We should have a clear and obvious answer to that question, but we don't. The fact that we don't have a clear and obvious answer is itself an indictment of our current approach to human rights implementation. The process within Canada to consider signing on to an important human rights treaty such as the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture is secretive. The main vehicle for those discussions is the continuing committee of officials that I referred to earlier, which does all its work behind closed doors. It does not report publicly or share the issues, concerns, and roadblocks with Canadians. What they are, we're left to guess. We have to read between the lines.
We hear that some provinces may have concerns about inspections of their prisons. For what reasons, it's not clear. We've also heard that there may be some departments within the federal government that have misgivings, but that's not clear either. There have been debates about how widely the optional protocol would reach. Everyone would agree that it covers jails and prisons, but then you get into holding centres in police stations and detention centres operated by first nations police forces. Apparently, there's been some concern or uncertainty about this. But since none of it is made public, there's no opportunity for engagement between Canadians and the officials involved. We simply don't know. After six years, Canada has not signed on to an important convention, the sole aim of which is to prevent torture. Preventing torture is something this nation stands for, and we should have been among the first countries to sign on to this. One would have thought that by this time we would be leading the charge, pressing other countries to sign on to this treaty, including countries where Canadians have experienced torture, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt. But we can't do so.