Evidence of meeting #18 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was china.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Fayçal El-Khoury
Thank you, Mr. Majumdar.
Now I would like to invite Mr. Zuberi to take the floor for seven minutes.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today online or in person.
I would like to start with Professor Juneau.
You outlined a number of your preliminary findings from the 100 people you interviewed who are involved in or have experienced transnational repression. One thing I picked up on was your talking about the excessive emotional suffering. How do you think governments can respond to support individuals facing the pressure you described and that you have seen in your research thus far?
Full Professor, Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
It's really important that you raised that aspect.
When we started this research and were asking our interviewees about the impact, we focused only on the impact on their work: “Is it causing you to curtail your activism, and if so, why?” In the first interviews, we realized that a lot of the activists we were speaking to, who are victims of transnational repression, were spontaneously bringing up the personal aspect—the emotional distress from the pressure they were under. Because of their work, their families back in Iran, India or China are being pressured, threatened and so on. That distress, in some cases, is massive. We're documenting a lot of these instances. We've decided to shift our focus a bit and systematically include this in our research.
The reality is that it's really difficult to think about practical solutions at that level. Should there be resources at the community or society level for victims of transnational repression? The obvious answer is yes. How do you do this, especially given that in many cases it wouldn't be a federal responsibility? It's not easy. There are ways for the government to support community organizations in providing either the psychological or emotional care itself, or at least in providing advice on where to get it.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
That's an interesting point about supporting organizations in terms of their support for those who are at the forefront of human rights and facing oppression. We have supports for victims of crime, for example. That concept does exist, and it's debated and discussed. This would be a corollary of that, I would suggest, although it doesn't flow from the same source.
Professor Packer, you had some recommendations that you were powering through at the very end. If you want to, you can briefly expand upon them and complete them.
Associate Professor of Law, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I did get through them, but there are many more to say. I hope that—perhaps deductively—you grasped that my suggestion of, for example, a point person at the Privy Council or an inter-ministerial working group was actually a veiled critique of the frankly incoherent position of the Canadian government.
Right now, many victims—persons who are aware of the transnational oppression—have no idea to whom they should address themselves. I have that experience. I give my own testimony as someone sanctioned by the Chinese state. I'm basically given a telephone number for consular services while I'm travelling abroad, but if something interferes with my bank account or whatever, there's no one to call and I have no idea what to do.
I would suggest that I'm perhaps more able than many other people. I don't have family in a country of origin or in China and I'm not subject to most of these...but I can tell you that under the Chinese security law, this extends to all sorts of persons, including persons with whom I have contact, which I guess means you.
I don't know what to say, but there's nobody in the Canadian government to whom I can address myself or respond. My main plea here is that this is a very large problem. That's why I mentioned the four million Canadians with dual nationality who are all potentially subject to this.
I'll just quickly tell you that the other day I had a person from Tunisia show up at my door. He was agitated. He's a businessman. He said that he needed help. I asked what I could do, because I'm not really there to help—I'm a scholar. He said that he'd gone to the embassy to renew his passport. They took it and then, in short, said they wouldn't renew it unless he changed his statements on X, and if he didn't do that, they knew who his family was in his country of origin.
This is Tunisia, a little country. We're not talking about China and we're not talking about Russia. This is a person who is visiting our country and trying to do business with our country.
I want to underline that I didn't know who to call. I think this is a problem for our country.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
Thank you.
Professor Kersten, you mentioned that not only the three countries we named but many others engage in transnational oppression. Without necessarily naming them, do you have suggestions on how we can remain mindful that it's not just India, China and Iran that are involved? How can we remain mindful and aware that, as Professor Packer just mentioned, other countries also engage in this? What suggestions do you have for us in that regard?
Assistant Professor, Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of the Fraser Valley, As an Individual
This committee is a very welcome start to that, including its emphasis on human rights.
Perhaps I'll go back to the point—and to Professor Packer's as well—about dual nationals, risks and assessing the emerging risks.
If you have a combination of states that are engaged in human rights violations against their own populations or populations living within their borders and that seem to disregard the state sovereignty of others, and there are diasporas or dual nationals abroad, in a sense, then, you could establish something like a traffic light model where green means there's no risk of transnational repression, red means clearly there is transnational repression and yellow means there's the possibility that a state would engage in transnational repression because it fits some of the criteria. Having that kind of model might also act as a warning mechanism for dual nationals, citizens and people who call Canada home.
Liberal
Sameer Zuberi Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
In the remaining 45 seconds, I'll go to Monsieur de Pulford.
You described a lot of challenges that IPAC has faced while doing its work. I'm a proud Canadian co-chair of IPAC. In terms of best practices you have for those who are advocating, do you want to share with viewers what precautions they can personally take in order to protect themselves?
Executive Director, Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China
Thank you very much, Sameer. It's a great pleasure.
It's quite difficult to answer that question, because it differs from country to country. One of the principal problems we find is that there is a wild variation among police authorities' understanding of transnational repression. For example, in the United Kingdom, many have had bad experiences when they've tried to report. I know that around the world, others have had similar experiences. It really varies hugely.
It's actually quite difficult to say to people, “Here's what you should do”, but something very positive recently was that the cybersecurity institutions of our various nations got together and produced a report that at least advises potential victims of transnational repression about what they can do to tighten up their cybersecurity so that they can at least try to defend themselves. People should read that and should have access to that. It's a good document. It's a good start, but there's so much to do in terms of directing people to police authorities.
Finally, in the United Kingdom, we've had to find a way, through us, of triaging potential victims to the police we know are going to respond, or we at least send something to somebody who knows what they're talking about. That is clearly an inadequate situation, but that's what we've been reduced to.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Fayçal El-Khoury
Thank you.
Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe, you have the floor for seven minutes.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Juneau, in your opening remarks, you told us that the government seemed to be more aware of the matter and that it was taking it more seriously. In any case, it seems to be making efforts that it may not have made before. However, at the same time, we are seeing a public diplomatic rapprochement with Beijing.
I don't know how, on the one hand, we can take transnational repression more seriously and, on the other, move closer to a regime that, as we know, is one of the biggest transnational oppressors on the planet.
Isn't that a contradiction or paradox?
Full Professor, Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
There's absolutely a contradiction, or a tension, as I would call it in this case. I think there are two possible answers to the question. There's a more general answer and a more specific one.
Generally, to a certain extent, it is normal and inevitable that the foreign policy objectives of a country like Canada involve internal tensions and contradictions. I think it's inevitable that there won't be absolute consistency. I don't think absolute consistency is a standard that should be applied to foreign policy in general. I'm not saying that to justify the choice, but I think it's an important point to mention at the outset.
More specifically, I would say that the case of China raises a useful and meaningful debate in terms of our policy choices. We can wonder what it means to move closer to a country like China, which is obviously responsible for a significant and intense amount of transnational repression, when it comes to China's transnational repression in Canada.
There's the rosy argument, which I think is naive and doesn't work. According to that argument, slightly more cordial relations with China will lead it to slow down its transnational repression activities in Canada. There isn't really any data to solidly confirm that hypothesis, but my gut tells me it's not true.
Bloc
Full Professor, Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
It's going to be the other way around, yes. Even if a country like Canada moves a little closer to China, China will continue to see Canada as a country that welcomes dissidents, and it will want to target it. The dissidents will criticize Canada's approach to China, so China will target the country even more.
It may have the opposite effect.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you for that.
Mr. de Pulford, in your opening remarks, you talked about the APT31 attacks.
Can you tell us whether the Government of Canada took that seriously in its response to the attacks?
Executive Director, Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China
I feel a bit bad singling out Canada, because 18 countries were attacked and very few of them notified their politicians. The Canadian government took the same stance as the United Kingdom government, which was not to tell politicians that they had been subject to a state-sponsored attack.
In fact, not only was it three years later, but it wasn't until it had been publicly announced by the United States government that this became news. We, the IPAC secretariat, had to brief politicians about what had happened to them. I would argue that this is completely inadequate. I mean, there were people who were attacked within Canada who had senior positions in committees, such as yourselves, and were potentially victims of a very serious cyber-attack. It was dismissed and swept under the carpet by the Canadian government in the same way that it was by the United Kingdom government.
This isn't a party political point. Regrettably, it's to do with the posture of countries towards Beijing. I believe that they did not want to attribute the attack for fear of the diplomatic consequences of doing so. It was the same in the United Kingdom.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you very much.
Mr. Silver, in your opening remarks, you talked about international mechanisms such as the International Criminal Court. However, I get the sense, which various witnesses confirm, that what's being done here shows that the Canadian government's legislative framework for transnational repression is simply nonexistent or that there's no training.
This question may also be for you, Mr. Juneau, because you talked about it.
I won't say it's complacency, but isn't there a clear lack of apparatuses and tools for training police forces and prosecutors to help them fight transnational repression right here on Canadian soil?
Director of Policy and Projects, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights
Thank you for the question.
More resources need to be allocated to police officers and people who are engaged in the effort to combat transnational repression. We also need to expand the use of tools in Canada.
Internationally, Canada has tools available, but it is not committed as a country. Canada has a lot of allies around the world who are undergoing the same attacks from these authoritarian countries, from these dictatorships. Therefore, we can work with them to use international tools, such as the International Criminal Court, to fight these horrific international crimes.
By doing that in the case of Iran, which I alluded to in my opening remarks, we can set a precedent that can help fight all crimes of this kind, including those committed by China.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you.
Mr. Juneau, can you say a few words about training?
Full Professor, Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
That's an extremely important point. There can be no serious progress in countering transnational repression without a much greater effort to support the people involved. The effort must be made not only at the federal level, by training people on the front lines, meaning people from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, but also at the provincial and municipal levels, by training police officers.
In the interviews we did, my co-author and colleague and I constantly heard horror stories. Victims were telling the police terrible things, and, to be blunt, the police had no idea what was going on. There is a complete lack of knowledge about the very threat of transnational repression as well as the actions, strategies and tactics used by the states responsible for it.
I have to say that it's better today than it was five years ago, but we're still a long way from where we should be.
There is also a specific problem when it comes to police officers. The reaction of people on the front lines is often to say that what victims describe is unpleasant, but that it doesn't reach the minimum threshold of criminal activity. They then conclude that it is not a police matter.
In a very narrow sense, that's not necessarily wrong. However, the problem is that it prevents progress, it prevents a response and it ignores reality. When you assemble the pieces of the mosaic made up of all the small activities that fall below the threshold of what constitutes a criminal act, you can exceed the threshold. However, it requires a sustained effort to share information, which is complex.
Bloc
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe Bloc Lac-Saint-Jean, QC
There's also the fact that the legislative framework doesn't help police officers either in terms of moving forward and laying charges, for example.
I'll come back to you later.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Fayçal El-Khoury
Thank you, Mr. Brunelle‑Duceppe.
Ms. Vandenbeld, you may take the floor for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of our witnesses. There is some very rich testimony and good recommendations here.
I would like to start with Dr. Juneau.
You mentioned that one of the threats is the fragmentation of communities. There has been discussion, both at this committee in a previous Parliament and right now at the procedure and House affairs committee, about providing support to human rights defenders in exile in Canada so they can continue their work and also about perhaps creating that connective tissue where movements can have a small fund that would allow them to connect to one another.
I wonder if you think that might be one possible solution.
I'd be interested in hearing from the other members of the panel as well.
Full Professor, Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Yes, absolutely.
Speaking especially on the Iranian Canadian side, which is a community that is very divided and very fragmented, there is no strong organization that represents significant components of the community, never mind the entire community. That division creates openings for the Islamic republic, which it very enthusiastically exploits. It also makes the job of the federal government much more difficult. It makes outreach, engagement and transparency with the Iranian community much more difficult. It means that providing information....
One of the other speakers spoke about spreading awareness, cyber-hygiene and measures for people to protect themselves. That is much more difficult when you need to speak to individuals almost on an individual basis as opposed to having an organization that is more representative, which can itself play the role of a conduit not only from the government to the community, but also to gather information on what the threat is, who the perpetrators are and who the proxies are on the ground who are responsible for some of these actions.
All that is to say, yes, providing more support to community organizations that could play a conduit role to facilitate a two-way dialogue would be extremely useful.
Liberal
Anita Vandenbeld Liberal Ottawa West—Nepean, ON
Professor Packer, you said that supporting human rights defenders and those in exile is a matter of national sovereignty. Would you support a measure like this?