Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on Oct. 31st, 2023

[Olga Aivazovska]

We have special analytical materials about the endgame scenario for the Russian war against Ukraine. According to this scenario, there isn't a possibility to have a sustainable peace through diplomatic or political tracks. Russia had 50 wars during 200 years, and sometimes the results of the wars had only one outcome, which was about when the next war would start.

According to our surveys, which we did in Ukraine during the summer period, there are three topics that are not negotiable for Ukrainians. First of all, it's about reintegration. The second one is about NATO integration. The third one is about territories.

For Ukrainian people, territories don't mean land. It's about people who are staying in occupied territories without any potential defendant of their own rights, without Ukraine on these territories and its own power in these territories.

That's why territories will not solve any problems. I participated for two years in a means process as a negotiator from the Ukrainian side because of my electoral capacity and expertise on this topic. Please trust me that if some territories are given to Russia, it will not solve any problem, because these territories will be used as a military base for further activity and aggression against another part of Ukraine or against neighbours in the future. For sure, this decision looks like a solution, but it's always failed. We have already spent the lives of hundreds of thousands Ukrainian soldiers in liberating those territories that were occupied by Russia on February 24—

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you; your time is up. You had more than one minute on that. Thank you.

Mr. Trudel ,you have the floor for five minutes.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Mr. Raymond, let's talk about accountability.

Several dozen Russian officials at the federal, regional and local levels are directly involved in the physical and political operation of the children's camp program. I think that's mentioned in your report.

It also states that at least 12 of these officials were not on any U.S. or international sanctions list as of at the beginning of this year, as of February 2023, to be precise.

I will put three questions to you now, since I won't have enough time to ask them one by one.

In the children's camps program, how big is the role played by the public servants who are not sanctioned? Would sanctions actually have an effect?

To what extent do the existing sanctions affect the operation of the program? Are international sanctions targeting certain officials having an impact on the program?

Finally, how many officials identified and involved in the children's camps program are currently subject to Canadian sanctions? Could Canada do more in this regard? Could these sanctions have an impact on the program?

[Nathaniel Raymond]

I'm going to go quickly on three, two, one.

Three, on your last question, I don't know who Canada has sanctioned, but we will provide to the committee the full package that we gave to the Department of Commerce and the Department of the Treasury on the U.S. side. We will work with you to make sure that we have sanctions coherence on our side in terms of the information we provided to the U.S. government.

Second, it is critical to hit the middle management. Let's talk sanctions and also indictments. Right now the top of the food chain has been indicted, but is critical to put pain on the middle level of the operation. I think what needs to be shown to those who are running the program at the local level is that they are going to suffer consequences internationally. They are the least insulated from the effect of sanctions and indictments. I think that it is essential that we move down the food chain and put sanctions on the lower level.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

What steps could Canada take to have a positive effect? In your opinion, officials at the local level should be made aware of the sanctions that could be imposed on them. How can we, as a country, intervene? Targeting officials at the local level seems difficult to me internationally, but is it possible? Can Canada use its influence in some way?

[Nathaniel Raymond]

We translated a conversation that Maria Lvova-Belova was having with local officials on a video in which she said, “Don't worry about the sanctions. They don't even know how to spell your name.”

I'm telling this story because she was having to communicate with those further down the food chain to basically assuage their concerns that they would face legal or international consequences. It is important that we show those who were looking for comfort from Maria Lvova-Belova that we know who they are, that they will not be able to send their kids abroad to school, that they will not be able to open a bank account, that they will not get a visa, at the very least, and that in some cases they'll be indicted.

Let's say it doesn't work. Well, we need to try.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Do you have any examples of countries that are more proactive than Canada when it comes to sanctions targeting this program? Can you give us some examples of countries that could serve as a model, that are putting pressure on Russia and its officials and that are having a direct impact on the program?

[Nathaniel Raymond]

I can't evaluate Canada's sanctions regime on this topic. The United States and the European Union have similar sanctions regimes on similar individuals. They moved quite rapidly after our report came out in going down the list of those on our chain of command chart.

I think it's why international coordination is so important. It's for examples like this that there needs to be a common sanctions regime. Right now there isn't. There are overlaps, but overlaps are not a strategy.

[Denis Trudel, Bloc, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Mr. Trudel.

Now I invite Ms. McPherson to take the floor for five minutes, please.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The sanctions conversation is very interesting to me. I would say that Canada is not very effective at actually enforcing our sanctions. We're quite good at putting people on the list, but we're not very good at enforcing the sanctions. We also have a portion that the government has introduced with regard to the seizing of assets, which may be useful if it were to get off the ground, for those middle-level folks you were speaking about, Mr. Raymond.

I'm also going to ask about one other thing with regard to your testimony. You spoke about indictments, so what you would like to see is the ICC issuing further arrest warrants for some of those middle-level people. Is that what you're asking for?

[Nathaniel Raymond]

The President of the United States has allowed the sharing of information now with the ICC on these matters. We are actively engaged in sharing right now all of the underlying data from our public investigations and our forthcoming reports. We are doing that to be able to facilitate further investigation and, yes, potential indictment by the ICC of other officials.

It is extremely important for the law to be applied across the chain of command. Command responsibility rests at the top. As we've seen, going back to the Nuremberg tribunals, where the first case brought at Nuremberg was on the abduction of Polish children by the Nazis—from which we get the term “crimes against humanity”—it is important that the full chain of command be subjected to accountability. That's what we're supporting.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I certainly would like to be able to get that list from you, because I think that you're accurate when you say that it is more effective when more countries are imposing the same sanctions.

I'm very supportive of the ICC doing this work. Of course, it is that balance that you've raised. The ICC is a slow mechanism. It takes a long time for justice to come through the ICC. We need to use our diplomatic might and the other tools that we have at our disposal because, as you also mentioned, the very short window of time to make sure that these children are returned to their families is rapidly closing.

I do have some questions for our other witnesses, for our online witnesses.

You've spoken a lot about what is happening with these children and how they're being taken from their families and orphanages. Do we have any indication, or have you received any indication, of whether or not any of these children are leaving Russia and going to third countries? Is human trafficking with these children happening, outside of just going back to Russia? Are they going to other regions? Could you share any information you might have on that as well?

[Andrii Mikheiev]

We may state now that the majority of children who were deported to the territory of the Russian Federation still remain in the territory of Russia and in the occupied territories of Ukraine within facilities where they were put. Of course, in some cases some children were returned, children who actually had parents and families and whose families put in their best efforts, addressed the authorities, addressed specialized NGOs and were lucky to establish contact and get their children back, but compared to the number of children who still remain there, this amount is just peanuts. It's only several hundred of them. The majority are still there.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Of course. Ultimately, that's where the Canadian government can also offer support. Clearly there's the diplomatic piece, the pushing for increased sanctions and using our voice to raise this issue and providing funding for mental support for those children who have been returned, but there's also funding for organizations that are doing the work of trying to reunify these families. That is another key role we could play. Is that accurate?

[Andrii Mikheiev]

Yes, exactly, but we also must understand that we should not focus only on the return of each particular child. It's essential to work out the general approach, the general international legal mechanism to demand from the perpetrator that they return the children. It is very important to do all these in combination.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Absolutely. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. McPherson.

I believe we still have some extra time. We have the choice to do another round of questions for two minutes for each party or to allow the witnesses to give us more thoughts and more explanation. It's up to you to decide.

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

We could do both. We have 16 minutes left, so we could do two minutes each and then have eight minutes back.

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

Mr. Chair, could I have two minutes at the end on another issue?

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Yes.

I would like to invite Mr. Ehsassi to take the floor for two minutes.

[Ali Ehsassi, Liberal, Willowdale, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's very kind and generous.

I think it would only be fair to look to the witnesses' expertise and ask them if they have any concluding thoughts they would like to share with the members. I have to say, speaking on behalf of I am certain everyone here, that we have found their testimony to be very useful, but it could very well be that things were not addressed because we didn't ask the right questions.

Why don't we go to Mr. Raymond first?

[Nathaniel Raymond]

Thank you. That's very generous.

I want to take a moment to talk about the technical issues that are involved in identifying missing children, regardless of where you are identifying them, because this committee will face funding requests that it will have to evaluate on the technical aspects of this complex issue.

First, in Bosnia with the Srebrenica massacre, something called an ante-mortem database was developed, which I think is a best practice that could be supported here. It would require a large amount of ground activity, but I think it's the only way to do it and to do it safely. In the ante-mortem database, family members and community members were interviewed about the missing and deceased individuals before their deaths. Having that database that could then be later combined with DNA and dental records was essential in the successful identification of thousands of the missing.

A similar type of database must be created here. It requires four types of information: investigative case files, DNA, non-DNA forensics, and basically the ability to match against both relational and object databases in terms of facial recognition and open-source data—

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Mr. Raymond and Mr. Ehsassi.

I'm sorry. I have to be exact with the time.

Mr. Genuis, you have two minutes. Please take the floor.

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

Thank you.

Just jumping back to my last round, the point about territorial integrity was so important for me and I think for all of us to reflect on.

You made the comment that territorial integrity is not just about land; territorial integrity is about people. It's about the people who are stolen when territory is taken. Russia is not just stealing land; it's also stealing people. That should put into sharp focus the critical importance of Ukrainian victory and the urgency of supporting Ukraine and doing everything we can to support Ukraine.

We haven't talked about the Belarusian role in this. There is an article in Foreign Policy detailing involvement of the Belarusian government and the routing of children through Belarus. I wonder if either of our witnesses can speak to that.