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

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you.

Moving on, one thing that I find we really struggle with in this subcommittee is that there are a number of human rights abuses happening around the world. It's very troublesome and difficult to determine how to triage or prioritize the varying issues that we want to study.

I'm wondering how this group, for the IPU, determines the priority. How do you triage what I can only imagine is quite a significant number of reports that you have to look into?

[Sir David Cunningham Carter]

I don't think that's a difficult one. Some abuses are so blatant and so horrific that they get put at the top of the pile almost immediately. It depends on the circumstances.

Tanzania was one that we dealt with towards the end of my time on the committee. It was a horrific situation, where a leader of the opposition was almost assassinated. I think he was shot 32 times and still managed to survive, escaped the country and started looking for assistance to go back into the country for their recent elections, where I do know that he was unsuccessful. The triaging becomes fairly obvious.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. McGuinty, is there anything you'd like to add to that?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Sometimes the egregious nature of the specific cases that are brought to the committee actually ends up being brought back into a plenary session with 1,200 or 1,500 legislators and can often form the subject of an emergency debate. All legislators will be brought up to speed on the nature of this wrongdoing or challenge, and it's a very high exposure setting with lots of global media. There are newscasts, online feeds, Twitter feeds and of course 1,200 to 1,500 front-line legislators. Oftentimes, if it's egregious enough, it simply migrates into the assembly and is dealt with there.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

That's one piece of this. I was sort of thinking of that connection between the international human rights subcommittee and the work that you're doing. One of the things that I'm wondering about is the possibility for the IPU to feed in or to recommend studies for the committee. Are there ways for us to benefit from the research that you've done, the lessons that you're learning or recommendations that are coming from you? Has there been a relationship between this subcommittee and the IPU in the past? Is that a potential?

[Sir David Cunningham Carter]

There's a very strong relationship between the committee and the other delegates, many of whom are regular attendees at IPU plenaries. The way it was working prior to COVID was an opportunity for us to get together over four or five days, twice a year and share concerns. It was the way by which the members of the committee—because there are only 10—were involved with discussions with the other 1,400 or 1,500 attendees. Many of them were able to give us good information, perhaps on a neighbouring country that we were investigating. The benefit of us getting together at these forums to discuss these issues is immense.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

If I could add to that, I think the possibility for co-operation between this subcommittee and the work of the IPU and human rights is certain. This is one of the first times I can recall—and the House of Commons staff tell me it could be one of the first times in over a decade—where we've come to present the findings of this particular committee. We're really trying to have a rapprochement between the work of the IPU through its constituent parts.

Absolutely, Ms. McPherson. The best way to proceed is to try to get engaged, become a member and meet regularly, perhaps with the chair's help. There may be issues that simply deserve to be tabled in a domestic setting. That's what we're trying to do; take the international resolutions, debate and discussions, and operationalize them at a domestic level.

[Sir David Cunningham Carter]

I'll just very quickly add my congratulations to Mr. McGuinty for organizing this particular meeting because one of the problems is.... For instance, in New Zealand, we take three members of Parliament to such a committee meeting. I'm the only New Zealander who's ever sat on this committee. We come back into the Parliament of 120. How do we actually tell them what we've been doing and the abuse that's occurring? There is a definite relationship between any specific subcommittee or a committee in any Parliament focused on human rights then, working far more closely with the human rights of parliamentarians committee.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I very much hope we get to work with you in the future.

Thank you very much, both of you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes, thank you.

Members, we're moving into the second round now. In this round, it will be five minutes of time for questions. We'll start with Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal member.

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

Thank you very much.

Again, I would like to echo the thanks to both of our witnesses for your testimony this evening. I think we're all learning a lot about the work that IPU does. I think a lot of us felt we were familiar with it but weren't necessarily aware of this particular aspect of it.

My specific question follows up on something that Mr. McGuinty said, which I think is very powerful. He mentioned the power of exposure. We know that there are other groups of legislators globally that are working in this avenue, for instance, Parliamentarians for Global Action. I'm involved with something called PARRT, which is the Parliamentary Rapid Response Team. It sounds like it operates similarly with a small group of parliamentarians, but it works very quickly. Within 24 hours of something happening, there will be a tweet, there will be a statement issued, and then some statements in national parliaments.

I know that Irwin Cotler is also involved with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute, where they have the Mandela project, where they link MPs from certain countries with human rights defenders, where they become paired. They would raise issues in their own Parliament.

How would you see the work that IPU is doing as able to inform some of those other activities? To what extent are you already co-operating with other groups of legislators who are trying to do the same thing, where it's about exposure and raising awareness?

[Sir David Cunningham Carter]

I think that's more a question for Mr. McGuinty, being on the executive, to answer. I actually think the IPU can do more to respond more rapidly to situations than it does. Because it's a multi-international fora, it probably needs time to get its ducks in a row, so to speak. Many times if IPU were a bit quicker on the response—for instance, on Myanmar over the last three or four days—I think that would give a better profile to the work of IPU.

I'll let David settle this all.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

That's a really good question, Ms. Vandenbeld.

The IPU is just launching into a new five-year phase. I'd like to take that suggestion about rapprochement, and more coordination and quick response capacity back to the executive committee. I think we're meeting this week, tomorrow or Friday, and again next week. It's thinking through what this next five-year plan should look like, what it should be doing to become relevant and helpful.

I know that there is co-operation that goes on with some of these different initiatives. The IPU, if there's anything Mr. Carter can speak to better than I, having sat on the committee...it's making sure, making really sure that when reports are issued they're robust, that they're evidence-based and that they're waterproof, so that when you come out of a gate and you say something as a group as big as the IPU is with 179 parliaments, it's irrefutable. I think that's what the real focus has been on.

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

I do think the work that you're describing is vitally important. I've often felt that if we look at who the front line of democracy is, it is legislators. It is elected members of various parliaments. We know that authoritarian forces are working globally. If we, as legislators, as the front line, aren't working globally, then we won't be able to proceed, so I think this is very important.

My second question, if I have time, Mr. Chair, is about gender. I've done a lot of work, before politics, internationally on women in politics. We know that women, especially women who are legislators, face different kinds of attacks. They face sexual violence, attacks on their families. Do you find in your reports—I noted that you divide them by gender—that the nature of the threats and the nature of the human rights abuses that female parliamentarians are facing are different from men? How are you tracking that?

[Sir David Cunningham Carter]

In the cases I can quickly recall, the short answer to that question is no. The abuses that were occurring to duly elected members of Parliament were across the board. There was no difference in the abuse occurring, be it male or female.

I think the issue you raise is actually a bigger issue. It's been one that's been a focus in the last couple of years in a country like New Zealand, where the women parliamentarians here have actually acknowledged that they face pressures that their male colleagues don't. That's now been brought to light, and it may be the same in the Canadian House of Commons. Now that it's been brought to light, it must be addressed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

Now we'll move over to the Conservatives and Mr. Scott Reid for five minutes.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you.

I'm trying to get my head around which kinds of countries are the ones that are most likely to be responsive to pressure. Abuse having occurred in the country as your starting point, which countries are likely to be responsive?

I noticed, Mr. Cunningham, that the two countries you cited as having had success were the Maldives and Fiji, both of which are quite small countries. As a starting point, is it the case that you find that smaller jurisdictions are more likely to be responsive to pressure and very large countries to be less so?

[Sir David Cunningham Carter]

I think the criteria for a satisfactory response is a genuine will: that they will respond and want to respond. Of the two cases I give you, but particularly Fiji.... Fiji came out of a long period of military control. I think they genuinely wanted democracy. I think they've made good and substantial progress towards that democracy.

There are other countries.... With Venezuela, it wouldn't matter what report was written and presented to the plenary. There's no will to change in that country.

I don't think size is important. It's the willingness, the desire, to have a functioning, true and constructive democracy. If that's not there because there's a dictatorship at the top, our reports probably won't receive much positive feedback.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

What about the distinction between.... Fundamentally, if we leave the Swiss aside, there are two kinds of democracy, I think. There are Westminster-style parliamentary democracies with responsible governments, and there are countries on the congressional model, of which the Americans are the most prominent. Venezuela would be in this category, too, where there's a distinction, and the executive functions separately from whether or not it has the confidence of the legislative branch.

Does that make a difference, first of all, as to how responsive they are, and secondly, as to the appropriate kinds of tactics to use in order to achieve a response?

[Sir David Cunningham Carter]

I'm of course familiar with the Westminster system, and I think there the response is probably more immediate. In a country with a system like the American system, a response does occur, but it probably takes longer to occur and only occurs at an election.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Okay.

On the kinds of acts that occur and to which you try to respond, we're not talking about the worst offender countries, countries that are, as in the case of Venezuela...I know you tried to work in Venezuela but with limited success, as it has slid so far out of democracy. It suggests to me that even those who are engaged in inappropriate acts, or at least some elements of the governing party, have a desire to make the country more democratic than it is.

I suppose what I'm asking is whether it is the case that you require a certain degree of goodwill or guilty conscience on the part of the perpetrators or some part of that organization, party or whatever that is conducting the abuses.

[Sir David Cunningham Carter]

I'm going to use as an example Mongolia. We've done quite a lot of work in a mission to Mongolia. The original so-called father of democracy, Mr. Zorig, was assassinated in I think the late eighties or early nineties. No one was ever held accountable. The suspicion was that those people then proceeded to the highest of levels of both their government and their civil service. More recently, they actually did charge three people with that murder and convicted them and jailed them.

Only after that—this is from memory, because I haven't read the report recently—10 years later, it became apparent that those people never committed the murder—jacked-up crimes and imprisoned.... That is a case that's ongoing. We have never gotten to the bottom of it. It was done because the surviving family of Mr. Zorig, again, deserved justice, and it was a case where it was abuse of an elected representative. It needed tidying up.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

I'm sorry. I'm actually confused. I'll use the few seconds I have left to ask for clarification. Are you saying that in the case of Mongolia, after the assassination occurred, there were then, at some remove of time, charges laid against individuals who ought not to have been charged, and that these were trumped-up charges against them?

[Sir David Cunningham Carter]

That's exactly how it turned out. It's like reading a novel. Look at the last report. It will be online, I'm sure, from the IPU.

These people were jailed and spent considerable time in jail, and then it became evident.... There was a video that was released that showed these people being tortured to plead guilty. They were never guilty of the crime, and we've never gotten accountability for the murder of Mr. Zorig.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

Thank you.