Evidence of meeting #5 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was refugee.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Saad Hammadi  Regional Campaigner, South Asia, Amnesty International
Zaid Al-Rawni  Chief Executive Officer, Islamic Relief Canada
Clerk of the Committee  Ms. Erica Pereira
Marten Mylius  Country Director, CARE Colombia
Joe Belliveau  Executive Director, Doctors Without Borders
Jason Nickerson  Humanitarian Affairs Advisor, Doctors Without Borders
Shujaat Wasty  Founder and Board Member, OBAT Canada

8:10 p.m.

Bloc

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

That is an excellent answer, Mr. Mylius.

Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair?

8:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca

You have about 25 seconds, so maybe we should move on.

Thank you. That was a great question to end with.

8:10 p.m.

Bloc

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

8:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca

Thank you, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

We're going to move now to the NDP and Ms. McPherson for seven minutes.

You'll be our last questioner.

8:10 p.m.

NDP

Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank all three witnesses for joining us. If I have time, I hope to get in a question for each of you.

I was sitting in on the foreign affairs committee today just before this, and we were looking at very similar issues.

My first question I'd like to put to Mr. Belliveau.

In the beginning stages of COVID-19, High Commissioner Bachelet called on governments to ensure human rights were not violated under the guise of exceptional or emergency measures. You've touched on this and discussed this slightly. Can you talk a little about to what extent COVID-19 has increased human rights violations? What would have been the most common types of human rights violations that observers witnessed during the pandemic? What would you like to see Canada do as a response to that?

November 26th, 2020 / 8:10 p.m.

Executive Director, Doctors Without Borders

Joe Belliveau

Thanks for that question.

I'll start, and then I'll ask Mr. Nickerson to round it out.

Thinking of human rights through our lens of humanitarian response, we're concerned about access to health care. We're concerned about access to food and water. Yes, we have very real, very tangible examples where restrictions on people's movements—forced quarantine, or being forced to stay in confined locations—have diminished people's access to those three things. It's that two-way...in terms of people's access to move around to access such services and in terms of humanitarian actors, such as MSF, being able to move around to deliver those services.

I'll ask Mr. Nickerson to round that out.

8:10 p.m.

Humanitarian Affairs Advisor, Doctors Without Borders

Dr. Jason Nickerson

Absolutely.

One of the first messages we had at the beginning of this was that it's absolutely essential that public health measures that effectively curtail people's abilities to move around need to be proportionate and respectful of people's human rights and their ability to access things, such as health services, health systems and basic necessities.

A recurrent theme that we've seen is that the measures that are often imposed in the name of public health can be quite severe when you're effectively talking about quarantining an entire population of people somewhere.

The example given earlier of the Moria camp, is a good example of that. In the early days of identifying cases in the camp, the whole camp was effectively quarantined. This is self-defeating when you have people being quarantined in a camp that is already a public health risk scenario. It was overcrowded and there were a number of different things. Now you're quarantining people because there is a communicable disease among that population. These are not decisions that are justifiable from a public health perspective.

8:15 p.m.

NDP

Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Of course, we think of quarantine from our own perspectives, and this is a very different reality that we're seeing in some of these situations.

I would like to ask Mr. Wasty a question about his experience within the Rohingya camps.

You spoke about education and how that was lacking. We know right now that the government has promised an education program for refugees and displaced children. It has not come out. Can you speak to the urgency of supports for education programming to come out as fast as possible?

8:15 p.m.

Founder and Board Member, OBAT Canada

Dr. Shujaat Wasty

I don't think it can be understated. On the experience that we had, for example, I'm just going to draw a comparison with the Urdu-speaking displaced population camps, which have been in Bangladesh for 50 years. That's 50 years. Multiple generations have been living and languishing in these camps. We don't want the Rohingya to become another similar situation.

The way to definitely help them get out of this and be empowered and be their own advocates definitely requires that the Rohingya children be educated. There are challenges, obviously, as you mentioned. Those challenges have now increased because of the COVID situation. The Government of Bangladesh had a change of opinion and had allowed us, NGOs...for schools and a curriculum to be set up. Of course, from my understanding that was still a few months away. Now because of the COVID situation, we are even further from that reality to actually come into being.

What we have right now are temporary learning centres. We're not talking about a full curriculum. However, they do provide for a safe space for the children, a place where they can come, take refuge from the refugee camps, to see each other, to sing songs, to learn basic education skills. Even that is now being taken away from them so—

8:15 p.m.

NDP

Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

It's really quite urgent.

Sorry to interrupt you. I just want to make sure I get to my next question. I hear the urgency there and I understand that.

My last question would be for Mr. Mylius from CARE.

I know that CARE has done phenomenal work around the world in terms of poverty alleviation. What I'm interested in is that dynamic where we see the immediate humanitarian response but the need in the long term for international development support. We know that Canada has not played a strong enough role in international development. Our ODA is very low. I would ask you to talk about how humanitarian aid is important right now, but how, if we don't have development, then we're not actually going to be helping COVID. It's not going to work in the long run.

That's a very inelegant way of asking you that question. I apologize.

8:15 p.m.

Country Director, CARE Colombia

Marten Mylius

Yes, now the word we are using is the “nexus" programming. There is a recognition in the industry that you cannot just focus on the humanitarian, immediate life-saving, emergency type of assistance, but also on what is needed here after people arrive. I'm saying that we are supporting the caminantes on their route. That is a life-saving, emergency intervention. But they will reach other cities. They will reach Bogota, Medellin, Cúcuta and they will be left to their own devices.

There's a real gap here in that kind of programming because the regional crisis in Venezuela is underfunded. When you compare that with the Syria crisis, you talk about the investment being around $200 for every Venezuelan and $2,000 for every Syrian. You find the real gap here is that most of the donors are saying, no, they just want to focus on the emergency, the life-saving part. The other part is left.

Everybody talks about that gap. It's in all the UN reports. Everybody has it as a strategy, but to get funding for livelihood programs, let's say, for integration support, has been so difficult. I worked for eight years in the Middle East, and now here I find it mind-boggling that we have a situation like this.

8:20 p.m.

NDP

Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Thank you for taking the time.

I'm sure that was my time.

8:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Peter Fonseca

That was.

Thank you, Ms. McPherson. Thank you, Mr. Mylius.

I want to thank all of our witnesses on behalf of our committee. You are, as the honourable Judy Sgro said at the outset, our unsung heros. We feel it. We heard it through the questions here. Thank you for the tireless work that you do around the world for those in need.

Members, we are going to suspend and resume in camera. I think everyone should have those details. If we could do that as quickly as possible, we can conclude.

Thanks.

[Proceedings continue in camera]