Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Nov. 6th, 2014

[Henri-Paul Normandin]

To my knowledge, nothing has changed on this front since the arrival of the new administration.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Okay.

According to a report by the National Autonomous University of Honduras, between January 2011 and November 2012 police killed 149 civilians, including 18 individuals under the age of 19. The government did not respond to calls by the university to provide information on how many of those killings have been subject to investigations or have resulted in criminal convictions.

Under President Hernández, has there been any increase in the complete lack of police transparency?

[Henri-Paul Normandin]

Again, what I can point to are some of the measures that have been taken, particularly since the arrival of the new administration. There are a number of them, including specifically the aim of the police to strengthen the capacity of the police to better handle human rights challenges and issues, including the specific unit on human rights that has been created within the police.

Whether that will in practice allow them to correct some of the abuses that have taken place in Honduras, including those in the recent few years, we will have to see.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

What steps have been taken by the Honduran government to combat the high level of drug trafficking and drug-related violence?

[Henri-Paul Normandin]

The main initiatives we are aware of are those that have to do with the strengthening of investigative capacities and all the related judicial officials. Those have been the main initiatives.

Of course, those initiatives, in strengthening the capacity of the prosecution and the performance of the justice sector, if they are brought to success, are useful to combat crime generally, including of course drug trafficking, which is a very serious issue in Honduras. They are useful as well to better protect human rights. They can be useful as well in matters of economic crimes. The way I look at it, it is a generic approach to try to combat crime.

You have pointed out, sir, the specific problem of drugs, which I think we cannot underestimate, because it does undermine economic development; it undermines the justice system, and it also feeds corruption. It has a very serious effect on all of the functioning of Honduran institutions, so fighting crime generally, and fighting drugs in particular, is of course high on the agenda of President Hernández. He made that clear from the moment he took office.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you.

Do I have any more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

You have 30 seconds.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

One of the Canadian companies in Honduras I think is Silvan....

[Henri-Paul Normandin]

Gildan?

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Yes, Gildan. I was told that they employed about 40,000 in Honduras. Am I close on that?

[Henri-Paul Normandin]

I thought the last number I heard was 24,000.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Okay. If it's around 24,000, how do you look at their record on human rights in Honduras?

[Henri-Paul Normandin]

They have certainly put in place a number of measures towards the treatment of their staff. I am not an expert in labour conditions or textile factories; however, I can say as a layperson that I visited their factory and, compared to a number of other factories I have seen around the world, this one is certainly a state-of-the-art one. Again, I simply report this here as a layman, because I'm not an expert on labour conditions. I think that if some of us were to go there and see their plant, we would at least say that it certainly looks state of the art. That's what I would report.

[Gary Schellenberger, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Now we'll turn to our last questioner. Mr. Benskin, please.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Welcome. Thank you for your comments. As my colleague expressed earlier, your comments and positive view of the progress in Honduras is something we can think about.

A couple of times you've mentioned this 132 access number. My thoughts are in terms of what kind of effort is going into acclimatizing the public to the changes. A lot of times there are things that happen within a government, and a government says that it's going to do this and it's going to do that, but the people take a little longer to be convinced because they've lived under certain conditions for so long.

What kind of effort is being made to assure people that when they call this 132 number they're not actually giving up information on themselves and there's not going to be a door kicked in at some point later in the evening and they're going to be dragged away?

[Henri-Paul Normandin]

Thank you very much for your question, sir.

The only thing I can attest to is that at least so far we have not heard reports of people who have called in or reported human rights situations and have been subjected to specific harassment. I can only say this: we have not heard reports that this has happened.

More generally, it is certain that Honduras is an environment where it is difficult for human rights defenders to advocate for people's rights. That's why, as many of you have referred to, there are murders and harassment and so on, unfortunately. There are two ways that Canada works to try to improve the situation.

First of all, we're working with the government, and I've already talked enough about that, but also, we work with civil society. There are civil society organizations in Honduras. A number of them are active. A number of them are capable. We do provide them some support, so that in turn those civil society organizations can feel better equipped and better empowered to do what they want to do, and also so they can be comforted to some extent by the fact that they do have the visibility of Canada and the international community. We also do this work with the civil organizations.

The last time I was in Honduras, I met with one organization that specializes simply in criminal statistics. They monitor the statistics of the government and they report publicly. The kind of work they do brings the issue of human rights to the broader attention of the public. This is happening and we're supporting them, but again, I think we all realize that it is a difficult environment for civil society organizations to work in.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Thank you.

In a changing world or a changing environment in any country that's gone through this type of upheaval, a healthy judiciary is key.

As an anecdote, I went to Kenya. I think it was the year before last. It was the second trip I made. In the first trip, we spoke with the chief justice, who had committed that within the year leading up to the elections to come, he would clean up the judiciary to the point where people would have faith in it, enough faith to use that process as opposed to the violence that occurred in the elections prior to that.

When we went back that year, he had actually managed to instill that faith through re-interviewing many of the judges and dismissing a significant number of them. This interview process was not done internally. Judges were brought in from other countries, from African nations, to make up that tribunal.

I know from my colleagues' questions that the judiciary there is not in a healthy state. Is there any kind of work being done to strengthen the judiciary and to rebuild or build faith in the process of law as an alternative to other means of retribution?

[Henri-Paul Normandin]

Thank you very much, sir, for your question.

Mr. Chair, with respect to the judiciary, again, we do a lot of training in various ways with the judiciary. I will not pretend that this is specifically aimed at, writ large, having the ambition of suddenly changing the image of the judiciary, but some training is taking place.

However, I can point to one other initiative that has been undertaken in another justice-related organization, the police. One of the tasks of the human rights unit that has been created within the police is supposed to be the vetting of the police. I don't think they are there yet, but it is on their agenda. I think that if this takes place and if there is a serious mechanism in place that actually vets policemen and policewomen, that might contribute to increasing not only the performance but the image of the police.

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

Has the relationship improved at all overall, do you know, in regard to the relationship between the police and the general public? I guess statistics are the only way we can measure that. Has there been a significant drop in the types of human rights abuses that were in place before the election of Hernández? Has there been a significant drop in those types of activities such as unwarranted searches, unwarranted arrests, and so forth?

[Henri-Paul Normandin]

I would not be in a position to provide reliable data on this specific issue. However, one thing we can point to relates both to the issue of the performance of the police and to the issue of confidence from the public vis-à-vis the police. What we hear, as I mentioned before, is that there tends to be better cooperation by witnesses in police investigations. I think that's an encouraging sign. If this is happening, it might be—it might be—because people have a bit more confidence in the police. That's all that I could report specifically on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

Do you have another question?

[Tyrone Benskin, NDP, Jeanne-Le Ber, QC]

No, I don't.

[The Chair, Conservative, Scott Reid]

All right. We are just about at the end. I did say that if we had any final questions arising.... Given the fact that we have about a minute to go, I'll just go around the table. Does anyone want to pursue anything else? All right.

In that case, to our two witnesses, thank you very much. We are very grateful that you were able to come and provide testimony.

[Henri-Paul Normandin]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the distinguished members of the committee for this conversation today. It was a pleasure.