International Trade Committee on April 10th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

We'll call the meeting to order.

We want to thank our witnesses for coming forward.

We're into Bill C-20, which is the act to implement a free trade agreement between Canada and the Republic of Honduras, and environmental and labour cooperation agreements as well.

With us today we have from Honduras Solidarity Network, Karen Spring. Thank you for being here. I believe we will start with her testimony. Then we have from PEN Canada, an international human rights program, Tasleem Thawar and Carmen Cheung, and I believe you'll be splitting the time.

We'll start with Karen. The floor is yours.

[Karen Spring, Honduras-based Coordinator, Honduras Solidarity Network]

Good morning, everybody.

As was already mentioned, my name is Karen Spring and I'm a representative of the Honduras Solidarity Network, which is a network of over 20 organizations from across the United States. We've been working in Honduras since 2009, and our most recent project in Honduras was organizing a delegation of 170 electoral observers for the November 2013 elections. I've been working in Honduras since 2009, and I've spent the majority of the last five years living there as well.

Today, I'm going to speak a little bit about the human rights context in Honduras, and specifically, the human rights context in its relation to Canada's economic interests in the country and the sectors that may be most impacted by the free trade agreement.

Since 2009, the violence in Honduras has increased pretty dramatically, and coupled with a high impunity rate, this has been very troubling for the human rights situation in the country. Very few crimes are investigated, and even fewer are brought before a judge. The Honduran Supreme Court has estimated that the impunity rate is at about 98%, but depending on who you ask, I've heard the impunity rate can be between 80% and up to 98%.

So, given the high impunity rate, it's really difficult for human rights concerns to be mediated, and there are really serious repercussions for human rights abuses related to Canadian investments in the region as a result of the high impunity rate.

I'm going to speak a little bit about the three major Canadian interests in Honduras.

The first one is textiles. Textiles are a major import from Honduras. The textile industry largely employs Honduran women, and there are Canadian-owned factories in Honduras that are located primarily in export-processing zones. When I speak about the apparel and textile industry, I'm more likely referring to Gildan, which is a Canadian company operating in Honduras.

Many of their factories are located in export-processing zones, and they're actually exempt from paying any taxes to the Honduran government. Within the export-processing zones, sweatshop and textile companies are not required to pay the higher minimum wage. There are two minimum wages in Honduras. So, by law, they're required to pay a lower minimum wage. But often in the case of Gildan's factories in Honduras, wages to workers are not indexed to the minimum wage. Workers are paid by production. What this means is that in order for workers who work in Gildan's factories to make approximately minimum wage, they're required to work four days on, four days off as the work shift. And they're required to conduct 500 dozen of the same operation per day. That would be sewing sleeves on T-shirts 500 dozen times a day in order to make the high production quota that's set by the company. That's in order to make above the minimum wage, which is approximately $192 a month.

So, as I already mentioned, the wages are indexed to production quota, and that requires workers to make a lot of repetitive movements in one work shift. Many women—and I speak about women because I've done my thesis research in women's occupational health concerns in Gildan's factories—are suffering from musculoskeletal disorders as a result of the repetitive movements they're required to make in order to make the production quota.

Gildan has acknowledged this is a problem in their factories, and they have tried to address the problem with an ergonomic program. But even the Fair Labor Association, which went to inspect the factories given the complaints related to the health and safety issues in the factories, have acknowledged that they've failed to incorporate workers' participation in their program, which is often one of the most important aspects of any ergonomic program implemented in any factory setting.

There are currently 30 to 40 Honduran women waiting for medical diagnoses, who indicate that their musculoskeletal disorders are related to their work in the factories. Hundreds more have received medical diagnoses from the Honduran social insurance hospital, indicating that their musculoskeletal disorders were caused by their occupations.

Another major interest of Canada in Honduras is bananas. Obviously, there's a really long history of the banana industry in Honduras, and a long history of land conflicts related to the banana industry in the country.

The two largest banana companies have a lot of land in one of the two most fertile valleys in Honduras and they've contributed to the social conflict related to land problems in Honduras.

I'm going to speak about the most recent serious human rights case related to the banana industry.

The communications director of the federation of banana and agroindustrial unions of Honduras, whose name is José María Martínez, is also a labour journalist who has a national radio program that's called Trade Unionist on Air, which he's had for 19 years, 5 days a week. He's recently been working on a union organizing drive and he makes frequent mention of a Chiquita banana supplier. It's called the Fincas Las Tres Hermanas, which is a banana plantation. Last June he started receiving death threats related to his work. Every time he went on the air and spoke about the Chiquita supplier he received death threats on his phone, and cars were circulating around his house and the radio station after his programs. In January of this year he was still dealing with the intimidation related to his work and so he since had to go into hiding, and he remains in hiding due to fears for his safety and the safety of his family.

Death threats by phone are a quite common scare tactic in Honduras and a lot of people who are speaking out against the banana industry or major economic interests in the country have very little faith in the institutions that are set up, the Honduran institutions that are required to investigate and to take complaints of this kind. Very few investigations are conducted and the fear that Martínez or people like Martínez face is very real, especially given that since 2009, 31 trade unionists have been murdered in Honduras and over 33 journalists as well.

I'm going to talk about the third major Canadian interest in Honduras: tourism.

The Garifuna people on the north coast of Honduras are an Afro-indigenous group and they live in 46 communities along the north coast of Honduras. There is a major Canadian investment in the tourist industry in the northern city called Trujillo. A Canadian man, Randy Jorgensen, has built a cruise ship dock and he's currently constructing gated communities in Trujillo. Where he's constructing his projects, the cruise ship dock as well as his gated communities, he's obtained the land by illegally purchasing the land through the municipality of Trujillo. All the land that he's purchased is inside the land title that's collectively owned by the Garifuna communities. The land title dates back to 1901. The Garifuna, in his purchasing of their land, obviously were never consulted, and this is mandated by Honduran law because Honduras is a signatory to the International Labour Organization's convention number 169, which requires free, prior, and informed consent before projects are started on indigenous territory. The two communities that are most impacted by this tourist investment put forward a legal complaint in 2011 regarding the illegal land purchases conducted by Jorgensen within their community land title, and to this day here has been no response from the Honduran state to mediate these conflicts.

As I mentioned before, land conflicts are quite a prevalent issue related to human rights issues in the country. Very close to Trujillo, where this cruise ship project is being built or is actually already constructed, there is a land conflict in the Aguán Valley where over 130 peasant farmers have been killed since 2009. Human Rights Watch recently put out a report regarding the Aguán Valley indicating that public prosecutors, police, and military officials have failed to carry out proper and thorough investigations of the human rights abuses related to the land conflict. In examining the issues in the Aguán Valley and the murders of the peasant farmers since 2009, many activists and Honduran human rights organizations have concluded that there is a significant political interest or political relation to a lot of killings and the assassinations, disappearances, and torturing of the peasant farmers and the leaders who have been killed since 2009.

In closing, I'd like to talk a little bit about the violence surrounding the elections and the context in which the November 2013 elections occurred.

The 2013 elections occurred in a really difficult human rights context, given the high impunity rate, given the high homicide rate. There was a report put out that looked at the political killings in Honduras a year and a half prior to the November 2013 elections, and it showed that there were 36 killings in total of candidates and pre-candidates who were set to participate in the November elections. There were 24 armed attacks against these candidates.

The list shows that the majority of these killings were against the political opposition party, the Libre party. This list was published by Rights Action, and later, a lot of the cases were actually published by the International Federation of Human Rights, and the federation also indicated it was worried about the targeted assassinations of the political opposition in the lead-up to the elections.

So in general there are a lot of human rights violations that are associated with Canadian economic interests in the region, and there's really no way of mediating these issues, given the high impunity rate.

I think I will end there and leave the rest of the time for questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Madam Cheung, the floor is yours.

[Carmen Cheung, Researcher, International Human Rights Program]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On behalf of PEN Canada and the International Human Rights Program at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law, I want to thank the committee for this opportunity to present on Bill C-20. I will be sharing my time with Tasleem Thawar, the executive director of PEN Canada.

Since 2010, PEN and the International Human Rights Program have worked together to research and report on threats to freedom of expression around the world. This January, we released our latest joint report, which focuses on impunity and violence against journalists in Honduras. I am a researcher for this report and our research included a thorough review of previous work published on the problem of impunity in Honduras, and extensive in-country interviews with journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers, government officials, and other stakeholders.

When we first embarked on this study, we were drawn to Honduras because we were, quite frankly, alarmed at what we were seeing: deadly violence against journalists in a country that until quite recently was not particularly notorious for such threats. Although Honduras has been plagued by violence and high crime rates for several years, the evidence suggests that the sharp increase in violence against journalists cannot simply be ascribed to this trend.

Our report finds that journalists are targeted for their work, and that they are especially vulnerable members of the population. As detailed in our report, freedom of expression in Honduras has suffered serious restrictions since the ouster of President Zelaya in June 2009. These past five years have seen a dramatic erosion in protections for expressive life in Honduras. Journalists are threatened, they're harassed, attacked, and murdered with near impunity, and sometimes in circumstances that strongly suggest the involvement of state agents. This has had a devastating impact on the general state of human rights and the rule of law in the country, since violence against journalists often silences coverage of topics such as corruption, organized crime, drug trafficking, and political reportage. Fearing for their personal safety, many journalists either self-censor or flee the country altogether.

Among the journalists and human rights defenders we spoke with, there is a pervasive sense that they are under threat, and that the state is, at best, unable or unwilling to defend them, or at worst, complicit in the abuses. This general feeling is borne out by the numbers. As our report sets out, only two convictions have been secured in the 38 journalist killings between 2003 and 2013—an impunity rate of 95%.

Investigations by the national police are conducted poorly, if at all. Indeed, the national police is widely acknowledged to be highly corrupt, notwithstanding decades of so called “purification”. When we were in Honduras, the deputy minister of justice and human rights told us that the police officers and police forces suffer from serious institutional problems, including infiltration by organized crime. A representative from an intergovernmental organization told us that his office operates under the assumption that narco-trafficking groups have established links with politicians, the army, and the police.

The taint of corruption and the culture of impunity have undermined trust among state agencies and public confidence in key institutions. Public distrust of the police is so great that only about 20% of crime is reported, and of that, less than 4% gets investigated. According to Honduras's own statistics, less than 1% of all crime in Honduras is subject to a police investigation.

Serious problems are evident throughout the criminal justice system. Police will say an investigation is under way when there is none. The office of the special prosecutor for human rights does not have the jurisdiction to try those responsible for the murders of journalists, and lacks resources to conduct even the most basic of investigations into human rights abuses.

We met with two of the special prosecutors for human rights defenders during our time in Tegucigalpa. One of them, Rosa Seaman, told us that she was personally responsible for 200 cases. However, her office received only enough funding for her salary and a vehicle. She had virtually no investigative resources, no team beyond herself and the other special prosecutor for human rights defenders, no investigative analysts, and no technical capacity to even trace the source of threats sent by email or telephone.

She estimated that realistically, she could only investigate and prosecute about one case per month. That means 12 cases out of the 200 that she is responsible for. Meanwhile, she and the other prosecutor we spoke with also reported being subject to threats for their work in protecting human rights. Therefore, while a special prosecutor for human rights exists on paper and as an institution, its ability to carry out its mandate is seriously compromised by severe underfunding and threats to the safety of the prosecutors themselves.

To be clear: under international law, when the state is unable or unwilling to prosecute crimes, this is state complicity in human rights violations. Honduras is facing a serious human rights crisis. This is not just a matter of working with Honduras to move beyond a troubled past. Violence against journalists, complete collapse of expressive life, and impunity for violent crimes and human rights abuses remain the norm there.

Ms. Thawar will set out why this is important for Canada and our interests in the region.

I thank you for the opportunity to address the committee, and I look forward to your questions.

[Tasleem Thawar, Executive Director, PEN Canada]

Thank you.

My name is Tasleem Thawar, and I'm the executive director of PEN Canada. Before I begin, I'll tell you a bit about PEN Canada. We're the Canadian centre of PEN International, the oldest human rights organization in the world, working in more that 100 countries. Though we are active in the international freedom of expression arena—in fact we're just back from Washington, D.C., testifying on Honduras at the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights—we don't often testify on Canadian foreign policy issues. However, as you've heard from Ms. Cheung, the state of freedom of expression in Honduras is deeply concerning. So here we are.

It's also important to point out that PEN Canada has no view on whether Canada should or should not enter into a preferential trade agreement with Honduras. That said, we do feel that bilateral negotiations with Honduras must be informed by the dire situation there and should be used as an opportunity to improve the conditions for freedom of expression. We believe this ought to be a priority for Canada as a major donor to the country and potential future preferential trading partner. A free and independent press is essential to a free and democratic society, rule of law, and combatting corruption. We believe Honduras' dismal record on freedom of expression poses great risk to Canadian companies and to Canada generally.

I have some brief points that I want to emphasize.

First, Honduras is far worse than any of Canada's current trading partners in the region. To give you an idea of the situation in relation to others, in the global press freedom rankings of 191 countries compiled by Freedom House, Canada ranked 29; Chile ranked 64; Peru ranked 89; and even Colombia, also plagued by narco-trafficking, ranked 112. Where did Honduras rank? They ranked 140, tied with Egypt, which has imprisoned two Canadian media workers in the past eight months. Since the coup in 2009, 32 journalists have been murdered in Honduras.

So this agreement should not be business as usual for Canada. When it comes to freedom of expression, this is a country that has performed far worse than its neighbours and Canada's other preferential trading partners.

Second, not only have Honduran institutions failed at protecting basic human rights for its citizens; there is a history of government involvement in these human rights abuses. Our research shows that the state not only failed to investigate crimes against journalists; in many cases state actors were themselves complicit in these crimes. This is a government that is plagued by corruption, and it has a record of failure in bringing perpetrators to justice.

Third, many of the issues that put journalists in danger are related to trade, investment, and business. There is evidence that journalists writing about sensitive subjects such as the environment, natural resources, and land conflicts are far more likely to be targeted than others. It follows that Canada and Canadian companies may very well be affected by the freedom of expression situation in Honduras. Even if Canadian companies in Honduras act according to Canadian values, we are dealing with a country where journalists are being killed for covering issues that may affect them nonetheless, either directly or indirectly. We need only look back at what happened in Nigeria with Shell and the killing of Ken Saro-Wiwa to see what kind of devastating impact this could have on the reputation of Canadian companies. Indeed, Canada's reputation generally could be at risk. Guilt by association is not uncommon in the international arena when it comes to human rights.

So what can we do to improve the situation in Honduras and mitigate these risks? If passed as it currently stands, Bill C-20 would implement a treaty that is silent in relation to an unfolding human rights disaster in Honduras. This is a missed opportunity. Bilateral trade negotiations and the resulting deepening of Canada's relationship with Honduras put Canada in a unique position to press Honduras to do more to address this crisis. It is not too late for us to take advantage of this opportunity.

Today we are asking the standing committee to recommend that Canada commission human rights assessments and reporting, and second, that we ensure that fundamental human rights are enforceable through the trade agreement.

I'll give you a bit of detail about the two tools.

One, human rights assessments are not new. They are done by many countries as part of trade agreements, including Canada with the Canada-Colombia free trade agreement. There are two parts to this recommendation. First, in order to establish a baseline, Canada should commission an independent, impartial, and comprehensive assessment of the state of fundamental human rights in Honduras, including a specific focus on freedom of expression, and make the findings of this assessment public. Second, in order to ensure that progress is being made in meeting their human rights obligations, Canada should negotiate an agreement with Honduras whereby both parties would be required to submit an annual public, independent, impartial, and comprehensive human rights assessment report, with each subsequent report providing an update on how the issues noted in previous reports are being effectively addressed.

Finally, because there are serious doubts about whether Honduras is willing or able to fulfill its existing human rights obligations, we would like to see that fundamental human rights are enforceable through this trade agreement. This would mean incorporating language that references both of our countries' existing human rights obligations and making these enforceable within the treaty.

Thank you for your time. We look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

We'll start our questioning with Madam Liu.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you to our witnesses for appearing before committee today.

I thank PEN Canada for tabling its report before committee, entitled “Honduras: Journalism in the Shadow of Impunity”. I understand that it was tabled and presented in Washington D.C. to Honduran government officials and the human rights commission of the OAS. When Brendan de Caires, who's PEN Canada's lead researcher on the report, testified at the Washington hearing he said, “Journalists are threatened, harassed, attacked and murdered, sometimes in circumstances that strongly suggest the involvement of state agents...”

Could you speak on that?

[Carmen Cheung]

I think as a threshold matter what we want to emphasize is that the fact that there are inadequate investigations in Honduras makes it quite difficult to establish who's ultimately responsible for crimes against journalists. But our report examines a couple of things, including the subjects being covered by murdered journalists when they were killed. We found common themes that do include things like corruption, politics, and organized crime.

As for state involvement, the linkages between organized crime and Honduran security forces, both police and military, make it really difficult to separate the violence committed by non-state actors from human rights abuses committed by state agents. In some cases—and this is something that we detail in our report—circumstantial evidence strongly suggests state involvement in these crimes against journalists.

[Tasleem Thawar]

I can add to that, I have some examples.

In the first five months of 2013, the former special prosecutor for human rights opened more than 400 cases examining police abuse, misconduct, and murder. A United States Senate caucus report on international narcotics controls states that criminal networks in Central America have been closely linked to the government and military elites. In November, 2011, the then Honduran security minister Pompeyo Bonilla estimated that 1,000 members of Honduras' police force were corrupt. Again, as Carmen said, an international observer said that his office operates under the assumption, as of course, that narco-trafficking groups have established links with politicians, the army, and the police.

So corruption has meant that there is an increased likelihood that there are state actors involved in crimes against journalists, and that those who are responsible for investigating these crimes have been unwilling and unable to do so, clearly.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

On that same subject, the Toronto Star published an article recently on the Honduran journalist Dina Meza and it says, “To hear Dina Meza tell it, not a single honest state institution survives in her native land, the Central American republic of Honduras.”

Could you elaborate on that point?

[Carmen Cheung]

We just need to look at the national police force, which has been undergoing decades of what they call “purification” with very little success. One of the things that we detail in our report and one of the people we spoke with was the individual responsible for the police purification. He acknowledges that the process that they have set up is inadequate. Portions of this police purification process were found to be unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Honduras. It really only affects the very lower echelons, the rank and file police, and never really reaches up at the top. Even with the purification of the lower echelons, it's not really done in a comprehensive manner. We had one witness who told us that in order to really undertake this whole process with the entire police force it would take them 25 years to do it. So it's very concerning.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Spring, who would you say is benefiting in Honduras from impunity, lawlessness, and human rights abuses currently?

[Karen Spring]

I would say that traditionally there has been a handful of 10 to 12 families in Honduras who have dominated the political and the economic arena. I would say that they are benefiting from foreign investment as well. So I would say foreign companies, foreign investment, and the 10 to 12 families who have traditionally run the Honduran economy and political arena.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

The committee is currently study a free trade agreement in which there are two side agreements, environmental and labour, that have no enforceable mechanisms that—as in the free trade agreement—would enforce Honduran and Canadian human rights.

So, Ms. Spring, what effect would you say that the Canada-Honduras FTA would have on human rights in Honduras? Would it have a positive, negative, or neutral effect?

[Karen Spring]

I would say even the enforcement mechanisms that are established in Honduras under Honduran law are not being enforced in any way given the high impunity rate, so I would say the human rights situation will be negative if we encourage further economic interests in sectors that have traditionally been linked to mass human rights abuses that haven't been mediated by the state.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

The same question goes for PEN Canada. You mentioned that journalists are frequently targeted for covering topics related to trade investment and business. Would you say a Canada-Honduras FTA would have a positive, negative, or a neutral affect on human rights for journalists?

[Tasleem Thawar]

It's a very good question, and of course it's a very complex issue, and it's hard to tell. But I think if we look at free trade zones like Ciudad Juarez or we look at Buenaventura, clearly throwing money at the problem hasn't solved anything. In fact in many cases, it has made things worse.

So given the corruption that exists in Honduras, my suspicion certainly would be that it would make things worse, but, of course, it's a complex issue, and it depends on how we formulate this trade agreement. I think there are many things we could do at this point to ensure that Canada doesn't make things worse.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

On Tuesday the committee heard from Bertha Oliva, the general coordinator for the committee of relatives of the detained and disappeared in Honduras. She told us the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Honduras, which is also supported by the Government of Canada, are not being implemented.

I have a question for Ms. Spring.

Have important recommendations from the commission on improving governance and protecting human rights been implemented at all?

[Karen Spring]

I think very few have been implemented. It's interesting, because a Canadian diplomat participated in the truth commission through the Organization of American States. Dozens of recommendations were made as part of the truth commission report. The majority have not been fulfilled. I can give a couple of examples.

The truth commission recommended that the military be removed from political functions, specifically with regard to its role in elections and distributing ballot boxes for the elections. It was not. It was very active and very present in the electoral process in November.

The truth commission recommended that there be more financial and electoral transparency in the political parties in Honduras, especially given the allegations that a lot of drug trafficking money goes to political parties. Financial information from any of the political parties was not published for the November elections despite these recommendations.

They failed to depoliticize the Tribunal Supremo Electoral, which is the supreme electoral tribunal that's in charge of the elections. The truth commission recommended that they depoliticize it so it would be able to make more impartial decisions, and they failed to fulfill the majority of recommendations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. O'Toole.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you very much, all of you, for appearing and for your work.

It is interesting hearing from you in the first hearing following Ms. Oliva, because both the department—the administrative officials behind trade, the non-politicians—and Ms. Oliva stated the profound problems in Honduras, and you have reiterated a lot of those today, particularly crime and narco-trafficking and the terrible impact those have on the country.

The important thing I took from Ms. Oliva was that even with her frustration, when she was asked whether Canada should engage or isolate, even one of the most passionate champions didn't want isolation. I think we all agree. In fact I love the quote from John Ralston Saul on how power loves silence. So isolation, I'd suggest, is not the way to go.

Beyond our commercial relations that the free trade agreement would strengthen, Honduras has been a country of focus. Depending on the year, Canada has been either the third- or fifth-largest bilateral donor. There has been our work through the OAS. Some of you have referenced Truth and Reconciliation, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Some of our money has been targeted at justice reform in particular.

Ms. Spring, I think you mentioned the word “impunity” probably 10 times in your remarks. Do you think our continued focus on justice reform and what I'd call institution building, both on the investigative side and on the prosecution side, should remain a focus because of the profound challenges in that area?

[Karen Spring]

I do think that the way the question is framed—looking at engagement versus isolation—is very limiting, in the sense that I think what needs to happen is that Canada needs to examine the engagement it has conducted thus far with Honduras and what the results of that engagement have been. There was the truth commission, which Canada was a part of, and there are the recommendations that were made by the truth commission. The majority of them, almost all of them, haven't been implemented.

Canada has engaged in terms of security and investigation in looking at the justice system and the public prosecuting body through the commission on security reform. This was an effort that Canada really put forward as a way that we could work on the impunity levels.

This new government overturned the legislation that created the commission that was cleaning up the police force. That no longer exists. That commission also had very few positive results. I think that maybe a handful of police officers were fired. The majority of the justice system and also the structure of the police are intact.

I think what Canada needs to do is look at how they have engaged in Honduras and how that engagement has failed. Now something a little more drastic has to happen in order to change the current human rights situation.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

But when you say something drastic has to happen.... I guess you could look at it either as the actions having all failed or not having taken root, or as the challenges being so profound that it will take probably a decade or more to see progress from investments. I know that the Justice Education Society of British Columbia was particularly tasked on some of these justice initiatives.

It still sort of goes back to the approach of whether you view failure as a reason to stop this sort of engagement. Honduras is one of our countries of priority on a developmental index. What do you propose, then? If the initiatives we're working on don't seem to be taking root, and if Canada's potential leverage in a relationship with a country like that increases by more trade, do we not take advantage of that by continuing to push bilaterally through the Organization of American States?

I know there's no solution, but I think the difference in party view on this is that we believe more engagement, more direct diplomacy, and more reliance on trade, raising income levels within the country, even modestly, will lead to more progress than the alternative, but you're not suggesting an alternative.

[Karen Spring]

Well, I think that enforceable.... I think there is a solution, actually. I think what needs to happen is that there has to be some sort of functioning justice system before further engagement with a country where inequality continues to grow, and specifically because a lot of the economic benefits through these types of agreements go to the 10 to 12 families who have historically dominated the economic arena in Honduras.

I do think that there needs to be some sort of enforceable mechanism in human rights that Honduras has to abide by in order for any sort of further engagement with Canada to occur. I just don't think the way that Canada has been engaging.... Since 2009, our engagement mechanisms have completely failed. I don't think further engagement in the same way needs to happen. I think an examination of that needs to happen.

[Erin O'Toole, Conservative, Durham, ON]

Quickly, Ms. Thawar, let me say that I've long appreciated PEN's work. Thank you for appearing today.

One of your quotes struck me. You talked about the potential for guilt by association. In our case, for Canada and our FTA, we're rather slow to engage at this level. Both the U.S. and the European Union, with similar strong positions on human rights, already trade with Honduras. So are we really that out of step to increase our bilateral trade?