Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on May 12th, 2008

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Ms. Vandergrift, you mentioned in your testimony that this case is not exceptional but a bellwether one, so it seems to me that it is exceptional in some sense. I am very familiar with Ishmael Beah. I recently read his book, and it seems to me that the circumstances of Mr. Beah's life and how he was recruited, etc., are far different from this case.

Of course, the Khadr family are on public record as very clearly supportive of al-Qaeda and of being complicit with them.

Let me ask you this: given your position that he was illegally recruited as a child soldier, who should be prosecuted for this case?

[Kathy Vandergrift]

We'd need a lot more time and a closer examination of the details of the case to go into that. When I said that he was not exceptional, I was highlighting that there are child soldiers in many different situations. Yes, Beah is one. You can look at northern Uganda and you can look at Sri Lanka, and there are differences, but how they are similar and why this is precedent-setting is that we are trying to change the way these cases are treated. In that sense, I think this one sets a precedent. It isn't so apart from all the others that it isn't going to be seen as a precedent—it is. So that's what I mean when I say it is not exceptional.

I'm arguing that there needs to be a very specific plan to deal with this case to look at the particular circumstances and particular context. We have to do that in other countries as well. Sometimes children can go home to their families, and sometimes they can't, for various reasons. If it's not in the best interests of the child to go home to his family, then there needs to be an alternative care plan. That's why the first point that I highlighted for you was about the best interests of the child; that's where we start when we talk about these cases.

So it may be that it is or isn't in his best interests to go home to his family, but that's where you start with a careful assessment, and then you develop the reintegration plan and implement it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Sweet, unfortunately, we are out of time in this round.

We will go back now to Mr. Silva.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

I think it may be good to clarify this, not just for members of the committee but also for the wider audience out there who might be listening to this.

Obviously, none of us is dismissing that there are issues of concern about what has taken place. None of us is saying that we should dismiss those concerns out of hand. There are some serious allegations about what Omar Khadr has in fact committed.

The question is the process of how we get to deal with those issues. A military tribunal is not the right venue for a child soldier to be in. Also, this particular military tribunal of the U.S. is being seriously questioned by international legal experts as maybe being outside international law. So there is a whole question about the process and how it's being handled. So advocacy for him is not so that we can say yes, come here and you can be scott free, as we'll just ignore whatever happened. That's not the issue.

I think there has to be a clarification that this is not what we intend to do. I think the government also needs to understand that perspective as well, that what is really in question is this whole tribunal and the way he is being handled. Guantanamo is in fact outside of international law, and we should all be opposed to what's taking place there. There is not a legal process, as all the habeas corpus rules have basically been tossed out the door. Even if he is found to be innocent by the military tribunal—and this is what I find really appalling about the whole thing—he is still going to be classified as an unlawful combatant and could be held there indefinitely, as well as in the U.S.

So the whole process is totally new; it's in the realm of something that we've always opposed. It does not abide by international law and international norms of the judicial process. I think that is the point that needs to be clarified and emphasized.

[Hilary Homes]

I agree. Certainly the allegations against Omar Khadr and everyone else who's facing the military commissions are quite serious. It's our position, though, that the failings of that system are also quite serious.

When someone faces any charges, but particularly charges of this nature with the penalties attached to them, it's all the more reason to ensure that the tribunal that they are before meets international standards and, in this particular case, to make sure it is also governed by the proper juvenile justice principles. In my opening remarks I reiterated in a number of places where these come up. I think if you take a look, in particular, at general comment 10 on the rights of the child, from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, you'll see a lot of this elaborated. This is one of the key points here, which goes hand in hand with looking at when do you actually resort to a trial system and what are the alternatives?

In the end, you have to judge the case and the place it needs to be in; but, fundamentally, the military commission system is short of international standards by a long stretch.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

We have enough time for one more five-minute question, unless the committee chooses to allow this part of the meeting to go beyond its 1 p.m. wrap-up time. Can I get a sense of the will of the committee as to whether we should end with Madame Deschamps' question, or extend it so each of the parties gets one question?

Mr. Marston.

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

I'd like to ask our two presenters if they're satisfied that they have presented all the information they brought to us today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

First, is everyone willing to go beyond our regular time for this?

Madame Deschamps.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I think it would be appropriate to put additional questions to the witnesses after we have gone around the table once. That would be my preference, if committee members have no objections.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I'm really asking if we can go up to ten minutes past our time to allow not just Madame Deschamps but the other members to ask their questions. Is that reasonable?

Okay. That's what we'll do.

You have the floor, Ms. Deschamps.

[Johanne Deschamps, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you.

You have faced a barrage of questions. People have different views, based on how they perceive the Khadr case. If memory serves me well, Ms. Vandergrift, you were the one who mentioned that the US Supreme Court recently ruled that the military commissions for detainees were illegal because they violated international standards.

Does that finding not invalidate the work currently being done by the military commission in the case of Omar Khadr?

I have a very basic question for you. In your opinion, has a serious investigation been conducted into the events leading up to the arrest of Omar Khadr? Is there a single human rights organization that has yet to denounce the detention of Omar Khadr?

[Kathy Vandergrift]

Hilary spoke to the Supreme Court decision, so I'll let her answer that question.

[Hilary Homes]

There have been several versions of military commissions. The first was through an executive order. In Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the Supreme Court declared them illegal, so the new Military Commissions Act came along and was passed by Congress. That is also being examined by the Supreme Court. The ruling is expected in June 2008 on the issue that the new iteration of the military commissions strips the detainees of their right to habeas corpus.

The current courts exist under the law in the U.S. From an international human rights perspective, they're still well short of international standards. But they are U.S. law for those who are not U.S. citizens, in that particular context, who have been classified as unlawful enemy combatants, and all that sort of thing.

On whether there's a single human rights organization that hasn't condemned the Khadr case, I don't know of every human rights organization in the world, so I couldn't say that definitively, but the big international ones like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have certainly expressed concern for years about this case--the detention of children in general in Guantanamo, and Guantanamo itself in connection with the whole war-on-terror detention system and the use of various techniques that violate human rights in that context.

On the third point, of whether there's been a serious investigation of his capture, we don't really know. I guess you're asking whether the U.S. administration has thoroughly investigated that or not. I'm not sure who you're asking, but access to that information is quite restricted, in the context of the military commission. On many levels we don't know. The information we have is what has been disclosed intentionally or accidentally to the media in the public sphere.

[Kathy Vandergrift]

If it's helpful, some of the human rights organizations were part of the strategy to deal with some of the young persons in Guantanamo. I just want to add again in terms of highlighting that there are alternatives, and the human rights organizations are interested in pursuing those alternatives.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I'm not sure if it's Mr. Sweet or Mr. Kenney at this point.

Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I wanted to ask this question last time. You had referenced Ishmael Beah's book, and of course that's an extraordinarily moving book. The circumstances that those child soldiers in Sierra Leone faced were ones where both the army and the military groups that were fighting against the army would come in, abduct these children, force them to take these drugs called brown-brown, and sometimes shoot their family in front of them to desensitize them. They subjected them to extraordinarily stressful psychological duress in order to keep control over them.

It is my assertion that there are some differences in this case. Mr. Khadr is 21 years old right now. In Mr. Beah's situation, they had homes where they brought 13- or 12-year-olds, etc., and took an extended amount of time to rehabilitate them.

Mr. Khadr is a man now. If he's repatriated to Canada, what do you suggest? What do you see as a path forward as to what we would do with Mr. Khadr, particularly in light of the family circumstances?

[Kathy Vandergrift]

I appreciate that question, and I think that gets us toward where we need to begin to focus our discussion, around what is a reintegration plan.

I would agree with you that there is not an exact parallel between this case and the case in Sierra Leone, but many of the other cases we deal with regarding child soldiers aren't exact parallels either. In some, young people have joined under pressure from families, which may be a closer parallel to this case. We do find those. In some cases they have even joined because they believed in a cause. But international law says we deal with all of them as if they were children. It's a violation to have recruited them and used them.

In terms of what the alternative is, that is where it would have to start with a very careful assessment, as I said. What is his personal health, psychological health, mental health? We need to look at education. He left school at a very early age. We face that with former child soldiers in other countries too, who come back as adults. They left school early. You can't put them back in the classroom. So we develop appropriate programs for them, often ones that involve income generation and education in other options. Other countries also deal with child soldiers who come back older and who have missed a whole portion of their development.

We need to find ways to rehabilitate and try to reintegrate them in some way and deal with them under the youth justice system appropriately. But that's what we should be focusing on.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Ancaster—Dundas—Flamborough—Westdale, ON]

That's all I have, Mr. Chairman, but I messed up the names of the two victims in this case. I don't think that's right, so I just want to reiterate that the names of the persons I was speaking of are medic Christopher James Speer and Sergeant First Class Layne Morris.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

That is duly noted. Thank you.

Mr. Marston, please.

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

I was sitting here thinking back to the beginning of the movie Gone with the Wind, and how the horsemen came riding up and announced that there was a great civil war starting, that it was only going to be a matter of weeks, that it would be over soon and everything would go back to normal. And think in terms of the devastation that happened beyond that. As well, think in terms of this commission that, if it were following the protocol, would have been addressing this particular case based on a sentence that would have to be restorative to rehabilitate the person and reintegrate him.

And somewhere in all of this.... Every combatant who is at war has a good chance of killing somebody in battle, and how is this case different? It's tragic that the two individuals died in that firefight. Certainly it's tragic, as any loss is. But I am mystified at how people have lost sight that this was a boy. I don't care if he's 82 now; he was a boy at the time. He was a young teenager when he left here, and he was only 15 in the middle of this battle.

You get to the point where you just wonder how we got to this place. How did our government get to this place, that the sense of vindictiveness is there?

I'll ask you one last question. What do you think will happen if the Canadian government just walks away from it and doesn't intercede? I've left that generally wide open on purpose to give you free rein.

[Kathy Vandergrift]

What will happen if the Canadian government doesn't intercede? Well, as part of my testimony I argued that Canada faces a choice here. A do-nothing choice, according to the scenario I paint, undermines not only what we have developed in terms of the protection of children but also the whole notion of responsibility to protect. We are undermining that. That is what a do-nothing choice is: it's not a do-nothing position but a negative position, and that grows. The longer this case goes on, the more international attention it gets.

We also have a choice to show positive leadership, and I would hope that would be the path that Canada would choose.

I don't know as we have a real choice to do nothing. We are right now trending toward being very negative, and I think the Canadian public increasingly understands that as well and wants to see Canada do something to uphold protection of children's rights.

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

Thank you.

I have no more questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

We do have sufficient time, because we had said we would go until ten past, to allow the witnesses to take Mr. Marston's suggestion and make any final comments to deal with any issues they think might have been neglected in the course of discussions.

Is there anything you'd like to add?

[Kathy Vandergrift]

I feel we've covered it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right.

In that case, thank you both very much.