Foreign Affairs Committee on May 3rd, 2016

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Khalaf and Ms. Abdallah, thank you for your very touching and very moving testimonies. Congratulations on your work. I will echo my colleague Marc Miller's comments and say that you are helping to make Canada a better country.

I'm going to speak in a somewhat partisan manner. It's essential to welcome refugees to Canada. It's very important. Humanitarian aid is also essential. We can't shut our eyes to disasters. Each of you mentioned in your own way that rebuilding was also very important.

I was interested in what you said about convening women and trying, across the board, to share experiences from other countries. I've seen some things like that, which were often very useful.

I have a question for you, Madame Naraghi-Anderlini.

Some people say—and you can chime in, of course, too—that it is time to have some kind of reconciliation process in Iraq among the various communities. If so, I presume that would have to be a process where women are significantly involved.

I'm going to put my question very crudely. Is it a dream, or can it be done?

[Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini]

To be honest with you, I would defer to my Iraqi colleagues, because I think it's important to be talking to them.

Having said that, I can tell you about women on the ground—for example, the Iraqi Women Network. They're women's rights activists cutting across all the different ethnic, religious, and geographic lines in Iraq. They have continued to work for a long time together. I think if there's going to be something akin to a reconciliation or a vision of Iraq moving forward, then women have to be front and centre in that process, because they've continued working together despite all the differences. They were always the first to warn us about the sectarianism that was being integrated into their constitution by the Americans after the occupation. They've always been the ones to counter, and to try to bring about the more pluralistic social cohesion in their societies, and yet they receive the least amount of support all the time.

I don't want to answer whether it's possible today or tomorrow, but I can tell you that we know people who are active in this agenda. By all means, bring them to the table and see what they can say.

I would also say the same thing for Syrians. My Syrian partners for the last four years have said to us, “Why is the world helping us kill each other, not helping us talk to each other?” Just imagine the money and resources we've put into weapons and destruction—all of us, all of our governments—instead of helping them talk.

That would be my answer.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Indeed your comment is “yes”.

Madam Abdallah and Madam Khalaf, do you think a process of reconciliation is possible right now in Iraq?

[Dalal Abdallah]

Of course. I mean, I had a dream as a little girl, and look where I am. Look where I am and look who I'm standing in front of. Dreams do come true to reality. You can make anything happen.

We are Canadians, and we love helping people. We can make everything and anything happen. We just have to put in some hard work. Nothing is easy. With hard work, there will be beautiful things happening.

[Gulie Khalaf]

Yazidis agree with the idea of involving women in the process of recovering from this massacre. That's why under the supervision of Haider Shasho, a Yazidi senior commander, 300 Yazidi women have enrolled in and are doing military training to help protect their people. Another Yazidi unit has in it at least 200 Yazidi women who are being trained.

However, Yazidis do need help from Canada and the international community. As a minority group—some days labelled Kurds, other times Arabs—they come from an area that is disputed. In the past, both Kurdistan and Iraq have neglected the Yazidis region and have discriminated against them. Yazidis have realized that in order for them to move forward, they have to make sure they take their fate into their own hands. That means they need a region that has international protection, but they themselves, looking at the future, need to be in charge of protecting their region.

That's why Yazidi men and women have taken up military training. However, they need help. They need help with receiving some weapons and also getting military training.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thank you.

Mr. Fragiskatos.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I have a couple of questions for the entire group.

With regard to sanctions and the impact they have on women, in 2012 I was interested to read a report, Sanam, focusing on Iran and the impact of sanctions on Iran. Could you talk about that and the impact sanctions had specifically on women?

For Dalal and Gulie, humanitarian aid has come up in the conversation today with regard to Yazidis. Could you talk a little bit more about humanitarian aid, and the type of humanitarian aid that you think Yazidi communities in Iraq need?

As well, Gulie, you actually articulated very well the importance of training local forces. Canada has focused on this in its foreign policy since the new government has taken over. We're placing an importance on that. Could you go into that a little bit and on whether you see merit in that kind of approach?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

As you noticed, there are three questions, so let's start with the first one, please, on sanctions.

[Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini]

I hope it was our report “Killing Them Softly”, which I can produce. I don't know whether there were other reports, but we produced the first report on the impact of sanctions. I have to tell you, I am Iranian by background myself. Now I have lived in Britain and America. One of the things we found is that the impact on ordinary people, civilians, is extraordinary. We found this now across the board: in Syria; in Gaza, regarding the embargo; and of course, in Iraq, over the many years they had the sanctions. I will just give you a few things.

When you have sanctions, the state and the entities that are close to the state somehow get away with it. In Iran, what has happened, basically—since 1994, when the oil and gas sanctions were imposed, and then subsequently in 2000, 2010, and so forth—is that the independent private sector was squeezed, companies were shut down, people lost their jobs, and all of those sectors ended up in the hands of government-affiliated entities, the revolutionary guard and others. Number one, we are destroying the middle class and the independent sector. Number two, what you find is that, as people lose their jobs, often poverty comes out, so women who were active in civil society, in social movements, can no longer do voluntary work because the inflation is sky-high and they need to go and find work. The space for civil social activism diminishes as well.

Then, in the experiences from Iraq, we also found that as the poverty increases—and the poor are the most affected, by the way; we are seeing the same thing in Iraq, Syria, all these places—a lot of times what happens is that families, by traditional cultural norms or whatever, end up marrying off their daughters as a way of hoping to provide protection for them but also to reduce the number of mouths they have to feed.

In the case of Iraq, what we documented with our Iraqi partners was that thousands of girls were married off under traditional marriages that were not registered, and it was against the civic law at the time. They were married by local mullahs and imams to much older men. The marriage wasn't registered. Since the marriage wasn't registered, when they had children, the children couldn't be registered. The men left these young girls after a while. Now you have thousands of undocumented Iraqi boys and girls. When they don't have birth certificates, by the way, they can't go to school either. They are undocumented. They are kind of invisible in society, and guess where they are going to go. They are going to be recruited for terrorism, for trafficking. They are going to be the most vulnerable sectors of their society. This has been tracked back to the impact of sanctions, because sanctions always affect the most vulnerable people.

What we found with the work in Iran was that the human rights activists, the women's rights activists, our entire social sector, which itself was critical of the government, was also critical of the sanctions. If we believe that we want to help local populations, then we need to listen to them. The notion that sanctions will create an environment where people are so angry with the state that they will revolt is completely false. Those who said it in the context of Iran completely misunderstood the environment, the public mood, and the public mentality.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Sorry to cut you off, but you would agree, therefore, that Canada's new approach when it comes to engaging with Iran is a positive thing.

[Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini]

Yes, absolutely. I think engagement is the way to go. I also think that this is an opportunity, as you engage—if companies are going in to establish a business there—to go in with strong social policies around equal pay, child care for women who work, things like that. If you are going to have women working for you, make sure there is transport, and so forth. Basically, it's about setting a high standard of practice around equal opportunities to work in those contexts. It is a very well-educated population, and women are extremely well educated. They are over 60% of the university population. There is no reason why you shouldn't have women in the workplace. If companies are going in, or if you are making contracts with Iranian companies, to set some of these standards as norms would also be extremely helpful.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

I have a question was on humanitarian aid. It's come up in the comments on challenges facing Yazidi communities in Iraq.

Could you focus a little more on that, the types of humanitarian aid you're looking for, and whether or not you think a training focus in Canadian foreign policy in northern Iraq is appropriate and would help?

[Gulie Khalaf]

First, I went to Iraq in November 2014 and had a chance to visit different camps and compare the situation there.

Before I go on to what I witnessed I want to let you know that just like Dalal, I was a refugee. I lived in camps in Syria after the Gulf War, so I have experienced life in camps.

But once I went into Iraq I could not help but weep at what I found. It was nothing like the camp I was in. It was heartbreaking seeing 14 people having to work and live inside two camps. Sisters and brothers, one of them was 27 years old and the other was 14 and the whole family had to fit into two tiny camps. They had two little mattresses and both of them would get extremely cold at night, extremely hot in summer, but there was nothing to help them relieve that condition.

I took pictures of food and I would be happy to send them. A family of 14 would receive a stack of rice, flour, and sugar and that was it for a month.

I went to another camp. They said they'd been here for three months and had not received anything.

Other people have commented that due to corruption not much humanitarian aid is getting to the right people, those who are definitely in need. To hold people accountable there needs to be a system in place to check into where that humanitarian aid is going .

I work with a non-profit organization and we are constantly in touch with people in Iraq and asking them what kind of help they are most in need of. Some of the things they need are basic food, basic items, but also medical attention. Because of the conditions they're living in, because of the summer heat, different issues are coming up,so they definitely need medical help.

In addition to that there are remote areas like Mount Sinjar. Because of some discrimination, because of the choice of their not wanting to work with certain political parties, the local forces there make it difficult for different non-profit organizations to go into that region and provide them with the help they need.

If the conditions that Yazidis have been living in for the past two years were okay, many of the thousands of Yazidis would not be taking the fifty-fifty chance of crossing the dangerous seas to try to get to Europe. I cannot give an exact number but there have been many cases in the past year of people drowning in hopes of crossing into Europe for a better life.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

That will wrap up our opportunity to speak to our three witnesses.

I understand, Dalal, you have a presentation that you want us to have.

[Dalal Abdallah]

Of course.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

There it is. Thank you. I want to make sure everybody has a copy.

On behalf of the committee I want to thank all of you. This is a very important part of the discussion. As you know there has been discussion in Parliament in a variety of forms about our engagement with Iraq and whether it's appropriate or not. Part of that is the whole issue of humanitarian aid, whether it's getting to people who need it the most; whether we're having the ability, as has been discussed, to do some training, militarily speaking, or through our own forces on the ground. All those things are important subjects that we touched on today, so I want to thank you very much for that.

As we always mention to witnesses, we have a short time together. If there are other issues you want to bring to our attention, please feel free to put them in writing and send them to us.

On behalf of the committee I want to thank all three of you for being here today. It was very informative.

[Dalal Abdallah]

Thank you.

[Gulie Khalaf]

Thank you.

[Sanam Naraghi-Anderlini]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Colleagues, we will now go to other orders of business. We'll take a five-minute break since Mr. Miller is moving there, and he was supposed to make presentation of a motion.

I have asked Elizabeth May to make a small presentation to us about a motion we will be reviewing. I'm going to get Marc to start off by putting the notice of motion on the table. Then we will go to allowing Ms. May to make her presentation, we'll have a discussion, and we'll then go to the vote.

With that, Marc, I want to turn the floor over to you. Then we will get into the discussion and allow Ms. May to make her presentation.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

Should I read it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Yes. I think you should read the whole thing for the record.

[Marc Miller, Liberal, Ville-Marie—Le Sud-Ouest—Île-des-Soeurs, QC]

Good afternoon, everyone.

I move the following motion:

That, in relation to Orders of Reference from the House respecting Bills,

(a) the Clerk of the Committee shall, upon the Committee receiving such an Order of Reference, write to each Member who is not a member of a caucus represented on the Committee to invite those Members to file with the Clerk of the Committee, in both official languages, any amendments to the Bill, which is the subject of said Order, which they would suggest that the Committee consider;

(b) suggested amendments filed, pursuant to paragraph (a), at least 48 hours prior to the start of clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill to which the amendments relate shall be deemed to be proposed during the said consideration, provided that the Committee may, by motion, vary this deadline in respect of a given Bill; and

(c) during the clause-by-clause consideration of a Bill, the Chair shall allow a Member who filed suggested amendments, pursuant to paragraph (a), an opportunity to make brief representations in support of them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bob Nault]

Thanks, Marc.

Colleagues, you heard the motion. I'll need your unanimous consent to allow our colleague to make some comments, which I strongly recommend you do. I will be asking for consent to allow Ms. May to make a presentation.

Is everyone okay with that?

Go ahead, Elizabeth.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Some of you around this table may be wondering why you're bringing this motion in. What's its purpose? If you're imagining for a moment its purpose is to give members of Parliament such as myself belonging to parties of fewer than 12 MPs in the House greater access and greater rights, I'm here to make sure you understand that is not the purpose of this motion. The purpose of this motion is to take away the rights that smaller party members have or independent MPs have under our current rules, under O'Brien and Bosc rules of parliamentary procedure. I have the right, until you pass this motion, to bring forward substantive amendments at report stage, which gives the House as a whole the opportunity to consider an amendment brought forward by a member who is not part of a larger party.

Given that members of parties with fewer than 12 MPs are not allowed to sit on committee, this—I think it's really parliamentary chicanery—was invented by the last majority in Parliament to deprive particularly me of rights to bring forward amendments at report stage. What it does is create something that I would regard as a fake opportunity to present amendments because I can only provide, as the motion says, brief representations. I can't move the motion. I can't vote on the motion. What I specifically will not be able to do once this passes is present a substantive amendment to any bill from this committee at report stage. Since every committee is being asked to pass an identical motion, this will effectively deprive me of any abilities to present substantive motions and amendments to any bill at report stage.

I've lived with with this since it was first passed in the previous Parliament in the fall of 2013. It is very difficult on a very personal basis. It is impossible to get to two clause-by-clause meetings that are happening at the same time. I've prepared amendments and run to a committee in the last Parliament only to find that they had finished clause-by-clause because I was at clause-by-clause in a different committee and can't be in two places at once.

I know that you've been told to vote for this, but I thought I would try to see whether or not the words of the mandate letters that went to the government House leader are meaningful at all. These said that we're going to respect other parties, opposition members of Parliament are going to be respected, that there will be a spirit of generosity, and that there will be a willingness to let members of committees vote independently of being told how to vote by their party higher-ups.

That's what's at stake here, and I'd be very grateful if this motion did not pass.