Foreign Affairs Committee on April 13th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Allmand.

We're now going to move to the first round.

Dr. Patry and Mr. Pearson, for seven minutes each.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be sharing my time with my colleague, Mr. Pearson.

Mr. Broadbent, Mr. Allmand, I would like to thank you for appearing this morning. I have one very simple question.

As former presidents of Rights and Democracy, you have no doubt followed the current situation very closely. In your view, do the events of the past few months constitute political interference?

[Ed Broadbent]

I don't hesitate in saying yes, but I want to be clear on how that can be expressed. You can have political interference in an agency that's supposed to be independent on human rights, such as the centre, in one of two ways. In one, a minister or a prime minister says that before you are appointed, you must put an emphasis on P, Q, and R policies. It's direct. The other way, which is more subtle but can be equally effective, is to appoint people who you know in advance are going to pursue that agenda. You know it from looking at their dossiers. You look at what they've said publicly in the past about certain issues. You then appoint them to the board.

In my view, it's the latter. The Prime Minister of Canada is directly responsible for the appointees to the board. They come from the Privy Council. I cannot believe he did not know about the reputations of Mr. Braun and Mr. Gauthier before he appointed them. I cannot believe he didn't think they would pursue a particular political agenda that was sympathetic to his government.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Merci.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you for coming.

This is a dog's breakfast. I think of four different things.

First, I think of the organization. It's now obviously in a state of crisis. I think it's our job to try to figure out how to right that ship again.

Secondly, if what we have heard today is true and we discover it's true, Mr. Beauregard's reputation has been maligned perhaps beyond repair, unless we as a committee seriously take responsibility for his reputation.

Third, I'm very worried about what's happening on the ground. I'm not asking about that today. But how are our partners overseas perceiving this difficulty we're in at the moment and what we're doing with it?

Finally, for this committee, I think in any language, in any political language, this is a dog's breakfast. It is something we have to deal with.

You have both had experience in coming to committees before in the capacities you had within Rights and Democracy. We have a responsibility as a committee to get it right and try to not make politics as much a part of it as they might be.

Could you offer advice to us as a committee? I'm not saying you're telling us what to do. But as somebody who's worked with this committee in times past, how should we approach this problem? What action do you think we should take to remedy what has happened and to get this organization back on its feet?

[Warren Allmand]

In the statute right now it says that the minister is supposed to consult with the opposition parties with respect to all appointments to the board. That's been done over the years. I doubt whether the opposition parties--and I say this with respect--often paid as much attention to that as they maybe are now.

One of my recommendations is that you reconsider how these nominations or appointments are made to the board. I would even go so far as to say that they shouldn't be just consulted on, but receive the support of at least one of the opposition parties--some sort of situation where it's not just the government.

I pointed to the good example that Joe Clark made in the first place. When he set up the centre, he as a Conservative appointed a New Democrat to show a model.

I was also looking at the foreign policy statement of the government in 1995, which was a Liberal government. In that foreign policy statement they praised the International Centre for Human Rights as being an outstanding player in international human rights affairs. Here you had a Liberal government praising an institution set up by a Conservative and run by the former leader of the New Democrats. In my view, that is a non-partisan approach to human rights and the institution of Rights and Democracy.

So I urge you, Mr. Pearson, to look at a new way, a better way, of making these nominations. I understand that there was supposed to be a new honing process for order-in-council appointments by the Harper government, but it's never really come to fruition. That's for all appointments, not just these.

[Ed Broadbent]

Can I add just one point to this?

I think the situation requires some immediate action. I deeply believe this. I believe the wrong person is president and the seriously wrong person is chair. You have a wonderful staff, who only did what they could do, I believe, in rebelling against it. To preserve the soul of the centre, as a matter of fact, they did what they did. I think Mr. Braun has to be removed.

I would like to make a suggestion. If the committee seizes itself of a number of suggestions it made--I'm just focusing on one here--Mr. Braun should go and the Prime Minister should undertake to speak to the leaders of each of the opposition parties and say let's agree now in the interim, for now, on some distinguished Canadian, man or woman, on whom we can all agree to put in on an interim basis to give some leadership to this organization. Then, as others have suggested, follow a different kind of an appointment process down the road. But I do want to stress that I think some immediate action is required to preserve that institution.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Madame Lalonde, you have seven minutes, please.

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

I will be sharing my time with my colleague.

Thank you, and allow me to say, in all sincerity, that Rémy Beauregard would have liked to be here and hear your forceful presentation of the reasons why he met such a tragic end. You spoke of the need to ensure the organization's independence through the means that you set out and that he wanted to maintain.

Without major changes, for which a number of approaches could be taken and which the committee, in its majority, must consider, Rights and Democracy will never again be the same institution. The institution might remain, but it would no longer be Rights and Democracy. Immediate changes must be made along the lines you have indicated, would you agree?

[Ed Broadbent]

Yes, I do agree, however—

I would add one additional thing on this appointment process that maybe the committee could consider. I think Mr. Harper had promised, consistent with the proposals made by a number of parties, when he first became Prime Minister to have a very different appointment process. There would be hearings and so on, and he hasn't proceeded with that.

One idea.... The first board of the centre came recommended to Mr. Clark and Mr. Mulroney by Mr. Gordon Fairweather, who had been the chief human rights commissioner of Canada. So Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Clark, to their credit, went to Mr. Fairweather—who'd been appointed by Pierre Trudeau, by the way, as human rights commissioner--and they had him prepare, in consultation, a list for the first board.

I can tell you that before I accepted the offer from Mr. Mulroney, one of the first things I did was to look at the proposed list of the board, you can be sure. There was a good cross-section of Canadians, representing as part of their past all the political parties. Most of the people on the board did not have political connections, but some did. There was a great range. They all had a common interest in human rights.

The process was impeccable: you had a human rights commissioner giving a proposed list to a government, and the government was prepared to act on that. Maybe something like that could be tried in the interim, to come back to the need for some immediate action at the centre.

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

Mr. Allmand, do you have anything to add to that?

[Warren Allmand]

I have already made recommendations in that regard.

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

Thank you.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I would like to add a few things to what was said by Mr. Beauregard's widow and yourselves today. Looking back at the past four years, I am a bit concerned to see how the government's policies are taking form in all programs and at all levels. I used to sit on the Status of Women Committee before being a member here, and women were the first victims of the government's policy changes. I believe that all groups that work in the defence of or to promote people's rights are the first to feel a noose around their necks, if you will pardon the expression.

I am personally quite shocked by these current events because they do not reflect my culture and my values. I am being deprived of those values to which we have become accustomed here in Canada, values like fairness, justice and equality. I note that we are experiencing a shift, which we as citizens are not accustomed to. I do not recognize myself in what is currently going on.

The crisis is shaking the foundations of Rights and Democracy. This is an organization that has built up a strong reputation and become a highly credible voice internationally over the years. How is this crisis being perceived internationally?

[Ed Broadbent]

I think I mentioned that I've spent the last three months in London, England, and I came back just for this hearing and will be returning there. Coming from London, I can tell you from personal contacts, including with a number of international NGOs, that there are government and media people—and I'm not going to exaggerate the number—for whom the reputation of Canada and Rights and Democracy is going down. The latter is what hurts me. People who are concerned are aware of the centre internationally, though not everyone is. I don't want to distort this. However, those who are concerned about human rights abroad are very much aware of the history of the centre and its particular role. What's happening to it has literally spread throughout the globe now, among the NGO community and governments, including Scandinavian governments and others who are sensitive on human rights matters, and there is very real concern.

[Warren Allmand]

With regard to the first part of your question, there appears to be a similar pattern in a number of organizations, not only at Rights and Democracy. I myself am associated with Kairos with respect to aboriginal issues. That organization, along with Alternatives in Montreal, has more or less the same problem in terms of its Middle East policy.

There are other organizations that I'm aware of. There's a case regarding aboriginal peoples, with respect to aboriginal children, before the Canadian Human Rights Commission, and it is being delayed over and over. Your comments I find are ringing true that what's happening at Rights and Democracy is happening in other places as well with respect to women's organizations and so on.

With respect to international comment, it's interesting. David Matas, in his famous statement on Ezra Levant's blog, accused those who made the grants to these three groups in the Middle East of being ignorant—it was very condescending, his language—of what is going on in the Middle East. In other words, they didn't know what they were doing. Recently, about three or four weeks later, we had a statement made by the leader of B'Tselem saying that those at Rights and Democracy who have repudiated the grants were the ones who were ignorant of what was really going on in Israel and the Middle East.

There was also a statement signed by about six or seven more human rights organizations in Israel and the Palestinian territories criticizing the decision. There was a letter signed by over 100 lawyers and professors in Canada condemning the situation. There was Mr. Schabas, who is a Canadian but is now head of the human rights body in Ireland. There's already been a lot of comment internationally about this, and it's certainly not helping our reputation as a human rights organization.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move back over to Mr. Abbott for seven minutes.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Allmand, I always like to try to find common ground with people, and I think you and I are in agreement on subsection 7(2), on the necessity to consult. I'll read it again:

All appointments to the Board shall be made after consultation by the Minister with the Leader of the Opposition and the leader of every other recognized party in the House of Commons.

So we should put on the record that Mr. Ignatieff, Mr. Duceppe, and Mr. Layton approved all of the directors who are on the board of directors. For them to be sitting there wiping their hands and saying they didn't have anything to do with it is really quite an amazing sight.

However, I do have a question for you. You seem to have a bit of a fixation with Mr. Matas. What is it? I don't quite understand. You're suggesting that Mr. Matas is a lapdog of the Prime Minister, that he's parroting the kinds of things that this evil Conservative government might be trying to propagate. Is that what you're trying to say?

[Warren Allmand]

On your first point, the fact that the leaders of the opposition parties were consulted doesn't mean they approved. I don't know what their reaction was when they were consulted. I'm not sure how they responded to the Prime Minister when he approached each one of them. It's true that he has to consult, but I don't know what the response was, whether they approved or not. The appointment power is still left in the hands of the Prime Minister and the order in council. So whether they disapproved or approved, I don't know. Maybe you could ask them. We could find out how they responded to the consultation.

With respect to Mr. Matas, Mr. Matas was on the board previously, when I was the president, and at that time he was a constructive member of the board, although even at that time he on occasion seemed to be more interested in being an apologist for the state of Israel than in human rights in the world. But he was not as extreme as he is now.

When I read, Mr. Abbott—and he sent me a copy—the long statement he made that was on Ezra Levant's blog on the Internet, which is full of attacks on the UN Human Rights Council and on NGOs, I was surprised at his very strong attack on human rights NGOs and on many things. It would take me a whole meeting and maybe an hour to respond to all the points he has in there. That's the difference. I have no personal differences with Mr. Matas, but the statement he made shows that his main concern is protecting the state of Israel from any criticism, whether deserved or not, and I just can't agree with that. Also, he's more or less supporting this concept that if you criticize Israel you're anti-Semitic, which I find ridiculous.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

If we could go politician to politician here for just half a second, I find it quite breathtaking that you would be attacking a person who by his own submission to this committee called himself a prairie Liberal, and we also know that he is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. I find that really quite breathtaking.

[Warren Allmand]

You know, he was a Liberal candidate, but that says nothing about his bias with respect to the state of Israel. He has this extreme bias.

For example, in the Durban 1 conference, he walked out before the government conference even started, whereas Irwin Cotler stayed and fought the battle to make sure the government conference came out with a proper and correct declaration. The fact that he's a Liberal or not has nothing to do with it. It's his bias on this particular issue. And it's the same bias with all seven of these people, as far as I can see, that's causing the problem.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

I suggest to you, gentlemen, that you are bringing partisan politics into this issue—

[Ed Broadbent]

No.

[Jim Abbott, Conservative, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

—and it is unbecoming, because after all, this is supposed to be a non-partisan organization.

[Warren Allmand]

Let me answer that.

You posed a question to the previous witnesses in which you asked, isn't the board supposed to make the policy for the organization? That's right, but the policy they make has to respect the governance imperative I referred to, which is total respect for the International Bill of Human Rights. You can't make policy or do things that are outside the mandate, which is in section 4 and following. So, yes, you can make policy, but it has to be policy that respects that mandate. What we have here are policies being done by the board that in my view are outside of the parliamentary mandate.