Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on March 4th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

In that case, we'll go to Madam St-Hilaire.

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to talk about my NDP colleague's motion. I do not know if the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development passed a motion to debate the case of Omar Khadr. However, I do know that a motion to that effect was tabled. In any event—perhaps those who served on this committee in the past will remember—the foreign affairs and international development committee always passes along its requests very kindly to us. Therefore, I imagine that we will be compelled to examine this matter shortly.

I thought the only item of business was the election of the chair. I did not think that we would be discussing future business. I would like us to keep the book open and not finalize things this afternoon. I would like the committee to reconsider the Cuba question. Twice we have started our study, and both times we have not finished our work. Some changes have recently taken place in Cuba. I think it is our duty to see this study through to the end.

That's all for now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right. I have down here Cuba, Omar Khadr, and

I'm in favour of our coming back later to the items on our agenda.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Could I get on the list, do you think?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Actually, the next on the list is you, Mr. Kenney.

Have you anything further, Ms. Saint-Hilaire?

[Caroline St-Hilaire, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Okay, Mr. Kenney.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Merci.

First of all, Mr. Chairman, as this is my first chance to speak, I'd like to thank my colleagues for their support while I was chairman under unusual circumstances, I guess, given my other position in the last session. I thought we worked together very well on a non-partisan basis on issues of deep concern to all of us.

I didn't want to continue putting some members of the committee in a possibly awkward position by having a member of the ministry in the chair. I think it's worked out very well for the committee, because we have a much more confident chair in Mr. Reid than we did in the last session.

I'd like to also welcome Mr. Reid and Mr. Sweet to the committee. They're both individuals who have a long-demonstrated personal interest in issues of human rights that precedes their election to Parliament in both cases. So I think their presence here will only help to improve our deliberations in as non-partisan a fashion as possible.

Regarding the subcommittee's agenda, I would like to stress what Ms. St-Hilaire said.

First of all, we must finish the work undertaken during the last session. I suggest that we review progress on our report on bilateral relations between Canada and China in the context of human rights in China.

We submitted our report to the foreign affairs and international development committee in March of last year, as I recall. However, no follow-up action has been taken. If the main committee ignores our reports and our motions, then the very purpose of our subcommittee is called into question. This is important, in my view. If the main committee ultimately decides that we have no powers, then there is nothing we can do. However, I think we should, at the very least, put this question to the foreign affairs and international development committee by way of a motion calling on it to adopt our report on China.

On the other hand, I totally agree with what Ms. St-Hilaire said about Cuba. We have a lot of work to do on this file. The committee has heard from about 10 witnesses who travelled to Ottawa to testify. I think we owe it to them to draw up a report or, at the very least, to table a motion. The subcommittee's research officer has drafted a good number of summaries of the testimony presented and sketched out the main points of a possible report.

Here is one other thing I would like to give consideration to for possible hearing, which I don't think would take more than one or two hearings. A number of members of the Coptic community in Canada have approached me consistently over the past two or three years to express concern about the situation of their compatriots, principally in Egypt, as it relates to freedom of religion and human rights. I would like, at some point, for us to provide an invitation to them to present and perhaps, if it would be appropriate, an opportunity for the Egyptian ambassador to respond.

Finally, let me second Mr. Sweet's prospective motion as it relates to Shirin Ebadi. I found out through friends of hers last week that Madam Ebadi is going to be visiting Ottawa later this week and that she has, through them, expressed a willingness to appear before our committee if we were to extend an invitation. She is the Nobel Peace Prize laureate from 2003. Is that right, Irwin? You probably know her. Yes, it was 2003. She is regarded as one of the leading, if not the leading, spokesmen for women's rights and human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

One of the things we discussed, colleagues, in the last session was that when we have superstars like this coming through Ottawa, we should try to make ourselves available as a public forum for them to address Parliament through us. If we could work it into our schedules while she is here, it would both be beneficial to us and assist her in telling Canadians what is going on in Iran.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Cotler, please.

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I'll take up where Jason Kenney left off. I think it would be helpful to have Shirin Ebadi appear before us. I know she's going to be speaking at McGill this Friday on Islam and human rights. She also represented Mrs. Kazemi, so she has a lot of human rights experience to commend her as a witness.

I also support the other initiatives that have been mentioned. I particularly want to say that on the matter of China I think we did some excellent work as a committee and I don't think that thing should be left in abeyance somehow. We should take it up, as Jason Kenney mentioned, and I'd say the same with regard to Cuba. I've received correspondence, as I suspect others have, on the disposition of the Cuba hearing, and I think we ought to draw it to a close.

I support the other suggestions that have been made, both with regard to a hearing on Omar Khadr, which raises larger issues, and on the question of rendition.

Finally, I'd like to make a modest suggestion of my own, although it seems that with all these suggestions we may be here for a long time. In the fall we had a visit from a distinguished parliamentarian from the United Kingdom, John Mann, who met with a number of people here. He conducted an inquiry into anti-Semitism in the U.K., but he came here to encourage other parliaments to engage in similar inquiries. [Inaudible—Editor]...as it happened, I was speaking with him this morning, and it appeared to me that this might be an appropriate forum for us to conduct a Canadian version of an inquiry into anti-Semitism.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Silva.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, in respect of how we're going to proceed, I think this committee does incredible and valuable work and that all of us generally care about human rights. I think that's one of the reasons we all wanted to be on this committee.

Unfortunately, as you will see, the work that goes on here rarely makes it to Parliament, to the House. It stays at the foreign affairs committee, because we're only a subcommittee. It's not going to be easy to get around that. Our goal should be for this committee to become a full standing committee.

In the meantime, there are some valuable things we can do. One is to offer ourselves as committee members whenever there are distinguished human rights individuals such as Shirin Ebadi. We should offer to meet with her as a committee. I think this is a great forum in which to highlight some of the human rights violations taking place in her country. She's a great spokesperson for women's rights and for the people of Iran, where many atrocities are taking place. She's definitely a person worth meeting with.

There are going to be other dignitaries in the area from time to time, and we should also make ourselves available to them. I think it's useful to provide this testimony, this witnessing, this recounting of stories. We need to let the public know what's taking place. So I would hope that we use these opportunities wisely.

As for our work, I don't think we should be going into it any further. As I think Jason mentioned, these long-term, one-year studies like we did on China, as valuable as they are, become problematic if we can't get them to the House and make them public. Maybe we should focus on smaller issues. This way we would be able to broaden our scope.

I know Irwin mentioned anti-Semitism. I think that's a great idea if we can do it. We could also focus on Omar Khadr and other ad hoc issues. I think this would be useful for the committee, because we would get a chance to get it on the record. It would become public. This way we don't have to worry about long reports that may not ever be tabled in the House, and we get our views out to the public.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

That sounds like a suggestion on the way we structure our proceedings, as opposed to their subject matter. I think that's how you intended it.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Marston.

[Wayne Marston, NDP, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

I have just one very quick thing on the Khadr case. He's going to trial in June, so if we can put that up front, I think it's critical; otherwise there won't be any value in what we do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right.

We'll have Mr. Kenney, please.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Just picking up on that theme of timeliness, one of the reasons we wanted to do the China report in the last session was for a number of things. You'll recall that it was preceded by the Burton report, commissioned by DFAIT, and then an intervention by the Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China asking the government and this committee to review the bilateral dialogue. We now have the Olympics coming up, so human rights in China will be a very prominent issue in the first half of this year. If there's anything we can do to encourage the main committee to dislodge the report, it would be timely.

Also, obviously, with the recent ostensible leadership change in Cuba, it would seem to be an opportune moment for this committee to express itself on that issue as well.

The main reason I want to do a second intervention is just to remind the committee, and particularly our new members here, that one issue we've looked at intermittently has been human rights in Iran. We've never committed ourselves to a major study, but we've had periodic testimony, often based on a particular issue or on who was in Ottawa. Mr. Cotler in particular was pushing one dimension, which was incitement to genocide. I think we did adopt a motion on that in the end, did we not?

I just wanted to mention, with Shirin Ebadi coming to town as one other item--and we're bloating up the possible work agenda here--that there are actually two other very prominent dissidents of Iranian origin who happen to be in Canada right now. One of them is an Iranian Canadian, Professor Ramin Jahanbegloo, who spent, as you will recall, six months in solitary confinement in Evin prison thanks to Saeed Mortazavi, the prosecutor general, whose indictment this committee called for in a motion last year.

Professor Jahanbegloo is now, thankfully, back safely in Canada. I've spoken with him, and he would be more than happy to come and share his experiences with this committee.

Also living in Toronto for the next few weeks is Akbar Ganji. If I could ask the clerk to please.... I have bios of both these individuals in both official languages, Mr. Chairman.

Akbar Ganji is a very prominent Iranian journalist who spent five and a half years in the Evin prison, mainly in solitary confinement. I stand to be corrected, but I believe he was also tortured by the agents of Saeed Mortazavi. Akbar Ganji is perhaps, with the exception of Shirin Ebadi, regarded as the most prominent dissident of the Islamic republic's government in Iran.

So if we have Ms. Ebadi--I'll just throw this out there--consider inviting these two gentlemen from Toronto, although I think for Thursday it would be very short notice for them. Or consider inviting them to a later meeting to continue the theme of Iran that we've looked at periodically. I'm not suggesting a whole lot more work on that. The reason I'm flagging these two people is that Ramin Jahanbegloo is fresh back to Canada, and it would be nice to welcome him here to Ottawa. Mr. Ganji is on a six-month visa, which expires, I think, about six weeks from now.

Professor Cotler was on a panel--excuse me, Mr. Cotler--

[Irwin Cotler, Liberal, Mount Royal, QC]

I'm still professor.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Calgary Southeast, AB]

Professor Emeritus Cotler and I were on a panel with Mr. Ganji in Montreal in, I think, December, and he, I think, expressed a willingness to appear before us. We should underscore that for people like Shirin Ebadi and Akbar Ganji to be willing to appear before us in public in front of the Parliament of a western country is an act of unbelievable courage in and of itself. And I think we should honour that if we have the opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right. That is duly noted.

I don't have anybody else on the list. Did any hands go up? All right.

People are free to interrupt me if they want, but it would seem logical for me to just mention a couple of housekeeping items at this point, one of which is the subject of the China report. The China report did come up, and the analyst advises me that because this subcommittee ceased to exist, the report also ceased to exist at the prorogation. Therefore, it will be necessary for this subcommittee to re-adopt that report in order to be able to take it before the main committee.

We had a chat earlier, and the analyst also said there might a few little dates and statistics that have to be changed.

[Marcus Pistor, Committee Researcher]

If I may, I went through the summary of witness testimony on Cuba, and there are some minor factual changes—newer numbers of political prisoners, and so forth—that should be substituted. That's not a report, so those are easy for me to do.

As for the report on China, we can do those corrections if the subcommittee considers the report again; but I think the subcommittee would have to re-adopt the report before it goes back to the main committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

We could do that. We'd have to do that at a later meeting, obviously, to get it around to everybody first. I guess the other thing is that we'd have to go in camera for that.

[Marcus Pistor]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Right.

Would it be agreeable if we were to put that on an agenda for perhaps a meeting next week? Would that be reasonable to everybody?

Mr. Marston.