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

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Mr. Mikheiev. I'm sorry, but I did give you one minute extra.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

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

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you to the witnesses for being here and sharing this testimony with us.

I'm going to ask about some of the solutions that we know may work and that we know worked for the 300.

I understand what you said, Mr. Raymond, with regard to those being the children who were in camps and not the children who were part of the adoption piece. From my understanding, working with the CSOs, or civil society organizations, that are working on the repatriation, including CSOs based in the Russian Federation, is one of the best ways to make sure that this is happening. Could you talk about that? What is the best way for us to be supporting this? Is it funding for these CSOs and helping with these relationships?

[Nathaniel Raymond]

It is important to state that unfortunately the pipeline of children returning seems to be significantly decreasing to stopping. In recent weeks, we have not seen children returning from the camps or other locations.

I think there needs to be two main lines of effort. One, yes, is supporting CSOs, but the second line of effort should be the main effort, which is direct pressure on President Putin and on Russia to have a policy of registration and a policy of return consistent with the Geneva Conventions. As the Vatican has stated and Maria Lvova-Belova has stated, there has been contact between the Vatican and Russia on negotiating returns of children. That process needs to be organized, with the full community of nations, including Canada, supporting it.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I struggle with that, though, because it doesn't seem that Putin is responding very well to direct pressure. In fact, we have heard from Save Ukraine that the Russification of Ukrainian children has increased since the ICC put forward the arrest warrants. I'm worried that Canada doesn't have the capacity to apply that direct pressure or that the Russian Federation is in fact not listening to that direct pressure. I'd love some further comment on that.

You talked about working with CSOs. Is working with Russian Federation CSOs a reasonable approach, or should that not be happening?

[Nathaniel Raymond]

At this point, the CSO route seems to have gone as far as it can. In terms of working with Russian CSOs, to be very clear, you're working with the Russian government, regardless of whether it is branded as a CSO.

I think it's important that we realize that there is no silver bullet here. We are in a situation where our options are limited, but concerted unity amongst the international community is essential. I wish I had something better to tell you.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

I see that our other witnesses would like to intervene. Please go ahead.

[Olga Aivazovska]

Thank you very much for this practical question. I don't have an ideal answer for you, but it's about a complex of measures.

First of all, Canada can continue to help develop the capacity for central preliminary documentation and investigation of crimes of aggression. In a future perspective, we will battle children when Russia is punished, and high-level politicians in Russia will know that it's politically and legally tracked for the future. Canada can use more intelligence resources for this tracking, and it will be very helpful.

Then our focus should not be on Russian CSOs. I totally agree with the position that none of the CSOs in Russia are independent, because they are under the legislation about foreign agents and all of them are under monitoring, so I can't trust Russian CSOs, for sure.

Those eyewitnesses who fled from Russia went through the border with Estonia. As I know, there is only one investigator in Estonia who is working on a daily basis on war crimes. They are interviewing people who can be eyewitnesses for all of us, but they are scared that they have already become collaborators or that they will be shamed because if they stayed in Russia for a temporary period, they will have this image of being pro-Russia.

We have to understand that we need support for these territories that are close to Russian borders. We need to cover all eyewitnesses and those who have already left Russian territories and get the testimonies from this audience. We will need to develop trust between these witnesses and law enforcement bodies from territories close to Russia.

The third point is that aside from the tribunal on acts of aggression, which has already started its work, and eyewitnesses, we need to use intelligence. OSINT and other tools are very well developed and you can find people in Russian territories too. Many of them still use mobile phones and cards. If they use them even from time to time, we can find them.

Many of them can potentially testify to Ukrainian authorities, but first of all to our foreign partners, because sometimes they are scared, as I mentioned already, of being collaborators according to Ukrainian legislation. We have to be aware that they are victims too. They need to testify in order to have justice and truth at the end.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Ms. McPherson.

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

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all our witnesses for being here today. I find this testimony absolutely heartbreaking and really difficult to hear.

Do you think Canadians are aware of what's happening to these children? If not, how can we raise awareness amongst Canadians about what's happening, other than our hearing today?

Maybe I'll start with Mr. Raymond.

[Nathaniel Raymond]

I think back to the incredible public communication effort of the Canadian government during the Ottawa process leading to the anti-personnel land mine ban. I spoke at Dalhousie University many years ago, and I was impressed by the immense amount of literacy and engagement of students and adults on that issue because of the work of Global Affairs Canada and others.

I think a similar public campaign is needed here, and I wish we were doing it in the United States as well as I think Canada could probably do it here. What's really important to communicate to the public is that this issue is about the special protected status of children in war. If we fail on the Ukraine issue in terms of getting these kids back, or if we get them back the wrong way, in basically a hostage trade, we are degrading the power of that special protected status forever.

That's what's at stake here. It's not just Ukraine's kids; it's all kids in war. We could do this wrong and end up with a precedent of using kids as chips in a dangerous poker game. The public needs to understand that, and it can't be allowed to happen.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to put my next question to both sets of witnesses.

I've read about child soldiers in the work General Roméo Dallaire has done, and reintegrating these children is not always easy. They have literally been indoctrinated into a different way of life and a different way of thinking.

I'm just wondering. I know that only 300 kids have been returned from camps thus far, but should there be some thought about some kind of financial support and programs in place to support these kids when they first come back?

[Nathaniel Raymond]

The psychosocial challenge here is going to take years and decades. I defer to my Ukrainian colleagues, who are more expert in what's involved than I am.

We have an identification challenge and a reintegration and psychosocial support challenge. Coordinating donorship from the international community now is going to ensure long-term success. I've seen this go wrong in multiple other conflicts.

You're right that we need to get coordination and problematization on the reintegration and psychosocial aspects now. However, I defer to my colleague.

[Olga Aivazovska]

I totally and generally agree with the first speaker, and I need to highlight that we don't have much time, but we can start, because we already have case studies from those who have gone back to Ukraine but who stayed in Russia for a very short period.

At the same time, there is nothing new about awareness, psychological support and mental recovery, which have to be developed as a big program for Ukrainians, because we have to understand that those children who were kidnapped or relocated to Russia will return when they are more or less adults. We need to develop this program for everyone in Ukraine, but focus on those who are already back in Ukraine, because we have access to those who were, practically speaking, victims, and were part of this case at this stage of the history.

From my perspective, we need to focus on the program that will be developed for all Ukrainians, because the reintegration process will be very difficult. I already mentioned those who were children in 2014. They were reintegrated into a Russian cultural and educational landscape, and we need to understand that it's already about generations and not just about children who spent half a year in Russia or Russia-controlled territories.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you.

Now I invite Mr. Genuis to take the floor for five minutes.

Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a couple of questions specifically for the Center for Ukrainian Victory.

First of all, Mr. Raymond provided us with some very specific recommendations in terms of what he wanted to see from the Government of Canada and from the international community. Do you have similar recommendations that you'd like to share with us?

[Andrii Mikheiev]

I would like to take the floor on this question.

Despite the push to facilitate the process of the return of children and the reuniting of families, I think it's very important to contribute to establish liability and bring all the perpetrators to justice.

First of all, as my colleague Olga has already provided, it's essential for Canada and all other states to collect all these statements of crime from the victims who succeeded in fleeing from Ukraine and who appear, for instance, in Canada, and then transfer this information to Ukrainian law enforcement authorities.

It's also very important to help collect evidence about these crimes and to make stronger arguments about deportation of children as a war crime and as a crime of genocide.

It's also very important to advocate the rapid establishment of a specialized tribunal on aggression, because Russian military aggression is the main source of all the other subsequent international crimes that are happening now, including the crime of deportation of children.

These are further recommendations and our further wishes that we are expecting from the Canadian government.

Thank you.

[Olga Aivazovska]

May I...?

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

Yes, please.

[Olga Aivazovska]

One small recommendation is about journalist investigators, who are very useful. We know they have done a lot in the past about different crises and in cases in Ukraine and in Russia.

Let's support them instead of CSOs in Russia. They have already given us access to very important information about Russian aggression and the war against Ukraine.

One more very small comment is that the joint investigation team, which is working on the investigation of war crimes under the different jurisdictions, needs to be more open for civil society and needs to take what civil society has already collected as the data, as preliminary interviewing, and put this information into an official text, because we live in a parallel world, and this is not useful for future justice.

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

Thank you.

If you have additional information, additional recommendations, as well as names of individuals who should be subject to sanctions in terms of holding people accountable, I know the committee would welcome that in writing.

I should mention for stakeholders, or others watching, that the committee does have a portal on its website for receiving written briefs as well, so other organizations that are aware of individuals or that have specific recommendations can provide those.

As well, I have just a comment for you, and then I will invite your response.

I hear sometimes from people here in Canada who suggest that they think Ukraine should accept a loss of territory in order to have a temporary ceasefire or to try to have peace. Your testimony underlines for me how important Ukrainian victory is, because this isn't only a question of where the border is; it's also a question of what horrific crimes people will be subject to if they remain under occupation.

Hearing this testimony further underlines and explains for me the intense resolve that Ukrainians have for restoring their territorial integrity so that Ukrainian families don't have to continue to be subject to this kind of horrific violence against children and against the family.

I wonder if you have any comments on how this contributes to the Ukrainian resolve for victory.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Please answer quickly, because time is running out.