Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise to speak regarding the opposition motion before us today. I stand before this House to voice my strong opposition to this ill-considered and premature motion on the topic of genocide.
Allow me to begin by reminding members of this House that the march of human rights and dignity across the globe has been one of the great, albeit unfinished, success stories in the past seven decades. Central to the progress has been the entrenchment of genocide as a key principle within international humanitarian law.
Indeed, the Canadian government has always proudly advanced the cause of global human rights and human security. From sanctions against the South African apartheid regime, to the courageous actions of Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire in Rwanda, to international leadership on issues such as anti-personnel land mines, our great country has always championed the protection of vulnerable populations across the globe.
Canada and the Liberal Party have always been at the vanguard of the rights revolution, whether protecting and enshrining individual rights here at home or promoting and safeguarding human rights and security abroad.
Apart from actions of successive Canadian governments, great Canadians in modern times have made championing human rights synonymous with Canadian values. The first draft of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights bears the imprint of Professor John Humphrey. Former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour, to cite another example, is universally recognized as one of the international community's foremost experts on human rights. Of course, one need also mention other individuals, such as Mr. Philippe Kirsch, who was the first president of the International Criminal Court, and, even today, one of Canada's foremost legal scholars, Ms. Jennifer Welsh, serves as the UN Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on issues of genocide and human rights.
Despite the seminal contributions of our country and many great Canadians on the development of international law, I fear that the motion proposed by the Conservative Party today is utterly bereft of a principled approach towards international law and strays from the approach of our closest allies.
The basis for which I oppose the Conservative motion is fourfold. One, genocide is a precise legal definition, and that precision is lacking in today's motion. Two, Canada cannot simply go it alone in regard to pronouncing acts of genocide and must instead act in concert with its allies and international institutions. Three, the gravity of the situation at hand behooves us to act in a sophisticated, deliberate, and meaningful manner. Four, it would greatly undermine our new-found credibility to act as effective and responsible players on the international scene should we adopt the Conservative motion.
Allow me to begin with my first objection, which is the definition of genocide.
While the term genocide conjures up chilling images, we must not forget that the term carries a precise legal definition. Precision is required because of the term's incorporation by reference in various statutes, whether it is the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda or, of course, the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
However, any reference to international laws and precedents surrounding genocide are curiously absent from the motion put forward today by the Conservatives. The motion operates irrespective of well-established legal structures, and therefore does little to bring justice to the victims of Daesh's brutality. This is a matter best handled by independent and international jurists, not partisan politicians.
Other legal requirements that the Conservative motion glosses over are, for example, that the 1948 convention is arguably predicated on the notion that only states may commit the crime of genocide. Of course, that is something that the motion does not address.
Another legal requirement that is glossed over by the Conservative motion is that the genocide convention clearly states that collective action is required in response to genocide. The 1948 treaty, after all, was signed by 148 nations and expressly behooved the signatories to work collectively for greater certainty, as the preamble stated, “in order to liberate mankind from such an odious scourge, international co-operation is required”.
On the second, the basis for my objection is that we must act in concert with our allies in international institutions. Genocide is by definition a matter of international law, and our government has rightly decided that such determinations regarding the nature of Daesh's abuses are best achieved acting in lockstep with our allies and co-operating through international organizations and mechanisms.
We know that the previous government proudly flouted its desire to not just go along in order to get along, and that it diminished the United Nations as spending too much time on itself. This aversion to multilateralsim led Canada to lose its bid to win a seat at the UN Security Council for nearly a decade.
Finally, the gravity of the situation behooves us to act in a sophisticated and deliberate manner, which is precisely what our Minister of Foreign Affairs outlined in his letter to the United Nations.