Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 18th, 2021

[Fionnuala Ní Aoláin]

The mandate doesn't do failing grades, but let me be clear: the 57 states on this list are on a list [Technical difficulty—Editor] This is a list no state wants to be on. This is a list that states should be actively seeking to get off. This is a list where states have a human rights-led foreign policy.... You shouldn't be on this list. You should be off this list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Morantz, thank you very much.

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

Mr. Chair, I'm sorry, but just on a point of order, Ms. Ní Aoláin's answer was cutting out on me. I don't know if you had that experience as well but I couldn't really hear everything she said.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

I think we caught most of it, but we can have her restate for the benefit of members.

[Fionnuala Ní Aoláin]

I said that special rapporteurs don't do grades, but this is a list that no state wants to be on. This is a list that states should be actively seeking to get off. This is a list that states that define themselves by having a human rights and gender-led foreign policy should be ashamed, frankly, to be on.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

The next six-minute round goes to Madam Sahota, please.

The floor is yours.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's nice to see that the Conservative members on this committee are all of a sudden feeling sympathetic to this issue, because it's not what I've been hearing in the House for years now about those related to ISIS fighters who have been brought home and how they shouldn't be brought home. The amount of sheer politics that has played with this issue is just shocking to me, so now it's interesting to see that there's been a change of heart. I hope that change of heart lasts and that we can work together on perhaps moving forward on this issue.

I am really interested in more explanation from you, Ms. Ní Aoláin. You talked about the counterterrorism measures that are being taken in some countries and how they're basically taking advantage of this pandemic in order to take on those counterterrorism measures. Can you elaborate on that and give more specifics as to what countries you've identified as engaging in this type of behaviour and what exactly they've been doing?

[Fionnuala Ní Aoláin]

I think there are three buckets of action I would stress for this committee.

The first is actually the passage of it, the rush to pass counterterrorism legislation during COVID, when Parliaments are limited and unable to meet, and when the kind of parliamentary scrutiny you need on that kind of legislation doesn't happen. I will offer two examples. Both of them are our friends, but the mandate is both in France and in the United Kingdom. We've also seen extensive counterterrorism legislation in Peru and in Turkey. We'd be happy to share the list of countries that have been passing such legislation.

The second is a more challenging problem, which is the use of counterterrorism legislation to regulate COVID, meaning that instead of using health provisions if needed, or health law, we are using the security apparatus of the state to do COVID-19 work. I'm going to use the example of Sri Lanka in that regard. The use of the Prevention of Terrorism Act in Sri Lanka is of deep concern. Again, we recognize that measures will need to be taken, but counterterrorism measures are not fit for purpose for a health pandemic, and we ought to be clear about that. What we see is rife opportunism in expanding security measures in states that have highly problematic human rights records, in the context of COVID.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I'd also like to know from the same witness what role you could play in your position when it comes to opening the passage to northern Syria. We've been hearing that the UN should be playing a role in this and promoting this.

What is it in your role that you can probably do to help effect change so that people in that area can get the supplies and aid that they need?

[Fionnuala Ní Aoláin]

Just to be clear, the resolution that has left one remaining open humanitarian path into Syria is up at the Security Council. That resolution will have to be renegotiated in Security Council. Actors, such as human rights actors, can only lobby for that emphasis and the need to keep that humanitarian passage open.

What we need are states like Canada standing up and speaking to their Security Council partners and saying that this matters to us. Humanitarian access into Syria is an issue for Canada. You want to put our political will behind that. As you know, this is a very complex political issue. It involves Russia, it involves Syria, it involves a number....

Just bear in mind that we used to have four humanitarian access points. We're now down to the last one, so, if that goes, the consequent disaster that will be seen in Syria will be in many ways unmanageable. Here we need a collective political will. We need the Security Council to understand that this issue matters for all states, particularly states that are committed to doing humanitarian action in Syria and ensuring the integrity and independence of that work.

This has to be an issue for the Canadian government. Special rapporteurs have much less capacity to influence than governments who make this a really key issue for themselves.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Absolutely. I think there's a large role for Canada to play when it comes to these humanitarian issues.

In terms of the conversations that the countries have been having that are on the Security Council, what have you been hearing as the response to this issue?

[Fionnuala Ní Aoláin]

I would say that one of the difficulties is that this resolution.... On the Security Council, everyone is busy all the time, and a resolution that is a couple of months out often looks less urgent than the situation in Myanmar today or whatever else happens tomorrow. My urgent message would be: Don't wait until five minutes to midnight on that resolution, meaning this is not the key issue on the council right now. This is going to be a very complex and challenging issue to negotiate.

States that have an interest in it need to start their work now and not wait until we're at five minutes to midnight. What I am hearing is that mostly we're waiting for five minutes to midnight to hit before we start getting to work on the really difficult political negotiation and strategizing that will be needed to ensure that access point is kept open.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you. I appreciate your testimony. I appreciate your honesty as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Ms. Sahota.

Mr. Bergeron, you now have the floor for six minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Once again, I'd like to thank the witnesses for sharing their relevant and insightful comments with our committee.

Mr. Paiement said that allowing Canadian nationals to remain in the northeast Syrian camps would have an impact on their health and their lives.

Ms. Ní Aoláin argued that the repercussions could be even more serious and possibly extend beyond issues pertaining to people's lives and health.

Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the acting Deputy Ambassador of the United States, told the United Nations Security Council that citizens should be repatriated because the threat from the Islamic State armed group was going to increase. He added that an estimated 90% of children in camps were under 12 years of age and 50% under five years old. This is certainly the case for most children detained in Syria.

The Canadian Press reported that: "... Human Rights Watch Canada say[s] the Trudeau government isn't living up to its new international campaign against arbitrary detention because it is abandoning 25 Canadian children trapped in northern Syria."

When we asked the former Minister of Foreign Affairs about it, he said that the lack of a presence there was making things more complicated. Surprisingly, many countries in the exact same situation as Canada's, meaning that they don't have a presence there, have managed to repatriate their young nationals.

What action were these countries able to take, and why haven't we done so yet?

[Fionnuala Ní Aoláin]

Is that question to me or to the other witnesses?

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

It is to anybody who wants to answer it.

[Fionnuala Ní Aoláin]

I am happy to start, because the mandate has been...and I am deeply involved with many of these returns. I was in Kazakhstan last year when they repatriated over 500 women and children. I have seen first-hand what states do in order to extract their nationals.

There are a couple of things to be clear about.

One, when Canada and other countries say they have an absence of representation, that does not mean they do not have the capacity to engage with these de facto authorities. I want to be clear that we are aware that many third-country national governments are in de facto conversation with the de facto authorities, whether that is publicly acknowledged or not, as are their security services.

Two, the SDF—as my colleague from Human Rights Watch indicated—have indicated their absolute willingness to co-operate to ensure all of the things that need to be done, whether it's DNA testing, identifying the individuals, whether it's making the practical preparations for their departure....

Three, there are countries that are prepared to help. The United States, for example, has been instrumental in many of the exits by enabling passage and transport.

There is no deficit here in terms of means to extract your nationals. Countries are doing that. Kazakhstan did it last week: seven nationals. The week before that, we had Finland extracting its nationals. This is not impossible. It is more challenging under COVID, but it is not impossible. It is political will that is missing here, not the means to extract these individuals.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Would you like to add anything, Mr. Handfield?

[Stéphane Handfield]

And it wasn't only governments who had access to the camps. The film crew for the documentary Les poussières de Daech Had access in 2019. Civilians were given access to Canadian women and children held in the camps. They also had access to Kurdish authorities, who have publicly said that if the Canadian authorities wanted to repatriate Canadian children, they would be welcomed with open arms.

After two years now, why has the Liberal government still not done anything to send a delegation to bring the Canadian children home?

[Mathieu Paiement]

If I may, I'd like to add that we sent a film crew there and went back again in 2020.

In fact, the policy of the Kurdish authorities is to work to repatriate people who are detained in the Al-Hol and Roj camps. They've complained that they have very little contact with Canadian authorities, though they are in contact with other countries. Indeed, as can be seen from their Twitter account, they have been announcing repatriations every week.

The Kurdish authorities have been complaining that communications have been cut off between the Canadian authorities and the autonomous Kurdish administration in northeast Syria.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I see that the chair is signalling that I only have 30 seconds left.

The federal government thought that it could make a big deal of repatriating only one person. Couldn't it have been possible to repatriate more than one?

[Mathieu Paiement]

Absolutely. There were in fact 25 children there. The government waited for evidence that the child was an orphan. The government actually repatriated only one orphan girl, as if only she, because she had no parental support, deserved to be repatriated. And yet, the situation in the camps is so serious that all the other children should have been repatriated at the same time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

The final six-minute round in this turn goes to Ms. McPherson.