Thank you, honourable member, for this timely question. It's an issue that has sparked outrage around the world in parliaments, not only in Canada but also in the United Kingdom, the European Parliament, Australia, Finland and other places.
On April 8, at a meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, two decisions were made by Canada as well as other democracies, including France, Germany, the U.K., Finland, Australia, Norway, Austria and the Netherlands. That decision was to join consensus on nominating the Islamic Republic of Iran to the UN Committee for Programme and Coordination, which is meeting in a few weeks, with one day on women's rights, one day on human rights, one day on peacekeeping and one day on terrorism prevention.
The notion that the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has just massacred some 40,000 protesters in two days, would be nominated for election to a committee that decides priorities for the United Nations on these critical issues is an insult to the memory of the tens of thousands of individuals who were killed on those days. It is an act of contempt for the people of Iran. By the way, the election will be held in November, and it's a rubber stamp by the UN General Assembly.
The Government of Canada made a bizarre statement on the Global Affairs Canada Twitter account, @CanadaFP. They said that this was a decision of the regional group and that they had nothing to do with it. Of course, the Asian regional group is the one that puts the names forward, but if you look at this formally, the nomination was done by ECOSOC, and Canada is one of the members of ECOSOC. Canada formally joined in the nomination. It joined consensus.
If you want to look at it informally, in practice, Canada could have spoken out. The chair asked if anyone wanted to speak out. The United States took the floor and said that this was a shameful thing to do, but Canada chose silence.
Is this the normal practice? No. A few years ago, in April 2022, ECOSOC elected a candidate from Russia; Canada, the EU and the U.K. took the floor and said it was wrong. How could we keep silent? We spoke out when this council elected Russia, but this time we chose not to.
America spoke out in this session. Canada did not. In a previous session, when it had to do with electing another authoritarian regime, Canada spoke out. This time, it did not. Whether you look at this informally or formally, Canada joined consensus to nominate Iran and chose silence. This caused me great shame as a Canadian.
Second, equally shameful, is the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations, as you indicated, honourable member.
We are a UN-accredited NGO. We have to answer to the UN committee on NGOs. There are 19 member states. Who are the 19 member states? As of now, they include, by the election that just happened, China—which oppresses 1.5 billion people—Cuba, Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Nicaragua. These are authoritarian regimes that are now sitting on the body that regulates human rights NGOs. This is a betrayal of the human rights movement.
We heard from a witness about the structures of international human rights. If our own democracies are going to abandon these structures and hand them over to the world's worst regimes, regimes that jail dissidents, that crush any NGOs—you can't have an NGO in any of these countries—then what is the purpose of the UN?
Our former ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae, was president of the UN Economic and Social Council. How are we supposed to take these bodies seriously if Canada says it doesn't matter if we nominate Iran and it doesn't matter if we join consensus in electing China, Cuba, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia and Sudan? It's absurd.
I think what happened was absurd, and what was even worse was to double down with the denial. Canada formally joined consensus. It's incontrovertible. In practice, Canada could have taken the floor, and it didn't.
This shameful decision, this abandonment and doubling down, is not befitting the principles of democracy and a free society that Canada and its charter are meant to uphold.