Evidence of meeting #60 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was implementation.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Fayçal El-Khoury
Thank you, Ms. Day.
I now invite Alexi White, director of systems change at Maytree, to take the floor.
The floor is yours for three minutes, Mr. White.
Alexi White Director, Systems Change, Maytree
Thank you to the subcommittee for beginning this important study.
I will focus my opening comments on how Canada's provinces and territories are effectively unaccountable for implementation of the UPR or their international human rights obligations, more broadly.
Here's a startling fact: All provinces and territories in Canada except one do not explicitly acknowledge the existence of their legal obligations under international human rights law.
As the subcommittee well knows, human rights obligations are binding on subnational governments in states with federal systems, yet as far as I can find, only Quebec is willing to publicly acknowledge this fact in its policy statements. Its international policy correctly states that, “As a party to these texts, Québec has a duty to enforce them within its borders and to report on compliance to the competent United Nations human rights bodies.”
Meanwhile, Alberta's government contends, wrongly, that is not required to participate in the UPR or otherwise respect international human rights law. In a footnote to the FPT protocol for follow-up to recommendations from international human rights bodies, Alberta states that it is, “not bound to report on international instruments/mechanisms to which it is not a Party.”
As you can see, Canada's governments do not even recognize their human rights obligations, let alone work together to effectively to implement them.
Implementing the UPR also requires provinces and territories to have strong internal processes, structures and mechanisms for human rights. Helpfully, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has studied countries around the world and documented several criteria for strong mechanisms. Here is how our provincial and territorial governments do against a few key criteria.
First, mechanisms should have a formal mandate and political ownership. Unfortunately, our provinces and territories do not publish information about their specific processes and structures, and there is no political ownership in the form of a minister with clear responsibility for human rights implementation.
Second, mechanisms should offer meaningful engagement with rights holders. Unfortunately, provinces and territories generally have no regular engagement processes of their own.
Third, mechanisms should demonstrate accountability for our country's human rights commitments. Alas, no province or territory in Canada publishes meaningful implementation plans responding to recommendations received from the UPR or other UN processes.
It is not hard to see why Canada received multiple UPR recommendations from other countries calling for improvements to our mechanisms for implementation.
Fourteen years ago, this subcommittee said Canadians should be able to “hold all orders of government accountable for their role in implementing Canada's international human rights obligations.” Today, this most basic expectation remains unmet.
I urge you to invite witnesses representing provincial and territorial governments to better understand just how opaque and ineffective human rights mechanisms are across the country. I also urge you to write a report examining progress on the subcommittee's 2010 recommendations, many of which remain unmet. Finally, I echo my fellow witnesses in calling on federal, provincial and territorial governments to develop and adopt a national framework for international human rights implementation.
As your predecessor said in 2010, failure to act in our own backyard is a threat to Canada's aspirations as a global human rights champion, and the world is noticing.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Fayçal El-Khoury
Thank you, sir.
I now give the floor to Anjum Sultana, director of youth leadership and political advocacy at Plan International Canada.
You have the floor for three minutes, please.
Anjum Sultana Director of Youth Leadership and Policy Advocacy, Plan International Canada Inc.
Mr. Chair and esteemed members of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, thank you for the invite to participate in your study on the implementation of Canada's universal periodic review.
My name is Anjum Sultana, and I'm the director of youth leadership and policy advocacy at Plan International Canada, an international development and humanitarian charity focused on advancing children's rights and equality for girls, globally. As a member of the Plan International federation, we're committed to ensuring the realization of children's rights, gender equality and inclusion through our participation in international human rights mechanisms such as the CRC, CEDAW and UPR. Furthermore, my testimony today is grounded in the work we do here in Canada to advance policy dialogue on girls' rights and youth leadership. Over the last four years, we've engaged over 300,000 young people in our programming and over 1.3 million people in Canada through our youth-focused public engagement initiatives.
Children, young people and future generations are vital to Canada's prosperity. They're not just the leaders of tomorrow; they're the leaders of today. Firstly, to ensure intergenerational fairness, Canada must take urgent action to enable the full realization of children's rights, equality for girls and inclusion. This includes health, education, safety, protection and adequate standards of living for all children, especially girls and young women, in all of their diversity.
As noted in the 2022 CRC review and 2023 UPR, this must include developing a comprehensive law on children's rights at the federal level in line with the principles of the convention and ensuring equal implementation across Canada. To that end, we're encouraged by the work of Senator Rosemary Moodie and several children's rights agencies in developing Bill S-282, a national strategy for children and youth. Furthermore, as noted in UPR 2023, we encourage Canada to meet the internationally agreed target of 0.7% of gross national income towards official development assistance and to increase prioritization of children's rights in its international co-operation agreements.
There are over eight million children in Canada who are counting on our collective leadership and investment in their futures. Let's do right by them. It will pay dividends not only in Canada, but around the world.
Secondly, as noted by my colleagues, the federal government must work in partnership with provincial and territorial governments to develop and adopt a national framework for international human rights implementation. The framework must include several elements, such as the increased resourcing of, and improved consultation with, indigenous peoples' organizations and civil society organizations, including young people themselves and youth-led and youth-serving organizations. This echoes a key recommendation in Plan International Canada's CanYouth Pact calling for standardized processes to ensure meaningful youth engagement. Until we are all equal, Canada must be a vocal champion in advancing human rights internationally.
Director of Youth Leadership and Policy Advocacy, Plan International Canada Inc.
From climate change to global health to inequality, our destinies are tied, locally and globally. For our diplomatic engagement to be meaningful and credible, it requires effective implementation of international human rights obligations here at home.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Fayçal El-Khoury
I would like to invite Mr. Nishin Nathwani, head of strategy, Rainbow Railroad.
You have the floor for three minutes, please.
Nishin Nathwani Head of Strategy, Rainbow Railroad
Thank you very much.
Thank you as well for the invitation to be here today.
My name is Dr. Nishin Nathwani, and I am the head of strategy at Rainbow Railroad, which is an international organization dedicated to supporting at-risk LGBTQI+ individuals to escape state-sponsored violence and to access pathways to safety.
I'd like to start by recognizing Canada's ongoing commitment to implementing the recommendations from its most recent universal periodic review, particularly those recommendations focused on protecting LGBTQI+ persons in forced displacement and supporting those who have been resettled to Canada.
I'd like to name a couple of these recommendations. Canada has supported, for instance, recommendation 37.315 from Iceland, which advises developing strategies to address homophobia, biphobia and transphobia and to counter the rise of anti-gender movements. We observe daily in our own work at Rainbow Railroad how the growing global anti-gender movement is fuelling new waves of LGBTQI+ forced displacement and how it is contributing to a worsening environment for LGBTQI+ refugees, even after resettlement.
I'd also like to mention Canada's support for recommendation 37.317 from the U.K., which underscores the importance of collaborating with partners at all levels, including civil society, to address the root causes of violence against LGBTQI+ communities. In this respect, I think Global Affairs Canada's partnership with Rainbow Railroad to establish an international network of governments, civil society organizations and refugees to advance protection and solutions for LGBTQI+ persons in forced displacement is a really positive step in the right direction.
While we recognize Canada's support for these recommendations, I'd also like to underscore that critical challenges remain. For instance, many LGBTQI+ asylum seekers face prolonged stays in transit countries where they frequently endure compounded persecution and marginalization from host governments, civil society, families and even other migrants and asylum seekers. We urge Canada to expand funding opportunities and partnerships with Canadian and international civil societies to reduce these risks in protracted displacement settings.
We are also deeply concerned by Canada's recent announcement of a reduction in refugee resettlement slots for 2025. We join the Canadian Council for Refugees in urging the government to recommit to resettlement as a vital protection mechanism for those facing severe human rights violations, including many LGBTQI+ asylum seekers.
On this point, I think it's essential to remember that the statistical majority of the world's asylum seekers are hosted in countries where LGBTQI+ identity, intimacy, association or expression is criminalized to some degree. For this reason, local integration is often not viable. Resettlement remains a lifeline for many LGBTQI+ people in forced displacement to achieve access to basic human rights.
Head of Strategy, Rainbow Railroad
Yes.
I also join fellow witnesses here today in urging Canada to adopt a comprehensive national framework for international human rights implementation.
Thank you for your time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Fayçal El-Khoury
Thank you.
Thank you to all of the witnesses.
I would like to open the floor for questions and answers. We will start with Ms. Pam Damoff.
You have the floor for five minutes, Ms. Damoff.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses. It's a shame that we have so little time and so many people here.
Ms. Malischewski, I have met with the Association for the Prevention of Torture twice. One of the challenges with Canada signing this is that our whole system.... We have provinces and the federal government, and many of the places where people are detained are actually provincial in nature, like police stations. It doesn't mean we can't do it. There's Australia, Brazil and Austria, but the vast majority of countries that have ratified this don't have our system.
I know that you and Dr. Zinger wrote a letter. Thank you for that.
I have a couple of questions. What are your thoughts on Canada's signing the OPCAT and then figuring everything out and ratifying it later? We haven't even signed on to it yet. I think signing it would send a strong message. I'm speaking personally—not as the government right now.
Do you have any thoughts on how we would deal with this division of powers between the feds and the provinces, and quite frankly, how would we make sure that indigenous organizations are also involved?
Interim Chief Commissioner, Canadian Human Rights Commission
I'm really pleased to know that you're as abreast as you are of these issues and that you've been meeting with the APT.
National preventative mechanisms take different forms around the world. Many of them are multi-party structures that are designed to ensure that they address the unique challenges, including at the subnational level—so, for us, that's in provinces and territories or in spaces where there is indigenous governance.
From our perspective, the key is that we engage with the experts. That means both the Association for the Prevention of Torture—absolutely—and the subcommittee, which comprises experts. They're the ones who do the country visits, and they've made themselves available to Canada to provide guidance. I think that's really important, as is engaging with civil society organizations, many of which are with us today, and drawing inspiration from some of the proposals that they have recommended.
Federal states across the world have ratified the OPCAT and have successfully established NPMs. We're confident that, working together, we can find a made-in-Canada solution to this.
I want to echo and really emphasize this: Should Canada sign on? Yes, absolutely. Does that send the right message? Yes, absolutely. It's incredibly important that we do this without delay and that we continue to engage with provincial and territorial counterparts and with indigenous representatives to make sure that we do this in a way that will address the issues across the country.
Yes, that'll be complex. However, it needs to be done, and it should be done.
Thank you.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Thank you.
I'm going to cede the rest of my time to Ms. Vandenbeld.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Thank you so much.
I know I'm short on time. I wish we had more time with all of you. I'd like to direct my question to Alex Neve.
It's nice to see you again.
In addition to the OPCAT—I think you were going to speak on that—you mentioned that Canada has signed only 70% of the human rights instruments. What are the low-hanging fruits? Are there particular instruments that you think Canada could actually sign soon, and which ones would they be?
Adjunct Professor, International Human Rights Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I want to add one further point on the OPCAT.
I very much appreciate Ms. Damoff's question, but unfortunately, as a matter of international law, it's not open to Canada anymore just to sign and ratify later because the OPCAT has already entered into force. The option of signing and ratifying later, as a matter of international law, is only a possibility before a treaty has entered into force.
With respect to other instruments to ratify, the other major ones—and they're all crucial—are the convention on the rights of migrant workers—obviously, a very pressing issue both domestically and globally—and the convention on enforced disappearances, which I would really highlight as something that we should be thinking about very closely. I'm sure that subcommittee members are aware of the fact that the interlocutor on residential schools recently issued her final report, drawing attention to the fact that the situation with residential schools constitutes an ongoing concern with respect to enforced disappearances, thus the need to ratify that convention.
The other two are both—
Adjunct Professor, International Human Rights Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
—I would say, very low-hanging fruit because they're simply procedural instruments under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, allowing individual complaints of rights violations to be brought to the UN.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Fayçal El-Khoury
I would like to invite Mr. Lake for five minutes, please.
You have the floor.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I want to thank everybody for taking the time to join us. Obviously, this is a group of people who care a lot about the rights of vulnerable people in Canada. I appreciate your taking the time.
One observation I would make is that we do have 25 to 30 standing committees in the House of Commons that deal domestically with the exact things that all of you are talking about. Hopefully you take the opportunity to reach out to members on those committees and weigh in on whatever topic they're discussing at any point in time. There will be an opportunity for a rights-based conversation to be part of that broader discussion.
Ms. Malischewski, I'm going to go to you first.
As some know—and maybe you don't—I have a son with autism, and I do a lot of work. He's 29 years old. We're looking at housing challenges around this, and we're having many conversations around housing. You brought up institutionalization. When we get into that conversation, it's very complicated. People have different ideas of what that looks like and different ideas of where we ought to go. In many cases, families are really looking for help. We've seen families who couldn't find resources anywhere or options anywhere other than dropping their loved one off at a hospital in some cases or at a seniors centre in some cases because there's nowhere else to turn.
Can you expand a little more on institutionalization, what your organization sees as wrong—for clarity—and what a good housing environment or option might look like for people with disabilities in Canada?
Interim Chief Commissioner, Canadian Human Rights Commission
Thank you so much for the question.
It's an area that has been of particular importance to the commission. We've done some work on the intersection between housing and disability. We recently launched—we'll have more of the data coming out on December 3—a framework for monitoring the rights of persons with disabilities in housing. We're specifically trying to look at what their experiences are.
Certainly, people being institutionalized is something that's been coming up. People are being put into places—as you mentioned, perhaps it's a hospital or a seniors home—that are providing services they need, but it is not actually the solution in the community that is best for their needs. The commission's position, as it relates to the optional protocol, is that, in some instances, people are ending up in facilities where there is no oversight mechanism. Unfortunately, when people have to make this difficult decision or are forced into some of these institutions, there are abuses. Those abuses are not always known at the time. What we really need is a preventative mechanism so we have a line of sight to ensure that, as a whole and across the country, we have our sight on that.
I'd be happy to share more with your office about our work on monitoring the right of housing for people with disabilities. Certainly, institutionalization is a big piece of it, but it goes beyond that. We're seeing very concerning intersections in terms of inadequate housing for people with disabilities across the country.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB
Ms. Biss, you brought up housing, obviously, because you work on housing. However, when you brought up different conventions, I don't think I heard you mention CRPD.
Is this something your organization is focused on as well?
National Director, National Right to Housing Network
Yes, it absolutely is. Thank you for bringing up that intersection.
The only reason I didn't bring up CRPD is that we haven't had a review for the last couple of years under that. I think one is coming up in the near future, though, so you'll see some more work on this, certainly.
To amplify what Charlotte-Anne is saying, much of our work has to do with the human right to housing. The federal housing advocate was deeply involved in the work Charlotte-Anne was speaking about in terms of a mechanism around disability and the right to housing.
Conservative
Mike Lake Conservative Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, AB
I have a few seconds left. I'm going to use the opportunity to highlight an organization that I think is doing very important work in this area.
I had the chance to tour Community Living Toronto with Brad Saunders, as part of the Inclusion Canada network. I don't have time to ask you another question. However, if you get a chance, get him to give you a tour in Toronto.
It is a challenge to get this for everybody, but it's an environment where you have high-rise buildings with two or three people in one unit on one floor, and another three people in another unit on another floor, all with proper supports. They're living in the same building as Canadians of all stripes, backgrounds and experiences, sharing life together in an inclusive environment. I think that's probably what we're shooting for, target-wise. However, it's very tough to do when we're dealing with a housing crisis in Canada, as we are right now.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Fayçal El-Khoury
Thank you, Mr. Lake. That's perfect timing.
I now invite Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe to take the floor for five minutes.