Mr. Speaker, when we speak of human rights in any respect, there are few who would not acknowledge the wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who stated:
Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.
When framed in those terms, who among us would not express concern and reservation about the current position of our own government here in Canada?
The death penalty is an absolute denial of human rights. Canada admirably abolished this cruel punishment in 1976 and subsequently adopted a policy of advocating on behalf of Canadians anywhere in the world who had been sentenced to death.
This most fundamental of human rights has now been undermined by the policy of the current Canadian government when it made it clear that it would not seek commutation for a Canadian citizen sentenced to death in Montana.
Similarly, Canada's noble voice has also fallen silent under this government in respect of the treatment of prisoners in Afghanistan who have been turned over to Afghan authorities. Continual reports indicate that these prisoners are subjected to torture in violation of the most fundamental standards of human rights. In fact, we turn these prisoners over to the Afghan government, which has yet to even ratify the optional protocol to the convention against torture.
Additionally, why will the Afghan government not invite the United Nations special rappoteur on torture to visit its country?
Our government also has an obligation to speak out forcefully on the issue of extraordinary rendition, particularly in the wake of the events surrounding Mr. Maher Arar. Make no mistake, extraordinary rendition violates virtually every treaty, protocol or fundamental understanding of basic human rights. It is nothing more than the outsourcing of torture, far from the light of accountability, away from the altar of responsibility, and missing from the foundations of basic human dignity.
Our government is also silent on the issue of detainees in Guantanamo, Cuba, where prisoners are held without clear charges, absent from due process and removed from any assurance of basic human rights.
Let us be clear. No one is advocating that those who do wrong should go unpunished, but basic fairness calls for clear charges, fair trials, and respect for human rights and dignity. We have come too far in our history across the barren desert of human struggle to abandon the advances in human rights and the respect for human dignity that prior generations have fought so hard to win for us.
We need to remember that there are United Nations treaties, the Geneva Convention, domestic human rights guarantees in many nations, and a fundamental understanding of human rights as enunciated in the 1993 Vienna Declaration, which confirms that all human rights are universal, indivisible, interdependent and interrelated.
I therefore ask, why does the government speak volumes with its silence on issues so fundamental to our identity as Canadians and so important to our place in the world?