Mr. Speaker, indeed I am participating in this session virtually. I am metaphorically rising to address the issue of the election for the presidency of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. In some sense, the Inter-Parliamentary Union is like the United Nations for parliaments. It is a global body that represents parliaments and parliamentarians, as opposed to governments. It does important work diplomatically and on a variety of different fronts, including on the advancement of human rights.
When I initially raised this question in the House the election was ongoing. It is now complete, and I want to congratulate MP Pacheco from Portugal as the president-elect. In particular, my question is about the candidacy of Canadian Senator Salma Ataullahjan, who I and many of my colleagues, at least on our side of the House, were pleased to support. At the time, I raised a question about the government's failure to offer support for this Canadian senator.
I think all of us should agree that we want more Canada, more Canadian voices and more Canadian legislators represented on the world stage, especially someone like Senator Ataullahjan, who, although a proud member of the Conservative Party and caucus, has also done a great deal of non-partisan work on human rights working with colleagues from across the aisle and of different political backgrounds.
Unfortunately, while the Government of Canada has vigorously supported the candidacy of Bill Morneau, the former Liberal finance minister, for the OECD, it failed to offer meaningful support for Senator Ataullahjan at all for this position. The speculation was that this was the government not wanting to see a Conservative succeed in this position. It was putting partisanship ahead of the national interest, the national interest being expressed and having Senator Ataullahjan's voice.
At the time I raised these issues, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs told the House that this was different because it was a parliamentary body so it would be inappropriate for the government to offer support. That does not appear to be the case at all insofar as international media remarked on the lack of support the Canadian government was providing as being unique and odd, and identifying that as an explanation for why Senator Ataullahjan was not successful. For many voters it was important that they see the support of the government behind the candidate, and that was not the case here.
I want to quote an article in The Tribune in India from November 2. It states, “Sources said Sanjrani", who is a different candidate, “might have lost because of his inexperience while the Canadian candidate did not have the full backing of her government.” That appeared in The Tribune, a leading Indian English-language paper.
An earlier article stated, “Ataullahjan is a candidate reluctantly put up by the liberal Ottawa government as she belongs to the Conservative camp but has had long innings in public life.” I love the cricket metaphors in that article, but not the substance, which is that our Liberal government was failing to support an eminently qualified Conservative senator, who has had “long innings in public life”, simply on the basis of partisanship.
Given that international media is contradicting the previous explanations of the parliamentary secretary, I wonder if he has an explanation as to why, other than naked partisanship, the government has failed to get behind and support the Canadian national interest and a stronger voice for Canadians on the world stage. We need that voice. We want to work together internationally to advance human rights and the national interest, but the government has gotten in the way of that in this case. I think that is a crying shame.