Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 26th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

My fellow colleagues, I call the eighth meeting of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development to order.

Pursuant to the order of reference of October 22, the committee will resume the study of vulnerabilities created and exacerbated by COVID-19 in crisis- and conflict-affected areas.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would encourage all participants to mute their microphones when they are not speaking and to address comments through the chair.

When you have 30 seconds left in your questioning or speaking time, I will signal you with this yellow piece of paper.

Interpretation services are available through the globe icon at the bottom of your screen.

I want to welcome our first panel of witnesses.

We're joined by Gillian Triggs, assistant high commissioner for protection at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; and Peggy Hicks, director of thematic engagement, special procedures and right to development division at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Ms. Triggs, I will ask you to open today's discussion with five minutes of prepared remarks.

Please go ahead. The floor is yours.

[Gillian Triggs, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you to all members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development for this opportunity to speak to you about the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the over 80 million who are within the mandate of the United Nations Refugee Agency.

These 80 million include 26 million asylum seekers and refugees and 47 million people displaced in their own countries. Perhaps the most powerful illustration of the impact of COVID-19 on people of concern to UNHCR is demonstrated by the fact that this year the agency has had the lowest number of resettlements in 20 years—a historic low—with as many as 20,000 departures this year, barely a third of the usual resettlement numbers.

To begin, I'd like to thank Canada for the recent announcement of an increase of 4,300 places for resettlement and for private sponsorship over the next couple of years, and also for Canada's support for COVID responses with very generous additional funding for humanitarian and development work, with a special focus, as we will see in a moment, particularly and importantly on women and girls.

UNHCR very much appreciates Canada's leadership throughout the pandemic, being one of the first countries to restart resettlement departures after the temporary suspension of the program under the influence of COVID. Canada also, importantly, employed technology such as remote interviews—and of course we're doing this now—for settlement cases to ensure continuity of the program.

Canada has also pioneered labour mobility to refugees as a complementary or regular pathway to settlement. Canada supported education pathways through a sponsorship model, and in a very significant initiative has developed the global refugee sponsorship initiative.

This is by way of saying that the continued leadership of Canada in this time of COVID is vital.

The impact of COVID on the lives of so many refugees and displaced people has been a pandemic exacerbating and compounding long and pre-existing crises, being a protection crisis that in its magnitude and probable lasting effect reflects the root causes of global movements throughout the world. People flee violence and persecution from international and intercommunal conflict, poverty, inequality and gender discrimination, environmental degradation and climate change. The numbers are now unprecedented and rising fast.

When so many vulnerable people are disproportionately affected by COVID, you might reasonably ask why we should focus on refugees and other displaced people when nations are rightly concerned to protect their own citizens and residents. An answer lies in the fact that displaced people are especially vulnerable and are the most at risk in the communities where they find protection. They rely on the informal economy. Without legal status, refugees are the first to lose their jobs, to suffer eviction and to become homeless.

Since the start of the pandemic, UNHCR has received consistently alarming reports of sharp increases in gender-based violence, trafficking, sexual exploitation, child pregnancies and marriages, xenophobia and stigmatization.

Eighty per cent of the world's refugees are hosted by poor and developing countries where health systems are rapidly becoming overwhelmed and people live in crowded and unsanitary conditions. Older people and those with disabilities are less able to get medical services in lockdowns, and displaced children are more likely not to return to schools once they reopen, especially girls, setting back advances hard won over recent years.

In addition to the social and economic impacts of COVID, we've seen that at the height of the pandemic 168 countries closed their borders—nearly 90 making no exception for asylum seekers, risking refoulement to danger. We've also seen push-backs of boats carrying asylum seekers with denial of rescues at sea or of disembarkation of those who have been rescued.

UNHCR has been clear in saying that a nation has a responsibility both to protect the health of its citizens and to protect asylum seekers. One does not exclude the other.

I'll conclude by saying that a solution lies in the global compact on refugees to build back better, as the Secretary-General has proposed. The compact makes a very simple principle—equitable sharing of the responsibility of displaced and stateless people. May I suggest, Mr. Chair, that it provides a road map for the future, one that, in this globalized world, we understand we must act together on, and we applaud Canada's efforts as a leader in its humanitarian responses.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

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

I'll now turn the floor over to you, Ms. Hicks, for five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Peggy Hicks, Director of Thematic Engagement, Special Procedures and Right to Development Division, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you so much for the invitation to speak on this important topic.

COVID-19 has acted as a stress test for our societies. It draws into sharp contrast the weaknesses that we know are there but that might not always be visible or that at least might be only at the periphery of our vision. Nowhere are those vulnerabilities more pronounced and the consequences more severe than in fragile and conflict- or crisis-affected societies.

The pandemic has resulted in a massive and multi-faceted human rights crisis. It would, in fact, be easier to name the rights that have not been significantly affected than it would be to name those that have, so profound are the consequences. Globally, we see an enormous surge in gender-based violence, nearly a doubling of the millions of people globally suffering from acute hunger, and disturbing impacts across the entire range of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

All of these impacts are further amplified in contexts of fragility, conflict, and emergencies, where social cohesion is already undermined and governmental institutions are weakened and sometimes dysfunctional. Indeed, we see that in many contexts, chronic underspending on health, water and sanitation, housing, and social protection has created immense vulnerabilities. Those gaps are all the more apparent and deep in conflict and crisis settings.

Let me focus more intensively on five areas in which the human rights consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are particularly disturbing.

First, there is the impact of COVID-19 on already vulnerable people, as Ms. Triggs has already emphasized. Older persons, people with disabilities, migrants, and children already bear enormous and disproportionate impacts in crisis and conflict. COVID-19 has amplified those effects, acting like a cruel version of a heat-seeking device that targets those most in need already.

Second, there are the consequences of fault lines within our societies, based on race, ethnicity, or minority status. In different ways in different locations, time and time again, we see that marginalized groups are triply harmed, facing greater exposure to the virus due to their jobs and living situations, facing more severe outcomes of the disease itself, and struggling more significantly to respond to the impact of COVID-19 on their livelihoods and lives.

Third, there are devastating effects of the pandemic on women. The manifold harms women are suffering during the pandemic are being felt from the richest to the most conflict-affected countries. We have seen tens of millions of additional cases of violence, a ratcheting up of already disproportionate burdens for child-rearing and household work, a larger share of women leaving the workforce, and women at greater risk due to their prevalence in health and service jobs.

Fourth, there is the impact of a lack of access to adequate water and sanitation and adequate housing. In March, as campaigns grew across the globe telling us all to wash our hands and stay at home, the reality remained that more than two billion of the world's population are homeless or have grossly inadequate housing, and a similar number lack access to water and sanitation. Of course, those gaps are felt most particularly in conflict- and crisis-affected areas.

Fifth and finally, there are the outsized effects of the digital divide. About half of the world's population has no access to the Internet. That digital gap, which is more profound for women and older persons, has always been a significant obstacle to development. Since the pandemic, we've seen how crucial digital access can be to education and health, and the life-threatening and altering impact of lack of connectivity. We also know that in situations of tension or crisis, even more people suffer through deliberate restrictions on access to the Internet, including shutdowns.

Not only are these impacts more severe in fragile and conflict-affected countries, but they themselves serve to fuel conflict and social unrest and to create greater obstacles to stability and peace. It is a vicious circle in which violence and instability aggravate COVID-19 impacts, and inversely the pandemic feeds conflict, violence and instability.

In light of those facts, the path forward today should be clear. This is a moment when support to countries in crisis or conflict has never been more important. The impact of the economic downturn in the developed world no doubt makes that commitment more challenging, but failing to meet this challenge will certainly be the more costly choice, both in lives and in resources.

Just as the pandemic has been fuelled by gaps in social protection, health, housing and sanitation, conflicts are fuelled by failures to address the root causes of violence, insecurity and conflict, including human rights violations and inequalities. The conflicts we face, in many if not most cases, are preceded by decades of human rights violations and built-up grievances, often documented by human rights mechanisms but not sufficiently taken up by concerned states or by regional or international organizations.

We speak a great deal about early warning, but the real shortcoming has been our inability to truly invest the resources and political capital needed before situations reach a breaking point. It is not warning, but more effective early action that we need.

The pandemic has provided a road map for building greater resilience to both pandemics and conflict. We build back better by investing in human rights.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you very much, Ms. Hicks.

We will now go into our first round of questions. These are six-minute time slots, the first of which goes to Mr. Genuis.

The floor is yours.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Ms. Triggs and Ms. Hicks, for your testimony, but more importantly for the important work that you do.

I am particularly concerned about the impact of COVID-19 on people facing arbitrary mass detention, the impact that the virus could have in those circumstances, especially, as we've talked about before at this committee, the Uighur Muslim community and what they're facing in China.

My first round of questions will focus on Ms. Hicks and on that particular issue.

Ms. Hicks, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations has proposed a UN investigation into whether or not the treatment of Uighurs constitutes genocide. In your view, are the acts being committed against Uighurs by the Chinese government constitutive of genocide?

Second, is the forcible confinement of people in close quarters, in concentration camps, during a pandemic, without the ability to socially distance and without proper access to health care...? Would that confinement and the associated circumstances be constitutive of genocide or of other definable international crimes?

[Peggy Hicks]

Thank you very much for your question, a very relevant and important one in the current circumstances.

Our office has done extensive work on looking at the issues of mass detention and incarceration during the pandemic, and in fact issued human rights guidance on some of the critical steps that should be taken to avoid the most severe consequences. The high commissioner herself has strongly urged for early releases in a broad range of cases in which continued detention was unnecessary.

We have also emphasized that now more than ever, it is a moment where all those who are arbitrarily detained in violation of international human rights law should be released, because they now face obviously not only the risk of the loss of their liberty but the risk of loss of life, given, as you've commented, the extent to which the pandemic has an even more devastating effect within prison and detention facilities.

You've asked specific questions about our work relating to China and the Uighur community. I'm sorry, sir, but that's beyond my brief within our office and isn't within the remarks that I'm able to make to the committee today. However, I'm sure our office would be happy to submit further statements in response to the questions, if that would be helpful.

Thank you.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you very much for that response. One of the things we do here often is that we ask for written follow-up, so could you, through your office, provide written follow-up to the committee about the specific questions around genocide and whether mass detention under the conditions of the pandemic could be seen as constitutive of genocide?

I have a follow-up question—and feel free to let me know if it doesn't fit within your brief, but I'd be curious to know. Our Canadian ambassador has called on the UN Human Rights Council to investigate China's behaviour in this respect. Unfortunately, China is actually a member of the Human Rights Council, as are Pakistan, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Russia.

I know, Ms. Triggs, that in your previous work for Human Rights Watch you had made some comments about the Human Rights Council and its capacity to investigate human rights abuses in light of the presence of states with very poor human rights records on it. I wonder if you could speak to the role of the Human Rights Council. Is it capable of conducting a proper investigation in the case of the Uighurs, and then more broadly, what role is it able to play or not able to play in light of the current circumstances?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Genuis, just before we go to Ms. Hicks, we have a request from our interpretation service.

Ms. Hicks, would you just continue to keep your mike as elevated as possible? I have hit the pause button, but I will now turn the floor back to you.

Thank you so much.

[Peggy Hicks]

Thank you, and apologies for that.

Thank you, sir. Yes, I'm happy to speak a bit on the role of the Human Rights Council in addressing a crisis such as that which you've described. The Human Rights Council does...and has been effective in putting in place mandates relating to investigation in a number of situations that were not favoured by the states that were going to be investigated.

It certainly is within the remit of the council and the potential of the council to be able to put in place a mechanism such as that. I'd refer you, for example, to the Syria commission of inquiry, which has been in place for seven years now, despite the objections of the Syrian government and others. Those resolutions are voted on, typically, but it is the case that there have been a number of mechanisms of that sort, and they do very important work in investigating and exposing rights abuses throughout the globe.

The council has 47 members, so it is not within the power of any one member to be able to block that type of action if there is a majority vote.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Perhaps I could just quickly sharpen that question. It's one thing with Syria, which doesn't have a lot of friends around the world; it's another thing with China, which has a concerted neocolonial program to influence other states and influence the direction of international human rights deliberations.

Are China's efforts to control deliberations, not just of the Human Rights Council but in human rights bodies in general, hampering the UN's ability to respond to human rights crises around the world?

[Peggy Hicks]

What I can speak to is what I see in my own experience, and that is that my office does not feel we are hampered in that way. We are able to pursue our mandate to the full extent of the mandate. We speak out on crises across the world. We speak out on China as we do on other countries when we see the need to do so.

As I said, it is not the area in which I specifically work, but the high commissioner is and has been discussing the possibility of an investigation and mission to China. We can submit further information on the status of those discussions with the Chinese government and would obviously appreciate support in having that type of work go forward in the future.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you very much.

I would quickly say that we welcome that follow-up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you for that.

The next round goes to Dr. Fry for six minutes, please.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Good morning, and thank you for coming to this meeting. I'm in beautiful, sunny Vancouver, so it's just noon for me.

The idea that there are 80 million refugees or people who are displaced around the world was a cause of concern before COVID began. COVID has now exposed all of the vulnerability. You're absolutely right, and everything you said is of great concern to us.

Thank you for congratulating Canada. I am pleased with the work we are doing, but the point is that we still have the real problems. Putting out money, helping to get people food security, helping to give them housing, helping with education, all of these are essential things. However, we have, for instance, in the OSCE region, which is the second-largest region outside of the United Nations, countries that have closed their borders to persons who are stateless and who are displaced. There is nowhere for everyone to go.

We know that today countries are using COVID-19 to actually deny sexual and reproductive health and rights to women around the world. We understand everything you say; we've heard it from everyone else.

My question is simply this. Other than giving emergency funding, which Canada is pleased to do, what are the really practical actions that we can take to move forward to sustainability? This is not our last pandemic. Pandemics are going to come and go. How do we look at building sustainable infrastructure in these countries—health care systems, food security systems? How do we deal with this so that we don't have to each time treat every new pandemic or every new issue as an emergency? There are more people displaced today than in World War I, World War II, Vietnam and the other conflicts put together.

I would like to ask both of you to answer, and I will let the chair decide who goes first because that's his prerogative. What are the really sustainable, permanent things we can do so countries can be self-sufficient, so people do not have to leave? Of course, I could ask you what to do about conflict, but I think that's eluding everyone right now.

Could you please answer? Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Dr. Fry.

We'll let Ms. Triggs and Ms. Hicks answer in the sequence of opening remarks. That's probably the easiest.

[Gillian Triggs]

Thank you very much for the question. I think it's one that people across the world are asking, as we see conflicts continue, new ones emerge, and old ones seemingly irresolvable. Although we are in peace discussions in relation to Afghanistan, it's been going on for 40 years. The Syrian conflict is in the 10th year. We've had countries like Turkey hosting four million refugees, generously, for many years. Some are very long-term.

In answer to your question, I would go back to the reason for the refugee convention, which was six years after the Second World War, in 1951. At that time, the convention was dealing with about two million displaced people. It was thought that the refugee convention would essentially solve the problem, that it would find resettlement and a home for those two million.

Here we are, 70 years later, with much to celebrate in terms of those core constants of the refugee convention, but dealing with 80 million and, frankly, rising as we speak.

The question, of course, must be the one you're asking: What are sustainable solutions, rather than temporary ones, which are ones of allowing access to claim asylum and denying, of course, any form of refoulement to danger?

The answer, we think, lies in sharing responsibility, which is what the Global Compact on Refugees is designed to achieve—a shared, equitable responsibility for assisting those host countries that are taking the burden. In fact, 80% of refugees and displaced people are in developing or very poor countries, so the burden is disproportionately faced, particularly at the moment in Africa, where huge numbers of people are subject to the generosity of hosting countries in the near area.

What are the solutions? “Sharing” is a big word, but what does it actually mean? We're looking now for financial support, but also for investment. UNHCR is an emergency agency. We can provide billions of bars of soap and the emergency housing in Idlib. We can do the emergency work, but we're also moving now toward working much more closely with investment banks and governments, broadening the base of support to get investment to deal with what we all know are the underlying root causes, such as poverty and inequality. We need investment, and we need engagement by the community as a whole.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Dr. Fry, you have limited time. We'll turn the floor over briefly to Ms. Hicks for additional comments, but then we'll have to close this round.

[Peggy Hicks]

Thank you. I'll be brief, then.

I think there are a couple of points that haven't come through entirely.

These aren't solutions that any one country, obviously, is going to put on the table by itself. We feel strongly that part of what's been shown here is the need for multilateral solutions, and for further engagement in a co-operative way, across borders and across regions, to be able to come up with approaches that work and are sustainable. We do see human rights as one of the key elements in making sustainable peace and development work, as I've said in my remarks.

I would also emphasize, as a final point, that we often do not have the data and the information that allows us to intervene and act as effectively as possible. More work is required, looking at the indicators and the data. Monitoring is also a key point, disaggregated data in particular, on race, gender and other criteria.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Thank you, Ms. Hicks.

I'll now give the floor to you, Mr. Bergeron.

You have six minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us. Your presence is very much appreciated. Your contribution will be invaluable to the work of this committee.

Yesterday was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. One thing noted was that reports of domestic violence against both women and children have decreased significantly during the pandemic. We're seeing that the family home is a comfortable and safe place, but that it's also a very secretive location where things happen. More extensive studies show that the level of violence has likely increased, although the reports have decreased.

I want to know whether a parallel can be established at the international level. Ms. Triggs pointed out that there have been fewer resettlements during the pandemic. Can we assume that, likewise, during the pandemic, there may be fewer indications of potential human rights violations?

If we look deeper, can we say that, on the contrary, human rights violations have increased since global attention is focused on dealing with the pandemic and not on the international community's usual efforts to ensure respect for human rights or the well-being of refugees?

[Peggy Hicks]

Gillian, did you want to go first on that? I think it was directed at you.

[Gillian Triggs]

Peggy, would you like to go first? I sincerely apologize, but I'm afraid my French is not good enough to understand that question.

[Peggy Hicks]

Sure. I'm happy to come in.

Thank you, sir. We certainly agree with your question. In fact, as you've said, we've seen a rise in human rights violations during the pandemic in a variety of different ways. You emphasized the fact that women at home in close quarters are sometimes more vulnerable. We have seen an upsurge in violence in the home. It has been well documented.

That applies as well, I would say, to people in care in a variety of ways: older people, people with disabilities and others. We've also seen it happen with LGBT people who may not have a happy home situation. That may also increase the risk of violence for them.

There's plenty to be worried about in terms of a rise in human rights violations during the pandemic.

I would also emphasize the extent to which the use by governments of emergency measures is something that of course we understand and has been very necessary and that human rights law clearly allows for, but what we have also seen is that there have been numerous instances where states have abused those measures in an overbroad or a pretextual way to abuse rights in various ways: by cracking down on dissent, by going up against civil society and by taking measures that might have been more visible in other circumstances but are now hidden behind the pandemic.

I think you're absolutely right that this is something we need to watch much more carefully.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sven Spengemann]

Mr. Bergeron, I'm just hitting the pause button for one second to tell Ms. Triggs this. If you select English in the interpretation feature at the bottom of your screen, you should, hopefully, be receiving the interpretation, which would allow you to comment on questions in either language. Let us know if that's not the case. If you have trouble, we will see if we can get our technical team involved in this.

I'll now give the floor to Mr. Bergeron.