Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 26th, 2024

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

How would you respond to a Canadian family who has a loved one who is unfairly detained in another country, who asks the minister at the time, after this law passes, to apply this law, and the minister says, “Sorry; the law doesn't apply to your loved one who's unfairly detained”?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Without giving me additional information about the intelligence you would have about the arrest and what is around the arrest, there is a clear definition to arbitrary detention. It's different from, say, getting arrested in Mexico because you were at the wrong place at the wrong time, doing the wrong thing, with the wrong suitcase in your hand and with the wrong people around you. That could be seen as a—

[Omar Alghabra, Liberal, Mississauga Centre, ON]

I'm not talking about those cases. I'm talking about people who are unfairly detained.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

I think you have to be more specific about the cases to see if this would apply.

Again, it's at the discretion of the minister to say yes or no as to whether any of these tools would apply to that. It's not a requirement; it is an additional set of tools.

I think the examples from the U.S. and what they're studying in Australia to eventually potentially adopt this law would suggest that our allies are on board too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We'll turn to MP Bergeron for six minutes, please.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Lantsman, thank you for initiating a debate on this important issue through your bill.

I agree with Mr. Alghabra. I think that Canada's consular staff all over the world do a tremendous job of trying to protect Canadians. However, the fact is that a number of hostage‑takings in the past could have easily turned out badly because no one really knew how to deal with the situation. Your bill has the added benefit of proposing ways to deal with hostage situations.

I see a number of attractive features in your bill, but I also have a number of concerns. To quote the French saying, “grasp all, lose all”. You want to cast such a wide net that you either forget things, such as arbitrary detention matters, or you run the risk of not achieving the desired level of effectiveness, particularly when it comes to ransom payments.

At second reading on December 1, 2023, you stated that this bill wouldn't change Canada's long‑standing policy of refusing to pay ransoms. Yet Bill C‑353 would give the Minister of Foreign Affairs the power to pay a monetary reward to any individual who co‑operates with the Government of Canada to secure the release of Canadian nationals and eligible protected persons who are held hostage or arbitrarily detained in state‑to‑state relations outside Canada. In short, this aspect could suggest the possibility of paying ransoms and thereby putting a price, so to speak, on the heads of Canadians and encouraging hostage‑taking for monetary gain.

Don't you see this as a potential risk?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

I appreciate the question.

Look, the use of monetary incentives by law enforcement agencies in western countries is not a new thing. It's an idea used widely by municipal, provincial and federal law enforcement agencies to help solve and prevent crimes all the time. It's the idea of Crime Stoppers. We use it domestically already.

There is a 40-year history in the U.S. with the rewards for justice program. Now, that's much wider than just hostages; this legislation only tackles one of the pieces in the rewards for justice program, which was an act brought in in 1984. It has saved countless lives through its incentives. Again, all of that discretionary prerogative is intended for the minister to use if they want to use it.

I think there are things you can put in place to make sure it's used, in terms of whether cases are looked at, what level they are looked at and whether they are reported to a committee like this one, or Parliament, if a proceeding was to be rewarded.

I think there are lots of examples in the U.S. and in our domestic law enforcement.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I find your answer quite intriguing, given that you're comparing the situation of hostage‑taking abroad with domestic situations. Here, we have more control over the situation, whereas abroad, the situation is often completely out of our hands. The concern is that this provision, which clearly sets out the possibility of monetary compensation, could have extremely adverse effects.

I'll now turn to another matter. The committee considered the opportunity to publicize cases of arbitrary detention. I was personally involved in the case of a Canadian citizen's imprisonment by the Saudi Arabian government. At the time, it was preferable to keep the issue out of the headlines. We worked behind the scenes to try to move the case forward. In other cases, such as the two Michaels, we chose to act quite publicly.

Don't you think that the government should be given the flexibility to choose the best strategy to pursue, rather than revealing so bluntly and publicly that the government might now be willing to pay monetary compensation?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

To answer your question, I don't think this legislation has anybody negotiating anything in public. I don't think it takes it outside of the hard work our officials do. It provides them with the discretion necessary to do their jobs and do them well. It puts a bit of an onus on the minister if they have those additional tools in the tool box that they can draw on, if needed.

I think the incentivizing—

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

The bad guys would know Canada is ready to pay.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

I think the incentivizing tools are, again, fully discretionary. It expands the government's prerogative, rather than restricting it. Whether the bad guys know.... I think the bad guys will also know that Canada takes care of its citizens and puts some focus on hostage-taking. It says, “You can't take our guys.”

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Ms. Lantsman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you. I'm afraid you're out of time.

Next we'll go to MP McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Or gals....

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to start by echoing some of the comments made by other members of the committee and thank our consular staff for the work they do in very difficult circumstances.

MP Lantsman, thank you for bringing this bill forward. I agree that Canada needs to do more to address hostage-taking and cases of arbitrary detention. We know that for years the families of hostages have asked for increased communication from the government. They've asked for better resources. They've asked for more support. I see that this bill attempts to create a requirement for the minister to provide timely information and assistance to families of Canadian nationals taken hostage or arbitrarily detained.

One area where the NDP has asked Canada to do better for many years is arbitrary detention. While arbitrary detention is included in this bill, it's not clear to me whether this would apply to particularly egregious cases, including the rendition of Canadians, such as the cases of Maher Arar and of Huseyin Celil, who is still held in China after many years, or the Canadians held in northeastern Syria whom this government has refused to bring home to face our justice system here.

In your view, does this bill apply to those cases? Could you articulate that?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Yes, why wouldn't it? Yes.

Again, with respect to the minister and the government of the day, I think it's at the discretion of the minister, but it's certainly something that we can ask of the minister.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Yes. That's wonderful.

We are also concerned about the limited resources for criminal investigations in these situations. We've seen this also with enforcement of Canada's sanctions regime—that the lack of resources at the CBSA, the RCMP and Global Affairs Canada has impacted the effectiveness of our sanctions regime.

The bill doesn't address the issue of resources for the CBSA or the RCMP—obviously, no bill can address everything—but I'd like to ask you to address that concern and what you believe the government would need to do in order to meet the new standards established in this bill.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

To your point, given that it's a private member's bill and it already probably requires a royal recommendation, as we heard from the Speaker, there's probably a limit to that. The rewards for justice legislation in the U.S., first of all, is much bigger. It looks at organized crime and it has a ton of administration around it and monetary budgeting within their version of the estimates.

This attempts to work on a small piece of that, and it is going to require some reorganization of resources, but I don't think it requires anything that Canada doesn't already have in place. I think you can use existing resources within our talented public service, particularly within the CBSA, within law enforcement, to reorganize around taking this seriously, and I think it would send a signal around the world that we're serious about this, given that there's a high price tag on a Canadian.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

The bill does establish the ability to seize “any property situated in Canada” that is owned or controlled by the foreign entity, state or national that engaged in “hostage taking or...arbitrary detention”. Obviously, for us, this is a welcome proposal, but we know from experience with Canada's sanction enforcement that the government has had very little success in seizing assets of Russian oligarchs and that we have too few resources allocated in this regard.

Can you comment again on the lack of resources and what would be required to actually enforce this part of the bill?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Yes. It doesn't necessarily mandate non-state assets, but we have the JVTA legislation, which has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in seizure of assets.

I think that's a much bigger issue that doesn't speak only to the inadequacies in this country on this specific measure, but frankly of all. The Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act is probably underutilized, and because we're under-resourced in the system—I think the rewards have been around $700 million in this country—I can only imagine all of the cases that didn't see the light of day because of the lack of resources.

That's a much bigger problem that this piece of legislation isn't going to cover, but I agree with you.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Well, I would also point out that you compare it to legislation that's been done in the States, and the States has a significantly larger number of people in proportion that are—

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Sure.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

—being used to enforce the sanctions regime and other aspects of this legislation.

As my last question for you, are you open to amendments to your legislation going forward?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Yes. I'd like to see something passed in this Parliament—despite thinking that it's unlikely—that's going to send a signal to the outside world that we're taking this seriously and that if you're going to come after a Canadian, you had better think twice.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

It is certainly difficult to get PMBs into the House at the moment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We go next to Mr. Aboultaif. You have four minutes.