Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 12th, 2024

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Mr. Neve.

[Alex Neve]

I share the concern that our standing and the things we're achieving concretely as a nation with respect to human rights are indeed not what they once were.

In answer to your question as to bilateral, multilateral and what kinds of strategies, I think it's all of the above. That's why I made the recommendation that we truly need to get into the habit—and I think it should be mandated by law—of developing an international human rights strategy and action plan and keeping it updated. Other countries do that, and that's exactly the approach that gives us the opportunity to make sure all the pieces fit together: the multilateral engagement, the bilateral intervention and even the moments of lecturing.

I agree that sometimes lecturing can be counterproductive. At other times, it's exactly what is needed, including a well-timed tweet, even when it provokes a negative reaction. However, when that's not part of a comprehensive action plan and strategy, I think we risk it being bits and pieces and not having a comprehensive agenda and strategy behind it.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I would love to follow up with more questions, but obviously my time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

It is. Thank you.

MP Alghabra, you have three minutes.

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses. Mr. Neve, it's good to see you, and Mr. Pardy, it's great to have you here.

I will focus my questions on you, Mr. Pardy. I have a couple of questions about consular services, and I know how passionate you are and how influential you have been in this regard over the years. Because of the limited time, I'll ask two questions at once.

First, you know that there's been movement to prescribe a service standard for the consular division, yet you also understand how important it is that consular officials have flexibility in how they pursue each case. How do you balance these two priorities? Second, do you think the consular division has enough resources?

Thank you.

[Gar Pardy]

Certainly, on the service standards, I wrote the first set of service standards for the consular function back in 1994, I think, and it's still there. It's had various iterations and this sort of thing. I follow this area fairly closely. I've been retired for 20 years, by the way, and a lot of things have gone on.

One thing I've noticed from following the media is that this is one area where Global Affairs Canada has been doing reasonably well, even in a situation such as Gaza, which is as difficult as one can imagine in terms of helping Canadians in difficulty and given the variety of actors and interests that are involved. My understanding is that we've gotten close to 700 Canadians out of Gaza in the last few weeks. That's not bad. There is a system there.

On the resourcing side, I think the problem you get into is whether or not you need a surge capacity in this area for the exceptional ones that come on. We never had a surge capacity. We would usually pick and choose. The thing to remember about consular services is that Canadians pay directly for this service. It is paid for by the people who buy a Canadian passport.

They spent a $25 fee when it was on a five-year passport. When the government went to a 10-year passport, it did not increase the fee in accordance with roughly $5 a year, which is what we implemented back in 1996. I can tell you that governments over the years have made money out of this consular fee, because the consular services have cost less than the money that was collected through this fee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We now go to Mr. Bergeron for three minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon to the witnesses. I'm very happy to see you again.

Mr. Neve, I couldn't agree with you more that Canada is falling far short of its values, principles and reputation by misguidedly allowing children and women to literally rot in detention camps in Syria. I dare to hope that Canada will finally take action on this issue.

I have two questions for Mr. Pardy.

Mr. Pardy, last November, at the Summit of the Three Seas Initiative, it was suggested that Canada invest more in this strategic area and participate more actively. Oddly enough, when the official from Global Affairs Canada spoke at that conference, he explained that Canada was wondering about its role in this type of forum. What we heard at the Special Committee on the Canada-People's Republic of China Relationship was that, in order to deal with the superpowers, we need more multilateral initiatives. This recent response from Global Affairs Canada came as a bit of a surprise to us.

Also, in 2018, you appeared before this committee and stated that greater flexibility could facilitate negotiations through intermediaries and, as a result, lead to the release of hostages. You said: “…ransom is not the issue at all in these sorts of things; it is the process by which the government organizes itself and goes about it with the objective of saving the life of one of its citizens”.

My two questions are as follows.

Where do you stand on multilateralism?

Do you think that things have changed much since 2018 with regard to Canadian citizens being taken hostage abroad?

[Gar Pardy]

On hostage-taking, as you know, in the post-war period the number of incidents that have occurred has been tremendous. For the period that I was there dealing with them, I was told when I retired that I dealt with 125 hostage situations, and not one Canadian died. I operated on the principle that in these situations, ransoms are going to be paid.

Now, there have been international agreements by the G7, other groups and that sort of thing that say ransom should not be paid. It's absolute nonsense. Every member of the G7 and just about every other country in the world, when faced with hostage situations, works out some sort of an arrangement, in effect, to get their people back.

We had a very tragic situation a few years ago in the southern Philippines. Those two people should never have died.

If you take the situation more recently, as far as China was concerned, the two Canadians in jail in China were hostages in every sense of the word. In effect, it was well within the power of the Canadian government to work out arrangements for their return.

We've done it in other situations, but for some reason or another we have lost the ability to do this, or the people who work the system will not take the flexibility that's available and get Canadians back alive. It's quite doable. Every other country is able to do it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

For the last question and the last three minutes, we go to MP McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both of our witnesses for being here today. It's very interesting to me.

Alex, you talked a bit about having an international human rights strategy. We tried to bring that forward with an amendment during Bill C-281 last spring. It did not pass, which was disappointing.

You also talk a lot about Canada's role in the world.

What I wanted to ask you about is this. You look at Syria, where we treat some Canadian citizens differently from other Canadian citizens. You look at our arms strategy with cluster munitions, where we're not there any longer as a leader in disarmament. Then you look at things like the ICJ and how our response to the ICJ and the ICC is very different when it happens in certain contexts from when it happens in other contexts.

I'd like you to comment on the reputational risks to Canada. What does this actually mean when the rest of the world is watching Canada and sees that we apply human rights, citizenship and international law differently in different contexts?

What are the implications of that?

[Alex Neve]

I think the implications are very grave.

I say that not at all naively or suggesting that the world is awash with many other countries that have a stellar record. Obviously, we can look across the planet and find many countries that are similarly pursuing foreign policy in ways that are contradictory, hypocritical, undermining and ignoring universal standards.

However, I think we have always expected, demanded and seen much more from Canada. I think some of the examples you've highlighted, all of which are quite recent or even contemporary and playing out right now....

The approach we've taken to the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court and the vital role that those two global institutions should be playing in helping to tackle the impunity that is at the heart of what's happened in Israel and Gaza—coming from a country that has always championed those two institutions—is noted. It's certainly noted by other governments. It's noted by global civil society. It's noted within the UN, and it is not to our credit.

That will not serve us well with respect to ensuring that our voice is heard with respect to Israel and Gaza, and it will have reverberations more widely as well.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Pardy, did you want to comment on that as well?

[Gar Pardy]

No. I fully agree with Alex.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Okay.

Mr. Chair, that's good. I have 10 seconds left, so I am prepared to cede.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you very much. That concludes questions by the members.

Allow me to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Neve and Mr. Pardy. We're very grateful for your expertise and for your time. Again, I apologize for the shifting schedule. Thank you.

Before the members leave, I have just two very quick questions.

First of all, did we want to ask the analysts kindly to prepare two work plans for us, one on our approach to Africa and another one on Iran?

Everyone is in favour.

The second thing is, insofar as our next session next Monday on Ukraine is concerned, is everyone okay with just having GAC officials brief us, or did we want to go above and beyond that?

Is everyone good with just keeping it restricted? I see consensus.

We have Mr. Bergeron.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Could we have the Canadian ambassador to Ukraine? We could set aside some time for her.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Is everyone okay with that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

We will go with GAC officials, and then for the last 45 minutes or what have you we will go with the Ukrainian ambassador here in Ottawa. Thank you.

We have Mr. Chong.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Can you ask the analysts to prepare two draft work plans for our review, one on the Iran study and one on the Africa study, so that we can review them when we come back from the break week? Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Absolutely. That's excellent.

The meeting stands adjourned.