Thank you so much, and it's nice to be a visitor on this committee today. I have big shoes to fill.
Madam Lisson, you spoke about the participation of Canadian companies in violation of the rights of indigenous peoples in the area in the Philippines. You indicated that the Philippines is an “El Dorado of human rights abuses”, including the failure to obtain proper free, prior and informed consent, a direct violation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
I find that troubling because the UN committee came out this week condemning Canada over failing to uphold human rights, particularly in relation to the construction of the Trans Mountain and Coastal GasLink pipelines.
The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said that it “profoundly regrets and is concerned” that Canada is continuing to forcibly remove Indigenous land defenders from their unceded territory. They went on to say that, in British Columbia specifically, they “have escalated their use of force, surveillance, and criminalization of land offenders and peaceful protesters to intimidate, remove and forcibly evict Secwepemc and Wet'suwet'en Nations from their traditional lands, in particular by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Community-Industry Response Group, and private security firms.”
There seems to be a pattern of behaviour, whether it's in Canada or with the participation of Canadian mining companies with terrible reputations, as we know, internationally.
We adopted a bill in the last Parliament, Bill C-15, to see the full adoption and implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
How is Canada violating Canadian law by not ensuring that mining activities uphold these basic human rights?