Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on April 1st, 2010

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

Considering what you just said, it is a little difficult to understand...

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

You have one minute left, Mrs. Deschamps

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

It is rather difficult to do now. Indeed, I have difficulty understanding the way this government has shifted its policy over the past few years. We are excluding ourselves from the international community. One fails to understand where this government is going.

[Alex Neve]

I think we have highlighted that a number of these very recent concerns are of double concern. They're of concern obviously in that they are decisions or positions that have very real impact domestically on particular human rights issues. They're also of international concern because they have in many respects isolated Canada in some UN settings or tarnished some of our reputation.

Again, coming back to the UPR and this need for a good implementation process, in our view this would be a tremendous way of making a positive contribution to both the domestic and international front: domestically, in that it would be a way of ensuring stronger, more effective mechanisms for human rights protection in the country--better coordinated--but globally as well, in that we want, we need, we absolutely have to be the very best possible model for the rest of the world as to how you live up to what you've promised to do when it comes to human rights on the world stage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Unfortunately, we're out of time for that round.

We'll go on to Mr. Marston now.

I'll alert members that our lunch has arrived--better late than never. You're welcome to have it now or to stay afterward. Because it's arrived late, it means the witnesses have a chance to get something too, which doesn't always happen.

Mr. Marston.

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

Fortunately, I ate before coming here, Mr. Chair. And I have a plane to catch, so I have to leave in about eight minutes.

You know, I'm known in my party for being a Timmies guy. I talk to people in the food courts of Eastgate Square in Hamilton, or I go to our Timmies and I sit and talk with them about some of the issues that are very troubling.

To give an example, you talked about the various conventions--the protocol to the convention against torture, which Canada shepherded into the UN and then all of a sudden stood back from; and the rights of the child, vis-à-vis the Omar Khadr case. I was just reading in the newspaper about Mohamed Harkat and some of the evidence against him that the U.S. has suddenly decided....

When you look at those together, you see the shadow of 9/11. Rather than say a government here is to blame, or a government there is to blame, there was a reaction at that point in time.... Of course, we all remember the United States, and everybody on the steps singing together as if.... Well, I won't start too far down that road.

Alex, you're very right to say it's a thorny issue. The thing that's amazing, though, with the Timmies crowd, is that they believe we have the best human rights on the face of the earth. And I agree, that's what we should be striving for.

One of the things that has come out of your commentary today, which I think is very striking, and I haven't it heard before--we've had a couple of days of hearings previously on this--is the need for a minister in charge. I think you may have just opened the door to the one idea.

Right now, with the continuing committee we have a case of mid-level officials doing, we presume, the due diligence within the frame that they've been given. But if you have a minister that we can turn to for leadership....

I'm not in the blame game here. I'm as disappointed as everybody. When you read the UPR.... I made a point last time, and this time again, of talking about some of the countries that made comments about Canada. They are good friends: UK, Denmark, Italy, Chile, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Austria, and Sweden. As you've indicated..and we could get discouraged, and I can understand that, with the fact that so many of these people have raised these issues before.

We have a government today that talks about accountability. In fairness to the government members of this committee, they were in agreement to having these hearings. I want to stress that, because I think that's important going forward.

I would ask about what you call systemic barriers within the continuing committee. The reason I ask is that we hope to hear from them. Are there any systemic barriers that you see, where those walls could and should be taken down?

[Leilani Farha]

I can start, and hopefully Alex will supplement.

In terms of systemic barriers, we'd have to know a little bit about the committee to identify systemic barriers. It's secretive.

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

So number one is that you don't have access to the committee, you don't have access, as you've said before, to the agendas. There is a complete lack of accountability to Canadians, via civil society, then.

[Leilani Farha]

Absolutely.

I mean, even if the committee shouldn't be struck down entirely, they self-describe as a communications protocol. Well, I don't hear “implementation”, I don't hear “action”. They disseminate information, that's all. And in this day and age, with the Internet, we can all do that. You don't even need a committee for that.

The committee is not functioning in a role of implementation at all. But I do think the lack of transparency, the secrecy, etc., is phenomenal, and that would be a first step. Who are the committee members? When do they meet? Isn't there a space for civil society to join at some point? Isn't there some dialogue we could be having?

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

Well, you would think, with the input of civil society in that committee, that they should then be carrying that back to the House of Commons via a minister. Again, I think you've struck on the nub of the issue: parliamentarians need to look at human rights via enveloping it into everything we do. Again, the only way you'll do that is if you hold that accountable to Parliament via a minister. So I'm quite pleased with that today.

The process is a little bit daunting and discouraging when you look at the counter. We know that the situation of homelessness is something that's been with us a long time.

When you come to work on the Hill, there are three or four people who are on the street all the time. You stop and you do what you can for them and chat with them. They're now gone. There were three people I saw every morning, and I'm very concerned about the fact that all of a sudden, all of them are gone. I passed a young woman last night talking about the police pulling her over and putting her in handcuffs. I'm not quite clear what it was about, but she very clearly was a homeless person. She struck me as one who might even have psychiatric problems.

So that's a very fundamental thing, the right to adequate housing, but there are so many. I'm kind of wandering with this, because as soon as you hit on the minister, I think you gave us the key.

I think I'm going to stop there, because I do have a plane to catch.

If you'd like to comment on anything I've said....

[Alex Neve]

Very briefly, the only other point I would emphasize, as Leilani did, is about the continuing committee.

Yes, it could and it should be improved in many ways, especially with respect to transparency. It's also vital to recognize its limits. It is not what is needed to solve the bigger picture here around political accountability, true coordination at a meaningful level amongst governments. It is an information-sharing vehicle. It is a level at which some good discussions can happen about some legal issues around what does this or that treaty mean. And we should have something like that in Canada, but it's not where the decisions are going to happen, it's not where resource issues are going to be worked out, and it's not where political struggles between federal and provincial levels as to who is going to bear responsibility for this or that issue will be worked out, either.

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

There's no notion of accountability, either.

[Alex Neve]

That's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Mr. Marston, you're out of time.

Did you have anything you wanted to contribute, just in response?

[Leilani Farha]

No.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Okay.

In that case, Mr. Sweet, you're our last questioner.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here.

I want to say, too, that we have this very unique group in Hamilton called the Hamilton poverty round table. It's creating quite a model of speaking about removing the silo mentality and trying to synergize between organizations that operate not just with government money from all levels but also with private donations. Certainly, from what I've seen in terms of not only rights but also the whole challenge of moving someone from a destitute situation, and transitioning them into a place where they can both flourish and make a contribution, adequate housing is the key issue. Of course, if you don't have an address, you can't get services, you can't apply for a job.

So I'm very thankful for the work you're doing in that regard. In fact, this model is so promising that we appointed the founding chairman of the poverty round table to the federal welfare council, to get it right from that level to our Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development.

On the comment you made to Mr. Marston's question, are there any governments right now in their executive that have a secretary of state or a minister in charge of human rights?

[Alex Neve]

There are any number around the world. I'm trying to think of those amongst some of our closest allies, which may be of greatest interest to you.

In some instances, it may be a minister specifically and solely or entirely designated as responsible for human rights. In other instances, it may be just be a case of specifically identifying that the minister of justice, or whoever, also bears responsibility for human rights. I'm quite sure there is a portfolio within the U.K. government that has a human rights responsibility, and also within the French government.

Certainly within the global south, it is prevalent. I'm often on Amnesty's front-line human rights research missions throughout Africa and Latin America. We always end those missions with government talks, and I would be hard-pressed to think of a government who doesn't have a ministre des droits humains or a ministro de drechos humanos whom we meet at the end. It's quite a common practice.

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

I guess if there is that plethora—it's academic, but I'll make the statement for the record—then not only does someone need to be responsible; they need to be effective as well. It's like anything; as Mr. Oliphant said, the praxis model has to...you need to have a plan and execute it.

Thank you very much. That's all I have. I appreciate your coming.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

We still have some time.

Go ahead, please.

[Leilani Farha]

Just on the issue of having a minister, I think you said it precisely: you may need a minister, but the person has to be effective. I would also add that there have to be mechanisms. A ministry itself is not a mechanism. If someone wants to claim their rights, they must have a place to go to, and it's not going to be to a ministry.

Things have to be happening simultaneously. I think that having a minister would be a huge step, because it is important to be able to say that at least I know this person is responsible. I also think it's a little symbolic, too, as it would say something about Canada if we had a minister responsible for human rights in the country and overseeing those rights.

I would definitely emphasize, however, that there must be a whole bunch of strategies happening at the same time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

I will take advantage of the fact that Mr. Sweet has only used up four of his seven minutes, both in questions and answers. I just want to ask the following.

The impression I got from looking at the periodic review of Canada is that its most valuable parts tended to indicate, not that Canada was engaging in human rights abuses in the sense of the abuses that we tend to deal with at this committee, in that we don't have arbitrary arrests and executions in Canada, and those sorts of thing, but that there were issues at the administrative level, in particular.

One that stands out in my mind as being mentioned by a number of the countries that had reviewed Canada's performance is the treatment of aboriginals once they get caught up inside the justice system. All of this suggest to me--I guess I'm in danger of putting words in your mouth, so correct me if you think I'm on the wrong track—that the problem is not the lack of a ministry of human rights, either at the federal or provincial level, but the absence of proper enforcement mechanisms to ensure the law is meted out in equal measure, that equal benefit of the law is provided to all persons once they are within the apparatus of the government and, if you like, to some degree, at the mercy of the apparatus of government.

[Alex Neve]

I think there are a variety of aspects to the pattern of human rights concerns that arise in Canada.

I would say there are instances where we do have very real human rights violations where individuals experience abuses. I think one of the issues highlighted by many in the universal periodic review that I would put in that category is the alarming and shocking levels of violence and discrimination experienced by indigenous women in Canada, for instance.

I absolutely agree with you that a key piece of the human rights puzzle in Canada is the fact that human rights are not doled out in an equitable manner within the justice system, or within other systems. The corollary is that very often there is not an obvious, or even any, place an individual can go to remedy this and ensure that a tribunal or a court, or a government official with the power to redress the situation, is able to intervene and make use of that international standard that's at stake and correct the concern.

That's the other piece, I think, that flows from that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right.

It sounds like that's it. I want to thank both of our witnesses very much for coming here. Mr. Oliphant is quite right that Alex Neve is a regular guest here, and we always appreciate him.

I'm very glad, Ms. Farha, that you were able to come and provide us with as much information as you could. Perhaps you'll wind up becoming a more regular guest as time goes on. We certainly would welcome that.

Thanks very much.

The committee is adjourned.