Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 18th, 2021

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you to the witnesses.

I'm just going to follow up on something that Ms. Whitman said. She talked a little bit about the very big risk of dollars and attention being diverted away from this very pressing crisis. I have the benefit, as the member from the fourth party, to ask the last question of everyone.

I would like to go through our three witnesses and just ask them about the call for one per cent. We know that many of the groups in Canada are calling for a 1% commitment to the COVID response.

Could you talk about what that would mean for your organizations, whether you would support it or anything else you would like to say as your last statement? I will start with UNICEF.

[Jaya Murthy]

Thanks.

We're in a situation where our humanitarian appeal has never been as large as it was last year and also this year. The biggest contribution that can be provided by all actors, all development partners, the Government of Canada and many other countries and foundations is really essential. Quite simply, we just cannot meet and address the crisis the way it needs to be addressed unless we're getting the critical support from all actors that is required.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

Ms. Whitman.

[Dr. Shelly Whitman]

Of course I would always emphasize that Canada can do more and emphasize the need for increased spending. For a long time our country has not given the full percentage that it should have given. It's challenging. I understand, because of the many things that we have to take care of at home, but we have a duty as Canadians to help out globally, and maybe there needs to be some effort by the Canadian government from a public-private partnership to increase that commitment.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

Mr. Matas, please.

[David Matas]

What I would say is that, even at the best of times, child sexual exploitation is difficult to mobilize public attention to because, obviously, the children can't speak for themselves, and the crime itself is not a visible crime. Where attention is diverted elsewhere because of COVID or because of poverty and so on, the problems, even though they're more acute, don't get the attention they deserve.

I guess my parting word would be not to forget these children.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you. That's a wonderful parting word to end on.

I want to thank all of you for joining us. This has been a very compelling and interesting panel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Yes, colleagues, on our collective behalf, I'd like to thank our witnesses from UNICEF, Beyond Borders ECPAT Canada, and the Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security for their time this afternoon, for their expertise, but most importantly for their service at the side of the most vulnerable around our planet.

Thank you so much for being with us. That brings us to an end.

I would ask the clerk to suspend so that we can get our second panel sound-checked.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Welcome back, colleagues.

For the benefit of our new panel of witnesses in the second panel, and to ensure an orderly meeting, I would encourage everybody to mute their microphones, please, unless they're speaking and to address comments through the chair.

When you have 30 seconds left in your speaking or questioning time I will signal you with this yellow piece of paper, so just keep your eye on the screen periodically, please.

Interpretation is available through the globe icon at the bottom of your screens.

I'd now like to welcome the second panel of witnesses.

We have Farida Deif, Director of Human Rights Watch Canada.

We also have, as individuals, lawyer Stéphane Handfield and producer Mathieu Paiement.

Lastly, we have Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Special Rapporteur at the Special Procedures Branch of the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner.

Ms. Deif, welcome once again to the committee. You have five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Farida Deif, Canada Director, Human Rights Watch Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairperson and honourable members of Parliament, for inviting me to address this committee.

I will focus my remarks on the situation in northeast Syria for three reasons: the scale of the humanitarian needs, compounded by this pandemic; the gravity of the human rights abuses experienced by children; and the opportunities for Canadian leadership to address these enormous challenges.

Roughly two million people live in northeast Syria in areas under the control of the Kurdish-led autonomous administration, the de facto government. Much of the population does not have sufficient access to health care, water, sanitation and shelter, and the region’s health care system has been severely damaged or destroyed by nearly 10 years of conflict.

While more than 60% of the population requires humanitarian aid, in January 2020 the UN Security Council ended its authorization that allowed UN aid supplies to enter northeast Syria from Iraq, leaving aid groups that depended heavily on this critical border crossing unable to meet the population’s needs. They are now dependent on the Syrian government's approval to deliver critical supplies, but Damascus continues to severely restrict aid reaching Kurdish-held areas and has repeatedly withheld vital food and medicine from political opponents and civilians.

Medical supplies and personnel needed to prevent, contain and treat COVID-19 are also restricted. As of January 9, there were officially over 8,000 COVID cases in northeast Syria, but experts warn that actual numbers are significantly higher. The UN Security Council’s failure to maintain a cross-border aid system also means there's no guaranteed channel for vaccine distribution in the future, with potentially catastrophic results.

These appalling conditions also exist in the locked desert camps of al-Hol and Roj that hold the family members of ISIS suspects who were displaced from territory previously held by the group. As elsewhere in northeast Syria, there are severe shortages of food, health care and access to clean water in these camps, home to over 64,000 Syrian, Iraqi and third-country nationals, mostly women and children. The detained foreigners include at least 46 Canadians: eight men, 13 women, and 25 children, most under the age of six.

In August 2020 alone, eight children died in al-Hol camp, primarily from malnutrition and severe dehydration They are among hundreds, many of them children, who have died of preventable diseases since March 2019.

Rampant illness, unsanitary conditions that include overflowing latrines and insufficient water, and overcrowding have left detainees in the camps especially vulnerable to COVID. These detainees, including the Canadians, have not been charged with any crime and have never even been brought before a judge. The innocent, such as the children who never chose to be born or live under ISIS, have no hope of leaving northeast Syria without this government’s intervention. The arbitrary detention of these children solely on the basis of their families’ suspected ties to ISIS amounts to guilt by association and collective punishment.

Last June, Human Rights Watch published a report on the plight of these Canadians, and we've actively advocated for this government to repatriate them. Despite our efforts and the Kurdish authorities' calls to repatriate, Canada has only brought home a single orphan, and has not even helped to verify the citizenship of the 20 or more children born in Syria to Canadian parents, leaving them without an officially recognized nationality.

It is astounding that while Canada this week launched a global declaration against arbitrary detention, the government continues to turn a blind eye to the plight of its own nationals in northeast Syria, including children, who are trapped in a war zone amid a deadly global pandemic. The government’s inaction stands in stark contrast to both the rapid evacuations in response to COVID of tens of thousands of Canadians and the actions of Canadian allies who managed to bring home their nationals from these same camps.

Describing her frustration with the government's response, one grandmother with three Canadian grandchildren detained in northeast Syria asked Human Rights Watch: “Do they just want them to die? That's what it seems like. ... These children, where are they going to get food, medicine, vitamins? ... You're not helping them survive, and you're not letting me help them.”

Thus far, the government has offered only excuses to justify the Prime Minister's unwillingness to spend political capital to bring this specific group of Canadians home. In doing so, Canada is flouting its international obligations to intervene when citizens abroad face serious abuses, including risks to life, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment. These breaches are especially egregious in the case of Canada’s obligations towards child citizens, including the obligation to ensure a child’s right to acquire a nationality.

In closing, we ask this committee to urge the government to take several concrete steps. Canada should engage with like-minded countries to press the UN Security Council to immediately re-authorize the cross-border mechanism to northeast Syria to enable aid to enter the region regularly.

This government should also increase humanitarian aid to northeast Syria, with the goal of ending dire and often life-threatening conditions and ensuring adequate health care, shelter, clean water, sanitation and education for children.

Finally, Canada should repatriate, as a matter of urgency, all Canadians detained in northeast Syria, giving priority to children, persons requiring medical assistance and other particularly vulnerable detainees. Children should be brought home with mothers or other adult guardians absent compelling evidence that separation is in the child’s best interest. Canada should act now to recognize the citizenship of all Canadian detainees in northeast Syria, including by issuing travel documents and coordinating safe passage to Canadian consulates and back to Canada.

Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Ms. Deif, for your opening remarks.

I now give the floor to Mr. Handfield and Mr. Paiement.

You have five minutes for your opening remarks. You can decide how to share your speaking time.

[Stéphane Handfield, Lawyer, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

What we' re going to discuss today is the vulnerability of Canadian children held as prisoners in refugee camps in northeast Syria.

In a June 2020 report, Human Rights Watch listed 26 confirmed cases of Canadian children held in the Al-Hol and Roj camps. Their only crime was to have been born of parents who had served in the armed group of the Islamic State .

In connection with the film being made about this deplorable situation, we sent a team of documentary filmmakers to Rojava, the Kurdish region of Syria. At the Al-Hol camp, the largest in the region, the team found that the authorities in charge had neither the financial nor human resources required to maintain minimal health standards. The camp is overpopulated and the refugees live in tents. They have no clean water, and just enough food to survive, with no access to basic medical care. Added to this are the conflicts that break out every day in this micro-society in distress. Living conditions in the camp are unhealthy and inhuman.

According to the Kurdish Red Crescent, in 2019, the year of our visit to Al-Hol, 517 people died, 371 of whom were children, mostly owing to illnesses. Under these circumstances, it' s not surprising to learn that the Kurdish authorities have been encouraging various countries to repatriate their nationals. The process is slow, and Canada has been dragging its feet in dealing with the situation.

Today, we would like to describe how COVID-19 has exacerbated the vulnerability of Canadian children detained in camps in northeast Syria.

When efforts began to combat the coronavirus, governments around the world adopted approximately the same health guidelines: physical distancing, frequent hand washing, and mask wearing, with a view to preventing western health systems from becoming overwhelmed. Al-Hol may well be the place in the world where it would be most unrealistic to apply these measures. How to enforce physical distancing in an overpopulated camp of 65,000 people crammed into an area of only 1.5 square kilometres? How to wash your hands regularly without running water or disinfectant? How to wear a mask when even basic clothing is not available? How not to overburden the health system when only five of the 24 small clinics at the camp are still operational?

While data may be very fragmentary, some of the most accurate numbers we have are for the health staff in the camps affected by COVID-19. They explain why many care centres in Al-Hol had to be closed, and are also indicative of the spread of the disease.

In August 2020, in a context where tests were not being carried out systematically, the Kurdish authorities reported a total of 54 people with COVID-19. At the same time, in a single week, seven children under five years of age died in the camp.

The situation is urgent, and other countries acknowledge it.

I'll turn things over to Mr. Paiement now.

[Mathieu Paiement, Producer, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Handfield.

I'd like to thank the committee for the invitation.

The situation is indeed urgent, and other countries acknowledge it.

For example, a motion was signed by the members of four parties in the United Kingdom acknowledging first of all that British nationals are prisoners in camps in northeast Syria. The motion further recognizes that these camps are a—

“particular breeding ground for covid-19”,

—including the fact that supporters of Islamic State doctrines have been spreading the idea that only infidels can catch the virus. As we know, people who are already ill are the most vulnerable.

Furthermore, the motion recognizes that refugees living in these camps are suffering from malnutrition. We were able to see it, feel it and film it. They are also suffering from war injuries and untreated illnesses like tuberculosis, jaundice and gastrointestinal diseases. Not only that, but the mortality rate in these camps was already hovering around 10%, and COVID-19 made the situation even worse.

The situation is disastrous even outside the camps, mainly because years of war have destroyed medical infrastructures, as Ms. Deif pointed out. Throughout Rojava, which is in fact Syrian Kurdistan, only two of 11 hospitals were still operational. Not only that, but there are just 40 ventilators available for a population of several million inhabitants. A modest estimate would be that the health system in the region could treat a maximum of 500 cases of COVID-19. To help you understand just how inadequate this is, I can say that in neighbouring Iraqi Kurdistan, which while it gathers more accurate statistics, still does no systematic testing, over 100,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 3,000 deaths have been recorded.

In this emergency context, Germany and Finland repatriated 23 children just before Christmas, and in early 2021, France went there to retrieve seven children on humanitarian and health grounds. At this rate, all the Canadian children being held as prisoners in camps in northeast Syria could have been repatriated in only a few weeks.

Canadian nationals, including 25 children, have been suffering in these camps for two years now. On the one hand, a unanimous motion in the Quebec National Assembly demanded their repatriation. On the other, a petition was submitted to the House by Mr. Handfield. The petition, signed by more than 900 Canadians, had the support of all the opposition parties.

COVID-19 Is now threatening the lives and health of these nationals who have been forgotten in camps in northeast Syria, and the Canadian government, it would appear, is still doing nothing.

It's important to recall today that in the weeks following the announcement of the pandemic, Canada repatriated or facilitated the return of some 40,000 Canadian citizens and permanent residents from 100 countries around the world, including 29 from Syria.

We therefore believe that it is now more urgent than ever to repatriate the children of Canadian citizens being held under inhuman conditions, and now threatened by the COVID-19 epidemic in these camps, as soon as possible.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Mr. Paiement.

Finally, we have Ms. Ní Aoláin for five minutes of opening remarks, please.

[Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Special Rapporteur, Special Procedures Branch, United Nations, Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner]

Good afternoon, Chairperson and honourable members of Parliament.

Before I start my remarks, I will just state the waiver that I'm required to make as a UN official before you. My attendance today before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development is in my capacity as special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. I'm here to provide an informal, unsworn oral briefing to the committee and nothing in my remarks should be understood as a waiver expressed or implied of the privileges and immunities of the United Nations, its officials or experts on mission, pursuant to the 1946 convention.

During my remarks I will express my personal views and position on the effects of COVID-19 on children , and the use of exceptional and emergency powers, and specifically on the obligations of states, including Canada, with respect to the arbitrary detention of children detained in the al-Hol and Roj camps.

At the very beginning of the pandemic, the mandate I hold issued an early warning with a number of other special procedures colleagues on the misuse of exceptional powers, counterterrorism, security and broader regulations in the context of COVID-19. We were particularly concerned that measures taken would fundamentally affect the rights of men, women, boys and girls. I underscore that any measures taken to respond to the pandemic must be, under international law necessary, proportionate and non-discriminatory, given their potentially negative effect.

In addition to that statement and that work, the mandate I hold, with two leading NGOs, has created a global tracker on the use of exceptional powers around the globe in the context of COVID-19. Here we've been addressing and observing the scope and range of exceptional powers that are being used across the world.

Now we're all on our computers, we're all obviously dealing with the effects of the pandemic, but it remains clear that if we wake up the day after the pandemic and the rule of law and the protections that we have spent decades building for human rights and the rule of law have disintegrated, much more than health will have been lost during this really challenging period.

I want to underscore that what we are seeing with negative effects on children in many places is that emergency powers and exceptional law have been used in many contexts to consolidate government power, securitize government responses and undermine democratic process. Moreover, we're seeing extensive and expansive infringement on individual rights, including children's rights, that undermine society's challenge to affect the underlying conditions that are creating vulnerabilities to COVID.

And more than that, I think we should all be aware that the changes implemented during the pandemic, like emergency and exceptional powers around the world, have a tendency to persist and become permanent.

In particular, I want to highlight the widespread use of data tracking, including the most sensitive data including in relation to children's biometric health data, in some contexts without any protections or sufficient protections on storage, use or transfer.

I'm also particularly concerned that we're seeing extensive use of counterterrorism practice as the means of addressing the pandemic in multiple national contexts. What that does, as other special procedures mandates have highlighted, is exacerbate discriminatory patterns of abuse by security services and agencies that primarily work in this arena that have little or no experience or relevant experience of working in a health context.

As we know, epidemiological evidence across a number of states reveals that COVID-19 is causing disproportionate deaths among racialized minorities and other historically vulnerable groups. Consider then the proposition that the tools of the surveillance state and the use of force capacity by states will be further mobilized against those communities that experience ongoing trust and harm deficits in relation to the security sector.

Let me now turn to the issue of the complex humanitarian situation and the particular challenges of protection in the context of COVID-19 for the most vulnerable in Syria, specifically northeast Syria. Last week my office, with 12 other mandate holders and two working groups of the United Nations Human Rights Council, issued a communication to 57 states, including Canada, urging them to repatriate women and children from the squalid camps in northeast Syria. We expressed serious concerns about the deteriorating humanitarian and security situation in al-Hol and Roj.

I have set out with my fellow special rapporteurs the dire humanitarian conditions in the camp and the need for a collective action response to a collective problem.

This is a list that no state should want to be on, and in that regard I include Canada. Thousands of people, including children, are exposed to violence, exploitation, abuse and deprivation in conditions that, in our view, meet the standard of torture and inhuman and degrading treatment under international law.

Let me also be clear that unless individuals are returned, the need for victims of terrorism to have a clear accountability for the harms they have experienced will not be met as there is absolutely zero prospect of a meaningful, fair trial in that part of the world.

Let me close by saying—and I'm happy to take questions—that the communication issued to the government highlighted a data collection exercise that was undertaken on camp nationals, including Canadian women and children last year. We are deeply concerned about that exercise and the evidence of the information that may have been gathered and its sharing with security services.

There is a solution, and we are seeing many states engage that solution by returning their nationals. Unfortunately Canada is not one of those countries, and I urge the government and this parliamentary committee to focus its immediate attention on the need to ensure that Canada is a leader in this area, not a state that sits on a list of shame in the failure to return its women and children home.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Special Rapporteur Ní Aoláin.

We will now go to round one, a six-minute round, and Mr. Morantz will lead us off, please, for six minutes.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm blown away by the testimony we've been hearing. It's certainly different from the line of communication we hear coming out of the mouths of government representatives.

Ms. Deif, you talked about the government turning a blind eye. I know Monsieur Handfield and Monsieur Paiement's written submission said that the Liberal government, for over a year and a half, has ignored obligations to Canadian citizens, including young children living in lifelong cruel conditions, but I think the comment that really hit me was when you said that people dealing with and suffering from these problems think we just want them to die. Do I have that right? Is that what you said?

[Farida Deif]

Yes.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

That's very troubling, and I really do appreciate your testimony here today.

We know that, as you mentioned, 25 Canadian children are trapped in Kurdish-run camps in northeast Syria. Can you elaborate a little on the conditions faced by these children, particularly in the context of the COVID crisis and the effect it's had?

[Farida Deif]

Prior to COVID, the situation was dire and life-threatening in these camps. There is lack of access to clean water, food, there's no education for the children, the health care system is very severely damaged, open latrines, unsanitary conditions, overcrowding, and tents that overheat in summer, and collapse with the weight of snow and rain in the winter. These are abysmal conditions that Canadians and others find themselves in al-Hol and Roj camps, and this was prior to COVID.

Now with COVID we're talking about a situation where you have a health care system in Syria that has been eroded over the past 10 years of conflict with no capacity to provide any kind of treatment for COVID, any type of medication. There's obviously the question and the issues around the aid corridor. Of course, we're talking about 8,000 official cases of COVID in the camps; certainly the number is far greater, but there's no real testing capacity or capability to ascertain the number.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

If you had to give the Canadian government a grade on how it was dealing with this problem, what would you give?

[Farida Deif]

I would give it a failing grade because there is no sense of urgency on the part of this government to repatriate its nationals. No task force has been established to address this issue. It's unclear whether the Prime Minister or the foreign affairs minister receives regular updates on the health and well-being of these Canadians. If you compare this consular case, including 25 children, to other consular cases like the two Michaels in China, for example, you'll see a huge discrepancy in the response by this government.

When I say it's a failing grade, it's because there's really been no urgency, no effort to even create a direct line of communication with Canadian detainees. In this case, you have the Kurdish authorities who want Canada and others to repatriate. They're not holding these officials outside Canada's will. They want the Canadians to repatriate, but Canada is failing to do so.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you, Ms. Deif.

With my limited time, I want to move on to Ms. Ní Aoláin.

I tried to catch most of what you were saying. Some of it I'm not completely familiar with, but I wonder if you could elaborate on what legal obligations countries like Canada have through the United Nations or tenets of international law that it may or may not be observing.

[Fionnuala Ní Aoláin]

We believe that legal obligation lies in a number of respects.

The first is under the counterterrorism resolutions of the Security Council, those two resolutions that address foreign fighter obligations of states, where it is really clear that the only international law-compliant response to the challenges posed by foreign fighters and their families or associated individuals is return. It's the only way that one will get prosecution, which is an obligation for serious crimes under international law if evidence exists to prosecute.

It's the only way in which victims of terrorism will actually see a process that will meet their needs. From the long-term strategic and security perspective, which the mandate regularly engages with security services around the world, there's also a clear sense that this is in the long-term security interest for states like Canada. Leaving these nationals in a place where they will fester, which will create the ideal breeding grounds for further violence, is not in anyone's long-term interest.

Under human rights, I would just say that under the treaty obligations in relation to torture and extrajudicial and arbitrary execution, there's a really clear and compelling positive obligation on Canada to prevent serious harm to its nationals, which it is in a position to prevent.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you.

My time is winding down, so I have the same question for you. What grade would you give the Canadian government in how they're dealing with the situation?