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.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
That's excellent.
Thank you, Ms. McPherson.
We will now go back to Mr. Hoback.
You have three minutes.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Nesbitt, I come back to you. You talked about OFAC and how OFAC works in the U.S. We have nothing like that in Canada, but the U.S. does have quite a bit bigger economy. Do we have enough cases to justify having a stand-alone department, in which we'd have expertise, on our own, to do this type of work?
Prof. Michael Nesbitt
It's a good question, into which I don't really have insight.
The obvious answer, I guess, from my perspective, is that if we're going to take sanctions seriously, then we're going to have to find a way to do that.
Prof. Michael Nesbitt
The alternative is to say that we don't have the resources to take sanctions seriously.
Perhaps I could make one suggestion. This is not necessarily limited to sanctions. There's a lot of fraud, money laundering and other associated areas that could get work. There are options for institutions that might be able to do across-the-board work in this regard so that not only would money be going into improving sanctions enforcement, but also that same expertise would be built out, which would also help with complex financial fraud and other areas. I know the government has some initiatives in this regard. That might be one option.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Also, it probably doesn't get the same attention it deserves in Canada, either.
Have you seen any other countries that have a really good set-up in regard to dealing with...? We talked about OFAC. Is there a better system in the U.K.? Are there other systems you'd look at and say, “Hey, this really is something that could possibly work for Canada and that we should look at”?
Prof. Michael Nesbitt
The two most obvious, for us, are the U.K. and the U.S.
To me, because the U.S. does this better than anyone else in the world in terms of enforcement, and also because they're our closest partner and the one we align our sanctions regime most closely with, it makes sense to look to them.
I'm not an expert in the details, but I would suggest the U.K. because they revamped their processes. They saw all the same problems a little over 10 years ago in the U.K. and they revamped their processes with respect to who is doing this work and how even the listing process is being helped out by intelligence agencies and public and private sector contributions. Canada just hasn't done that sort of revamping work. That might be something to look at as well—what they did, why they did it and what lessons could be learned for Canada.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
With regard to transshippers, are you talking about naming and shaming when it comes to them? Do you see any other way of enforcing it, or is it just too hard to enforce with some sort of fine or consequences?
Prof. Michael Nesbitt
The problem right now is that.... If someone can't ship goods to Iran, what do they do? They don't ship it to Iran; they ship it to another country and then it goes to Iran. The only way we can stop that is if we know ahead of time that this individual will be shipping to Iran, and then we can prove it in criminal court, if we're going to follow through with the criminal sanctions. That can be really hard.
Now, if we know they're transshipping, we can still capture them under our current legislation, because the legislation goes after the individual in Canada trying to do it. What I'm talking about is this: If we know that the same Iranian company has essentially just set up a shipping company under the laws of third party X, and we know that's what they are doing, we just name them and say, “Canadian companies can't ship and do orders with that company as well.”
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
We create the consequences of the fact that they are participating in that known criminal activity—because it is a criminal activity, isn't it?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Mr. Hoback, I'm afraid you are over your time limit.
We now go to Mr. Zuberi.
You have three minutes, Mr. Zuberi.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
I will start with Ms. Strayer. I read your bio—both of your bios, actually—and appreciated what you said about civil society. I worked in civil society spaces, professionally and as a volunteer, for several years.
You said that in order for the Magnitsky sanctions to have a good impact, it's important for civil society actors to put forth names. Do you want to develop that a bit further? I read the same recommendation in the Raoul Wallenberg Centre reports that did a comparative analysis of the four different jurisdictions that utilize Magnitsky sanctions. The Raoul Wallenberg Centre made the same point.
Do you want to elaborate further, please?
Supervising Staff Attorney, Accountability, Human Rights First
Sure. Thank you very much.
Our work is with not only U.S.-based, but internationally based and locally based NGOs and civil society organizations whose sole purpose is documenting and tracking human rights abuses and corrupt networks in their countries. They're the ones being directly impacted by those abuses.
We've seen that for these types of global human rights and anti-corruption sanctions tools, in order for them to be the most effective and the most credible, using the recommendations of civil society is key. I think some of the panellists in the previous session highlighted this credibility issue with the sanctions.
I'll just note that in the study you referenced, which we did with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre, over the past five years we saw that with human rights and anti-corruption sanctions done under the JVCFOA and SEMA, there was an incredible lack of geographic diversity in those sanctions from the Canadian side. About 90% of Canada's sanctions were focused on just four countries: Russia, Belarus, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.
There are missed opportunities to be recognizing the human rights abuses and corruption that are impacting communities and countries all over the world, and for the ability of the Canadian government and partners to be doing more to stand up.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Totally.
I wanted to ask whether you're familiar with the report. Are you?
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
What I found really interesting was a line in the report that said that, as you pointed out just now, it's not only the bad actors or the pinatas of the world that we like to hit frequently that should be sanctioned, but also sometimes even countries that we partner with, our allies. There was a line in the report to that effect. Do you want to elaborate upon that?
Supervising Staff Attorney, Accountability, Human Rights First
Sure. I think that's another area where Canada could be doing more.
Almost all of Canada's sanctions have been targeting countries that are not allies or partners of Canada and that are considered repressive or not free, based on the Freedom House standards in this report. I think that's a missed opportunity, because we've often seen that some of the sanctions with the greatest impact from the U.S. side are actually ones that are targeted at countries where the U.S. has fairly strong relationships and in countries where there is at least some level of rule of law present. There is some functioning democracy, and they may have greater interest in taking action to hold those perpetrators accountable for abuses, rather than just brushing the sanctions aside.
Bangladesh, as I mentioned earlier, is an example where we saw immediate impacts from the sanctions. Bangladesh being a close partner of the U.S. and many—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ali Ehsassi
Ms. Strayer, I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to cut you off. We're over the time limit for this slot.
We now go to Mr. Champoux.
You have a minute and a half, sir.
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
This will be brief.
Ms. Strayer, I'll continue with you. On May 17, the RCMP released an update on the declaration of assets frozen under the Special Economic Measures Act, dealing with Russia, Iran and Haiti.
With regard to Haiti, it states that there is no information about frozen assets. How can this be interpreted, given that entities there have been targeted by sanctions for months? How can this be explained? Is it a question of poor capacity to implement sanctions, as mentioned earlier?
Supervising Staff Attorney, Accountability, Human Rights First
Could I ask for clarification on the question?
Bloc
Martin Champoux Bloc Drummond, QC
In the case of Haiti, although the imposition of sanctions was requested, none are being reported. I wanted to get your opinion on this. Does this mean that sanctions are not easy to apply? Is it difficult to apply the sanctions that have been requested?
