Foreign Affairs Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2014

[Khalid Haider]

If you go back to the years before Saddam Hussein, to Salam Arif and his brother, Abdul Rahman Arif, one of the requests of Mustafa Barzani was religious unification in Iraq, that there should be all Muslims and nobody else.

I think you heard of that right back to the fifties or perhaps the sixties. I'm not saying that he's following in his father's steps but it is not that far from that statement at all.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

That goes back to Ms. Saeed's desire for it not to be a separate nation, per se, but to be part of the Iraqi nation, but to have freedom of religion and so on. With that history, how realistic is that?

[Khalid Haider]

With the situation and what's going on it's difficult. It cannot be real. It's just pretty much a myth unless they acknowledge us and our existence.

If Kurds are going to claim us as part of their society, then why are they sending their peshmerga and their fighters to Kobani if the Sinjar Mountains is closer?

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Why would they want to claim you as part of their society if they persecute you so much, other than having somebody to persecute?

[Khalid Haider]

It's pretty much land and politics.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Yes.

[Khalid Haider]

That's what it is.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

It's sad, is what it is.

Rabbi Bulka, you talked about messaging and that we can deal with, or try to deal with current organizations like ISIS and so on, and really there is only one way to deal with them and it's by force, from that point of view.

But in the longer term, about messaging and attitudes and education, using the Internet and schools, can you comment a little bit about how we would get into the minds of people through the Internet, through schools, and through religious teachings or countering religious teachings that may be destructive?

[Rabbi Reuven Bulka]

There are a number of ways, but the messaging has to come from the people on the ground, for example, getting leaders of the various communities to come together, extolling Canada, being welcoming, and basically messaging how important it is to have inclusivity, to work together for all segments of the community, to build the communities that they're living in, to think in terms of what they can contribute to make Canada better. The types of things that are positive in their outlook, that would give people a sense of belonging, are the types of things that we should be thinking about as powerful messages. We should enlist the leadership of the various ethnic and religious communities in this campaign. It has to be a massive one. It has to be something in which the political leaders of our country are heavily invested so they know that this is not just some fringe group but that it speaks to the totality of the country.

[Laurie Hawn, Conservative, Edmonton Centre, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawn.

That completes our fourth round, but I know there are some additional questions.

Blaine, welcome, and glad to have you here.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Well, thank you, Chair.

First of all, let me just say I'm a temporary on this committee today. I find the conversation absolutely amazing.

The concern that I have, in the little bit of research that I've been able to do while I was sitting here, and, of course, listening to the testimony, is that while we may disagree on what the immediate short-term needs and goals of the Yazidi people might be, whether we need more military presence or security presence, or whether we need more humanitarian aid—those are all questions that are legitimate issues of debate—I'm thinking more long term.

Mr. Haider, you've brought up the history of the Yazidi people, and you've said quite clearly that you don't think you can ever trust the Kurds again. There seems to be this inability to do what normally would be a reconciliation approach where, when somebody has wronged you, there is an ability to reconcile, whether it's cultural or whatever it is. It seems to me that this ability to remember all of the wrongs of the past and never seem to move beyond them seems to be a sticking point in the Middle East. That's based on my perception.

My question to you is: if that's going to be the case moving forward, and President Obama has indicated that his goal would be the new government in Iraq being a more unified, more benevolent government to bring people together, without this apparent ability to reconcile across the cultures and across ethnic and religious lines, is that a bona fide, legitimate, long-term goal? Or will that only provide short-term security for as long as that benevolent government is there, which can be replaced, of course, through a democratic process, with any other government that might not be so in the future? How do we reconcile this? I see it simply becoming an ongoing problem that will flare up from time to time.

Is there anybody here, Ms. Saeed, or even Mr. Bulka, and you, Khalid, who sees any other options available out there to provide more security in this region in the longer term?

[Khalid Haider]

Yes, for long-term goals there is an alternative. In fact, the only option we have, which is going to be the best option, is bringing these sides together under the United Nations' supervision and having them work together. They may not agree. This is only an opinion, my opinion: secure the borders along these countries around Iraq and have the army do the defence, as usual, and not have the army do the policing job.

Religion, just like freedom, can be used, but cannot be abused. Once you overdose on any kind of medication, it might harm your life, and it's the same thing with religion. People who are overusing it need to be educated and taught how to properly use it. In fact, in Iraq in particular, that's one of the biggest issues since 2003. Religion has dominated the area and become pretty much the main dominance, replacing politics. Religion cannot be used in this room to discuss as politics, but can be used in a church or a mosque to talk about peace, and not used as a tool or weapon to encourage people who don't know anything about the outside world and use it to harm and hurt people, especially innocent minorities.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Does anybody else want to take that on?

[Rabbi Reuven Bulka]

In the end, our experience has been that the only real guarantee of religious freedom is when countries are democratic. I know it's a long shot, but our ultimate goal has to be to create governments there that are answerable, that are accountable, that are democratic, and that are founded on mutual respect. I know it is a long way off, but that has to be our end goal otherwise, if governments are in the hands of despots, you only have a guarantee of chaos and future atrocities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

We're going to move over to Mr. Dewar for five minutes.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to touch on two issues. The first is to build on the questioning we've just heard from my colleague.

One of the issues we talked about in the last hearings was from witnesses about the need for a truth and reconciliation process along the lines of South Africa and other countries that have done that. I think it makes sense, but the other issue that of course has to be confronted.... Actually, when I was first in Iraq in 2007 there was a discussion around the Constitution, and at the time you couldn't mention the word “federalism”. It was seen as too controversial. Now we're hearing more and more people talk about that.

As Canadians, we don't want to ever impose our form of government on anyone, but certainly will share our experience. The catastrophe of the Bremer model after 2003 is starting to be addressed in terms of changing the actors.

But I'd just like to hear from you, Mr. Haider. In Canada we have obviously a national government, but we have devolved powers to provinces, and one of the key aspects, which we heard again from our witnesses at the last committee hearing, was the need to emphasize citizenship and pluralism. It's a bit of a rhetorical question, but it's important to put it on the record. Is that something you could see as being helpful to deal with the crimes of the past, if you will, and the need to look to the future?

[Khalid Haider]

It is indeed. In fact, when you have a government like Iraq dealing with a lot of problems and issues, you have to take baby steps, go step-by-step to have that kind of federal system applied. Also, on war crimes, the U.S. can go back to its records and investigate that, go back to the history. There are a lot of people who witnessed that. Gather all this information and bring these people to justice.

Iraq is divided now into three divisions: south, centre, and north. As long as there are these three divisions, then it's hard to deal with or fix any issues unless we have that part taken out of the equation and have the true result, which is going to be why they are fighting and over what, which is obvious. Everybody is fighting for a bigger piece of pie, which are all these oil resources, yet people are not getting any use or benefit from that.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you.

In the time I have remaining I just want to touch on your comments, Rabbi Bulka. The idea you have has been well documented. There have been proposals put forward, in fact, by Canadians and others for a rapid response at the UN. I'm not sure that's going to happen overnight, but it's certainly something we should continue to talk about.

There is something very concrete that other countries have gotten behind, and we pushed the present government to get behind, and that is a focal point for R2P, which is basically to have our government appoint someone to look at coordination and at areas where there are potential humanitarian crises or conflicts. Certainly we saw this in slow motion this past summer. It's called an R2P focal point. It's basically appointing someone from our Department of Foreign Affairs to work and coordinate with others to look at the whole doctrine of R2P and coordinate information so that we can actually respond.

It's not “the” solution, but it's one of the tools we can have in our tool kit. I'm just wondering if you know about this, based on your comments, and if you would advocate for that kind of approach.

[Rabbi Reuven Bulka]

What I see though, is that what you're spelling out doesn't seem to fit into the whole idea of rapid. I'm a big fan of having alert systems out there just because it's better than having nothing.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Great.

[Rabbi Reuven Bulka]

But on the other hand, I really think that if we're serious—I know we are serious—and if we're focused on really preventing this in the future, we have to have something that is robust, something that has teeth in it, that is more than just an alert system.

I don't know if this is something along the lines of the ambassador we have for religious persecution—

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

No. If I may say so, it's very different. It's coordination with other countries to do what you just said. But you're right—

[Rabbi Reuven Bulka]

Okay. I would be in favour of that for sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thanks.

Thanks, Mr. Dewar.

Mr. Anderson, go ahead for five minutes.