Svend Robinson

[Supply, October 20th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to join with my colleague, the hon. member for Winnipeg—Transcona, to explain why it is we believe that this is one of the most important motions to come before the House and why we chose to allot a full day of debate on this fundamental issue.

This is about whether or not we as Canadians and we as elected members of the House are seriously prepared to say that indeed we do want to get at the truth to the extent possible within the framework of the public complaints commission. We want to get at that truth and we want to ensure that the students who are the complainants before that commission have equitable and fair representation.

I had the opportunity to attend some of the commission hearings. There is at the present time a profound imbalance. On the one hand there is a battery of lawyers representing the RCMP and the federal government; in fact just last week they hired three more lawyers. On the other hand there is a group of students, complainants in what is clearly an adversarial process, who have no legal representation funded whatsoever. That is profoundly unjust.

It is not just New Democrats who are making that argument. The public complaints commission itself on two separate occasions has appealed to the government, to the solicitor general, to do the right thing, to recognize that fairness demands legal representation for these students.

Madam Justice Barbara Reed of the Federal Court of Canada has made the same appeal. She could not have been clearer when she said in July “Without state funded legal representation, the complainants will be at a great disadvantage. There will not be a level playing field”.

The allegations and the issues we are dealing with are profoundly serious. The allegations are that during the time leading up to the APEC summit and indeed at the summit itself, far from looking solely at security concerns, the Prime Minister, his senior officials and other ministers were more concerned about the comfort of foreign dictators like Suharto. They were concerned about avoiding embarrassment to those dictators.

Therein lies the line between a democracy and a police state. I say that very seriously because in a police state there is political direction of the law enforcement apparatus of the state. That is what we saw during the APEC summit.

We saw students peacefully and non-violently protesting, being arrested and being forced to sign conditions of release, which were illegal, that they would not demonstrate against APEC or any country in APEC. We saw banners torn down. We saw the Tibetan flag at the graduate students centre taken down. We saw women, students strip searched. We saw Indonesian bodyguards, thugs with guns being allowed into Canada and the Indonesian ambassador asking what happens if they shoot somebody. We saw most ominously in many respects a young man named Jaggi Singh, one of the organizers of the APEC alert being arrested, wrestled to the ground on the UBC campus by three plainclothes police officers, handcuffed, thrown in the back of an unmarked car with tinted glass, driven off and locked up during the APEC summit.

Those are police state tactics. Those are the kind of tactics we have seen too often in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and China, as my colleague from Winnipeg—Transcona has said. It was not long ago that we saw those tactics in Chile. As a New Democrat I join with my colleagues in saying that we celebrate the fact that the United Kingdom and Spain have said that Augusto Pinochet is going to be locked up and I hope tried for crimes against humanity that he committed against the people of Chile during those dark years. We welcome that.

Today is the moment of truth for Liberal MPs. There is no doubt that every member on this side of the House is going to support fairness, justice and equity for those students. I am making a direct appeal today to those Liberal members of parliament, an appeal in particular to the member of parliament for Vancouver Quadra who represents the UBC area. He has said “Yes, I believe students should have funding”. He has his chance today. He has the opportunity today to show us whether he is serious about that or whether he will be whipped into line to say no like one of a bunch of trained seals.

That member has suggested, as some other Liberal members have suggested, that it is okay because the commission has the power to use the $650,000 allocated in supplementary funds for legal fees for the students. That is absolutely false. The commission has said that it does not have that power.

More important, it is not just a legal opinion. Madam Justice Barbara Reed of the Federal Court of Canada said “It seems reasonably clear that the commission does not have the authority to issue an order to provide funding for the legal representation of students”. It could not be any clearer than that. If Liberal MPs say that the commission has the power to allocate those funds, I say to them that they are misleading Canadians. The federal court itself has said that it does not have any such power.

Yesterday the Canadian Federation of Students, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, the Canadian Labour Congress and many others joined in appealing to this government to do the right thing, to recognize that there must be a sense of fairness to this process, that in the absence of that, the complaints commission is a travesty of justice. It is a one sided farce.

This government keeps saying let the commission do its work. The commission cannot do its work unless the complainants who appear before the commission are properly funded.

To Liberal MPs, this is their chance to stand up for fairness for those student complainants. We should listen. The members on the government side of the House should listen to the Law Society of British Columbia which wrote to the solicitor general and said an essential principle of a democratic government is that all people are equal before the law and are equally entitled to fairness and due process.

The inquiry is an adversarial process and the complainants appearing before the commission are acting as representatives of the public interest.

The students at UBC were demonstrating not just for themselves but for all of us as Canadians with some pretty important, fundamental values. They deserve to have fair and equitable representation.

I again appeal to members on the government side of the House and to all members to do the right thing, to provide that funding and to make sure we get at the truth, so that this is not just a cover for some pretty appalling police state tactics that took place.

I move:

That the motion be amended by adding after the word “House” the following: “strongly”

[Petitions, October 20th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present a petition which is signed by many residents of my constituency of Burnaby—Douglas, the Vancouver area and elsewhere in British Columbia that notes with concern that the Government of Canada continues to be at the table to negotiate an international trade agreement called the multilateral agreement on investment, or the MAI, and I might add, despite the fact that France has pulled out of this particular discussion.

They note that the MAI is the latest in a series of regional and global agreements which in the name of liberalizing trade and investment expands the powers of multinational corporations at the expense of the powers of governments to intervene in the marketplace on behalf of our social, cultural, environmental and health care goals.

The petitioners point out that the MAI is undemocratic. Therefore they call upon parliament to reject the current framework of MAI negotiations and instruct the government to seek an entirely different agreement by which the world might achieve a rules based global trading regime that protects workers, the environment and the availability of governments to act in the public interest.

[Apec Inquiry, October 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, the question was not about RCMP techniques, it was about the Prime Minister's jokes.

I will repeat the question to the Prime Minister. This weekend I was asked by the mother of one of the UBC students who was pepper sprayed at APEC why the Prime Minister keeps joking about her daughter's pain. Will he apologize to her and to all of the students for his shameful and arrogant insensitivity?

Will the Prime Minister now stand in his place, do the right thing and apologize for those disgusting jokes?

[Apec Inquiry, October 19th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the Prime Minister. The RCMP describe pepper spray as stronger than tear gas or mace, an inflammatory agent causing severe burning, contraction of the eyes, bronchial spasms, gasping for breath, gagging and nausea.

This weekend I was asked by the mother of one of the UBC students pepper sprayed at APEC why the PM keeps joking about her daughter's pain. Will he apologize to her and all of the students for his shameful and arrogant insensitivity? How does the Prime Minister answer that mother's question? Will he apologize.

[Kosovo, October 7th, 1998]

Madam Speaker, I listened with great care to the very thoughtful comments of the member for Halifax West. I wonder if I might hear his concluding comment.

[Kosovo, October 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra is correct. Certainly as we listen to the debate tonight it appears there is an emerging political consensus around the desirability of hopefully the United Nations with a resolution; if not the United Nations, then certainly the OSCE as the regional body under article VII. Failing that—and I think the member asks a very important question—is there another basis in international law for military intervention?

Clearly international law is an evolving body of law. There is a clear and demonstrable threat to human life on the massive scale that we have witnessed already in Kosovo. This is not an anticipatory action, as the member is well aware. This is an action in response to brutal war crimes against humanity. Those crimes are well described in international law. If the community of nations in taking action does not exceed what is required to respond to those well documented war crimes against humanity are, I would hope that international law would recognize the justice of that intervention.

It is important at the same time that the intervention not be excessive. It is important that it be based on humanitarian law principles and that there be support and follow up. It is not acceptable to drop bombs, to conduct air strikes, and then what happens next? If there is no support for the Kosovars on the ground, there could be massive retaliation by the Serb military, a situation of complete anarchy could prevail, and it could be counterproductive.

In terms of the international legal basis for action, had the world waited for a new concept of international law in the case of Bosnia as it did in Rwanda to the shame of the international community, I can only imagine the kind of carnage that would have continued to take place. If international law does not provide that base at this point, certainly it may be time to establish that precedent.

[Kosovo, October 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I begin by expressing my appreciation to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for giving the House this opportunity to debate this very important motion.

My colleagues and I in the New Democratic Party support the motion.

As the member for Beauharnois—Salaberry said, we were hoping that it would go further, that it would be stronger, that justice and strength, two fundamental principles, would have been expressed more clearly in this motion. Nevertheless, we support the motion.

It was last week that this House unanimously spoke with one voice following the terrible atrocities that were brought to light by Human Rights Watch, the massacre of 18 innocent civilians in a forest in the Drenica region. Other members have spoken of this earlier. The House spoke with one voice urging the Government of Yugoslavia, Milosevic and the parties involved to put down arms immediately and start negotiating a solution with the help of international organizations like the United Nations and the OSCE.

It was last week as well, a few days afterward, that Human Rights Watch issued a report that documented the terrible violations of international law showing that the Serbian special police and the Yugoslav army units have executed civilians, systematically destroyed civilian property and attacked humanitarian aid workers.

The director said it has been clear for seven months that the government is conducting a brutal war against civilians in Kosovo. These are war crimes. These are crimes against humanity and yet the Government of Yugoslavia and Milosevic refuse to co-operate with the international tribunal investigating it. They have gone further and have restricted the work of domestic and foreign journalists seeking to report on these terrible atrocities.

These atrocities can also strike home. The hon. member for Churchill spoke with family members in a community that she has the honour of representing who have family in Kosovo who were terribly injured. This strikes home to her and to each of us at a very profoundly human level.

This has gone on for far too long. We have heard the same threats, the same promises of action in the case of Kosovo that we heard in the case of Bosnia, and there the international community failed terribly. It took three years, 200,000 people who died and too many warnings before finally when spurred by the terrible mortar attack by the Serbs on a crowded marketplace in Sarajevo in August 1995 the west took action.

Tragically that action was not taken by the United Nations. One of the great dilemmas and tragedies of the situation in Kosovo is that we cannot rely on the United Nations in these circumstances to definitely respond to this humanitarian crisis. We cannot assume the security council will adopt a resolution that will authorize the kind of firm military response that clearly is warranted and was likely warranted some time ago.

We saw the effects of Serb aggression in Bosnia and now we see them in Kosovo. I witnessed them when I visited Vukovar. I witnessed the Serb aggression on Croatia and its people. I will never forget walking through the ruins of a church in Vukovar and picking up a small piece of wood, the remains of a small wooden cross.

The community of nations has to say that the occurrence of this kind of atrocity is not acceptable. The United Nations' own high commissioner for refugees has estimated that over 280,000 people have been displaced by the fighting since March. This is mostly within Kosovo. Some 50,000 have not found shelter yet. Many others are living in very difficult conditions. Over 700 have died. And with winter fast approaching there is a very real danger of a humanitarian disaster.

I urge the Government of Canada to respond to that disaster, to step up donor funding for reconstruction and winter emergency plans in Kosovo and to provide financial assistance to Montenegro, to Albania and the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia hosting many of the refugees and which desperately need support as winter fast approaches.

We would prefer a resolution of the United Nations security council. We would hope the OSCE, the regional security body in that region, would be able to come to a consensus, but we cannot allow the veto power of Russia and possibly China, the consensus rule of the OSCE to prevent the kind of action that very likely must be taken, the kind of military action that must be taken to save human lives.

Let us be under no illusions about the possible risk to Canadians. Canada has six CF-18 aircraft on the ground in Aviano, Italy, 130 Canadian pilots and ground crew. They are courageous men and women who will be directly affected by the decision our government makes. I am sure that every member of this House wishes those men and women well at this very difficult time. I am sure we all recognize that when we talk about the possibility of military action, it is our sons and daughters who may very well be on the front lines, who may be fired on by those ground to air missiles that the Serbs have threatened to use.

This is a humanitarian disaster. I believe that as Canadians we have an obligation not to stand by but to act. The member for Fraser Valley has spoken at the same time, and rightly so I believe, of the fact that there is certainly a great deal of selectivity in the international response. Of course we are profoundly concerned about the situation in Kosovo and we must recognize that air strikes alone fall far short of what would be a thoughtful and appropriate response. If there is not a presence on the ground, that could exacerbate the situation and make it even more difficult.

We must remember as well that in whatever military action that may be undertaken innocent people's lives must not be put at risk, whether Yugoslavians, Kosovars or anybody else, but we made the mistake globally of waiting too long in Bosnia and we cannot afford to make that mistake in Kosovo.

The world though has stood by, as the member for Fraser Valley said, in cases of other humanitarian disasters; the genocide in East Timor, a third of the population, 200,000 people, murdered by the Suharto regime. Where is the international outcry on that? Where is Canada's voice on that?

There have been ten resolutions at the United Nations on East Timor and Canada shamefully has either abstained or voted against every one. So the member for Fraser Valley is right. There is a double standard, whether in East Timor, the situation with the Kurds, in Turkey, northern Iraq, Colombia, Sudan.

Again, my colleagues and I in the New Democratic Party support this motion. We desperately hope that Milosevic will come to his senses, pull back, respect the rights of the people of Kosovo to determine their own future, hopefully have the kind of autonomy they had previously, but to respect their rights to self-determination, and that we can avert the continued horrors, because already too many people have died, that would in many respects be totally unacceptable not just to Canadians but to all civilized people should the global community not respond, not just with words but with action. La justice et la force.

[Kosovo, October 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if I might seek the leave of the House to divide my time with my colleague from Halifax West.

[Iran, October 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, following consultations with members on all sides of the House, I seek the unanimous consent of the House to put the following motion, seconded by the hon. members for Rosedale, Red Deer, Beauharnois—Salaberry, and Richmond—Arthabaska:

That this House express its profound concern over the recent grave attacks on the Iranian Baha'i community including the brutal execution of Mr. Rahu'llah Rawhani in July, arrests of 36 Baha'i academics, and confirmation of death sentences of two Baha'i men and the detention of 11 other Baha'i men for practising their faith; and calls upon the Government of Iran to end their oppression of the Baha'i community, ensure the safety and early release of all those Baha'i imprisoned in Iran, and respect the principles of the International Covenants on Human Rights to which Iran is a party.

(Motion agreed to)

[Apec Summit, October 7th, 1998]

Mr. Speaker, my supplementary is for the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister knows the Malaysian government has brutally beaten former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar, has arrested peaceful demonstrators and gay men and has jailed opposition MPs.

Since the Prime Minister has said that human rights is on the APEC agenda, does he agree with the Liberal member for Quadra that Malaysia is an inappropriate venue for the upcoming APEC summit? Will he boycott the Malaysia APEC summit?