Bob Rae

[National Defence, November 4th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister took the time to try to answer my question. Unfortunately, he did not answer it. It is quite simple. I am not asking about the serious gaffe made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but Canadians want to know: how much will this gaffe cost the Canadian public?

[National Defence, November 4th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, we are told by General Natynczyk that today is the last day for the use of the base in the UAE. The Minister of Foreign Affairs also admitted last week in committee that he never discussed the situation with the ambassador from the UAE, because he had a policy of not bothering to meet with ambassadors.

I would like to ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs, how much has this serious gaffe cost the Government of Canada?

[Democracy and Human Rights Throughout the World, October 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, all members of the House agree on an important issue: promoting democracy and human rights throughout the world, and especially supporting elected representatives and members of parliamentary assemblies who are threatened for expressing their political views.

On September 23, Mr. Sam Rainsy, an opposition leader in Cambodia, was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment, along with fines and damages. If this prosecution, coupled with a number of other prosecutions of outspoken opposition members, is allowed to stand, Cambodia's democratic process will be seriously hampered.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union met on October 6 and passed a unanimous resolution calling on the authorities to explore all the issues surrounding this prosecution and attempt to solve them through political dialogue, so that Mr. Rainsy might be able to resume his parliamentary activities.

I urge all members of this House to stand together and encourage the Cambodian authorities to accept the resolution passed by the IPU, the recommendations of the UN special rapporteur, and to ensure the—

[Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am not here to give a definition of who is or is not a refugee. That is a determination that is made in law.

I am here to say that we all have to understand how serious the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka remains for a great many people. One should not forget that, and one should not ignore the nature of that circumstance.

[Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I think the central flaw in the bill, as I have tried to suggest, is this. First of all, the government did not invent the offence of human smuggling. Human smuggling is an offence that is now punishable by up to life imprisonment. We have not had many convictions of it, but nevertheless to suggest that this is some new law, some new crackdown that is taking place, is more illusion than reality. The reality is that we already have a law in place.

The other flaw is that the bill has much more to do with how refugee applicants who come over in boats of this kind are treated, that is to say detention for up to a year and being treated in a separate channel, a separate class. It creates a new class of people who have been designated by a minister because of the circumstances in which they have come. It gives extraordinary power and discretion to the minister to label a group or to label a particular circumstance, and it then puts those people in a separate stream and they are treated in a completely separate way that is entirely discriminatory in comparison to how other refugee applicants are to be treated. That is why I do not believe this meets the test. It does not meet the test.

[Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is very kind. At one point in his speech he says how thoughtful I am and at the end of his speech he calls me a demagogue, so I am not sure which it is. I wish the minister would make up his mind. I can handle the praise and the criticism, either one, but I just wish he would make up his mind. A thoughtful demagogue, I guess, is the average.

On the first point the minister is absolutely correct, that of course the situation has changed, but let us be candid. The situation has changed because there has been a considerable consolidation of power in Sri Lanka, significant centralization of power and continued repression. It is still a very dangerous place to be a journalist. It is a very dangerous place to express opposition and differing views, but it is also a constantly evolving situation.

I am not suggesting for a moment that there is an automatic presumption that any one of the people, who came over in the circumstances of the last 18 months in two boats that are the subject of this legislation, is a refugee. I am simply saying there is a need to consider their claim. There is a need to make sure we have a sufficient number of officers and people who can review the case in time to get it done. That is the approach that needs to be taken to regulate that situation.

We can debate the question of the other boats in our history. The one thing I would not want the minister to ignore is the comment that was made by former Prime Minister Mulroney at the time that the boat came to Newfoundland. At that point the government of the day decided it would grant almost immediate resident status to the people who claimed, and Mr. Mulroney said it was done in a spirit of generosity, realizing and remembering the historic traditions of the country. If I may say so, this was quite a significantly different tone than the one struck by the current Prime Minister.

[Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 28th, 2010]

I certainly know that, Mr. Speaker. One would think that after 32 years I would have figured out how to do this.

I simply wanted to point out the fact that I appreciated there were some people who were here. In my experience, other ministers are not always here when we discuss matters of a bill. I appreciate the minister's respect for parliamentary tradition.

However, I want to emphasize that it is not possible for the House to debate the question of the appropriateness of this legislation unless we understand what exactly is taking place in the country from which people are fleeing and which are now the subject of the sanctions in the bill. This is why we are discussing the legislation.

It is not possible to have a serious discussion about the bill without understanding that in Europe, in the United Nations, in the United States, in virtually every country in the western world significant concerns have been expressed, and are being expressed, about the human rights situation, historically, in Sri Lanka, and even today in Sri Lanka. It is an illusion to think that this is not a problem or it is something we should not discuss.

The Conservative government has remained significantly silent on this topic. We have not heard anything from it with respect to the circumstances surrounding the end of the war. We have not heard anything from it with respect to whether or not it is fully supportive of the decision of Ban Ki-moon to name a panel. We have not heard any response to the call from the British prime minister with respect to the need for war crimes investigation.

I do not know why there is that reluctance. I do not know why a government, which in many respects from insignificant moments in the life of the House has spoken clearly about democracy and has spoken clearly about human rights, would have such difficulty in this situation. It cannot be that there was a violent conflict and because one party to that conflict was the LTTE. It cannot be that the standard to which we hold the Sri Lankan government can be any less or any lower. It cannot be that we have appropriately designated the LTTE as a group that practised terror, that believed in violence, that believed in the appropriateness of killing civilians or of using civilians as targets and as shields in the course of a war, a group that believed it was appropriate to strap bombs on the backs of young 13-year-old women and send them into a market or into a bazaar. There never can be an apology or an expression of support for that kind of tactic or approach to life. We should be very clear about that. Speaking as someone who has lost dear friends to these acts of terror, I have no hesitation in being critical of that.

However, that is never an excuse for repression. That is never an excuse for oppression. It is not an excuse for the killing of civilians. We would not be seeing the numbers of people who get on those boats if there was not a problem in Sri Lanka. Anybody who says that we are not worried about that or we will not express a concern about that or that is not part of what we need to discuss is simply not facing up to the reality of the situation.

I would ask the government to use its offices of investigation and its capacity. I would like the government to remain deeply sensitive to the challenge that the Tamil community still faces in Sri Lanka and to be aware of some of those circumstances and the pattern of increasing the political power at the centre. Every sensible observer from the International Crisis Group to Amnesty International to Human Rights Watch to the United Nations has expressed concern about the underlying challenge of the problem of human rights in Sri Lanka.

If there were no civil rights problems in Sri Lanka, we would not be having this problem with refugees right now. We cannot discuss this bill in the House of Commons without discussing the situation in Sri Lanka. We must discuss it honestly and openly. That is essential.

The second point I want to make is the government has told us, and the member who just spoke referred to this very directly, that the purpose of the bill is to increase the severity of punishment for what it calls human smuggling. In the history of immigration and in the history of the movement of populations, it is very important for the Government of Canada and the people of Canada to express a strong view about people being paid money in order to bring many others to Canada and to portray them as refugees.

My colleague from Etobicoke Centre mentioned two of the most dramatic examples of the arrival of boats in the country. The member who was asked about it simply dismissed by saying, “well that is history”. Well, not exactly. It was pointed out that when the Komagata Maru was posted outside of Vancouver, it was not allowed in, people were not allowed to disembark and stay here. Eventually the boat went back and when they arrived in India, hundreds were killed. We know from the plight of the S.S. St. Louis that of the 900 people who were not allowed to land in Havana, or in Miami or in Halifax, probably as many as 300 were killed in the Holocaust. A lot of studies have done on both of these experiences.

When the member says that we should ask our constituents how they feel, I have to ask how Canadians felt in 1914 and in 1939.

We always have to say to ourselves that these are not easy issues. I have no doubt at all in my mind that there are a great many of my constituents who, if they were told about this legislation, would say that it is good. It is only when we think it through that we ask ourselves if this is really what we should do. This is where I have a problem.

I have a problem because the law is not just about smuggling; the law is also about refugees. It creates two classes of refugees. That is the weakness of the law and, in my view, it is the flaw of the law. In my view, it is a flaw which the courts will attack front and centre. It is not just about the charter; it is also about our international obligations.

We have signed covenants with respect to the rights of children and with respect to the rights of refugees. We cannot simply say that because refugees came over in a certain boat that we will put them in a different category. They would be designated by the minister and they would be unable to do what other refugees could do, or what other people who applied for refugee status could do, or those who sought to be refugees could do.

It is this creation of two classes that is the central weakness and flaw of the bill. In addition, the legislation as a whole and the discussion as a whole does not in fact deal with where the problem lies.

It is equally important for us to deal with the issue of queue jumping. There is nothing more basic to a Canadian's sense of fairness than to say that we do not want people jumping the queue, that those people are trying to come in as immigrants when there are other people who are patiently waiting in their countries of origin.

It has to be understood that there is no queue line for refugees. These are two different things. Again, that is where I think the government has used language, quite creatively I might add, which is intended to tell Canadians that we have to create a situation that is fair to everyone.

I agree we have to create a situation that is fair to everyone, but I question legislation that creates two separate categories of refugees, that treats people who come over in certain boats in a certain way and people who come over by plane or in another boat in another way. The government is not being upfront with the people of Canada when it suggests that what is taking place is any form of queue jumping.

If there is a refugee process that is well managed and that has enough people to manage the flow of people who are coming in and asking to be refugees, if people are not accepted as refugees they go back to their country of origin, and that is it.

We send back hundreds, if not thousands of people. No one should be under any illusions about that. This legislation is more about politics than it is about dealing with a real problem.

[Preventing Human Smugglers From Abusing Canada's Immigration System Act, October 28th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate in this debate. I want to do so by concentrating really on two aspects of the legislation and on the situation that the member who has just spoken and others have talked to.

This bill causes me a great deal of concern, not because it is illegitimate or inappropriate for governments to be concerned about the security of Canada. In fact that is a primary responsibility of the federal government and a responsibility that all of us take very seriously. However, I am concerned because the methods and definitions used in this bill would significantly impact a number of people who are not smugglers, the term used by the government, but people fleeing for their lives from difficult situations.

In particular I want to discuss, at this point in time, the situation in Sri Lanka because we would not be having this discussion if two boats had not arrived over the last several years on which a number of Sri Lankans of Tamil origin came to Canada. It is important for us to stop dancing around the issue and understand that, were it not for that particular circumstance, we would not be having this debate, we would not be having this discussion and the government would not be presenting this legislation.

To talk about this legislation without talking about what happened in Sri Lanka and what is taking place there today would be a bit like talking about Moby Dick without mentioning a white whale.

As members know, I have spent many months in Sri Lanka over the last several years. Together with a number of other Canadians and international constitutional experts, I was involved in advising in the negotiating process that came out of the ceasefire in Sri Lanka that took place in 2001 and was negotiated by the Norwegians.

In the course of that work, I had the opportunity to spend a great deal of time in that country. I met on several occasions with political leaders on all sides and have had an opportunity since then to follow on a regular basis the events that are taking place in the country.

I am not going to go over the entire political history of Sri Lanka except to say that the period in which I was there, the period of the ceasefire, was a brief interregnum of non-violence during a 25-to-30 year, very difficult and violent civil war in which literally tens of thousands of people were killed, mainly in the north but including civilians in the south. Yes, acts of terrorism were carried out against civilians. Very significant bombing and damage and destruction and death occurred as a result of the war carried out by the government of Sri Lanka as well as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, as they are called, better known as the Tamil Tigers.

The ending of that war was a subject of considerable debate in this House. Many questions were raised in question period about it, not only in this House but in parliaments and legislatures around the world.

There are questions about what actually happened at the end of that conflict. Certainly by any estimation, several thousand people were killed in the last few days. Estimates range anywhere from a few thousand to as high as 30,000 or 40,000. Those numbers are contested and debated by all sides, but nevertheless, it is clear that there was a significant loss of life at the very end of the war.

It is also interesting that as recently as the last few days, Prime Minister Cameron of the United Kingdom called for an investigation into possible war crimes that may or may not have taken place at the end of that war.

The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, has appointed a panel of experts to advise him. It is to look into the question of what happened and what the possible consequences would be with respect to the conduct of the government of Sri Lanka as well as the conduct of the LTTE. That panel has not been welcomed by the government of Sri Lanka. In fact, its very existence has been challenged. It is the subject of considerable debate in Sri Lanka. The government of Sri Lanka has also appointed a commission that is supposed to look into the question of what happened in those last days.

From the perspective of the government of Sri Lanka, the war is simply over. The conflict is at an end. There are still several thousand people in large refugee camps, but many of them have been rehoused and moved out, away from the 300,000 people who were in the camp at the end of the conflict.

At the same time, it is fair to say that political power is being consolidated at the central level. As colleagues will certainly know, the government of Sri Lanka not only has not been particularly enthusiastic about allowing in the members of the panel from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, it also, despite the fact I had a valid visa issued by the High Commission of Sri Lanka, did not permit me to enter the country when I arrived at Colombo airport some several months ago. I am sure other members perhaps in other parties have since been allowed to go, but I regret very much I was unable to go last June.

I must confess, I do not say these words with even a degree of personal resentment at the fact that this took place. Rather it was the fact that when I was not allowed in, it was because I was deemed to be a threat to the security of the country. When I hear others described as a threat to the security of the country, that is what I was called.

I hope people will think through very carefully in trying to understand some of the motivation, some of the issues, the human problems, the suffering, the sense of threat to life and limb that has historically led people to flee a country and to seek refuge and harbour somewhere else.

The minister is sitting in the House. I respect the fact that he is here listening to the debate. I have always respected that approach—

[Omar Khadr, October 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, it would seem to me that the minister is once again playing a game of let us pretend. Let us pretend that Mr. Khadr is not a child soldier. Let us pretend that he is not a Canadian citizen, and let us pretend that there has not been a process of discussion, that there has not been a diplomatic exchange, and that there has not been a plea bargain.

This House is entitled to know. What is the policy of the Government of Canada?

[Omar Khadr, October 26th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I also have a question for the government about Mr. Khadr.

When will the Government of Canada tell us clearly what its policy is regarding Mr. Khadr, a Canadian citizen and a child soldier?