Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I will deliver my remarks in French.
Human rights are a foundational pillar. When governments adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, they noted that the “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”. That means that human rights are also the foundation of security.
As governments have elaborated binding treaties pertaining to human rights, the relationship between security and human rights has been at the very core. Some rights, such as freedom of expression, are defined so as the recognize the inherent limitations of imperatives such as national security, narrowly defined and carefully circumscribed. Other rights, such as liberty and security of the person, have no inherent limitations but can be suspended for a short period when a government faces a “public emergency threatening the life of the nation”.
Finally, there are a number of rights, including the prohibition against torture and ill treatment and the right to freedom, which cannot be abrogated under any circumstance. This approach illustrates that governments have always been attuned to the interconnected relationship between rights and security.
As a result, Amnesty International's first recommendation is that Canada recognize regard for human rights as a foundational pillar of Canada's national security framework. A foundational pillar risks being empty rhetoric unless backed up by effective safeguards.
Our second recommendation is therefore that Canada adopt four essential safeguards. First, there is no specific reference to, let alone requirement to ensure compliance with, human rights under the Charter of Rights, the Canadian Human Rights Act or binding international standards in most Canadian national security legislation, except the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
The first safeguard should be that Canadian national security laws should be amended...