Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 5th, 2009

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No, I'm asking the chair if we can actually have some clarification on a point of law, which seems to be....

[Some hon. members]

No.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

The Federal Court has ruled on this, and it's very clear. We're saying now that we don't recognize the rights of Canadian citizens, the charter of rights.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Dewar, you're out of order here.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Are we saying the charter doesn't apply?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Dewar, you're out of order.

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

It does go to add some clarity here with paragraph 6(3)(a), “The rights specified in subsection (2) are subject to (a) any laws or practices of general application in force in a province....” That certainly implies that the rights of movement, mobility, and freedom in Canada are subject to the laws of Canada. By extension, they would also be subject to the laws of other countries internationally.

We also have here under section 7, “Everyone has the right to...liberty...of the person and...not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice”, except--in 7(3)11:

Any person charged with an offence has the right

(g) not to be found guilty on account of any act or omission unless, at the time of the act or omission, it constituted an offence under Canadian or international law or was criminal according to the general principles of law recognized by the community of nations.

That does not say Canadian law. It says that it's found by the general principles of law. By its own implication of course, that certainly would mean a variety of interpretations.

I think there's more of a need to educate many Canadians travelling to other countries to make them aware and cognizant of the fact that every country has its own jurisdiction, its own sovereignty, and its own set of laws that might be in conflict with Canadian law. They should be very much aware of those circumstances.

The next comment I have to make is on “Enact legislation to ensure the consistent...consular services to all Canadians in distress”. The information we have is that there is a consistent enactment of consular services for the over 50 million Canadian travellers internationally and the number of people seeking intervention by consular services. Of course, with such a great number, there might be some variances. Overall, though, we're hearing that there is consistency.

The third part I wish to comment on is “ordering the Minister of Foreign Affairs to give protection”. Well, what does protection mean? Does that mean the protection under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or under the Constitution of Canada? Is that what this is implying? Once again, it is based on a false premise that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms does apply internationally.

So I have problems all the way through on the wording and the implication of this motion, which seems to be reinforcing the false premise that the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms apply internationally and in all international jurisdictions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much, Mr. Goldring.

Ms. Brown.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I express a concern that, first of all, we had agreed we were going to have a very broad discussion on this issue, yet today's representations very much devolved into a case-by-case discussion. I think that is influencing where we are at right now.

My concern with the motion is that I don't see any discussion regarding the responsibility of Canadians travelling abroad. All I'm hearing is the rights of Canadians and the responsibility of government.

When we had the Department of Foreign Affairs here the other day they were talking about the importance of educating Canadians who were travelling abroad. They talked about the number of resources that we have put in as government over the years to ensure that information is available to travellers. They talked at great length about the registry of Canadians abroad. They told us there are consular services that are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We also heard that the Department of Foreign Affairs puts a travel advisory on their website and they do regular updates on those travel advisories.

In the discussion of this motion, for me to be comfortable with it, there would need to be some discussion in there about the responsibility of travellers. Does this mean that Canadian travellers are going to be legislated now to register with the Department of Foreign Affairs before they can travel? Does it mean that they are going to be denied visas to countries where there is a travel warning in place that the Department of Foreign Affairs has established and kept updated? Does it mean that travellers are now by law going to have to assign a power of attorney for personal care and property so that someone in Canada, through the Department of Foreign Affairs, has the right to have access to their personal information? Is that going to be part of that legislation?

All I see in this motion is responsibility put on the government, but I don't see a balance in there. Before I could support any sort of a motion, I would think I would need to see that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Brown.

Mr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you very much.

First of all, I have to express to Mr. Dewar that, frankly, as one government member, I actually do take umbrage at Mr. Dewar's pretense that this is not a “gotcha” type of politics.

I went through the opposition having the opportunity to question our witnesses who are here before us today. In turn, each of the opposition parties had their questions. When the government's turn arrives, we had seven minutes to question our witnesses. I had one minute in there, and I had some good questions I would have liked to have posed to our witnesses here today. That opportunity is now taken away while Mr. Dewar pretends that this is just an innocent little thing in terms of advancing this issue.

So with all due respect, I take umbrage at Mr. Dewar's pretense. There's an old saying: “Methinks the lady doth protest too much”—and that's Shakespeare, I think. Somebody can check it out for me. I think that by bringing it up, Mr. Dewar, you've revealed, in fact, your own motivation.

Now, on this issue, Mr. Chair, there are a number of issues that remain unresolved from our discussion so far. We're having a discussion about the right to consular protection and the duty of a country to provide it. I think that was the language Mr. Neve used. If you have a rogue state, a high-risk state, that respects neither our government nor our Canadian government agencies nor our chief allies who sometimes represent our interests in some countries, what confidence would we have that the ombudsman would have powers that the rogue state would respect? How far do folks who would like us to resolve every one of these issues expect the government to go? It's not our position. We're not an invasive country. We don't declare war on other nations. How far do you want us to go in protecting the rights of some citizens who find themselves in difficult situations?

From evidence we've had here before this committee—and our colleagues have mentioned this—there are some 53 million visits abroad. Canadians are a privileged people. We do travel, probably more per capita than most nations of the world. We are among the most privileged people on the planet. But many of the nations of the world do not have the kinds of comforts that Canadians are used to at home, or the protections we enjoy here at home. I think when you're dealing with travel to nations that have neither the institutional nor the judicial capacity for independence that we enjoy here in Canada—and even in Canada we have concerns about that that we're constantly working on in our democracy—that are either new democracies or failed states, in many cases, and we have a list of countries that our own nation puts out advisories on, about travel risks and travel concerns...when a citizen goes into those countries, they have to understand there's a risk associated with that. The government cannot provide unlimited protection to people who take unlimited or very severe risks. You'll never be able to provide 100% capacity or protection with rogue states, and we have tragic incidences like Zahra Kazemi as an example. Mr. Neve, I think, mentioned her case.

I wonder about this particular motion, where you intend to go with that. I had questions I would have liked to pose to our witnesses here that will remain unanswered.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, a point of order.

Is he not allowed to ask the witnesses in his time for clarification?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

That's a very good question.

First of all, this is really the first time this has happened for a long time. I can't recall bringing a motion while our witnesses were here.

One of the things I'm very pleased with, with our witnesses here, is that all four are still seated at the table and listening intently.

[An hon. member]

We don't know that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

It would appear that they're listening intently.

There are some good questions from all sides here, and I would encourage the witnesses that although you do not have the floor and I can't recognize you to answer those questions, you may want to follow up some of the questions that are being posed—not with general statements or whatever.

The other thing I would like to mention is that because our invitation went out late, we have no written submissions from you. If you have any documents that you would like to forward, not some long, extensive work that you've done but in reference to your speaking notes today, we would very much appreciate that. If questions arise, although you cannot answer them today as long as Mr. Lunney or any member of this committee speaks to the motion—when Mr. Lunney questions in regard to the ombudsman, that's part of this motion, and it's a very broad motion—if you want to respond to those, we would welcome that.

I'll go back to Mr. Lunney.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you. The point I wanted to make was related to some of the discussion that came forth regarding the duty to protect and the application of the Canadian charter extraterritorially or in foreign space.

I heard one witness say that those rights should follow Canadians wherever they go, or that was the way it appeared to come across. I heard another witness say that's a nice notion, in response to that. It seemed to me there was a little bit of discussion going on, even amongst the witnesses, that it is a nice notion and we wish it were the case. I heard that from another witness here.

So if we are going to come to some conclusion in providing direction to the government, we need to discuss this more thoroughly than we have had the opportunity to do at this point.

When you look at our consular services being provided abroad to Canadians, there are more than 142,000 active consular cases around the world on an average day, 686 new cases in 2008-09, and some 1,600 Canadians receiving emergency assistance in more than 26 separate incidents. We are resolving most of these incidents very successfully. Thank goodness for the good work that our consular agencies are doing around the world, trying to resolve these issues when they do come up.

The kinds of issues that are very egregious are a small number of cases in high-risk situations in states, by and large, that don't respect law, or no law as we know it in Canada. So I have a little challenge with that.

I had another point I wanted to raise, but it got shuffled around a little bit.

I think the last point I would make at this point in the discussion is that when Canadians are travelling abroad, they are still subject to the laws of the nations they arrive in. I think Canadians ought to take that into consideration when they travel abroad to places where there are questionable practices and where they know there are high risks. We have to consider that the citizens themselves need to have some responsibility for going into high-risk situations and be aware of those risks and the limits of the government's capacity to provide protection in every instance.

Mr. Chair, at this point I will surrender the floor, but I'm sure I will have other comments to make on this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Next we have Madame Lalonde.

[Francine Lalonde, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Mr. Chair, point of order.

Could we suspend the debate on this question to hear our witnesses?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mrs. Carmen DePape]

If you move it, yes.

She can propose that debate be adjourned on the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Madame Lalonde's motion would be in order. She is moving that we suspend or adjourn debate on this motion. That does not mean that we deal with the motion, that we vote on the motion; it means that it is suspended.

Madame Lalonde, I am not certain of your intent, but it seemed that when you made reference to that, you wanted to go back to some of the questions of the committee.

If she is moving that, that becomes a debatable motion. No?

Mr. Dewar, whose motion is on the table, wants to speak to this.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I would like to know what that means.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

I am going to ask the clerk. My understanding of this is that on a vote we can suspend. We are not calling for a vote; we are suspending debate. We would come back to that.

[Bob Rae, Liberal, Toronto Centre, ON]

The motion is not debatable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

You're speaking to a clarification, I guess.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I was going to suggest something similar, so I want to be clear on what this means.

Does it mean that after that's done we return to this right away?