Evidence of meeting #140 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was iranian.
A video is available from Parliament.
May 9th, 2019 / 10:15 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you very much for coming here.
Mr. Kowsar, I want to start with you. I think you raise a very important question that I don't think many people around the world understand, because we're more focused on the nuclear deal and its ramifications. For me personally, the water crisis is existential for Iran for a number of reasons.
Reason number one is that, if you look back over the last 40 years, the Iranian population has doubled from around 34 million to about 80 million, but 85% of the groundwater has been lost. That creates not only an internal domestic problem but an external problem also, because Iran's water resources are shared with 12 countries. You mentioned Iraq and Afghanistan.
For me, however, there are a couple of reasons for the internal crisis. Right now and even over the last few years, because of the conflict with the west, Iran has wanted to have food security, so they started being more careful with wheat for their food security. That, however, is a very water-intensive industry.
You can also appreciate the fact that Iran sells electricity to other neighbouring countries and that you have a decreased production of hydroelectricity.
You also have issues with the desalination they're now trying to do, which also requires natural gas to pump water up to higher altitudes, so that natural gas consumption is going down.
Not only do you have a water crisis, but you have an internal stabilization crisis too. You have 60% of the population under 25 and you have high rates of unemployment. You also mentioned high rates of homelessness. There's even talk—you mentioned it, and the head of your environmental agency in Iran has said it—that over the next 25 to 30 years there could be up to 50 million people leaving the country. That will have a devastating effect on neighbouring countries.
Why is this situation not being analyzed or focused upon not only externally but internally also?
10:15 a.m.
Iranian Canadian Environmentalist, As an Individual
I'm working on a documentary about the water crisis in Iran, but I travelled to Israel last month to study their achievements and experience. If you compare Iran and Israel in the last 70 years, Israel has turned from a yellow country to a green one and Iran has turned from a green country into a yellow country.
The water resources of the people of Iran have gone from, let's say, possibly 13,000 cubic metres per person to around 1,000 cubic metres per person because of bad agriculture and food production policies, and not just because of the sanctions. It started with the ideology of Ayatollah Khomeini. He wanted to confront every country in the world and believed that we can use whatever resources we have to have a bigger population.
Ayatollah Khomeini said a few years ago that the population needs to reach 150 million, while we don't have enough water resources for 50 million. You can see that Iran doesn't need external enemies when it has the regime actually destroying its natural resources.
I want to compare Israel and Iran. Many people in Israel understand the value of water, but still in Iran people in cities, who have enjoyed having very good tap water, do not understand what people in other parts of the country and rural areas are facing. There's a big gap between people in major cities and in rich neighbourhoods and the people in rural areas who have lost their farmlands because of the regime's policies and bad water management.
The sad story is that many revolutionaries who were involved in all these food production policies became very rich and are living in multimillion-dollar mansions, and their children, some of them, are living in Canada, and people are suffering inside the country. There's this big gap.
We are trying to raise awareness. We are trying to inform the public about what they could do, but it's still not enough. We really need the help of nations such as Canada, with a good environmental report card.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
If we look at what's happening right now, 17% of the population of Iran is tied to agriculture, and as the land is becoming more arid, they're moving towards the cities now, even Tehran. Twenty per cent of the water consumption in the country is simply in Tehran right now.
10:20 a.m.
Liberal
Raj Saini Liberal Kitchener Centre, ON
More importantly, it seems that the regime understands what is going on, because they are now arresting environmental activists. I think there were seven activists arrested from the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, so they understand, because now environmentalists are raising their voices and engineers are raising their voices saying this is not a geopolitical question but a “survival of our country” question.
I still fail to understand, when that is so apparent publicly, so apparent internationally—and domestically, for the regime's own survival in 20 to 30 years.... I know that part of it is corruption, too, because the regime has built dams when they're not necessary. They have taken contracts. I think Mr. Rouhani also diverted a river to his province for political purposes. What I don't understand is why, for their own survival, they are not focused on this, because I'm sure that people recognize that this is the question.
10:20 a.m.
Iranian Canadian Environmentalist, As an Individual
That's a great question.
I would add that many of them do not believe that the regime will survive for even 10 years. That's the reason I can see for their wiring and funnelling money out of the country. If they believed that they were going to survive, they wouldn't need to use money-laundering tools to send money out of the country. I think many of the Iranian leaders are not even sure of their own futures after the death of Ayatollah Khamenei.
10:20 a.m.
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Thank you.
I'll start with Mr. Kowsar.
I wanted to ask that question because I found it contradictory that a regime that wants to remain in power could be unaware of such an immediate danger. You're a geologist and you know about watersheds. I don't know anything about them. The issue is whether the situation can be reversed, through engineering or some other means. We know that part of the situation was caused by the establishment of multiple dams.
If there were ever a tendency to reverse these constructions or to eliminate some of them, could the situation be reversed so as to provide relief to the populations that need water, and could the agriculture be less intensive, for example?
10:20 a.m.
Iranian Canadian Environmentalist, As an Individual
Thank you for the question.
Absolutely. First of all, we have so many aquifers all around the country that we can use different techniques to manage flood water to recharge them. Based on the numbers, we can actually store more than 12 years of total rain of the country in aquifers. That would be enough not only for this generation but for generations to come. Iran has destroyed its aquifers, but still we have aquifers that we can manage.
That's one thing. Two, we need to use different techniques and experiences from various countries on how to manage water resources and produce food. We have to be sensitive to the water footprint, which we are not.
Also, there are different ways to actually reuse water. We don't reuse water that much in Iran. In Israel they reuse the water: 90% of the waste water is being treated. In Iran, it's very minimal. That could change. The other thing is that the consumption rate by the people has to change. We need to educate the public.
There are so many things hand in hand, but agriculture is the main part. It uses 90% of Iran's water resources. We need to actually evolve our agriculture and go back to many techniques that Iranians were using for centuries, using our very small water resources, but using them wisely.
10:20 a.m.
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
They were optimizing the available resources.
10:20 a.m.
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
I'll ask my other question. We know that a large part of the electricity produced is exported.
Was the intensive construction of these new dams primarily for export purposes, or did the dams meet a domestic need?
10:25 a.m.
Iranian Canadian Environmentalist, As an Individual
It's mostly for internal needs. A very small amount of the electricity is produced through hydroelectricity, through the dams. We mostly use thermal techniques to produce electricity. The minister of energy uses the excuse of creating clean energy, but we could have used solar panels or we could have use wind energy to produce electricity, and the regime is not investing in those two sectors.
10:25 a.m.
NDP
Guy Caron NDP Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Thank you, Mr. Kowsar.
Mr. Ratcliffe, as a husband and father of young children, I have a lot of trouble wrapping my mind around or starting to grasp what you may be going through right now.
When your spouse was arrested, in 2016 I believe, you initially said that the issue was a dispute between Great Britain and Iran and that she became a pawn in the game.
We've just recently seen Iran begin to change its demands. There's talk of a potential prisoner swap, which Iran hadn't previously considered. Of course, we know that both Great Britain and Canada don't approve of the prisoner swap.
Why do you think the demand has changed? If the demand was more economical and Iran was asking for some payments, why have we ended up with another type of demand?
10:25 a.m.
As an Individual
Thank you. It's a good question.
My sense of it is that they're not actually asking for something new. We were very surprised by the prisoner swap offer. The prisoner swap offer was made in the States and was specifically to an American audience, invoking Nazanin's name, but the prisoner on the other side was held by the States, effectively. It was then clarified that it was an offer for the U.S.
My reading of all of it is that it was in the end a way of getting American attention, and the president's attention specifically, to say, “Listen, we know that you are someone who likes to bring home Americans. We have some Americans and we're willing to do a deal. Don't send that aircraft carrier.” In layman's terms, that's what I think was going on.
What the foreign ministry spokesperson in Iran signalled afterwards was that they were still interested in other situations. As I said, Nazanin's second court case was reopened two days ago to signal that they're dissatisfied with something. You are absolutely right that U.K. policy is not to do prisoner swaps and not to endanger its citizens in that way. That would be true for many countries. One of the two-tier conversations we have with the British foreign office is to say, “There's an industry here that you need to find a way to challenge and to stop, and to stop for the long term. Then, there are also real families and real people that you need to find a way to bring home.”
You have to do both. I'm not saying it's an easy job, but you have to do both. It's not okay to just wait and pretend it's not happening, which in hard-nosed policy terms would make sense. You have to call out the Iranian regime and challenge them that it is not okay to use people as leverage.
In fairness to the current foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, that's what he's been doing, and he's been quite clear. He was very strong and critical of foreign minister Zarif's offer. We'll see how things move.
10:25 a.m.
NDP
10:25 a.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen.
It's clear that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard is a state-sponsored terrorist organization, as has been recognized by our House of Commons, and that the Iranian theocracy is not only a sponsor of terror but as we've heard from previous testimony, also a corrupt, religious, oligarchic state.
Mr. Ratcliffe, you talked about sanctions and used the phrase that we shouldn't use the “blunt tool” of collective punishment. It was something referenced earlier as well. You don't want to punish the very people who are suffering under oppression. You want targeted sanctions.
One of the legacies of the 42nd Parliament will be the passage of Magnitsky legislation, which specifically targets gross human rights abusers and corruption.
Your wife went through, as you referenced, a secret trial. It's clear, though, that the regime, in its tools of oppression, uses a whole judicial system—police, prosecutors, judges, jailers, torturers—and although some of it is secret, I'm sure that the names of many of those individuals are known. In previous testimony, Mr. Saeed Mortazavi was referred to as a particularly notoriously well-known individual.
Are you aware of an organization that compiles lists of those individuals who are engaged in that judicial process of terror and domestic oppression?
10:30 a.m.
As an Individual
Yes is the short answer. The Raoul Wallenberg Centre has produced a report with a list of names. I think some of those names are directly connected to Nazanin's case and the cases of others. For some of the names, I can't say hand on heart that they're directly connected to Nazanin's case.
My sense is that I would echo exactly what you said. I think the Magnitsky sanctions are very important, because they are so directly linked to clear abuses. There's a whole evidencing process to go through, making sure it's robust and fair. I'm not sure we've done it. I would want to say, ”Okay, that name and that name and that name”, but I think it's a really important tool.
I would echo absolutely that the judicial process seems to be an extension of the security services. The TV seems to be an extension of the security services. Our court process wasn't fair. It wasn't trying to be fair. It was trying to be very clearly punishing. They must have filmed the TV broadcast of Nazanin's arrest at the airport, where they film everyone's arrest. They're really just showing that they're scary. Everyone watching who goes to that airport knows that they could be taken as well. It wasn't actually aimed at proving her guilt or anything.
The only thing I would say is that in my experience you never get to see the most powerful people. The decision-makers are different from the figures who are put up. For instance, in our case Nazanin was tried by a judge called Judge Salavati. He's quite a famous judge and has done many of the cases of dual nationals and many of the other important cases. It was clear he was waiting for orders before he passed his verdict. It's not clear who gave him the orders.
I think it's absolutely imperative to focus the Magnitsky sanctions on those who are directly culpable. To be clear, it's not some sort of grand conspiracy against Iran; it is challenging individual abuse. That said, there will be a detective process to work out who is really making the decisions, because as others have said, there is a sort of arm's-length dynamic to the Iranian state whereby it will allow others to go and rebuild a life elsewhere.
10:30 a.m.
Liberal
Borys Wrzesnewskyj Liberal Etobicoke Centre, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Ratcliffe, perhaps I could ask you—and perhaps, Chair, through you, a previous witness, Ms. Ebadi, who was a judge previously in Iran and may have particular knowledge as well—whether there could be an undertaking to provide this committee with lists of those individuals who have been identified, for the public record of the committee and for consideration of recommending targeted Magnitsky sanctions against those individuals.
Thank you.
10:30 a.m.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Mr. Ratcliffe, that's a very moving story. I'm somewhat at a loss for words to say in response to it.
You mentioned that Boris Johnson made it worse. Can you explain that?
10:30 a.m.
As an Individual
You're getting me into political hot water here. It would have been on the televisions around the world, so you may be partly familiar with the story.
In short, the then foreign secretary came before the U.K. foreign affairs committee in the House of Commons and gave evidence on Iran. Among other things he was asked a question about Nazanin, to which he responded inaccurately, defending and saying that it's unfair that she's been in prison, because as far as he was aware, she was just training journalists. She wasn't. She was on holiday. It was picked up by the Iranian judiciary and announced as a justification: “This is why we've opened a second court case against her. Clearly, the foreign secretary has confirmed that she's guilty.”
Then it was on the Iranian state TV, and it was run day after day, and because he had got it wrong, because there was the potential of a second court case and it was going to add an extra sentence, it became a big, live issue in British domestic politics. I suddenly, for a brief period, became a very important person, so journalists were calling me the whole time and camping outside our front door to find out what was going on.
In reality, of course, they were playing a cynical game and were using his words to signal displeasure, because, as I said, there was this other issue running alongside.
It clearly would have been better if he had spoken better. We will see with the second court case whether it does get blamed in the courtroom.
