Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on April 29th, 2010

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

But the committee itself is still looking at the matter. Does it make recommendations to the government?

[Tom Scrimger]

It is not a policy committee; it does not have the power to make recommendations on a specific topic. The committee is rather there to coordinate, facilitate and communicate the various positions of the various governments on certain issues. This type of committee can certainly identify solutions from time to time, but it is always up to the ministers to decide what to do with the UN recommendations.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Suppose that one of the parties does not agree; for example, one of the provinces does not agree. Could the federal government decide to settle the issue when it comes under provincial jurisdiction, or not?

[Tom Scrimger]

I read the history of the committee, which has been in existence for two decades now. In my opinion, the objective of the committee is to always be able to reconcile those differences. It is clear that, according to a Supreme Court decision from 1937, I believe, the federal government is not in a position to implement something that is under provincial jurisdiction in an international treaty. The committee's role is to facilitate communication among the many governments in order to ensure that Canada—depending on the type of treaties, I know—is in a position to approve or accept the treaty.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Do I still have time?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

Yes, you still have six minutes.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Canada will go through this process again in less than three years, I think. My question is quite general. What is the lesson learned from what just happened, from the review we were subjected to and from our answer about what we should do for the next review? In three years, will Canada act differently from the way it acted last time? What are we doing to prepare for the next Universal Periodic Review?

[Tom Scrimger]

To think about where Canada will be in three years would be entirely pure speculation on my part. It should certainly be the ministers answering this question.

I can clearly state what I want to achieve with the committee. I want us to make sure that we are in a position to provide all the parties involved with information about the progress made on the recommendations in the last review. I also want us to make sure that we find a way to keep everyone up to date on the steps taken to implement the recommendations, and that commitments are met in order for us to have, for example, a better mechanism for consulting with civil society and aboriginal groups. That would be really useful and I feel it would be an achievement if we could clearly show that those mechanisms were implemented.

But it is absolutely impossible to say what the contents of the report will be in three years. I know we have a lot of work to do to make sure that the commitments have already been made, that everyone is aware of that, and that we have a way of communicating to governments and ministers what stage we really are at.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

I would imagine that you also participated in the initial consultations with the civil society organizations.

[Tom Scrimger]

I personally did not. I am not completely new to this position, since I started last year. I will be participating in the consultations in June and I will be attending my first meeting of the Continuing Committee in May. But I can say that my team was always in attendance and it was they who coordinated and led the consultations with the civil society groups.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

So I will ask you the question again. Perhaps Ms. Venasse could answer. During the information session for the civil society groups, is it correct that there was no mention of financial compensation or of funding the travel of the organizations consulted? Is that correct?

[Liane Venasse, Manager, Human Rights Program, Citizenship and Heritage, Department of Canadian Heritage]

Could you clarify that? Are you talking about the consultation we held in January, last year?

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Yes.

[Liane Venasse]

On that occasion, yes, we did offer money to some of the participants who came from outside the region we were in—because we held consultations across the country. We subsidized civil society members from outside the city we were in so that they would come.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

So you covered the travel costs of people from outside the city.

[Liane Venasse]

Yes.

[Jean Dorion, Bloc, Longueuil—Pierre-Boucher, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Scrimger and Ms. Venasse.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Marston, would you like to go ahead, please?

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

Certainly.

Thank you very much for appearing here today. We certainly appreciate it.

We've had a number of witnesses from civil society. I was the person who moved the motion to examine the UPR and the continuing committee and the process, because of a fairly large number of concerns that were brought to us, with words like “secretive”. It was clear that we had to get the process out onto the table so that people would understand, number one, the process: who had what responsibilities and where.

But there was another concern that we heard regularly. We had concerns raised over time about Canada's human rights record and about how, if anything was done--and they felt little was done--there wasn't a process to report that back to Canadians. There was concern about how there was no process to hold us accountable, in some way, for those things we agreed to do something about. It became an issue of follow-up, in the sense that they weren't included.

Now, obviously, this is a committee within a department of mostly bureaucratic people. It doesn't sound like it was initially designed to consult civil society, and it seems to me that in your comments at the beginning you said that you didn't have a mandate, actually, in the beginning, to consult civil society. It sounds good to hear you say things like how you are looking at a process, a way, to include civil society.

One of the things that was said to us before today was that there is a concern out there, again among civil society groups, that the reports they hear about don't contain the actual analysis portion to the degree that would help them understand the reports. Of course, part of what I as an MP am concerned about is that I understand and my constituents understand what's necessary for them to fulfill their own obligations under human rights. Is there any change coming in the reports that might address that perceived lack of analysis?

[Tom Scrimger]

There are a number of aspects to the questions you've just put down.

If I can come back to it, one is that I think in any public policy area I have worked in, civil society today has been seeking everywhere a more active and integrated role. I think we recognize and respect that.

I would point out that the continuing committee is not simply an organism of the Department of Canadian Heritage. It is a federal-provincial-territorial instrument that federal, provincial, and territorial ministers have provided a mandate to. That's why I want to be very careful in saying that it's not a simple matter--and I'm not suggesting it's a simple matter--to get mandates changed, but it's perhaps more complicated because we have to find something that will please all 14 jurisdictions around the table: that they view that as being the right role for the continuing committee.

I would expect that wherever we go with the role of the continuing committee, there will still be some aspects of federal-provincial-territorial work that will be done in camera or in confidence, because it's simply the nature of the business. The question is whether that same instrument is a usable instrument for the other objectives as well, and how do you want to ensure when it's just governments and, then, when civil society is part of that process? It's a delicate balance to find. I'm not saying that it's an impossible balance to find, but it's a delicate balance to find, and we need to kind of do that.

When it comes to whether there have been any changes in reporting, I'll let Liane answer that question.

[Liane Venasse]

Thank you.

It's actually a very interesting question, because one of the commitments Canada has made under the UPR is to look at existing mechanisms and whether there are methods to enhance those mechanisms. One of the things that we have started looking at, and will continue to look at, is Canada's reporting to the United Nations under the different international human rights treaties that we are party to, to see if there are ways of enhancing that process as well.

In how we do the reports, is there a possibility of a role for input role from civil society? What about the information that's actually in the reports? How do we improve on that? That also goes back to the commitment that Canada made to look at the available data. What is required under the different treaties? What is already out there? Where might there be gaps in that data so that we can improve the reporting over a period of time, so we can look at and improve how Canada actually reports to the United Nations under these different treaties?

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

Again, coming back to the assessment of Canada, I believe you referred to 68 comments made about Canada. As I've pointed out at this committee before, many of those comments came from historic allies of Canada.

There has been a move by some people to portray the UPR as being out there--by countries that are predisposed not to look kindly on Canada in the first place--but when we look at those concerns that were raised, I would say they were reasonable in the way they assess Canada. Very troubling, I think, to everybody in this room is the fact that the commentary had a thread about aboriginal communities, so in your presentation I heard you speaking of that.

But there's a critical piece here that may have left the continuing committee hung out to dry, so to speak, because of that distance: you're removed from the flow of our community at the civil level. As soon as that happens, it opens the door to suspicions, questions, and problems.

We have to find a way to open the door to allow civil society a place at the table in the process, to try to help the government as we move forward to address these concerns, particularly when they're legitimate, when they have a certain legitimacy. I understand the 14 governments that you have to deal with, and I've heard some of the reasons why they don't want certain things addressed, but still, we're talking process here.

One of the aspects of process that I suggested before was that perhaps that report, instead of being tabled to Parliament, should be tabled here to this committee, to look at and pass on to Parliament. What would you think of that?

[Tom Scrimger]

It's a procedural question that I don't feel particularly competent to answer. I think what is important for us is that whatever procedure follows--following ministerial approval and assuming the minister's acceptance of the procedure--is the one that we will go with.

I would like to point out, though, that the continuing committee is not the only body at all levels of government that is addressing these issues. Lead departments across town have their own processes for engaging civil society on the policy matters and the policy instruments they are responsible for. We happen to be a point of coordination.

I accept your comments that what we're doing might appear somewhat arcane to people. I think we will take some very strong measures to make it an awful lot less arcane, with simple words saying what we are and what we can and can't do, and that we're completely willing to examine the role and develop options for the consideration of ministers, but it will be those ministers who will decide what they want that committee to do.

That's simply one instrument available to us. We recognize the need to engage civil society in the consultations, and if that isn't the instrument, then we'll have to find another one.

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

Going beyond that just a little bit further, when departments are considering their obligations under economic and social rights agreements and that kind of thing, does this committee advise? Is there a role for this committee in that process?

Again, I guess if we're dealing with the different jurisdictions, you have a problem right there, which is to try to find a way to get us on the same page, so to speak.

[Tom Scrimger]

I think the role of the committee is to make sure that all members of the federal family and our colleagues in the provinces and territories are aware of the obligations they have all agreed to as part of the treaty, and that there's a way of communicating the progress made where recommendations have action items attached to them, and a way to make folks aware of where there are issues or where we're not making the progress we would want.

The new role or the additional role you're speaking of is that we would also be a mechanism to inform them of where civil society and aboriginal groups may be and to keep the federal family and the larger federal-provincial-territorial table aware of those issues as well. That's certainly an option, but again, the individual recommendations dealing with policy responsibilities that belong to a particular minister are for that minister and his or her department to pursue, and not for the committee.