Evidence of meeting #49 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 40th Parliament, 3rd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was review.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
NDP
Paul Dewar NDP Ottawa Centre, ON
What about An Act to provide for the taking of restrictive measures in respect of the property of officials and foreign officials of foreign states and their family members?
Well, what's wrong with that? Actually, I don't want to know. It's okay. I think I know what you're going to say.
Conservative
Peter Goldring Conservative Edmonton East, AB
Under subclause 11(2), does this not apply to Canadian citizens who may be in Canada or a foreign country? No? So it's not just foreign officials, necessarily.
Louis-Martin Aumais Deputy Director, Criminal, Security and Privileges and Immunities Law Section, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade
It's by virtue of the foreign state office that the person would have held or is holding. It's not the nationality that triggers it; it's the foreign state office that is related to the person.
Conservative
James Lunney Conservative Nanaimo—Alberni, BC
Can we ask our officials to comment on whether they would be comfortable with the suggestion from Mr. Rae, which sounded to me like Freezing Assets of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act?
Does that create any problems, from your perspective?
Liberal
Bob Rae Liberal Toronto Centre, ON
Finally I get something. We've spent two hours on this coal face. It's unbelievable.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
All right. If there is no more discussion, I'll call the question.
All those in favour of the amendment of the title?
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Shall the committee order a reprint of the bill as amended for the use in the House at report stage?
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
We're going to suspend for one minute to get our guests up here. We'll be running a little over, but we'll make sure we have half an hour.
Thank you for all your hard work.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Would members come back to the table?
I want to thank everyone for working to get that finished.
We are running about 15 minutes behind today, but we're still going to give our guest the half hour we promised him. I want to thank René Magloire for being here today. He is the special adviser to the President of Haiti.
Thank you for taking the time. I know your schedule is limited, so I'm glad you could work us in and we could work you in.
I know you have an opening comment or an opening statement. We'll turn it over to you. And we'll probably have enough time for each party to ask about five minutes' worth of questions, if we follow along that way. Then we'll wrap up around quarter to. How does that sound?
Sir, thank you for being patient as we worked on some of our legislation, and now I will turn the floor over to you.
René Magloire Special Advisor to the President of Haiti, Legal Affairs, As an Individual
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
First, I want to thank you and thank the members of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development for providing me with the opportunity to tell you about a challenge that we have been faced with since January 16, 2011, in my country of Haiti.
As you know, on January 16, 2011, former president of Haiti, Mr. Duvalier, returned to the country, causing a lot of concern among the population. The Haitian government decided to fulfill its international obligations regarding prosecution of cases considered to be crimes against humanity. Former president Jean-Claude Duvalier, who was head of state from 1971 to 1986, has been accused of having participated in a number of serious violations of human rights in the country or having allowed such violations to take place. At this time, the Haitian judicial system—and I think that this is no secret—is very weak. This is the first time a case on crimes against humanity will be before the Haitian courts. Most Haitian juries are not very familiar with the notion of crimes against humanity.
However, the Haitian government has decided to continue fighting against impunity and to fulfill its international obligations. The President of Haiti has received a letter from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms. Pillay. She offered Haiti the services of the United Nations Office for two purposes: first, a quick training of Haitian juries, and second, helping us build prosecutors' cases against former president Duvalier and his collaborators.
I am in Canada on a mission with the key goal of meeting with the many victims of our regime. Most of those people are now Canadian citizens, but they want to lay charges against Duvalier's regime and see how much Haiti could benefit from Canadian expertise in this area. We know that, not too long ago, Canada prosecuted a Rwandan national who was accused of serious crimes against humanity. We also know that Canada has gained a certain expertise in this area and we want to see whether it is willing to share that expertise with us. In addition, we would like the Canadian government to support the Haitian government's initiative to prosecute former president Duvalier and his collaborators. Canada's official support for the initiative taken by the Government of Haiti would be most welcome.
Duvalier has been charged with two types of crimes: economic crimes and crimes against humanity. As far as economic crimes go, we already have some supporting documents. They consist of reports that were drafted at the time by the minister of justice, the minister of economy and finances, the Bank of Haiti and various CEOs of organizations that alleged funds were siphoned off by this regime.
The problem is that Duvalier's defence attorneys are citing the principle of limitation. However, we believe that in this case, that principle does not apply because a series of procedures have been implemented since 1986. In fact, the Code d'instruction criminelle d'Haïti prescribes that if a case involves prosecution or investigation, limitation is interrupted and resumes over another 10-year period. We, the Port-au-Prince prosecution, are very confident that the principle of limitation cannot apply.
The debate in Haiti is currently focused on crimes against humanity. International expertise could help us with that. Based on international criminal law, the Armenian genocide of 1915-1919, all the case law, the Nuremberg trials, international criminal tribunals and regional criminal tribunals, we know that Duvalier's arguments will not hold up if properly informed judges are conducting his trial. That is our main concern.
I will stop here, if you have any questions, I will answer them.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you very much.
We're going to start around the room. I'm going to start over here with my colleagues, the Liberals, and Mr. Rae.