Mr. Speaker, as part of a series of motions, we are going to be reinstating this legislation along with other pieces of legislation during the coming week.
House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2011, with 41% of the vote.
Justice February 4th, 2004
Mr. Speaker, as part of a series of motions, we are going to be reinstating this legislation along with other pieces of legislation during the coming week.
Maher Arar November 6th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, the compelling testimony of Maher Arar has reinforced the argument for an independent public inquiry to address the following unresolved issues.
First is the precipitous role of the United States, which breached international law and its own domestic law in deporting Maher Arar to a country where the U.S. acknowledges that a detainee cannot get a fair trial, and is routinely tortured.
Second is the role, if any, of Canadian security and intelligence agencies in facilitating Maher Arar's deportation.
Third is the review of the character and efficacy of Canadian public policy respecting both the U.S. and Syria, particularly during the period of Maher Arar's detention and torture in Syria.
Fourth is the clearing of Maher Arar's name from false and prejudicial allegations, such as that he was a member of al-Qaeda or had visited Afghanistan.
Fifth is the Jordanian transit connection.
Such an independent public inquiry is not mutually exclusive from the pursuit of other remedies, such as the RCMP Public Complaints Commission and Security Intelligence Review Committee oversight.
Justice delayed is justice compromised or denied.
Foreign Affairs November 4th, 2003
Madam Speaker, we just concluded an all party press conference in support of the case and cause of Dr. Wang Bingzhang, the celebrated Chinese human rights advocate, regarded as the father of the overseas Chinese democracy movement, who has been sentenced to life in imprisonment in China, the longest sentence ever meted out to a Chinese dissident, on trumped up charges of terrorism and kidnapping. Ironically, as witness testimony has revealed, he was the victim of kidnapping and criminal violence rather than the perpetrator of them.
Indeed, the UN working group on arbitrary detention has determined that the charges are without foundation; that his continued detention is in violation of international law; that he has been denied the right to a fair trial; and that China should remedy these violations.
Dr. Wang Bingzhang has a close connection to Canada. He is a doctoral graduate from McGill University and his parents, children and siblings reside in Canada.
Accordingly, we call upon the Chinese authorities to abide by their undertakings under international law, undertakings also to Canada which is a co-signatory, to release Dr. Wang Bingzhang from prison, where, as his family testified today, his health is deteriorating, and permit him to be reunited with his family and colleagues in Canada and the United States.
Holocaust Memorial Day October 29th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, the unanimous adoption by the House of a bill to memorialize the Holocaust is an historic moment in the life of this Parliament and this country.
It will provide an enduring remembrance and a reminder of horrors too terrible to be believed but not too terrible to have happened, and of the universal meaning of the Holocaust, including: the dangers of a state sanctioned culture of hate; the dangers of silence and indifference in the face of evil; the complicity of the elites, la trahison des clercs; the importance of Holocaust and human rights education as an antidote to racism and hate; the moral legal imperative of bringing war criminals to justice; and the demonstration, through Raoul Wallenberg, that one person can make a difference.
The member for Charlesbourg—Jacques-Cartier is to be congratulated for introducing this bill, whose enduring legacy will be “Never Again”, not for Jews, not for anyone, not now, not ever.
Izzy Asper October 10th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, I rise to remember a great Canadian and renaissance man, Izzy Asper, who loved life and was larger than life, who not only transformed the communications face of this country but was a top lawyer, distinguished parliamentarian, mover of the first Manitoba Bill of Rights, and a civic benefactor sans pareil, whose contribution to the arts, education, culture, health, sports and the prospective Canadian Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg will be an enduring legacy for all Canadians and beyond.
It is not only his public achievements that bear recall, but his private virtues: a loving husband and devoted father and grandfather, whose family love of him will be his most everlasting legacy; a loyal friend; a courageous advocate; an abiding commitment to the sister democracies of Canada and Israel and to his most beloved Winnipeg; and a jazz enthusiast as repose for the soul.
He will be greatly missed and is much loved. We will not see the likes of him again.
Foreign Affairs June 10th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, on Friday, May 30, the convoy of Myanmar's democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was attacked, members of her entourage were killed and wounded, and 19 colleagues, along with her, were arrested. She is being held by the military junta in protective custody, though it appears that the only group from which she requires protection is the junta itself.
Indeed, as I speak, all universities have been suspended, all NLD Party members have been placed under house arrest, and the country's fragile pro-democracy movement is under siege.
We need to seek the immediate release of Aung San Suu Kyi, the freedom of all prisoners of conscience, the reopening of the universities and the promotion of this nascent democracy.
To that end, we should propose that the issue be raised at the UN Security Council, lobby Asian regional members later this month to take a stronger stand on Burma, give political and financial support to civil society groups, and seek the unilateral and multilateral enactment of targeted sanctions.
I thank the Minister of Foreign Affairs for his strong statement in this regard.
Democratic Republic of Congo June 5th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to sound the alarm, to warn against an impending genocide in the Democratic Republic of Congo, such as occurred in Rwanda in 1994.
In one sense the unspeakable has already occurred. War in the Democratic Republic of Congo has lasted four years, involves six African states in Africa's world war and more than 3 million people have been killed. The “never again” rings hollow in the face of “yet again”, again and again.
What is needed, therefore, is a multi-layered diplomatic, defence, political and humanitarian intervention in which Canada can take the lead. In particular, the United Nations force, as authorized by the UN Security Council, is too limited both in numbers and mandate to do what is needed; stop the killing, end the flow of weapons and disarm the militias.
Canada should also seriously consider contributing a significant force to the UN position.
Political: Canada should join the U.S., European countries and South Africa to increase the pressure with respect to a political solution.
Humanitarian: A massive humanitarian relief effort is needed.
Most important, we need someone, some country, to sound the alarm, to place wake-up calls to the international community to ensure that “never again” means exactly that.
Israel May 28th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, the 55th anniversary of the State of Israel should be seen as a cause for celebration and for hope.
For Israel is not just a CNN clip or what passes for the Internet image of the day. Rather, Israel has to be seen and understood as a first nation of humankind; the reconstitution of an ancient people in their ancestral homeland; the juridical embodiment of the Jewish people as an aboriginal people, partaking of an aboriginal Abrahamic religion together with Christianity and Islam, and living in the aboriginal land of Israel, shared with another indigenous people, the Palestinian people.
In a word, the Jewish people are among the only peoples in the world today who still inhabit the same land; embrace the same religion; study the same bible; speak the same aboriginal language, Hebrew; bear the same name, Israel; and dream of the same peace, as they did 3,500 years ago.
While anti-Semitism has been an enduring hatred, almost as old as the Jewish people itself, the Jewish people have been an enduring aboriginal people. That is a cause for hope as well as celebration and for the enduring peace for which Israel still dreams.
Holocaust Remembrance Day April 29th, 2003
Mr. Speaker, yesterday I participated in the annual Montreal Holocaust Remembrance Day gathering where Canadian Jews, in concert with their fellow citizens, came together to remember horrors too terrible to be believed but not too terrible to have happened; to remember the Holocaust as a genocidal war against the Jews where not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims. Six million Jews were killed, of whom one and a half million were children.
We remember each of the six million, not as a statistical abstraction, but onto each person there is a name, an identity, chacun a un nom, une identité. We remember that whoever kills a single person, it is as if they killed an entire universe; and whoever saves a single person, it is as if they saved an entire universe.
We remember the heroic resistance of the starved, decimated Jewish remnant on this 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. We remember and we pledge that never again will we be indifferent to racism and anti-Semitism. Never again will we be silent in the face of genocide. We will remember and we will act.
May this Holocaust Remembrance Day be not only an act of remembrance, but a remembrance to act against injustice, against hatred, against racism, and to act for real peace, for genuine human rights, for tikkun olam , the betterment of the human condition.
Supply April 3rd, 2003
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs who has herself graced the House with her own expertise and eloquence.
On the first matter, as to whether we might have been able, had we succeeded in deflecting the opposition of Russia and France, to set up an international criminal tribunal for Iraq, might the logistics not have been daunting? They may have been difficult but I do not believe they would have been more daunting than that which occurred in the matter of setting it up for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Indeed, I do not know what could have been more daunting than what had to be set up for Rwanda in the aftermath of the horrific and preventable genocide in Rwanda.
I would have hoped that had we set it up for Iraq at the time in the early 1990s, we would have at least deterred the subsequent and continuing criminality of Saddam Hussein and his regime. We would have at least deterred other countries that might have sought to trade and invest in Iraq. We might have given encouragement to the Iraqi people that we take our commitments seriously, not as they were abandoned in the immediate aftermath of the uprising that they were invited to undertake at the end of the first gulf war. The very establishment of the international criminal tribunal for Iraq would have sent a message to the Iraqi people of showing solidarity with them. That might have encouraged them in the kind of impetus for regime change that we abandoned them in with respect to their revolt.
On the matter of the United Nations and the Security Council and the difficulties of reform, I am not unmindful of those difficulties. Therefore I specified certain specific approaches that we could take. I do believe that we need to rethink, in the light of a post-9/11 universe, some of the foundational doctrines of international law on the use of force.
It is not that I share the American approach with respect to the doctrine of the pre-emptive use of force, I have written elsewhere about it, but I do think we have to rethink the notion of the two exceptions to the use of force, namely, the right of self-defence in response to an armed attack and the necessary authorization by the UN Security Council. Each of those two may have to be revisited. I do not think we can any longer say in a post-9/11 universe that a state has to await an armed attack, because that will in fact convert the United Nations charter into a suicide pact. We need to decide what the nature is of the degree of imminence and clear and present danger that is necessary for purposes of authorizing the use of the right of self-defence.
Similarly, we have to rethink the notion of a UN Security Council authorization. Let me give one example. In the Kosovo principle and precedent it had been mentioned earlier that the resolution was vetoed or not passed, but it was deemed to have legitimacy because the preponderance of members of the Security Council did in fact support it. It did not pass only because of the Russian veto, so we may have to rethink our notions of legitimacy.
We certainly have to re-address norms of international humanitarian law because we are now in the age of super technology in the matter of the exercise of warfare, but the collateral damage that is thought to be prevented still occurs and can still be serious and sustained. We have to address notions of international humanitarian law, how we can give expression and protection to the cardinal principle of the protection of civilian immunity, the prohibition on the indiscriminate use of force and the prohibition on the targeting of mixed civilian-military targets where we cannot distinguished between them and the like.
Finally, on the matter of the UN commission on human rights, I think we can establish criteria that will be such that it will not give exculpatory immunity to the violators but will protect those democracies that are singled out for differential and discriminatory treatment.