Evidence of meeting #72 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was countries.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:20 p.m.
Prof. Michael Nesbitt
My apologies.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
If you could include all these comments in your responses to the questions that will shortly follow, I would be most grateful.
Ms. Strayer, you have five minutes for your opening remarks. The floor is yours.
12:20 p.m.
Amanda Strayer Supervising Staff Attorney, Accountability, Human Rights First
Mr. Chair and honourable members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on Magnitsky sanctions.
Human Rights First is an independent, non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights and urging the U.S. to take a leading role in this effort, both at home and around the world.
For the past six years, Human Rights First has built a global coalition of 300 civil society groups to advocate for the use of targeted human rights and anti-corruption sanctions, both in the U.S. and in other jurisdictions with Magnitsky-style sanctions programs. We're proud to have the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, which testified last week before this body, leading the coalition's work in Canada, as well as partners in the U.K. and the EU.
From the first U.S. global Magnitsky sanctions in 2017, civil society has been integral to their effectiveness. By our estimate, one-third of all U.S. global Magnitsky sanctions have had a basis in recommendations from civil society.
Today, I'd like to highlight three ways civil society provides critical contributions to governments implementing targeted human rights and anti-corruption sanctions, which Human Rights First would encourage the Government of Canada to build on.
First, civil society groups are a key source of information that governments need to impose sanctions. Civil society has unparalleled evidence of abuses and insight into who bears responsibility based on years of research, monitoring, interviews with victims and on-site documentation. These are sources government officials often don't have.
We've worked with civil society groups to bring more than 160 well-documented files to the U.S. government, recommending specific perpetrators for Magnitsky sanctions. This pipeline is reflected in about one-third of U.S. global Magnitsky cases, including ones the U.S. government cites as among the most impactful sanctions. This speaks to the quality of evidence and analysis civil society provides and the fact that sanctions in the name of human rights and anti-corruption are more credible when they reflect the priorities of independent human rights and anti-corruption groups.
As more jurisdictions have adopted Magnitsky sanctions, we've encouraged other governments to take a similar approach to engaging civil society. As one example of how this can work, we helped coordinate the submission of detailed sanctions recommendations for the arbitrary detention of Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza in multiple jurisdictions. We are pleased that Canada was the first to announce sanctions in Vladimir's case in November, followed by the U.S., the U.K. and the EU. These all followed submissions from civil society. We'd encourage the Canadian government to build on this positive engagement with civil society.
Second, civil society plays a vital role in understanding the impact of sanctions and their enforcement. In the wake of U.S. sanctions against Bangladesh's Rapid Action Battalion for human rights abuses in 2021, civil society groups tracked the abrupt halt in extrajudicial killings by the unit, as well as the eventual resumption of those abuses. They highlighted how the sanctions cut through government efforts to suppress speech and sparked unprecedented calls for accountability. They documented threats from law enforcement pressuring families of victims to recant reports of disappeared loved ones and increased surveillance and harassment of human rights groups. This information is critical for governments as they monitor sanctions enforcement, consider additional measures and address calls for the lifting of sanctions.
Finally, civil society groups identify gaps in the implementation of sanctions programs and urge governments towards more equitable use of these tools. In November, we released a joint report with our partners, “Multilateral Magnitsky Sanctions at Five Years”, analyzing how the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and the EU have used their Magnitsky sanctions. We found key gaps across the four jurisdictions. These included significant shortcomings in how Canada uses sanctions for human rights abuses and corruption under the JVCFOA and SEMA, such as missing opportunities to multilateralize and strengthen the impact of the sanctions, rarely imposing sanctions for corruption, excluding close partners and allies from sanctions even when merited, and failing to provide accountability for marginalized victims of human rights abuses.
On this last point, we found that in five years Canada had never imposed Magnitsky sanctions for human rights abuses against LGBTQ+ or indigenous persons. In its public announcements, only 7% of its Magnitsky cases mentioned female victims and just 1% mentioned children. If these sanctions are tools for accountability, we found they're overlooking most of the world's victims.
Canadian officials have thoughtfully engaged with these findings and we understand Global Affairs plans to take them into account in the future. We're eager to build on this engagement, to share the perspectives of those fighting human rights abuses and corruption in their countries and around the world and to strengthen the use of Magnitsky sanctions to hold perpetrators accountable.
On behalf of Human Rights First, thank you and I look forward to your questions today.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Thank you very much, Ms. Strayer.
We now turn to the members for their questions.
As I understand it, Mr. Genuis is up first.
You have five minutes, Mr. Genuis.
June 15th, 2023 / 12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Garnett Genuis Conservative Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB
Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for their presentations.
Actually, the bulk of this round will be taken by Mr. Hoback. I just want to use this opportunity to briefly put a verbal notice of motion on the record, as follows:
That in relation to its study of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the committee hold 3 meetings looking specifically at Russia’s collaboration with other rogue states such as Iran, North Korea, and Myanmar, with a particular emphasis on weapons technology sharing and on efforts to circumvent western sanctions.
With that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Hoback.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here this afternoon. Unfortunately, I think we could be here for an hour talking about what you just talked about in the last 10 minutes.
Ms. Strayer, I'll start off with you. When you work with these 300 civil societies and identify somebody who should be sanctioned, how do you find the response of Canada versus that of the U.S. or other countries that have a similar style of sanctions in place?
12:30 p.m.
Supervising Staff Attorney, Accountability, Human Rights First
Thank you very much for your question.
Typically, our work has been focused on the U.S. for the past five years. It's only more recently that we've been able to expand it to the U.K., the EU and Canada. I will say, though, on the responsiveness of the U.S. government we've been able to track to date, that we've been very proud of and very encouraged by the fact that one-third of the sanctions we see coming from the U.S.'s global Magnitsky program seem to have a basis in recommendations that we're aware of from civil society.
The numbers are a little bit harder to track on the EU, U.K. and Canadian side. We know there's a lot of information sharing among the different governments. That's something we're working on with civil society groups to try to improve as well and ensure that information that is submitted to the U.S. government for consideration—for example, for sanctions—is also submitted to the Canadian government in a timely fashion, and the U.K. and EU as well—
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
I'm sorry. I don't mean to cut you off, but I have only five minutes.
When you report to the U.S., is the process very simple? When you report to Canada, is it an equally simple process? How do you plug in and say that this individual should be sanctioned? How do the different countries compare in terms of that?
12:30 p.m.
Supervising Staff Attorney, Accountability, Human Rights First
I think it's a little bit different in each country. We work very closely with partner organizations in Canada. We work with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre, and they have direct connections with the sanctions officials and teams—
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
But how do you notify? I'm trying to figure out how you plug into government. How do you actually take that information and give it to the government? How do you say, for instance, “This person needs to be sanctioned”? How do you find that process? Could it be improved? What does it look like?
12:30 p.m.
Supervising Staff Attorney, Accountability, Human Rights First
I can speak to the U.S. side. From our perspective, in the U.S., we've been able to identify the offices at the treasury department—the office of foreign assets control—and the offices at the State Department that are involved in sanctions decision-making. Over the years, we've built a close, trusting relationship with those offices. They understand that the documentation and detailed evidence files that civil society provides can be incredibly valuable to their work. We have secure information-sharing portals set up with the treasury department in order to be able to provide those files securely to them for consideration.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
They've made accommodation for you. That's great to hear.
Mr. Nesbitt, in your work, how have you found Canada's ability to take that information from civil society or from other people—let's call them whistle-blowers, for lack of a better word—who want to report somebody who should be on a sanctions list or somebody who's breaking the sanctions? If I see somebody in the business community who I know is willingly breaking sanctions, what's the process for actually getting the light shone on that individual and some action taken?
12:30 p.m.
Prof. Michael Nesbitt
I can answer that really quickly: Canada's a black box, so I have no idea.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
[Technical difficulty—Editor] to Ukraine, a Canadian business, or they're shipping pencils or whatever, whom do I report to?
12:30 p.m.
Prof. Michael Nesbitt
Again, I have no idea. In theory, Global Affairs Canada has a sanctions division that is running this file. In practice, we've seen on a number of fronts that it can be extremely slow to respond, if at all. One doesn't know if it's open to contact. Public engagement is virtually non-existent, and has been for 30 years, both on this and with respect to explaining what our sanctions are, how they might work and how they might be applied to non-financial institutions particularly, those smaller institutions that might want to conduct trade internationally. They might bump up against sanctions but don't have the resources to hire the biggest law firms in the country to try to determine and interact with Foreign Affairs about whether they have the capacity to do what they're hoping to do.
We just don't know.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Then how does Foreign Affairs go about seizing assets? How do they decide that this person's assets should be seized and this person's assets shouldn't? If I'm a Canadian company that does business with that company and all of a sudden I find out their assets have been seized, how do I conduct business there? How am I supposed to conduct business without breaking the sanctions? Where do I seek that advice?
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Could we have a very brief response, please? We're over the time limit.
12:30 p.m.
Prof. Michael Nesbitt
Foreign Affairs doesn't do any of that. That will all be done by others, which is why I say you have to start having others—much like in the U.S. with the office of foreign assets control within the Treasury—with the business acumen to follow boards, directors and where the money is going work directly with law enforcement to enforce that seizure.
Right now, when you say “seizure”, what you're actually talking about is that the bank, based on its own internal list, has decided mostly not to let money flow in some way or another. We don't have a whole lot of visibility on that.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm just trying to dial the clock back a little bit on Professor Nesbitt's testimony.
First of all, you said that “tens of thousands” of people have been sanctioned. Where did you get that number from? Currently, we have about 3,000 sanctioned and over half of those, 1,700, relate to Russia and Belarus. We have always been in the hundreds. I'm just wondering where you got the number “tens of thousands”.
12:35 p.m.
Prof. Michael Nesbitt
My apologies, I can't remember off the top of my head.
Dr. Andrea Charron has done a lot of work over the years on this, so I'd refer you to her, if you want. If you haven't spoken to her, she is an—
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
I just want to make sure that we don't have in testimony “tens of thousands” when it is a grossly inaccurate number. Having followed sanctions—
12:35 p.m.
Prof. Michael Nesbitt
It's grossly inaccurate today. That's 30 years of different sanctions and sanctions regimes coming into and out of place. If you add all those up over the years, you're talking about a number that is far more than the 3,000 that exist, as you are saying.
I am not sure if that 3,000 that you're talking about includes all of the nine to 12 UN Act regulations, as well as all the Magnitsky and SEMA sanctions.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Rob Oliphant Liberal Don Valley West, ON
It's in the hundreds. Even when we pushed strong sanctions on Zimbabwe, it was in the 100 to 200 range. I will ask our analysts to get some help on that number, because it just seems high.
I also want to know where your proof is that the financial institutions are not doing their job. You said it's because there are no prosecutions, so you must have proof that they're not doing their job. Could you enlighten us on that? If they're not doing their job, we want to know because they are chartered institutions that have legal responsibilities. If they're breaking the law and not doing it, I'd like to know.
Could you give me some proof on that?