You've both raised interesting things regarding Canadian human rights. I want to push us into the UPR a little bit directly, because we're reviewing that. There are some process issues as well as some content issues.
I'm still analyzing all the recommendations of the report itself. They're confusing, because they overlap and they're not organized. Some are diplomatically worded, and some are politically worded. They're not really that helpful for me. And I'm sure the government can either then find a way to weasel out or....
I think there's a process problem. Canada may be able to be helpful in the future. I know that this is the first round of getting through the 200 countries, so I think there may be a task for us in helping the process to be a little cleaner.
We live in two worlds, and I think you've both been talking about them. One is that world of lofty international value statements of human rights, and then there is the practical world. At one point I thought both comments were true, that maybe those didn't count, that the lofty statements actually weren't practical, but the practical things require the lofty statements as well. This is the world of praxis. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about a praxis model of human rights--fragile, evolving, incremental. I hate that, because I think of absolute, sure, and steadfast; that's my vision of human rights. I have come to grasp that they are fragile, incremental, and evolving.
All that means is that I think the next step is to promote a national discussion about the UPR. As opposed to having a top-down understanding of human rights coming from international treaties or multilateral bodies, there should actually be a demand from the bottom up to have a discussion about human rights, because the requirement in your three points was that the government actually would have to admit that they don't fulfill human rights in order to actually address them, and they're not going to.
Do you have something to add to say how we as parliamentarians can truly foster civil society, in a discussion about human rights, that then demands Liberal governments in the future, Conservative governments in the past, actually do that?