Bob Dechert

[Fighting Foreign Corruption Act, May 24th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to rise today to begin debate at second reading of Bill S-14, the fighting foreign corruption act.

On February 5, our government announced further steps to combat corruption and bribery by tabling amendments to the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act, or the CFPOA.

Canada has long played a prominent role on the international stage in combatting corruption. Bill S-14 signals our commitment to further deter and prevent Canadian companies from bribing foreign public officials.

The amendments proposed in Bill S-14 are intended to ensure that Canadian companies continue to act in good faith in the pursuit of freer markets and expanded global trade. They also signal our commitment and our expectation that other countries do the same.

The CFPOA has been in force since 1999 and was first introduced to implement our international obligations under the OECD anti-bribery convention and two more anti-corruption conventions through the OAS and the UN.

In essence, the CFPOA makes it a crime in Canada to bribe a foreign public official to gain a business advantage abroad. It also makes it possible to prosecute a conspiracy to commit or an attempt to commit such a bribery. It covers aiding and abetting the commission of bribery, an intention in common to commit bribery and counselling others to commit bribery.

Laundering property and the proceeds of crime, including the proceeds of bribery offences, as well as the possession of property and proceeds, are already offences under the Criminal Code. The new offences being created in the CFPOA would also be captured by these Criminal Code provisions once they were in force.

The six proposed amendments included in Bill S-14 are intended to answer the call for enhanced vigilance. They demonstrate a comprehensive approach to fighting bribery and signal our government's strong and unwavering commitment to that fight. I will explain each of these in turn.

The first amendment, the introduction of nationality jurisdiction, would allow us to prosecute Canadians or Canadian companies on the basis of their nationality, regardless of where the bribery takes place in the world. Currently, we can only do so after providing a substantial link between the offence and Canadian territory.

The second amendment would provide exclusive authority to the RCMP to lay charges under the act. This would ensure that a uniform approach is taken across Canada and would raise awareness of Canadian businesses regarding the RCMP's primary role in the CFPOA investigations.

The third amendment, the elimination of the words “for profit” from the definition of “business”, would ensure that bribery applies to all, not just those paid by businesses that make a profit.

The fourth amendment would increase the maximum jail term to 14 years. It is currently punishable by a maximum of five years' imprisonment and unlimited fines. The possibility of unlimited fines will remain as it is.

The fifth amendment creates a new books and records offence specific to foreign bribery. International anti-corruption treaties to which Canada is a party require that measures be put in place to ensure that individuals and companies do not “cook the books”. The penalties for the new offence would mirror those of the foreign bribery offence; that is, a maximum of 14 years of imprisonment and unlimited fines.

The sixth and final amendment would eliminate the facilitation payments exception. Currently, the act states that payments made “to expedite or secure the performance by a foreign public official of any act of a routine nature” do not constitute bribes for the purposes of the CFPOA. The CFPOA also provides for an inclusive list of acts of a routine nature.

For the benefit of all members, a facilitation payment is a payment made to a foreign public official to do something that he or she is already obligated to do, such as deliver the mail on time. Conversely, payments that are made to receive a business advantage constitute bribes, which are already illegal under the CFPOA. As a result of the elimination of the facilitation payments defence, this would not create a competitive disadvantage for Canadian companies in international markets. Bribes are illegal under the legislation of every OECD country.

In order to ensure a level playing field for all businesses, Bill S-14 provides for the delay of the coming into force of the elimination of the facilitation payments exception to allow Canadian companies to adjust their own practices and internal policies, if they have not already done so, to ban the use of facilitation payments in their day-to-day operations. This time to adjust is all the more important given that some other countries continue to allow facilitation payments.

With Bill S-14, our government has taken a proactive role in raising awareness of its zero-tolerance position, and we are taking a proactive role in raising awareness of the risks of engaging in corruption abroad.

It is incumbent upon us to appreciate this bill for what it is: that being a clear message that Canada means business and that our government's top priority is securing jobs, growth and long-term prosperity.

Corruption does the opposite. Corruption erodes economic growth and long-term prosperity. Corruption fosters an environment conducive to allowing other crimes to flourish.

Foreign bribery undermines economic prosperity by corroding the rule of law that is the basis of market freedom. The global fight against foreign bribery is intended to create a level playing field for all international businesses. The bill provides us with a strong tool for creating the conditions for Canadian businesses to play by the rules and for Canadian businesses to succeed. Canadian companies can compete with the best and win fairly. Recent cases right here in Canada demonstrate the need for continued vigilance and the importance of effective enforcement.

Our government remains committed to combatting foreign corruption and has already developed and implemented an array of regulatory and legislative tools with which to do so. A number of federal departments, agencies and crown corporations play key roles in Canada's fight against foreign bribery. They work in close co-operation in Canada's two-pronged approach to foreign bribery: enforcement and prevention.

In January 2008, the RCMP established its international anti-corruption unit, which is dedicated to enforcing and raising awareness about the CFPOA. Comprising two teams, strategically located in Ottawa, Canada's capital, and Calgary, a major nucleus for industry, trade and finance and a hub for Canada's extractive industries, it has complemented enforcement efforts with substantial awareness-raising and training.

In addition, the legal framework that established the Public Prosecution Service of Canada in 2006 further enhances prosecutorial discretion in Canada. Since its establishment, the PPSC has also created a position in Ottawa for the purpose of advising the two RCMP teams on ongoing investigations.

To date, under the CFPOA, there have been three convictions, and two cases are pending. There are 35 ongoing investigations. The penalties are increasing substantially with each new conviction. This is good news for Canada. With the adoption of these new amendments, we can expect to hear even better news.

In early 2012, during the development phase to identify new ways for Canada to enhance its fight against foreign bribery, the government hosted the “Canadian Workshop: New Ideas for Canada's Fight against Foreign Bribery”. This was a means to consult with experts from Canadian businesses, law firms, academic institutions and non-governmental organizations on the issue of foreign bribery.

The workshop was held in Ottawa and provided an opportunity for discussions between government officials and key stakeholders on concrete steps that could be taken to improve the enforcement of the CFPOA, and to further encourage Canadian companies to prevent bribery before it happens and to detect it when it occurs.

Over 30 participants engaged in discussions on a number of foreign bribery related themes, including possibly amending the CFPOA, recognizing and resisting bribery solicitations, discouraging facilitation payments, voluntary disclosure, books and records offences, awareness raising, messaging to small and medium-sized enterprises, sectorial initiatives and education and training.

The Government of Canada continues to consider the views and ideas that were presented at the workshop, which was intended to be the first step toward increasing engagement and co-operation with key stakeholders on foreign bribery and corruption in the months and years to come. The results of that consultation are reflected in the bill.

These consultations complement the awareness-raising endeavours undertaken by the RCMP, which I mentioned earlier. Additional examples of the RCMP's participation in anti-corruption awareness programs and training include expanding its training of RCMP liaison officers before they depart for overseas assignments to include the issues of foreign bribery and the CFPOA.

The international anti-corruption unit has also established contacts for the Department of Justice's international systems group to ensure that priority is given to requests for mutual legal assistance in corruption matters. The RCMP has also made a number of presentations to external stakeholders, including presentations to local universities, non-governmental organizations, banks, trade commissioners, law firms, government partners, the Canadian Institute of Mining and numerous Canadian and international associations, experts and professionals.

As we can see from an enforcement perspective, we are on solid ground. As mentioned earlier, a number of federal departments, agencies and crown corporations play key roles in Canada's fight against foreign bribery. They work in close co-operation in Canada's two-pronged approach to foreign bribery: in enforcement and in prevention.

Another of these key departments is Public Works and Government Services Canada. Members will recall that effective July 11, 2012, PWGSC extended the list of offences that render companies and individuals ineligible to bid on contracts to include the bribing of a foreign public official under the CFPOA. This further demonstrates the government's zero tolerance position and is evidence of the variety of legislative, regulatory and policy instruments used in Canada's whole of government approach to combatting corruption.

From a prevention perspective, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade also engages in training and outreach. Information and training on the act and on Canada's international obligations to prevent and combat corruption are provided to heads of mission, trade commissioners and political officers.

In March 2010, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade adopted the policy and procedure for reporting allegations of bribery abroad by Canadians or Canadian companies. These provide guidance to Canadian missions on the steps that must be taken when allegations arise that a Canadian company or individual has bribed a Canadian public official, or other bribery related offences.

Canada is a trading nation. Our economy and future prosperity depend upon expanding our trade ties with the world. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs said on February 5, Canada is committed to the implementation of our international obligations on anti corruption.

These amendments will help ensure that Canadian companies continue to act in good faith in the pursuit of freer markets and expanded global trade.

It is now up to the House to demonstrate our commitment to combatting corruption. Canada is committed to strengthening its fight against corruption, and this bill is a reflection of that commitment. Bribery is not the Canadian way of doing business. We need to make this crystal clear today.

[Committees of the House, May 10th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the ninth report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, entitled “Canada and the Arctic Council: An Agenda for Regional Leadership”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

[Situation in Syria, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, everyone in the House as well as the hon. member for Mississauga—Streetsville has heard about the terrible allegations of the potential use of chemical weapons, sarin gas, in Syria. The rebels say that the Assad regime used them, while the Assad regime says the rebel forces used them. There is credible evidence coming from other countries that such weapons have been used in Syria.

Could my colleague tell us what the Government of Canada's response has been and how the Government of Canada is trying to help in that regard?

[Situation in Syria, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Cooperation for her speech. I would like to begin by making a clarification. Some members seem to be confused when I spoke earlier. I did not say there was a program for refugees from Syria. I said that Canada supports and respects the international consensus, which I assume they all know about, which is reflected by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' recommendation that resettlement of Syrian refugees not take place at this time because they deem it to be too early in the crisis for other durable solutions to be ruled out and they cannot begin to address the scale of the situation.

It is a commonly understood and internationally agreed recommendation that when a country is in a crisis, we do not automatically resettle the refugees. We want them to go to their homes once the crisis has ended. We are hoping that this crisis will end and those people will be able to return to their home. We do not want Syria to be depopulated by any minority groups.

The Liberal Party has suggested that Canada should engage in a more comprehensive way with the Syrian rebel forces. Can the parliamentary secretary point out to us some of the difficulties in determining whom among the Syrian rebel forces Canada should be supporting?

[Situation in Syria, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary is right. There are people who are willing to take the reins of the government of Syria and to do it in a way that respects the human rights of minority groups. There are, though, organizations and groups fighting with the rebel forces against the Assad regime that support al Qaeda.

We heard from a very highly placed individual at the foreign affairs committee late last year that there were over 100 identifiable groups within the Syrian rebel coalition, and many of those are not the types of people Canada would want to support. They are not the kinds of people who would protect the rights of minorities. We must be very careful in determining who we should be supporting in that conflict.

[Situation in Syria, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, there have been situations where the Government of Canada has been concerned about the organizations that have come forward to ask Canada for support. Some of them may be engaged in the violence on either side, especially on the rebel side. It is not Canada's position that we ought to be arming and furthering the violence. What Canada has done, very importantly, is supported the UN World Food Programme in Syria.

I have a quote from an article written on April 7 of this year, in which Muhannad Hadi, the UN World Food Programme's emergency coordinator inside Syria, said, “Canada has certainly played its part in contributing $48 million towards the crisis.” The article went on to state:

WFP officials say Canada has already contributed generously, and that its early response was critical in the early stages of the refugee crisis.... “We're grateful to the Canadian people and the Canadian government for all the support,” said [Muhannad] Hadi.

[Situation in Syria, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, Canada is very concerned about the treatment of women and children, especially with the reports of the use of rape as a tool of war. Canada has CIDA officials on the ground in most of the refugee camps in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, and in other places. CIDA is supporting NGOs that treat the victims of such violence, hear their stories, document their stories and ensure that those stories can be brought forward for justice through the International Criminal Court when this crisis ends. Canada will continue to do everything possible to protect the vulnerable through humanitarian aid to the Syrian refugee camps and through a special program to support women and children who have been exposed to that kind of violence.

[Situation in Syria, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I rise this evening to participate in this most important debate on the crisis in Syria. This is the third time that we have met into the late hours of an evening to discuss this issue, the last time being just five months ago. Sadly, Assad continues to wage war on his very own people and the regime's depravity reaches new heights each and every day.

As focused as we are and should be on the grave and deadly situation facing the Syrian people who are being victimized daily by their own government, the regional implications of this crisis are equally troubling for Canada and for the entire international community.

The war has spilled over into neighbouring countries in many different ways, and it risks fueling broader regional instability. There are now more than 1.4 million refugees spread across Syria's neighbours, and that number is climbing every day. Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan have borne the brunt of the burden, and they should be commended for their generosity in hosting the hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have fled the carnage. It has been no easy task accommodating such a large influx of desperate people fleeing for their lives, often with little more than the clothes on their backs.

As the minister mentioned in his remarks, the situation in Jordan is particularly challenging. Zaatari refugee camp, constructed to hold 60,000 refugees, now houses more than 100,000, with more arriving every day. According to the UN, it is the second-largest refugee camp in the world. In total, Jordan has taken in around 500,000 refugees, with estimates suggesting that the number could reach 1.2 million by the end of this year. This would equal around one-fifth of Jordan's population.

The international community is doing what it can to alleviate the burden, and our government continues to do its part. In Jordan, for example, our support directly to the Jordanian armed forces has helped them cope with the refugee situation and prepare them for the risk of chemical weapon usage.

In Turkey, our contribution has provided food, water, shelter and winter clothing to as many as 170,000 displaced people at the border. Just this past January, I had the opportunity to visit two of those refugee camps in Turkey, along with the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. In one camp 25,000 people were living in containers. In another camp 15,000 people were living in tents. The Turkish government was taking very good care of those people: they were being provided with the necessary shelter, food, education for their children, prayer rooms to pray in, and craft facilities to continue to make their crafts in their traditional ways. They were being well cared for.

While we were there, Canada announced further contributions to the support of those refugees in Turkey through the International Red Crescent Society. We met with the head of the International Red Crescent Society in Turkey, who was very pleased with what Canada had offered. We met with Turkey's Minister of Foreign Affairs, who also thanked Canada for its contribution. We met with the chief representative of the UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, who asked Canada to continue to support the refugees in those camps but not to bring them out of those camps to Canada at this time because the preference is for those people to go back to their homes when the conflict is over. The international community accepts this as a norm. It does not want any minority groups to be depopulated from a country.

Our hope is always that people will go back to their homes and be able to resume their normal lives. However, if that does not happen when the conflict is over and if people are still in fear for their lives, then of course the international community, including Canada, will resettle those people in other countries.

The refugee burden and the humanitarian needs created by it are only one of the many regional challenges posed by this war. The spillover of this conflict into Syria's neighbours poses real risk to the stability of a very volatile part of the world.

We are obviously deeply concerned by the number of cross-border military incidents in this war. Syrian shelling into Turkey and the outbreak of street fighting in Lebanon between factions supporting one side or the other of the Syrian conflict, for example, have tested the patience and at times the stability of Syria's neighbours.

The risk to Israel cannot be ignored, particularly given reports surfacing today that the Syrian government has authorized groups supporting it to launch attacks on Israel across the Golan Heights. We strongly believe that Israel has a right to defend itself and its people from terrorist threats.

While the risk of spillover conflict has been contained for now, the region is on alert. The longer this war continues, the greater the risk of regional escalation. Working through NATO, we supported our ally, Turkey, in its efforts to bolster its defensive capabilities, including through the deployment of Patriot missile batteries.

One thing is clear: Assad's desperation deepens, and he is not alone in this fight. Standing behind him offering immediate and valuable support are Hezbollah and its principal patron, Iran. Together, Iran and Hezbollah have given Assad important assistance and a needed boost to morale leaving the regime less vulnerable and isolated than it otherwise would have been. By bolstering the regime's capability, resilience and intransigence, Iran and Hezbollah have Syrian blood on their hands.

While troubling, the involvement of both is not surprising. Iran and Hezbollah have track records that are fully consistent with the kind of deadly destabilizing role they are playing in Syria. Hezbollah have their fingerprints on terrorist outrages across the globe. Hezbollah is, plain and simple, a terrorist organization. We have listed it as such and we have urged other countries to do the same. The Iranian regime, too, has again shown its true colours in Syria. Desperate to ensure the survival of one of its few remaining allies, Iran has provided support and encouragement to Assad. Having brutally crushed its own democracy movement in 2009, Iran has now taken on the Syrian people and their quest for freedom. The Iranian regime has always been about oppression. Its backing of the Assad tyranny provides yet again clear evidence of the despicable and brutal nature of that regime. While we are confident that the new Syria, when it has finally won its freedom, will reject the views and goals of al Qaeda, it could be a deadly and long struggle against an entity bolstered by its successes in Syria. This will be a challenge for the region as a whole going forward.

Our government has been consistent and clear. We have urged the opposition and the Free Syrian Army to distance themselves from this kind of sectarianism and the terrorists who use it, and instead embrace fully the tradition of diversity and tolerance that has marked Syrian history for millennia.

The war in Syria is a test for the region and Syria's neighbours are on the front line. The risks are plenty and the longer the war continues, the greater the challenges will be. Canada will continue to watch these events closely, and we will do our part to ensure that the stability of the region is not threatened.

[Situation in Syria, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for the other Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the better-looking one of the two.

I would like to ask him about Russia. We have heard some comment in this debate about Russia's intransigence toward supporting a UN Security Council resolution that would bring effective sanctions against the Assad regime.

I understand that President Putin has opened the door to some conversations with Secretary of State Kerry. That sounds encouraging, but perhaps the parliamentary secretary could tell us what more he thinks can be done by the international community to put pressure on Russia to do the right thing and support the UN Security Council resolution against the Assad regime to put the kinds of pressure on the Assad regime that would bring this horrible conflict to an end.

[Situation in Syria, May 7th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the minister for his speech.

The Liberal foreign affairs critic mentioned that he thought Canada should be engaging the Syrian opposition in a more comprehensive way. The minister spoke a bit about the Syrian opposition in his speech.

When the foreign affairs committee did a study on Syria late last year, we were told by a very well-placed individual who was very well-informed about the Syrian opposition, that the Syrian opposition could be described as having almost 100 identifiable groups that fell into three broad categories: those who were fighting for democracy, human rights, freedom and rule of law, the kind of people we would want to support; terrorists; and the criminal element, taking advantage of the chaos in the country.

I understand that recently the Syrian rebel group, Jabhat al-Nusra, led by Chief Abu Mohammad al-Golani, pledge allegiance to al Qaeda. Given that situation with the Syrian opposition, perhaps the minister could tell us how Canada is dealing with who to support in the Syrian opposition?