Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Feb. 2nd, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Welcome back, colleagues. This is the ninth meeting of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. Today we will have a briefing with the Canadian Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, followed by some subcommittee work that will be in camera.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I encourage everybody to have their microphones on mute. When your time comes up for questions, when you have 30 seconds left I'll flash this card so you'll see how much time is remaining. For those who require interpretation, you'll see the globe at the bottom of your screen, which you can click on for English or French.

With no further ado, I'll welcome our witness, somebody who is no stranger to all of us. I'll refer to him as the Honourable David McGuinty, and also as MP or Mr. President of the Canadian Group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

Welcome, David. Thank you for joining us here and being able to give us your brief and then take questions.

Your colleague David Cunningham Carter will join us when he can.

You'll have five minutes at this time.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair; and good evening, colleagues. It's good to see so many of you again.

Thank you very much for your interest in the Inter-Parliamentary Union, IPU, and specifically its committee on the human rights of parliamentarians.

The Parliament of Canada has a long history with the IPU, having formerly joined the organization in 1912 and reconstituting the modern-day Canadian group of the IPU in 1960.

Today, the Canadian group has 68 members of Parliament and 25 senators as members.

I'm here today—hopefully soon—with my colleague, the Right Honourable David Carter, until very recently a member of the New Zealand Parliament, a former speaker and a former very active member of the IPU's committee on the human rights of parliamentarians.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union, which celebrated its 130th anniversary in 2019, is a global group that brings together national parliaments from around the world. It is the oldest organization of its kind. It currently brings together 179 national parliaments. It works closely with the United Nations to promote democracy, peace and co-operation among peoples.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union is interested in a multitude of topics, such as tensions in the Middle East, health, sustainable development, violent extremism, international humanitarian missions, and young parliamentarians.

Its Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians is the only international mechanism that seeks to protect and defend legislators experiencing such human rights violations as torture, kidnapping, murder, arbitrary arrest and detention.

This committee, consisting of 10 parliamentarians from around the world, carries out in-country missions and meets in camera several times a year to examine ongoing cases and new complaints. Its most recent report and decisions, released in November 2020, addressed cases involving 160 members of national parliaments from 13 countries, including Venezuela, Belarus, Uganda, the Philippines and Egypt.

These are only a portion of those the committee examined in 2020. They confirm an overall upward trend in violations of parliamentarians' human rights, 85% of which are cases involving opposition members.

The list of alleged human rights violations documented in the 2020 report includes murder, torture and other acts of violence, intimidation, arbitrary arrest and detention, abduction, lack of due process and fair trial proceedings and violations of freedom of opinion and expression.

Generally speaking, the committee's decisions do four things. First, they provide a detailed description of the complaint. Then they express concern for the alleged violation of human rights, followed by an affirmation of the IPU's readiness to support capacity-building within various public institutions. Finally, they encourage parliamentary, governmental and judicial authorities to take the appropriate measures to ensure that the human rights of parliamentarians are in fact protected.

I encourage members here this evening, many of whom are actually members of the IPU but may not know much about the committee for the protection of the human rights of parliamentarians, to ask my esteemed colleague Mr. Carter for more detailed information about the committee's procedures.

The information contained in these reports really serves no purpose, if awareness of them remains limited to those who participate in the IPU. Their value, I feel, and I think our executive committee of the IPU in Canada feels, is magnified when they are broadly promoted and more clearly integrated into the work of national parliaments.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and colleagues, for your kind attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. McGuinty.

For the first round, each questioner will have seven minutes.

We are going to start it off with Iqra Khalid from the Liberals for seven minutes.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. McGuinty, for coming before our committee on this really insightful project and initiative. As you said, I had no idea this existed.

Can I you ask you how this originated? I realize you had sent us a draft decision, a report on parliamentarians who have suffered abuse and decisions from the IPU on this. How do you come to a decision? What is the mechanism for coming to it? How do you ensure that there is a balance of world views and a good representation from all of your member states from the IPU when it comes to these decisions?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

The committee of 10 is selected from different geopolitical groups that comprise the IPU as a whole. They are nominated by those geopolitical groups. They work in camera; therefore, much of the information they obtain is considered confidential. They meet sometimes for full weekends. I know of instances where the committee met and worked, frankly, overnight to deal with the kinds of evidence and information put to the committee.

They have a team of evidentiary experts in Geneva at the IPU head office, so they warrant the information as best they can. They sometimes conduct field visits to countries that are affected, where parliamentarians might be at risk. You can see through the information that would have been distributed to you that there's a generic approach to this: a summary of the case, the facts as presented, and the decision that has been rendered by the committee. These folks on the committee, the 10 of them, are chosen for their human rights expertise.

In the past, we've had Canadians such as Robert Douglas George Stanbury, an MP; and Senator Joan Neiman. The committee was established in 1975, and since then we've had people such as Senator Sharon Carstairs and the Honourable Irwin Cotler serve as its president. There are a number of distinguished human rights experts who have served over the years and who continue to serve on the committee.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

In terms of the repercussions of a parliamentarian being reprimanded through this platform on human rights violations towards their own parliamentarians in their own governments, and so on, what is the impact of that?

I notice that this organization refers a lot of matters to the secretary-general and makes some very marked remarks as to what the implications of the human rights abuses are and lists out the evidence that has been noted, but ultimately, have we seen what the impact of this is within the IPU?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

In my time working with the IPU for maybe five years now, what I've noticed, perhaps the most powerful thing in terms of issuing the reports....

Here's a practical example. A former member from Venezuela is no longer a member of the committee because of reports that were issued by this human rights of parliamentarians committee.

The power of exposure, the power of the pulpit, the power of distribution of the findings and comments made by the committee in the media, which is then often broadcast in the affected country, is very persuasive. It's delicately exercised by these 10 human rights experts who pore over the evidence and they're very cautious.

There is an ongoing debate. I would be less than fully transparent if I didn't say there's an ongoing debate amongst some members of the IPU about how far the committee can go in interfering, in some people's minds, or examining the conduct of a government in a sovereign state, but the committee seems to have found a way to deal with that in the formatting of its reports and the robustness of the evidence it relies on.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

As a follow-up on evidence, is there a formal data collection mechanism in terms of how many people have been complained against, what the genders of those people are, and what the victims and their genders and their identities are? Is there some type of compilation of evidence through the IPU on those who are victimized a lot more?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

I think the answer to that is yes. I think what you're asking is, how does this all start? The question really is, who can submit a complaint to the committee?

We know that it's the parliamentarian or the former parliamentarian whose fundamental rights have been violated, or a member of their family or their legal representative. It could be another parliamentarian. It could be a political party or a national or international human rights organization, such as the UN.

All complaints are submitted in writing, with evidentiary backup, to the president of the committee or to the IPU secretary-general. There is a robust collation of evidence. If it's not sufficient, the committee might send executives or analysts back to explore and try to get more information to buttress the case or to make a decision whether to go or not in pursuing the complaint.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. McGuinty, for all of your hard work and for your representation on the IPU.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Now we'll move to Mr. Kenny Chiu from the Conservatives for seven minutes.

Mr. Chiu.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. McGuinty for coming and talking to us.

The first question I have is regarding the UIPU selection of these studies. I had a glance at the report and noticed that of the 13 cases you've documented in that report, six are from Africa, two from the Americas, two from Asia, one from Europe and one from the Middle East.

I understand, of course, that different areas of the world have implemented varying levels of democracy and of your focus on how parliamentarians have been treated or their rights been violated. Can you highlight how these cases are being studied and what the selection criteria are?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Mr. Chair, in deference to our colleague who has, I think, just joined us from New Zealand.... I'm not avoiding Mr. Chiu's question at all; it's just that the Honourable Speaker Carter is so much better prepared than I am in experience to deal with that question.

I'm in your hands, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure whether you'd like me to proceed or whether you'd like to move sideways, so to speak.

I'm sorry, it was Mr. Chiu's line.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Mr. Chair, I submit to your decision. I'm okay one way or the other. I notice that our guest is actually in the Zoom call, so if you decide to let him speak first, I'm totally okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I was just thinking to ask all the members whether we would allow Speaker Carter to give us his opening remarks.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Welcome, Mr. Carter. We're glad to have you here. Technology is working around the globe.

You are a former parliamentarian and former speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives. We've heard Mr. McGuinty speak highly of you, so we'd like to hear what you have to say. Then we'll take questions from members.

Thank you very much.

[Sir David Cunningham Carter, former Parliamentarian and the former Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Peter.

Good evening, members. I apologize for taking some time to connect. We did a test call a couple of hours ago that went without difficulty. We spent the last 40 or 50 minutes, but we're finally there.

I was going to make a few opening comments about my involvement with this committee, and then I will welcome questions. I will try to cover Mr. Chiu's question towards the end of my presentation.

Very briefly, what staggered me as a New Zealand parliamentarian was the extent of abuse that actually occurs in many democracies around the world. We take it for granted down here, and I suspect in Canada you are relatively uninformed, unless you have a special interest in the human rights, of some of the abuses that occur to elected representatives right around the world.

I recall being in Geneva and talking to our embassy there on an IPU visit before I was involved in this committee. Collectively, our staff said that of all the work the IPU does, the most valuable is that of this committee.

Subsequent to that, my first involvement was, as a former speaker, to be asked to join a mission to the Maldives. We travelled there, spent a couple of days there and spoke to opposition MPs. Some of them were imprisoned, incarcerated in awful conditions. There were MPs who were not being advised when Parliament was sitting because they were opposition MPs; others were arrested when they entered the Parliament building, etc.

We concluded our report, we published the report to IPU, and they disseminated it fairly widely. I know it received a lot of local publicity in the Maldives. A subsequent election meant that this regime was thrown out. The last time I was involved, the democracy there was operating significantly better.

I guess my then membership of the committee occurred straight after that. It is a committee of 10 members. They are elected at the plenary sessions. All you have to show is an interest in human rights and human right abuses of members of Parliament. If the plenary elects you, you're on the committee. It's a five-year term.

I will move to Mr. Chiu's point about how we hear about the abuses that are occurring.

We receive complaints. One of the processes we address straight away in the meetings we have is whether the case meets the criteria for us to continue further investigation.

We're dealing with countries such as Venezuela, Turkey, Cambodia, these being some of the obvious ones. My last involvement with this committee before I retired as a member of Parliament was a trip to Turkey, where there were clearly significant abuses occurring to people who had been democratically elected.

They pass the criteria as to whether they are eligible for us to further investigate; we then will meet aggrieved parliamentarians, if they are travelling to these plenary sessions. On the odd occasion, we put together a mission, if we're able to go to these countries, and make the necessary inquiries.

One of the real spotlights of our reports then is our presentation to the plenaries, which used to—prior to COVID—occur every two years. These presentations are a session towards the end of the plenary; they are on day four or day five.

Most delegates who have travelled to those plenaries take a huge amount of interest in the work the committee is doing and therefore become far more well-informed of some of the abuses that occur.

I think that's a very quick rep, because I realize I'm late in getting to the call, but I'm only too happy to take any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you very much, Mr. Carter. We will do a hand-off back to Mr. Chiu.

You have still at least a good six minutes, Mr. Chiu.

[Kenny Chiu, Conservative, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate your not taking the advantage and persecuting the opposition here.

Joking aside, I'm very happy to not be in that report. Canada has a fulsome and comprehensive democracy, which we enjoy.

Let me get back to the question I have. The reason I ask that question—to either of the two witnesses—is that in 2019 and 2020 one thing we have seen is a blossoming democracy in Asia that has been taken in the reverse direction. Many of the people elected—politicians, legislators—have been arbitrarily disqualified. As a result, they were disqualified for life.

Of course, I'm talking about Hong Kong here. I wonder why the committee did not pick that subject up and conduct some study on it.

[Sir David Cunningham Carter]

Mr. Chair, do you want me to answer that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, please.

[Sir David Cunningham Carter]

The situation in Hong Kong has occurred more recently, since I am no longer a member of the committee. It may well have received complaints from Hong Kong opposition members of Parliament, and it may well be undertaking some investigation.

To make progress in a situation like Hong Kong—and I suspect it won't be long before we're hearing from members of Parliament in Myanmar, for example—you actually have to get into the country and talk to the people who have been abused. You have to talk to some of the authorities. If you can't get in, it's difficult to do anything more than a superficial investigation.

The best example I can give you on your continent is Venezuela. They keep saying they'll invite this committee there. It has never happened, but we're all well aware of the abuses that are occurring to opposition members of Parliament in Venezuela.