Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on April 27th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

We need a quick answer, please, because we have exceeded the time by one minute.

[Mozn Hassan]

Okay.

It's not only in the expectations but also in the pressure. Women human rights defenders are pressured by their families and their communities more than men are. When they are working, especially if they are working on gender issues, women's issues or state repression, these things are more multi-layered than others. Women human rights defenders, mostly, have been attacked with violence—sexual violence, threats of rape and other things.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe.

I would like to invite Mr. Chang to take the floor for five minutes, please.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Bah and Ms. Habibyar, both of you have worked with vulnerable groups. How do overlapping identities, such as gender, ethnicity and sexual orientation, intensify the risks for human rights defenders? How should Canadian policy respond?

[Abdoulaye Bah]

To tie this into our context, I will say that the cuts to international co-operation projects greatly limit the actions of organizations that protect the rights of members of the LGBT community.

I'll give you a concrete example. In Mali, instead of officially declaring their identity, people come under the guise of a humanitarian organization. Consequently, they are perceived as members of an organization fighting AIDS, for example, or another organization defending the community's rights.

Moreover, on the ground, organizations that protect LGBT rights have very limited activities. There must be allies within each of the organizations involved in access to justice or the promotion of human rights. Not everyone is open to that, as the issue of the community's rights is not actually a legal one, but a societal one. It is African society, or sub-Saharan society, that is not yet ready to accept the attitudes or way of life of members of the community.

Legally speaking, not all legal professionals or lawyers support them either. A project I worked on is an example. I've worked on three major projects: justice, prevention and reconciliation for women, minors and others affected by the crisis in Mali, or JUPREC; Tien Sira; and the PLURIELLES project.

As part of the JUPREC project, we organized mobile legal clinics that went out to community members. We couldn't invite them to large hotels because community or state actors might have seen that as promotion. So we had to travel to them and meet in private to raise awareness about the legal remedies available to them if they feel wronged or if their rights are violated, as well as the remedies available regionally.

That's a summary of what I can say about the role of community members and human rights defenders in general and how they operate in these countries. The context is not at all favourable.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Go ahead, Ms. Habibyar.

[Ghazaal Habibyar]

Yes, thank you for the opportunity.

With each layer there is an extra added pressure and repression that you face. I'll go with the example of Afghanistan because that's what I know more about. In Afghanistan, if you are a man, but from a different ethnicity, and you are protesting or there is an accusation, you face different treatment. If you're a woman, it changes the whole dynamic. You are repressed beyond words.

There was a question about how differently women are treated. Madam Hassan has replied to that. We are from similar regions. There are definitely social and family pressures. Even treatment by the hand of the government is very different. We have had several cases of having women transferred to male jails, men's jails, and being held there. They have been sexually violated while in prison. All these things are basically added layers to the oppression they face.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Bah, I have one final question for you.

Based on your experience in Canada, what is working well in Canada? What barriers are still in place for defenders trying to continue their advocacy here in Canada?

[Abdoulaye Bah]

One of the advantages here is that they don't operate in isolation. All organizations in Canada operate as a consortium. As for the various advocacy actions and the issues they work on, they don't work in isolation, but as a consortium, since each organization has its own expertise and contributes its know-how to an advocacy action. For example, Equitas focuses on education, while Amnesty International handles petitions, and there are other organizations. There is a harmonization framework: A working group helps align efforts and approaches, which often yields positive results related to the issues.

Here, the obstacles for defenders in exile—this is the first point I mentioned—include, in particular, the lack of recognition of their professional experience on the ground, which is not taken into account because they have worked in conflict zones.

The second constraint they face is in the academic sphere. They arrive with master's and doctoral degrees, but the administrative process for recognizing those degrees is slow. The results are not there.

Another barrier to mention is that arriving in a new setting is a return to square one and requires building a new professional network—that is, social or community relationships. When I arrived, I started by volunteering with community organizations. Later, I joined human rights organizations, such as the Welcome Collective or those focused on justice for immigrants that advocate for the rights of asylum seekers.

So there are quite a few administrative and academic obstacles that require readjustment. This often hinders the work of defenders in exile.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you.

Now I'd like to invite Mr. Davies to take the floor for five minutes, please.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Neuer, my question is going to be for you, but I hope you'll indulge me for a moment.

We're hearing a dangerous idea take hold that Canada should accept the world as it is, rather than strive for what we want it to be. My fear is that if we accept the world as it is, we accept the imprisonment of dissidents in China, the aggression of Russia and the brutality of Iran, and we accept that abusers can sit on bodies like the UN Human Rights Council and shape the very rules they violate.

Canada has never been at its best when it lowers its expectations to match the worst actors on the global stage. We have been at our strongest when we challenge injustice, not accommodate it. If we trade principles for convenience, we don't stabilize the world but legitimize its worst behaviours. Canada must not manage decline, but lead with conviction.

The world, to me, means that we engage in trade negotiations, international relationships and protecting the interests of Canadians. We can't turn a blind eye for economic expediency. In this new world order, do you believe Canada could better ensure that its trade investments or diplomatic relationships do not directly or indirectly enable forced labour, particularly in regions where human rights violations are happening today?

In your view, is this the line between pragmatic diplomacy and moral concession? How should human rights proponents understand the world as it is?

[Hillel Neuer]

Canada has a long history of being a leader when it comes to the principles of human rights, democracy and decency, and it should not forsake those principles for expediency, trade or pragmatism.

We heard earlier in this session from an honourable member whose family was involved in the Dutch resistance. It's to Canada's credit that thousands of Canadian servicemen are honoured every year. Candles are lit every Christmas Eve to honour the Canadians who defeated Hitler.

Canada has a great legacy when it comes to defeating evil and standing up for human rights. Indeed, John Humphrey was mentioned in this session. He was a Canadian law professor I knew at McGill University who helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

When our leaders go to meet the leaders of China and Qatar and send them a signal that Canada is going to kowtow to the powers that be, that's wrong.

We heard from an honourable member that Canada does not support Iran in its leadership positions, but actually, Canada did support it. Canada joined the consensus on April 8 to nominate Iran. Canada joined the consensus to elect China to the United Nations Committee on NGOs. This committee oversees the work of human rights groups. Thousands of accredited human rights groups around the world have to answer to the UN Committee on NGOs. There are only 19 members, and Canada joined the consensus to elect China, Cuba, Nicaragua and Sudan, which, as we heard before, is a place where mass rape is taking place.

It's not enough for Canada to go along to get along at UN bodies. It's not enough for Canada to go to Beijing and shake hands with dictators and say we have to be pragmatic. Canada cannot abandon its leadership role.

There are concrete steps that Canada could take to help human rights defenders. You need to give them a platform. Don't give a platform to Beijing. Give a platform to those who are defying Beijing. Amplify their voices in Parliament and internationally. We need to impose real costs on the oppressors. We need to use Magnitsky sanctions, visa bans and legal tools to target officials who are responsible for oppression, including the Chinese intimidation of Canadians, which is widespread, and the Iranian IRGC.... There are hundreds of them, allegedly, on the streets of Canada.

We need to be consistent. Human rights can't be selective. We can't turn a blind eye to our Uyghurs, who are subjected.... One million Uyghurs have been put into camps and had their beards cut off to erase their religion and their culture. If we're not consistent on human rights, then we lose our credibility, and credibility is protection for dissidents.

Thank you, honourable member.

[Fred Davies, Conservative, Niagara South, ON]

Thank you for that.

I would like to pivot at this point. I want to ask you about—

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

I'm sorry. Next time. Your time is over.

Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll come back to this topic, Mr. Neuer.

You know, the committee before which you are testifying was sanctioned by China because it conducted a study in 2020 demonstrating that genocide was taking place in Xinjiang. At the time, I was vice-chair of the committee, and I still am. As members of Parliament, we are personally sanctioned by China.

However, diplomatic warming is under way between Canada and China. As you noted, three days before his famous speech in Davos, Mr. Carney shook hands with Xi Jinping in front of photographers. I want to come back to that because it's extremely important.

You talked about consistency. Right now, there are known, documented and proven human rights violations in China. Yet it seems that we remain silent in the face of this, while we have no problem denouncing human rights violations occurring in Russia, for example, or in Ukraine at the hands of Russia.

How have we come to this double standard today? Do you think it's acceptable that, under the pretext that relations with the Americans are difficult, we turn to regimes like these?

[Hillel Neuer]

Thank you for the question.

I agree that this double standard is completely unacceptable. China is a country, a regime that represents 1.5 billion people. We're talking about one-fifth of humanity. So, if we remain silent regarding the Chinese, that means we remain silent regarding one-fifth of all humanity. This is not a trivial matter, but a very serious and significant one, especially as China exerts its influence over dissidents all over the world, including in Canada. We can see just how significant this transnational repression is.

The fact that on April 8, Canada, as a member of the United Nations Economic and Social Council.... It's not an insignificant body. Bob Rae, who was the ambassador in New York, was the president of this council about a year or two ago. It's a body that we say is important. As Canadians, we say, “Go to the United Nations. Listen to the United Nations.”

We criticize other countries if they take actions that are not consistent with what the United Nations says, and then we go and we elect the Chinese Communist regime to a UN body that oversees human rights. We elect the Cuban police state, which represses playwrights and has hundreds of political prisoners. We've put in Nicaragua, the dictatorship that expelled 200 political prisoners and dissidents. It put them in prison and then expelled them. There's Sudan, where there are killings of tens of thousands of people and millions are starving. We elect these regimes. Canada joined the consensus to put them on the UN Committee on NGOs and didn't take the floor. Sometimes Canada says, “Well, you know, we had to, because that's how it is with this.”

We know you could take the floor. We know that Canada has done it before. I think we need explanations. We need Canada to speak out.

Let's remember Wang Bingzhang, the father of the Chinese democracy movement. I know your committee has heard about him before, but I have to mention him, because his daughter, Ti-Anna Wang, came to speak for us many times at our Geneva summits, at the United Nations Human Rights Council. China sent spies who pretended to be NGO activists to spy on and intimidate her when she testified at the United Nations a number of years ago.

Her father, Wang Bingzhang, is the heroic founder of the Chinese democracy movement. He's someone who came to do his Ph.D. at McGill University in Montreal. He saw what democracy was; he saw what freedom was, and he created the Chinese democracy movement. When he was abroad in Vietnam—I believe it was in 2002—he was kidnapped. He and others went to meet Chinese labour activists. They kidnapped him and threw him in prison. He's been languishing in confinement for two decades. His daughter went to my law school, McGill, and came to testify.

Canada needs to call for his immediate release and not to be complicit in rewarding the oppressor. We need to stand with the persecuted much more than we're doing now.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

How is that perceived internationally? I've recently had the opportunity to go on a few missions, including with the Speaker of the House, to Iceland and Norway. Thanks to my work, I have contacts all over the world, and everyone is talking about the Davos speech, with which I fully agreed. However, I get the impression that what Mr. Carney said in Davos does not align with the actions this government is taking.

I congratulated him on his speech, but I wonder: How is it that his speech has not translated into action at this point?

[Hillel Neuer]

Thank you for the question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

We'll have a quick answer, please, because the time is up.

[Hillel Neuer]

The quick answer is that speeches are important.

We call out the President of the United States, but meanwhile, the United States is the only country that took the floor on April 8 at the UN Economic and Social Council to say that electing China and Cuba is wrong, and it is the only country that said nominating the Islamic Republic of Iran is wrong. Canada was silent.

Canada could have spoken. Canada spoke there on April 2022 when it came to the issue of Russia and Ukraine. They chose silence this time. This is not Canada's tradition. This is not living up to the Canadian charter. This is not living up to the vision that Mr. Carney expressed in Switzerland, where I live.

We need to see actions matching words.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Mr. Neuer.

I now invite Madame Vandenbeld to take the floor for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Sharifi, you mentioned in your remarks that what is needed is flexible funding. Others have said similar things.

What I noted in a lot of the testimony we've heard is that the project-based funding model—treating democracy and human rights like other ODA projects, such as health or education—doesn't quite fit, because having to decide five years in advance what activities, what outputs...and it's a year or two, sometimes, to get the contract for the funding. It's very time-constrained. You have a five-year project, and then you move on.

This isn't how democracy...what the needs are right now. It's more about long-term, flexible funding and risk-taking, which governments are not likely to do, as well as being rapid. Sometimes things change on a dime, and we need to get the support in tomorrow. I wonder if you could talk about that.

Do we have things like the Equality Fund, with which we're funding small grassroots women's organizations? If there's a different model that would better speak...we're not talking about a lot of money, as you've said, but is there something we could do that would be a better fit, that would better support the organic human rights defenders—who are doing this work with almost nothing—to interconnect and be supported?

I'll start with Mr. Sharifi and then, if I have time, I'd like to hear from Ms. McCarthy and the others.

[Omaid Sharifi]

Honourable member, thank you for this question.

I have been in this ecosystem for the last 20 years. We are not talking about a five-year project. That is a luxury. I have been dealing with projects of six months to a year. The maximum project we have is a one- or two-year project. That is the level of commitment from the international community and countries to such organizations as activist movements, human rights education organizations and the local organizations doing the real work. They are on the streets doing this important work for all of us. Whether it's human rights education, painting walls, advocacy or raising awareness, they are on the streets doing this important work. The projects they get are very short term.

This whole system of development aid is broken. On a question Mr. Zuberi asked earlier, I want to point out some figures that I recently wrote an article about. The international aid that is gone from USAID, the $63 billion or something in 2023-24, is the tip of the iceberg. Countries such as Germany, generous Sweden and the Netherlands—all of them halved their support for all these humanitarian international programs. The U.S.A. was just the big news that we all saw. Other countries were already doing this. The U.K. was already doing this. The notion of the global north leading a lot of humanitarian aid and development was gone with the USAID dismantling under President Trump.

At this moment in time, we have an opportunity to rebuild the system. Having these big international organizations with multi-million dollars as intermediaries is not working at this time. They are not rapid. They cannot shape-shift at the moment you need them. It's a time for all of us in this ecosystem to sit down, rethink all of this and find a solution that is both indigenous to the places you're working and to the needs of the defenders and the real people who need it at this moment.

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

Ms. McCarthy, perhaps you could add to that. I know that sometimes it's a matter of trying to take existing projects and make them fit the actual realities of what the defenders need as opposed to the other way around. I wonder if you can talk a bit about that.

[Odette McCarthy]

Yes. To be clear, I said earlier that when funding has been cut or when funding has been constrained, we have seen a continuing of work, but that's on the backs of people. That's because of determination and will. It's not because of funds. It's to show resilience and the importance that people set on defending their rights and the rights of others in their communities in the democratic space. They're very isolated. They're doing momentous work with nothing or next to nothing. This is really important.

Canada absolutely could be creative and innovative by building on this idea of supporting a space—call it networking, call it coalition building, call it collective work or call it whatever we want to name it—in which there can be an exchange of knowledge. There can be trust. It can be safe. Good practice can be exchanged. Agility can happen, with funds to support either the action that needs to happen in the countries or the action that can be taken collectively.