Foreign Affairs Committee on March 7th, 2011

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

I know that. I'm just trying to clarify the record of account and why we have this in front of us, and you've established the fact that there's a void here; there's a loophole and we need to fill it. But I was just trying to figure out, because of the confusion in the House with your responses, whether or not you had been asked. You're telling me for the record that you had been asked by Tunisian officials, but not by the Egyptians?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

No, not by the Egyptians.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you for that clarification.

The other thing, I guess, on that note is this. I'm just going back to Mr. Patry's question, I think it was. We wouldn't need this if there is a UN resolution. Is that correct?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

That is correct.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay. I want to clarify that, because I think there might have been some confusion around that.

The reason we need it in this, the instance of Tunisia and Egypt, is that we didn't have a UN resolution. That said, we also have the case of Burma, where we invoked SEMA with no UN resolution. So again, we have to establish here that there are times when SEMA can be used, when there is no UN resolution. Is that correct?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

In the case of the Burma sanctions, we weren't freezing assets.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No, I understand. I'm just being clear here, because we're saying, coupled with the UN resolution, we can use SEMA. We can do this, no problem, but without it we need something else, and that's why we're here. I'm just trying to set the record straight on why we need this.

In terms of provisions in the bill, I will get to that now, and maybe the officials might help you here. In the case where you accept or reject an application, would you have to make known what the rationale for that was?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

We certainly would have to make that known to the party that is asking us.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay. How would that be done?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Most likely through diplomatic notes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

And I'm assuming that would be confidential?

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Yes, it is.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

And when we had the briefing...I'm correct in saying that if there was a case where someone had a concern and they had appealed to you and you said, “No, I'm sticking with my decision”, it would be subject to judicial review.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

Yes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

So there's an attempt to do that.

I want to also note that as helpful as my friend, Mr. Obhrai, has been in telling you what we were proposing, it turns out we can do that ourselves. What I think we were saying at the briefing is clear. He's right on one count: I did suggest that we'd like to see a five-year review.

I think there is an opportunity here for compromise, and I suggest there is a way—I think we can work on this after, and I want to see what you might think of this—of doing both, and that is to focus the mind. You could have a sunset with a review. A review would happen before to decide whether or not you have a sunset.

I'm just thinking of your response to that, albeit you might be seen as an interested party, Mr. Nicholson, but that is a possibility. I'm just helping my friend, Mr. Obhrai, with the idea that it doesn't have to be either/or; it can be with that provision. I'll leave it for us to decide after.

If in fact then we have the resources of FINTRAC.... Maybe to you, Minister Nicholson, there's a concern, generally speaking, on how to track assets of people who have dubious human rights records. I'm just wondering. Many people ask me, quite rightly, if we knew these things were happening, if we knew this regime wasn't stellar, if we knew they had assets here, did we actually have an idea of how many assets were invested in Canada by, say, Gadhafi or Ben Ali, and if not, why not?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

I wouldn't get into the details of when and where assets are. It's a policing matter, and it probably was in the purview of the Minister of Public Safety, I would suppose, if anyone. We do all have an interest in not giving out too many details as to exactly when and where these are, for policing—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Of course, but you're confident that, if need be, you would have access to that data?

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Niagara Falls, ON]

My understanding is that the police in this country are quite engaged and focused on this type of activity.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

The last question is to Minister Cannon.

One of our provisions in our sanctions with Libya, I believe, is on arms sales and prohibition. I just want to ask you this. It's been a couple of years since we have actually had a report on arms exports, for Parliament or for Canadians to be able to see. Can you tell us when we'd be able to see that? Is it coming?

If we can get an idea of when, because it's a couple of years since Parliament.... We used to report on arms exports, and we're seeing more and more of these instances where we have countries to which we might have regretted selling arms. I think the last report was in 2006. I'm not sure, and I can be corrected on that, but I think that would be important, particularly if we're putting sanctions in place on the prohibition of exports but we're not saying what the arms exports are.

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

I can promise that I'll be able to get you an answer on that, Mr. Dewar, when I come back to defend the estimates.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

I want to gauge the committee. We've got our ministers for the next five minutes. I was going to have a question from Mr. Van Kesteren, Mr. Goldring, then Mr. Rae, and Mr. Dorion as well.

If we were to go with four questions, my question is this. Once the ministers leave, did we want some more questioning of the officials? We can continue on, if that's the case, or we can go right to clause-by-clause.

I just want to gauge where we're at, because I don't want to break up the order too much; I want to continue where we're going.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Perhaps we could introduce a motion. In the case before us, there does not seem to be a motion that requires a 48-hour notice.

The bill we are discussing today is extremely important. We, the Bloc Québécois members, have been demanding for almost a month and a half—I even did so at the end of January, in Strasbourg, at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe—that the government freeze the assets of the Ben Ali family in Canada.

It is important to adopt this bill quickly if it is deemed to be appropriate. Of course, everyone knows that Parliament is in recess next week . Everyone also knows that we are perhaps in a pre-election period.

For these reasons, I wanted to suggest that the committee hold an additional meeting during the week of March 7, in order to study Bill C-61, An Act to provide for the taking of restrictive measures in respect of the property of officials and former officials of foreign states and of their family members, and that the committee complete its clause-by-clause study during the same meeting. Mr. Chair, there are not that many clauses involved. I think that we are perfectly capable of completing our study.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We have our ministers here and we're going to continue the questioning with them. As far as motions, we'll deal with the motions after we're done with our questioning of witnesses.

We're going to go back to Mr. Van Kesteren and Mr. Goldring, and we'll finish up with Mr. Rae, and the ministers then can move on.

Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

A quick question for Mr. Nicholson. I'm curious about this. Obviously as this progresses I think you're going to find that people will find more creative ways to hide some of their money. When we had our meeting this morning and we were briefed on this act, we said obviously this would include things such as art.

I'm wondering to what extent the Canadian government would commit themselves to a police investigation, considering that there would be a sizable cost involved. Do we proceed to the point where we would try to find where this money is hidden? Are we going to be compensated for that type of investigation, if it becomes lengthy and costly?