Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on March 10th, 2020

[The Clerk]

We have only two vice-chairs.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I nominate her for the position of second vice-chair.

[The Clerk]

We have two motions for the position of second vice-chair, which means—

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Is it possible that we could have both of those positions filled and we could have the two? I thought that was still being discussed at PROC.

[The Clerk]

At the moment, the procedure and House affairs committee has decided to report to the House. In order to change the standing order to allow for a third vice-chair, it would have to be ratified by the House. That report at the House level would have to be concurred in.

Our current Standing Orders only allow for a position of second vice-chair.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Okay, then I think that goes to you.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

I'll withdraw my motion. We must wait until we have the opportunity to nominate a third vice-chair.

[The Clerk]

Okay.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe's motion is withdrawn.

Are there any other motions for the position of second vice-chair?

Ms. McPherson nominated Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

Is it the pleasure of the committee to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to)

I declare the motion carried.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe is duly elected second vice-chair.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

If PROC changes it, then we could revisit this. We could reopen it at a later date.

[The Clerk]

Yes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Perfect. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marwan Tabbara]

Mr. Genuis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Chair, is now the time to put forward general ideas for studies? Is that what you wanted to go into in terms of this discussion?

[The Chair, Liberal, Marwan Tabbara]

Mr. Genuis, do you want to put forward some ideas?

There are some papers I received. It's background information, and I'm not sure if you received that. It just tells us some of the places that we studied in the last Parliament. As your colleague David Sweet mentioned, we studied the Rohingya, and it would be a good time to revisit this in terms of some of the colleagues who came. Some other areas that we revisit may be areas where more conflict has broken out and we revisit something. If you have this paper here, it shows some of the places that we haven't had a chance to study in certain areas.

I would be happy to entertain some of the areas of study that you have, and you may want to share them with the committee. That way, other committee members can have a chance to hear that, and then, if they want to propose other areas of study, we can discuss it here or we can discuss it at other meetings as well.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

My understanding is that generally this committee is operated on consensus, so I don't have these as motions because I think it's better to just put them out as ideas, but if we find a substantial degree of consensus, and we can establish at this meeting that we want to start on a few themes, then that way we don't have to spend unnecessary time in committee business discussion.

There are two ideas that I want to put on the table. The first is that there's a lot of growing interest and concern about the human rights situation in India. I don't think we have dealt with issues in the past at the subcommittee around the citizenship law and recent communal violence. Just given the large South Asian diaspora communities here in Canada, there is a lot of interest in that, and there's a particular opportunity for Canadian engagement on that.

At the same time, the criticism is always that, if we talk about human rights in India, why aren't we talking about Pakistan? I wonder if we could establish that as an area of focus on human rights in South Asia. We could look at minority rights and other human rights issues in India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as well. There are growing concerns about that. We could have a few meetings on each. It would give us an opportunity both to talk about some of the specific issues and specific countries and also to look at whether there are broader regional trends. Again, I think the way Canada is seen through these diaspora connections creates some good opportunities for us to have a voice maybe in a region that we haven't been as engaged with in the past on some of the human rights stuff. That's one idea.

My other idea is that there's a lot of discussion in this committee and elsewhere about the question of genocide and genocide recognition. I think we could do a study here specifically about Canada's mechanisms for genocide recognition and response. Are we equipped to identify early warning signs of genocide? How do we go about recognizing past or present genocides? What are the processes within our government triggered by a declaration? I think that, just by looking at how we identify and respond to genocide at a general level, we could do some really good work. Rather than just looking at specific cases, we could evaluate that as a broader topic.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marwan Tabbara]

Ms. McPherson.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I think both of those sound great and really interesting. Certainly what we're seeing happening in India, Pakistan and the South Asian area is important to me, so I think that would be very useful.

Another thing I was wondering about was whether it's possible to look at, instead of a region or an area, the topic of gender violence and gender violence in climate crisis and humanitarian crisis, if that's something that would be good for us to have on our plate.

The second one I was going to bring forward is looking at the number of different countries in Latin America that are suffering in their democratic processes. That might be another area we could look at. We could be looking at some of the democratic processes in Latin America as well, looking at Bolivia, Venezuela and some of those areas.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

In danger of piling more on to what actually sounds like really worthwhile studies that my colleagues have put forward—and I like all of them, actually—I have a few ideas that are more one-off kind of studies.

I remember in the last Parliament we had Felix Tshisekedi from the Congo, who was an opposition leader at the time. He came and spoke about the elections there. He has since been elected President of the Congo, so those of you who were here for that committee meeting...he was actually successful and became president.

There is another leader, who also ran for president, who is going to be in Ottawa around April 23 and would like to appear and testify about the situation in the Congo and democracy there. If it's worthwhile, it would be very helpful. I can testify also that I knew him very well when I lived in the Congo. He was a member of my steering committee. It's an area of the world where every form of human rights abuses are happening, so it might be interesting. That would be around April 23.

There are others I put out there. One that we haven't, in my memory, actually talked about, which is not in the headlines but is a huge humanitarian crisis, is Yemen. I don't know if we might have some witnesses and maybe a one-off on Yemen.

In the last Parliament, near the end, we had people coming in on Cameroon. I think the situation there has not gotten any better, and there are a number of people who have approached several of us about some of the things that are happening there. If we wanted to have an update on that, that's another one I would put forward.

That's by no means exhaustive. I think we can prioritize. I also like all the ideas and suggestions that my colleagues came up with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marwan Tabbara]

I am going to interrupt to make sure I get the first part done here. Like other committees, we have to go through the routine motions. I'm going to read that through. We need to get this done the first day, as it helps us get funding, budgets, and all that.

The first part, under analysts, states:

That the subcommittee retain, as needed and at the discretion of the chair, the services of one or more analysts from the Library of Parliament to assist it in its work.

(Motion agreed to)

We can invite the analysts now to the table.

Mr. Sweet.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Following routine motions, I assume this is happening, but just in case. You know what they say, “If you assume, you make an ass of you and me”, and I don't want to do that. For all these ideas that were pushed out, they're recorded, so can we get them and consider them before we go to our first business meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marwan Tabbara]

The analysts will prepare documents with all these ideas. Generally, when we're discussing these ideas, it's fine for right now, but we've done it before in camera. We're in public right now. It's just to inform the committee that later on we can have more discussions on certain things amongst ourselves. That was the practice going forward before.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

Yes, that's good. I was going to do that anyway. I don't know if there's a ruling that we have to do that after routine motions. I would move that we go in camera. I have a couple of other issues regarding our meetings going forward that I'd like to discuss.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marwan Tabbara]

Can I have a motion to go in camera right now?

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

So moved.

[The Chair, Liberal, Marwan Tabbara]

We have unanimous consent to move in camera. We'll suspend for a minute.

[Proceedings continue in camera]