs Canada; Canadian Army Reserve-National Defence; and a special examinations of PPP Canada Inc. and Via Rail Canada Inc. There will be a media lockup from 6 a.m.-9:45 a.m., Offi ce of the Auditor General of Canada, 240 Sparks St., followed by a news conference at 11:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m. at the National Press Theatre, 150 Wellington St., Ottawa.

18th Annual World Press Freedom Day Awards Luncheon—At the Chateau Laurier Ballroom at 11:30 a.m. Keynote speaker will be Suzanne Legault, Canada’s infor-mation commissioner. The CCWPF Press Freedom Award will go to a Canadian journalist who has made an outstand-ing contribution to press freedom or freedom of expression. Celebrate the work of cartoonists from around the world in the 16th Annual Editorial Cartoon Contest. Tickets are $65 or $120 for two, $480 for a table of eight.

Nestlé Canada Parliamentary Reception—All parliamentarians are invited to join Nestlé Canada’s business leaders from across the country to celebrate 150 years of Nestlé ‘Good Food, Good Life.’ May 3, 6 p.m.-8 p.m., Daly’s Restaurant, The Westin Ottawa Hotel. RSVP to Laura Seguin lseguin@summa.ca or call 613-235-1400.

The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Pub-lishers of Canada (SOCAN)—Invites all parliamentar-ians and staff to come celebrate Canadian music talent at a reception and special live performances by Karim Ouellet and Sam Roberts on May 3 in the Aboriginal Peoples Committee Room 160-S in Centre Block from 5:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The event will showcase music performances from English and French top-chart art-ists. RSVP by April 29 to socan@environicspr.com

Movie Night on the Hill—Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly, along with Telefi lm Canada, will host her fi rst Movie Night on Hill, showing the Canadian Screen and Oscar Award winner, Room. May 3, 7 p.m., Canadian Museum of History, 100 Laurier St., Gatineau, Que.

Milken Institute in Los Angeles—Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz will take part in a panel discussion at the Milken Institute in Los Angeles, Cali-fornia. For more information, call 613-782-8782.

A Taste of Moldova—The Embassy of the Republic of Moldova and ambassador Ala Beleavschi, in collabo-ration with Santé Restaurant, host an evening to pro-mote Moldova. Enjoy some of the country’s best wines, delicious food and great company under the splendid sounds of traditional pan fl ute music. Featuring a dis-play of paintings in wine by Moldovan journalist Vasile Botnaru. 6 p.m. at Santé Restaurant. Reserve tickets, at $55, by calling 613-241-7113.

Poland celebrates its Constitution Day. It celebrates the constitution of May 3, 1791, which, though short lived, is considered to have been one of the fi rst such documents in Europe. For information on any celebra-tions, call the Polish embassy at 613-789-0468.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4Why the UK should leave the European Union—Lord

David Owen, a former United Kingdom Foreign Secretary and European Union Peace Negotiator in the former Yugoslavia, offers a presentation on why the UK should leave the EU ahead of the referendum June 23. This event takes place at the Sheraton Hotel, 150 Albert St., in the Rideau Room. Reception at 5 p.m., presentation and discussion at 6 p.m., optional dinner at 7:30 p.m. Register before May 2 at cicncbmay042016.eventbrite.ca, or contact ottawa@thecic.org or 613-903-4011.

Avoiding Catastrophe: Linking Armed Confl ict Harm to Ecosystems and Public Health—From May 4-6 in Montreal, join experts from the medical, epidemio-logical, veterinary, confl ict management, biodiversity conservation, climate change and political science communities for this conference hosted by the Loyola Sustainability Research Centre. The event kicks off with keynote speakers Dr. Keith Martin (Consortium of Universities of Global Health) and Adan Suazo Morazán (Embassy of Honduras in Brazil) on May 4, from 6-9 p.m. at 1400 de Maisonneuve St., room LB-125. Free. For more information, see eventbrite.com/e/avoiding-catastrophe-linking-armed-confl ict-harm-to-ecosystems-and-public-health-tickets-21273132512

THURSDAY, MAY 5Building Capacity, Fostering Collaboration: The Best

Defence Against Dangerous Pathogens in Africa—Award-winning scientist Gary Kobinger, with the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg and the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Centre for Emerging and Zoonotic Diseases Detection, outlines his approach to combating infectious disease in Africa. Hosted by the International Development Research Centre at the Delta Ottawa City Centre Hotel, 101 Lyon St., Panorama Room, from 2-3:30 p.m. See idrc.ca for more information.

FRIDAY, MAY 6Nobel Peace Laureate lecture—Hosted by Alex

Trebek, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, speaks on the topic of “Crossing borders to fi nd common ground.” Cocktail reception at 6 p.m. and lecture at 7 p.m., Trillium Ball-room, Shaw Centre. Tickets (including hors d’oeuvres and one drink) $15 for University of Ottawa alumni and students; $20 for the general public. Register online by visiting alumni.uottawa.ca/en/gbowee.

MONDAY, MAY 9EU and Canada Strategic Partners: Towards a

New Generation Relationship—To celebrate 40 years of the European Union in Canada, the EU Delega-tion to Canada hosts a conference at the National Gallery of Canada, 1-5:30 p.m. Speakers include EU ambassador Marie-Anne Coninsx, French ambassa-dor Nicolas Chapuis, Liberal MP Jonathan Wilkinson (North Vancouver, B.C.) and the former trade minister, Conservative MP Ed Fast (Abbotsford, B.C.). For more information, and to register, visit eucanada40.ca

TUESDAY, MAY 10Hill Times Event: Women in Finance—Join Hill

Times Events as we explore what it will take to encour-age greater participation of women in fi nance. Opening remarks will be delivered by the Minister of Small Busi-ness and Tourism, Bardish Chagger (Waterloo, Ont.). Ottawa Marriott Hotel, 7:30-9 a.m. For more informa-tion, visit hilltimes.com/events/WIF.html

CCSA Hosting Communications Services Reception—The Canadian Cable Systems Alliance (CCSA), which represents 120 independent and entrepreneurial cable, telephone and Internet companies, is hosting a reception in the Commonwealth Room in Centre Block from 5-7 p.m. All Senators, Members of Parliament and staff are invited to attend and better familiarize themselves with our nation’s communications service providers. For more information or to RSVP, please contact Cynthia Waldmeier at 613-233-8906 or cynthia@impactcanada.com.

Parliamentary Calendar

Parliamentary secretaries to join EU diplomats for defence symposium April 28

27THE HILL TIMES, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27, 2016

FEATURE EVENTS

The Canadian Dental Association’s (CDA) Days on the Hill—May 10 and 11 CDA’s Days on the Hill connects leaders from Canada’s 21,000 dentists with parliamentarians to discuss important issues pertain-ing to oral health. The CDA is the national voice for dentistry in Canada and is dedicated to the promotion of optimal oral health for Canadians. For further infor-mation, please contact Bonnie Kirkwood at bkirkwood@cda-adc.ca

An Evening with the Canadian Dental Association—The Canadian Dental Association (CDA) invites you to its annual Parliamentary reception for friends of the dental profession, parliamentarians, and staff at 5:30 p.m. at the Métropolitain restaurant. Refreshments will be provided. To RSVP, please contact Bonnie Kirkwood at bkirkwood@cda-adc.ca

Launch of the Rio Tinto Award for Indigenous Stu-dents—Mining and metals business Rio Tinto co-hosts a reception with Indspire, an indigenous-led charity that invests in indigenous education, to celebrate

the launch of a new award for indigenous students. Mingle with indigenous fi nancial award recipients from across the country to learn about their experiences in the Drawing Room at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, 1 Rideau St., 5:30-7:30 p.m. Invitation only.

The Parliamentary Calendar is a free listing. Send in your political, cultural, or governmental event in a paragraph with all the relevant details under the sub-ject line ‘Parliamentary Calendar’ to news@hilltimes.com by Wednesday at noon before the Monday paper or

Friday at noon before the Wednesday paper. Or fax it to 613-232-9055. We can’t guarantee inclusion of every event, but we will defi nitely do our best.

news@hilltimes.comThe Hill Times

PRESENTED BY WITH THE SUPPORT OF PRODUCED BY IN PARTNERSHIP WITH ASSOCIATE SPONSORSMAJOR SPONSOR MEDIA PARTNER

CELEBRATING CANADA’S HIGHEST HONOUR IN THE PERFORMING ARTS

NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE

Enjoy the red carpet reception, the spectacular tribute show with

surprise performers, and the champagne after party!

Cocktails and Canapés Gala Tribute Performance

Champagne, Desserts, Dancing

TICKETS NOW ON SALE

SATURDAY, JUNE 11TH

@govgpaa #ggawards

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CONGRATULATIONS, MICHAEL BUBLÉ, 2016 GOVERNOR GENERAL’S PERFORMING ARTS AWARD LAUREATE

“For me, music was always of massive importance. It just seemed to be woven into the fabric of my life.”

- Michael Bublé, singer and entertainer

Parliamentary Calendar

Elizabeth May to debate David Frum on Syrian refugee resettlement May 2

Conservative MP Jason Kenney (Calgary Midnapore, Alta.) will be the guest speaker at a fundraiser held by Conservative MP Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, Alta.), titled “Trudeau 2.0: How Conservatives Must Respond,” in Calgary on Thursday. The Hill Times photograph by Jake Wright

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