Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on May 4th, 2026

[Frederick John Packer]

I'm frankly quite concerned about that. What we know is that one of the areas in which.... It's a Canadian tendency to reflect on and defer to diaspora communities, and we have this idea of multiculturalism, the coherence of the communities and, I would say, positive dispositions.

This is not the position of many activists in exile. They are deeply concerned not just about the fractiousness and the non-homogeneous character of the groups, but about exactly who these groups are and who is subject to which influences. It's not just human rights defenders, anti-corruption activists, democracy supporters and journalists who do not want to be dependent upon their co-national community, which may have historical roots that are not contemporary and are very problematic in terms of the influences we're talking about.

I would be deeply cautious, and I would actually advise against deferring to that approach. I would seek to enhance the independent Canadian institutions, not the diasporic ones, that are responsible for our vigorous democracy. That's protecting everyone.

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

Further to that, there's been talk of creating a Canadian democracy fund, which would provide funding to groups that are promoting democracy and, presumably, to human rights defenders. I know that when this committee proposed it in a previous study, one on women human rights defenders, we proposed something that would support human rights defenders when they come to Canada so they could continue their work instead of driving an Uber. Would that change your view on this?

[Frederick John Packer]

I think many people here are aware that it's been a long-time proposition of Canada to have something similar to that and that we've failed to develop or deliver it.

If we look at the direction of travel of the world, and if we look at global reports on democracy and so forth, the number of democracies is shrinking. In fact, I think Freedom House counts now a dozen full and vigorous democracies. The non-democracies are gaining in strength and in their collaboration. The threat is very real, as we're discussing here, so I think something like this is needed.

I would also argue, for example, that Canada has led with regard to the pathway for human rights defenders, but it's very small and it's too limited. That's why I'm using language like “activists in exile”. There are many people, like journalists, who do not wish to identify themselves as human rights defenders; they think they're professionals doing journalism. There are many groups that don't want to be refugees as such, because it's problematical in terms of their status and the way they'd be treated. In fact, to declare refugee status is basically an allegation against your country of origin. If you're a dual national, that's a massive problem.

We need to do something like this, but it needs to be nuanced and it needs to be thoughtful. It's overdue.

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

That human rights defender pathway came from this committee originally.

[Frederick John Packer]

Bravo. Expand it.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Ms. Vandenbeld.

I would like to invite Madame Kronis to take the floor for five minutes, please.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for your very thoughtful remarks today.

Dr. Juneau, I want to pick up on your opening remarks.

You talked about there being a heavily gendered element to transnational repression. You talked about people with family in the perpetrating country being the people most likely to be impacted and said that where there is family at risk, transnational repression can have the most impact here in Canada.

You also talked about the way that everyone is expecting there to be an uptick in transnational repression from Iran over the next little while. I cannot help but think about the very small but heavily impacted Iranian community in my riding, where almost everyone has family at home and where almost everyone is worried about them. As you know, people have lost contact with family members.

I'm wondering if you can elaborate on what the policy implications are for Canada of families that are split under these circumstances.

[Thomas Juneau]

I'm very happy that you brought up these aspects, including the gendered aspect and the prediction that there will be a serious uptick in Iranian transnational repression in 2026, given the current context.

Anecdotally, I've already talked to a number of activists who report recent cases of families over there, for example, being pressured to try to silence their activism here post the protests of early 2026 and post the war that is going on right now.

From a policy perspective, what does that mean for Canada? The family abroad dimension might be the most difficult policy challenge at this level. Generally speaking, transnational repression is very difficult. It's a very difficult problem to deal with on many fronts. In a narrow sense, there is not that much that Canada can do in the short term when a Canadian, an Iranian Canadian, a Chinese Canadian or others have family abroad being targeted to silence them.

In the bigger picture, I agree with what my colleague Luke de Pulford said in his testimony and answers about naming and shaming—making this public and not keeping it quiet unless there is a specific request by the victim themselves to keep it quiet, which I think we should respect in those instances. As a default position, however, the publicity aspect does matter.

Coordination with allies is something we are doing better now than five years ago, but it can still improve a lot. We are not the U.S., and we are not even the U.K. in terms of our size, our power and the assets we can bring to bear to resist at this level, but in working with other democracies where there are similar problems, the response can be improved. I think Canada work through the G7 was the first step in that direction.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I want to pick up on the comment you just made about what Canada no longer is. We are not able to have the same strength of voice that we had at the table.

I was at a Battle of the Atlantic commemoration ceremony yesterday, where I was reminded that Canada gained that respect because of the incredible power we had militarily, the way we punched above our weight and the fact that we finished the Second World War as the third-largest navy in the world. I can't help but contrast that with the way our government was less than clear about its position on Iran. Over a series of days, we struggled to figure out exactly where Canada was heading.

What do we need to do to move forward and have that credible voice again?

[Thomas Juneau]

There's no answer to that question that doesn't involve more resources. CSIS, the RCMP and our diplomatic service are completely overstretched. We're focused on transnational repression here today. We are right to do that, because it's a big problem, but it's only one threat among many others that Canada faces: economic espionage, cyber-threats and great power competition. It's a very long list, as I think everybody knows.

Given that multiplicity of threats, CSIS, the RCMP and the intelligence community in general are struggling to prioritize. It's very easy to say we should do more on transnational repression, but tomorrow morning that would mean doing less against economic espionage, which is also a major problem.

Moving forward, the simple answer is there's no way to do this without more resources.

[Tamara Kronis, Conservative, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

In that context, we've had pledges of major investments in this space and pledges of major investments in defence. What is stopping us from being able to make those investments and move this file forward?

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Give a quick answer, please. The time is up.

[Thomas Juneau]

Very quickly, I very much welcome the government's efforts to significantly increase defence spending. That is more than overdue, but I would emphasize the point that there are other aspects of national power and national security beyond defence that we have also been neglecting for a long time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Kersten, you spoke specifically about Iran. In particular, you talked about two conditions. We are looking at what is currently happening in Iran. Objectively, any serious analyst could predict that hostilities will resume very shortly. In any case, there is a high risk.

What does that mean for the future? Strictly from a transnational repression perspective, a conflict like this in a country like Iran involves more than the Iranian government. The Iranians also have allies, and there are communities from those allied countries on Canadian soil.

Isn't this an example of a perfect storm? Will we see an increase in transnational repression in a country like Canada if there is a conflict as big as the one currently taking place in the gulf?

[Mark Kersten]

My former colleague at the Munk School of Global Affairs, Ron Deibert, was here, and he spoke of a tsunami of TNR. My colleague mentioned—and I think other analysts said similar things—that in 2026, we should expect an increase in transnational repression, including in Canada, as a result of the conflict with Iran and perhaps its allies.

One interesting common thread in some recent reports from various organizations is that there have to be real, concrete repercussions for those who perpetrate transnational repression in Canada. Whether they're sanctions, prosecutions or investigations, there have to be real, direct repercussions for the perpetrators. One of the previous speakers, Brandon Silver, mentioned using small-level perpetrators of TNR to figure out how to build potential cases up the chain of command to those most responsible.

Canada has done this before. Under the Harper administration, Canada prosecuted a number of perpetrators of genocide in Rwanda. These were complex cases that Canada prosecuted. It's different from TNR, but it's possible for Canada to do this again.

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

Thank you.

Mr. de Pulford, there's an example of transnational repression that may not be mentioned very often. I'm talking about the freeze on mandatory provident funds for people who have left Hong Kong. However, these funds are managed by Canadian companies such as Sun Life and Manulife.

Whether intentionally or not, aren't these Canadian companies engaging in backdoor transnational repression when they don't allow people to get their money back from these funds because they are conforming to Hong Kong's policies and laws, given that they manage the funds?

[Luke de Pulford]

Yes, in a word. I think it is complicity with transnational repression. These companies will say they have no choice but to comply with the law in the jurisdiction where they operate, but the reality is that they are participating in the persecution of people with regard to mandatory provident funds. In Hong Kong, these are compulsory retirement savings, which are not being released to British national overseas passport holders. We're talking about billions being held that belong to these people, who are therefore leveraged in one way or another. They know they need that money, and they also know that if they speak out, they're much less likely to get it.

In your analysis as a committee, it's very important to look at the role companies play in propping up authoritarian, transnational repression.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Packer, you told us that you didn't know who to turn to. Earlier, we talked about training police forces and prosecutors, as well as the legislative framework, which is clearly lacking when it comes to transnational repression. Furthermore, there are no government tools either.

What I understand is that, no matter who you turn to, you don't get an answer from the government's elected representatives.

Did I understand correctly?

[Frederick John Packer]

I think you've understood.

The government has responded with regard to electoral interferences. That form of foreign interference has touched you. That's not normally what touches ordinary Canadians, particularly non-nationals who are here—for example, students who are studying. This is a large problem for students. We need to expand our scope of understanding.

You've just raised the idea that provident funds administered and held by a foreign state are touching Canadians for a repressive purpose. If we look at what's happening across the board in Canada, with the kind of complexity that my colleagues referred to, this far exceeds the question of electoral integrity. It even exceeds the democratic institutions per se. These are ordinary Canadians being touched.

For example, for my security, who should I call? I could call the RCMP. If I'm travelling abroad, as I do frequently, they would say it's not a policing issue in Canada. I could call CSIS, and they would ask what exactly they are supposed to do. However, if I asked them about my bank account, neither of them would know what to do.

I remember a discussion I had several years ago with the director of legal affairs and the assistant deputy minister of Global Affairs Canada when I raised this question in a conference. He immediately said it had nothing to do with them; it was a policing matter. Does a breach of sovereignty between states have nothing to do with foreign affairs?

Our world has changed, if I may say, and the concepts of geography are not the same anymore. Where our relations intersect is not just between or behind three oceans. They are simultaneously happening in our real lives that exist through family, friends and business associations transnationally, and we are not up to speed on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Fayçal El-Khoury]

Thank you, Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

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

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you, everybody, for being here today.

In this third round, I'm dealing with a bit of cleanup, and I'm going to primarily talk to Mr. Juneau and Mr. Packer today.

Earlier today, you talked about how two variables connect with transnational oppression. As Canadians, we've long positioned ourselves as defenders of human rights on the global stage and have also helped to navigate complex geopolitical realities. You've argued for a more strategic interest-based approach to foreign policy here today. I'm wondering how Canada should balance values in terms of human rights with strategic interests when responding to some of these transnational regressions.

[Thomas Juneau]

That is a broad question. Specifically, I mentioned the two variables. Past patterns tell us that, one, when the Islamic Republic of Iran feels especially vulnerable because of geopolitical pressure and/or domestic political pressure and, two, when there's enhanced diaspora mobilization, it speeds up its already high baseline of transnational repression. We saw that, for example, in 2022-23, at the time of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. We saw it after 2020 after the PS752 was shot down.

The prediction that a number of us are making now is that we are basically seeing the confluence of these two variables again, because of geopolitical pressure from the war and because of domestic political pressure from the protests of just a few months ago. Anecdotally, I am already seeing that prediction coming true, even if we don't have enough data points to really make a rigorous assessment at this point.

When I was referring to two variables, that's broadly what I meant.

[Jessica Fancy-Landry, Liberal, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Packer, we've talked about sovereignty a lot today, so drawing on some of your experiences across international institutions and legal frameworks, what practical, realistic steps should Canada be taking within the next year or so to strengthen protections against transnational repression?