Debates of May 12th, 2014

Fair Elections Act

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

All those opposed will please say nay.

[Some hon. members]

Nay.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

In my opinion the yeas have it.

[And five or more members having risen:]

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #136

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I declare the motion carried.

The House resumed from May 8 consideration of the motion that Bill C-5, An Act to amend the Canada-Newfoundland Atlantic Accord Implementation Act, the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Resources Accord Implementation Act and other Acts and to provide for certain other measures, be read the third time and passed.

Offshore Health and Safety Act

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill C-5.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #137

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)

Kidnapping of Girls in Nigeria

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Joe Comartin]

The House will now proceed to the consideration of a motion to adjourn the House for the purpose of discussing a specific and important matter requiring urgent consideration, namely the kidnapping of girls in Nigeria.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

moved:

That the House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie.

Mr. Speaker, schools should be places where our children can learn, where they can dream big dreams, where girls and boys can discover the world, where imagination and idealism flourish. When those values that we hold and cherish, the idea that children can learn uninterrupted, unmolested, are interfered with, we should be disturbed.

Recently, as members know, and the reason for this emergency debate, the world was shocked when over 300 girls who were simply doing what our kids do every day were kidnapped from that sanctity of idealism, of learning, of a place where we want children to thrive, and they were kidnapped for reasons that have to do with striking terror into communities.

The kidnapping of the 300 girls by Boko Haram militants in northern Nigeria is deeply disturbing. In fact, it is truly horrifying to imagine the terror that these girls have experienced and the awful pain their families are suffering, something that we cannot imagine here in Canada. However, we all agree that we must do everything we possibly can to bring these girls to safety; in fact, to bring back our girls.

When people say that, “our girls”, they say it deliberately, just as I have done. They do it because this is not just about these girls. The kidnapping represents an attack on the institution of education, on the rights of children everywhere. That is why this is an issue for all of us to be seized with. Our response, as Canada and as an international community, should recognize this reality. This is about the future, not just of Nigeria or West Africa, but of our children. We can feel the emotions of the Nigerian parents, just as we feel the emotions of the missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada, because we are all in this together. We should do everything possible to engage our international partners to recover the abducted girls. We should also be doing what we can do to ensure that all girls, indeed, all children, in Nigeria and elsewhere, have access to education they deserve.

The educational crisis in Nigeria has reached devastating levels. According to Amnesty International, more than 50 schools were attacked in the first seven months in 2013, mostly in the northern Borno state where the latest kidnapping occurred. Beyond the immediate casualties, these attacks create a culture of fear. After 50 students were killed in a September 2013 attack, around 1,000 students fled the campus. The Borno state ministry of education estimated that 15,000 children in the state stopped attending classes between February and May 2013, as a result of those attacks.

Nigeria already has 10 million children out of school, which is the highest number in the world. Almost one of three primary age children is out of school and roughly one of four junior secondary age children is out of school. Nearly 60% of the Nigerian children not able to attend school live in the northern part of the country. Six out of 10 Nigerian children not in school are girls. In other words, we have 10 million in Nigeria not attending school and six million of those are girls who are not attending, 60%, in the northern region, where the abductions took place.

Canada can and must help. We have a part to play. We must play our part. We have excellent human and technological capabilities, and it is good that this capacity has been offered to the Nigerian government by our government. Once our countries reach agreement on the details, we should deploy these resources as efficiently as possible in coordination with the Nigerian government and our international partners, but our ability to assist goes beyond mere logistics. It goes beyond these girls. We must make a long-term global commitment to help ensure the rights of children, and especially girls, are respected globally.

Article 28 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Canada and Nigeria are both signatories, gives every child the right to an education. We are legally bound to do everything we can to help these girls. Education is not an option for states, it is an obligation for all states that have signed this treaty. The deprivation of this right through violence is not only a tragedy, it is also a violation of a basic and fundamental right that we hold dear.

There are four things to which Canada should commit in addition to its current pledge of logistical support for the recovery of these girls. First, Canada should carefully monitor the use of the equipment that we have pledged and the broader development of a rescue, recovery, or response plan, in other words. We must ensure that the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international human rights, humanitarian law obligations are observed during any recovery operation. This is necessary, not only to protect the girls who have been taken, but to ensure that any such operation does not put other children at risk.

Second, and over the longer term, we should coordinate with regional partners through our co-chairmanship of the Sahel working group in the Global Counterterrorism Forum. This is an important venue for the development of counterterrorism strategy as it relates to the Sahel region, including northern Nigeria.

President Hollande of France has announced that he will be holding an emergency summit on Boko Haram in Paris next weekend. Given Canada's chairmanship of the Sahel working group and our other contributions to the recovery operation, I hope that Canada will be attending this important conference that has been called by President Hollande.

Canada's counterterrorism capacity building program is another institutional venue for working with international partners to share, monitor, and ensure the best practices are followed, including the utmost respect for international law.

Third, Canada should support the Global Partnership for Education by pledging an increased contribution of at least $30 million per year for the next four-year funding period. Education is essential to development. An investment in education pays off. We know that. We can lift more children and more families out of poverty if we make this commitment. We know that there are gaps in the funding for global education. If Canada does its part, it can then further the cause by pushing other governments to do so.

What happened was a tragedy. It was fuelled by those who want to take away the basic rights that our children enjoy here in Canada. Part of that fuel is small arms, and a final proposition to the government is to have our country finally sign the Arms Trade Treaty so no longer may the menace of small arms and terrorism go together, that we take that tool away from the terrorists.

Tonight we will debate and exchange ideas. This House will be unified in our collective role to help the girls who were spirited away from the sanctity of what we all value, that is education for all. Let us tonight talk about what Canada's role can be in a positive way, in the short term, the medium term, and the long term.

I began my speech by talking about the idea of education. Next to giving life, it is the most important thing we can do for our children. Education is not a privilege, it is a right for all, and the girls of northern Nigeria deserve it as much as my two sons.

At this point in the debate, let us reflect on our individual, collective, and global responsibility to bring our girls back.

[Jason Kenney, Conservative, Minister of Employment and Social Development and Minister for Multiculturalism]

Mr. Speaker, I stayed to listen to the beginning of this debate, and I certainly agree with the member's unqualified denunciation of this terrible, unthinkable crime. We all stand in solidarity for the parents who are affected in Nigeria.

I was surprised, however, to hear that the member did not reflect on the nature of the culprits. Boko Haram is not an organization that just appeared three weeks ago with this incident. It is an organization that has been spreading violence and wreaking havoc for years now in northern Nigeria. It is responsible for bombing dozens of churches and murdering thousands of innocent civilians. I would submit that the crime that has occurred with the kidnapping of these girls is every bit as deplorable as the countless murders of innocent civilians, particularly the targeted murders of people based on their religious faiths. Christians at Christmas and Easter are constantly targeted for bombings by this organization.

Would the member not agree with me that the fundamental issue here is the nature of Boko Haram and, more broadly, the kind of ideology of hateful, violent extremist terrorism, of which it is a particularly poignant manifestation?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the first third of my speech, I reflected on what this group has done and what its motivation is. I would be happy to share those comments again with my friend across the way.

Of course, we all deplore it and, of course, these are heinous crimes that have been committed. The question is, what do we do about it? I think we would all agree in the House tonight that we have to have a strong response and a smart response. A part of that, as I laid out in my comments, is the short term, the medium term and the long term.

I look forward to the government continuing to follow up with what has happened in northern Nigeria. We understand that the government has some problems around signing the Arms Trade Treaty. I hope that this really does prompt the government to look at the situation and say, let us take these arms away from the terrorists and let us ratify the Arms Trade Treaty.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would really like to thank my hon. colleague for his work on this file and for his very passionate speech.

Just yesterday, a leading Nigerian rights group demanded that the UN Security Council impose sanctions on the Boko Haram terrorist network who abducted the girls, saying that expressions of concern and condemnation are not enough, and that targeted sanctions would send a strong message.

Could the hon. member comment on the potential nature and effectiveness of possible sanctions, particularly in the face of the presumption that a terrorist network, such as Boko Haram, would already operate below the radar and effectively shield itself from any state-imposed sanctions?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is really important that the United Nations be seized with this, as we all are. Part of what has happened and can happen is listing Boko Haram as a terrorist entity and looking at the funding that it might receive through other channels. Through the UN, there are ways in which it can be listed, which it has, as well as any groups that are supporting it. Of course, we would support that.

However, as I said before, it needs to be a very coordinated approach. That is why it is important for the government. Hopefully it already has plans to attend the conference that President Hollande has brought forward. It is a good idea, for reasons that were mentioned by my colleague. In other words, we have to make sure that we have a coordinated response globally, as well as on the ground.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I also want to commend the hon. member for bringing this to us in an emergency debate.

I would like to ask, very specifically, what more Canada can do. I agree entirely that we should be ratifying the small arms treaty and reducing the arms trade, but for these girls now, it feels like a very perilous situation.

I heard the member's comments about the summit next week with President Hollande. Are there specific actions that he believes the Canadian government should be taking that it is not taking now?

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, yes. We should build on what has already been asked for, which is the support that the Nigerian government has asked for in terms of surveillance. We could also do what we have done in the past, particularly in Darfur. In fact, we trained Nigerian officials and members of the military and police to conduct surveillance better. We can do that. We did that to train Nigerian forces in the case of Darfur.

That is something that we could bring to the table, to make sure that they are going conduct this rescue in a responsible manner, one that will not aggravate things even more. We could also finally look at supporting education on the ground, to help those 10 million Nigerian children who, as I said, do not have access to school at all right now.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we rise today in solidarity with the over 200 schoolgirls who, by all accounts, were abducted while they were writing a physics exam. These girls had, we can only hope, a promising future. They represent the future of Africa. We can only imagine the horror they are currently experiencing. Where are they now? What are they going through? I think everyone is deeply concerned about their fate.

We stand in solidarity with these girls, and with those who fortunately managed to escape but who are clearly traumatized by their ordeal. We stand in solidarity with their families and friends, who surely are suffering tremendously and experiencing deep anguish. We stand in solidarity with their families, brothers and sisters. I am thinking especially about their sisters. Not that their brothers are not suffering, because I am sure that they are, but I feel especially for their sisters. We want the several hundred girls who were abducted to come home, we want Canada to help and to continue to lend assistance as the situation evolves, and we want their sisters to go to school.

As my colleague mentioned earlier, we cannot help but think about the Global Partnership for Education, which is doing some amazing and outstanding work. It is set to hold its refinancing conference and has expressed the hope that Canada will substantially increase its contribution to the GPE fund, which makes it possible to provide an education to millions of children around the world. We hope that this happens, considering the young sisters of these unfortunate girls.

However, as was also mentioned earlier, more needs to be done. Schools and education are needed, but this situation needs to be resolved and steps taken to ensure that it does not happen again. Since these tragic events first unfolded, eight more young girls have been abducted. If we want to prevent similar tragedies from happening, there is much we can do. I would first like to quote Malala, who had this to say:

“...if we remain silent then...this will happen more and more and more”.

We must speak out. We must stand up and raise our voices. I must admit that I am rather proud to see this Parliament considering this issue and talking about it today.

We must fight against organizations like Boko Haram. The most important thing is that justice be done. There can be no room for impunity. Far too often impunity is the source of the biggest problems and a recipe for a reoccurence.

We must work on governance, government structures and training. Earlier in his speech, my colleague from Ottawa Centre mentioned, in the context of training, that we should not only send equipment and people immediately, but also help mentor the Nigerian military forces to ensure that the current situation is resolved with the release of all the young girls, without any harm coming to them and without risking an operation that might degenerate and get the young girls in question caught in the crossfire.

There is therefore a lot of technical support, training and assistance that needs to be provided right now. However, in the longer term, we must also think about governance, security systems and the type of support that we can provide to Nigeria, as well as to many other countries, especially the whole of the Sahel.

I would like to reiterate that we hope the current situation will be resolved positively without any of these girls suffering further. To prevent this kind of situation from happening in the future, we must fight with strength and determination for the rights of women and girls. Often when we speak about this issue, we get the impression that we are speaking only about foreign countries and that only developing countries are involved. However, that is not the case. We must fight for the rights of women and girls abroad, of course, but also here in Canada.

In that respect, I would be remiss in failing to mention the 1,200 missing or murdered aboriginal women. We know so very little about them and Canada must do so much more, as we have been told by United Nations experts.

Finally, we must also stop groups such as Boko Haram and so many others from having easy access to weapons of all kinds. Attempts have been made to get funding. Years ago, we established the Kimberley Process to prevent diamonds from being used to fund these groups. My colleague from Ottawa Centre also has a bill on conflict minerals to prevent these minerals from financing such groups. However, it is just as essential to cut off their supply of arms and munitions.

The best tool that the international community has to do this is the arms trade treaty. This evening, I would be remiss if I did not once again ask the government to sign this treaty, which all of our partners have signed, including the United States. Canada is the only country, or nearly the only one, that is still refusing to sign.

These are my words and my hope for the future. My hope for today is that we can finally bring back our girls, because they are all our daughters. We are all in the same situation. We must be able to bring our girls home, safe and sound. Thank you very much.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague who always speaks out so passionately. We all want these girls home.

Could my hon. colleague comment on how the length of the abduction, this horrific experience, and exposure to violence could impact the recovery of the girls and families, and what psychosocial assistance should be provided to help them reintegrate into their communities?

More broadly, should more programs be developed to provide all children and youth with educational opportunities? Nigeria has 10 million children out of school. Those opportunities would include vocational training as well as meaningful jobs and leadership training for young adults.

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her excellent question, to which I see two main aspects, one of which is education.

As I mentioned in my speech, it is absolutely essential to continue to provide funding for education. As my colleague from Ottawa Centre said, education is the most important thing we can do for children. It is not a gift, it is an obligation and a duty, and Canada has continued to work with developing countries to promote access to education. However, we must not forget the Global Partnership for Education, which is really doing wonderful work and which coordinates efforts being made by number of countries.

Of course, I could not discuss the issue of trauma, because I only had 10 minutes for my speech. However, we have to think not only about the trauma suffered by these girls, but also the trauma in the communities. When a tragedy of this kind takes place, the people concerned are the first ones we must think about. When I say “the people concerned”, I am referring to the families, the brothers, the sisters and the other members of the community.

I hope we will see these girls come home, go back to school and take their little sisters with them.

[Anne-Marie Day, NDP, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I join thousands of people in saying how appalled we all are by this situation.

These are young women, and it is always young women. Here at home, we had the tragedy at the Polytechnique. We have the missing and murdered women. People are always attacking young women, the ones who want to receive an education and take part in building their country. Now they are caught in a trap, like a huge spider’s web, being eaten by flies.

Should Canada not be more assertive and authoritarian and say very resolutely that this is unacceptable and we will not agree to any negotiation?

[Hélène Laverdière, NDP, Laurier—Sainte-Marie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the situation raises the issue of the rights of women and children.

I would not want to take advantage of the debate this evening to be too partisan, because this is a very important human issue. Canada has taken important steps in defending women's rights. However, I think that we could go much further in terms of reproductive health rights, for instance. Canada is really lagging at the back of the class on this issue.

We can think about the rights of aboriginal women in Canada and the 1,200 murdered and missing aboriginal women. These are some of the issues. We can do much more, and Canada should be a champion of the rights of women and girls.

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and for International Human Rights]

Mr. Speaker, it is with a sense of urgency that I take the floor to speak about the brutal and despicable abduction of over 250 schoolgirls in northeastern Nigeria.

Before I move on, I would like to say that I will be splitting my time with the member for Kildonan—St. Paul.

I would like to extend the solidarity of the Canadian people and their government to the families of these young girls who have been kidnapped and taken from their loved ones. We are all shocked by the scale of this atrocity.

On the night of April 14-15, heavily armed Boko Haram militants dressed as Nigerian soldiers attacked the government secondary school, in the town of Chibok, northeastern Nigeria. The girls, mostly between the ages of 16 and 18, had gathered from various regional schools to take their secondary certificate examination. The terrorists murdered the guards, burned the village, and left with over 300 young girls in a convoy of trucks. The girls were separated into small groups and dispersed to terrorist strongholds in northern Nigeria. The dispersal of the girls over a large area would challenge any government in mounting a successful rescue operation.

During the kidnapping process, about 50 girls managed to escape, but the rest remain captive. Abubakar Shekau, the leader of Boko Haram, says that he will sell them into marriage and slavery. The kidnappings have not stopped there, and a further 11 girls were kidnapped, on May 6, from the town of Gwoza, also in northeastern Nigeria.

Boko Haram started as an extremist but largely non-violent Islamist group in the early 2000s. In 2010, the group started attacking police, other security forces, and government officials, as a response to a strong government crackdown against the group in 2009, which left its leader and hundreds of its members dead. Since 2010, the violent attacks have continued to escalate. The group has succeeded in capturing weapons from Nigerian forces, to such an extent that the group is now well armed, including with armoured vehicles.

More recently, Boko Haram has adopted a new tactic of going into villages and conducting large-scale massacres. This was most gruesomely demonstrated by its attack on the town of Gamboru Ngala, which killed over 300 civilians, many of them burned to death when Boko Haram set fire to houses in which civilians had taken refuge from the slaughter. This brings Boko Haram's death tally for the year to over 1,000 Nigerians.

According to Africa's Human Rights Watch, with regard to Boko Haram's activities, “The killing and mutilation of ordinary Nigerians, the abduction and rape of women and girls, and the use of children for fighting are horrifying human rights violations”.

The Nigerian government has been combatting this revisionist group for several years. Nigerian President Jonathan established a state of emergency, in May 2013, in the three northeastern provinces where Boko Haram is most active.

However, as military operations have been ramped up, the Nigerian military has been accused by credible sources of major human rights violations, which have resulted in the deaths of a large number of civilians and alienated many others from the government cause. These accusations are a continuing challenge for Nigeria, and we call upon all, including Nigerian security forces, to respect international norms for human rights.

Boko Haram's attacks on civilian population targets are increasing, and it is important that the government of Nigeria receives international support to counter this terrorism. In December 2013, the Canadian government labelled Boko Haram as a terrorist organization.

Nigeria, as we know, faces many challenges. Its huge population, of over 170 million, amounts to one half of the population of West Africa. Its economy is listed by the IMF as the second largest in Africa, after South Africa. Nigeria is also a strong international player and was elected, for the fifth time, to a two-year seat on the UN Security Council, starting in January of this year. It has also contributed troops in support of several UN and African Union peace forces.

However, within the country, there remains inequality, poverty, corruption, failure to protect, and excessive use of force, attacks on religious freedom, violence against women, and early and forced marriages.

Nigeria's neighbours, particularly those bordering on the northeast part of the country, are watching this growing security problem with concern, particularly as their borders are porous. Nigeria's international partners are also watching the security developments with concern. Quite simply, a Nigeria with a major domestic security problem is a problem for all of us.

Canada joins its allies in offering assistance to the Nigerian government and its people at this time of need. Our American, British, and French allies are sending experts and search teams to assist the Nigerian security forces in locating and eventually returning the girls. Other countries, including China and Israel, have made offers of assistance.

Others who will speak after me will elaborate further on what Canada has been doing over the years to support the people of Nigeria and those in West Africa, including efforts in addressing profound challenges, which have been crystallized by the abduction of these girls. Canada has made it a priority to end child, early, and forced marriages, and while the problem is widespread around the world, some projects have taken place in Nigeria. Canada remains committed to supporting Nigeria's most wonderful people, particularly in the area of maternal, newborn, and child health. My colleague from the development side of DFATD will expand on this.

The Government of Canada has offered assistance to the government of Nigeria in providing tools aimed at finding the abducted girls and bringing them home. This measure is in addition to a series of projects funded by the Canadian government and designed to support the Nigerian government's efforts to stamp out terrorism. Through the Global Counterterrorism Forum, with its inclusive membership and action-oriented mandate, we are helping in the fight against those who resort to terror to undermine freedom and peace in all corners of the world. At the same time, we are fostering important ties between Canada's law enforcement agencies and military forces with their counterparts.

Since 2010, Canada's counterterrorism capacity-building program has committed $28.4 million in concrete programming initiatives in the Sahel that are focused on training and equipment for law enforcement, military, and intelligence bodies. Specifically, Canada's global partnership program is funding two active biological security projects in Nigeria, to secure potentially lethal pathogens kept for research and medical purposes against misuse.

In addition to counterterrorism capacity, Canada is active in building bridges among Nigeria civilians to reduce tensions and violence. The Office of Religious Freedom, of DFATD, funds a project in Nigeria of close to $733,000 Canadian, with the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, to promote intercommunity dialogue and conflict mediation in the central part of the country. While not directly linked to Boko Haram, it will develop local mediation capacity and create dialogue opportunities between communities and religious leaders.

In short, we are standing steadfast with the people of Nigeria and with our allies to fight terrorism.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of questions for the parliamentary secretary.

One thing that should be noted is that Nigeria has now surpassed South Africa in the most recent data that just came out, in terms of economic growth, but yet it has 10 million children who are not in school. Clearly, there is a lot to be leveraged and a lot to do there.

Beyond what we have already heard, is the government intending to provide more support, or has it been asked for more support by the Nigerian government, other than the logistics? That is the first question. Is other support being asked for and are we going to be providing more support?

Second, has the government decided whether to go to the conference in France? As one of the participating countries, we obviously have a role to play. The second question is on whether the government is intending to go to the conference.

I know there is limited time, but we can get into it later. This is about the whole region. Canada has been involved in certain activities. It is co-chairing the whole response to terrorism. Could the parliamentary secretary elaborate a bit more on what our intentions are to help with regard to this specific situation?