House of Commons photoWon her last election, in 2015, with 38% of the vote.
Foreign Affairs April 18th, 2016
Mr. Speaker, Canada's ambassador recently laid out the government's priorities in Saudi Arabia: oil and gas, agriculture, health care, mining, etc., but no mention of human rights.
Writers whipped, opposition members executed, women made second-class citizens, and 20% of the government's own human rights assessment is being blacked out.
Why is the government making oil, gas, and arms sales its priorities while looking the other way when it comes to human rights abuses?
Foreign Affairs April 14th, 2016
Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government continues to dig itself a deeper hole in the Saudi Arabia arms deal.
The minister claims that his hands were tied and that the contract was a done deal by the former government, but that is not true. He authorized the export permits, the most crucial, essential step.
Why does the minister continue to mislead Canadians? Will he finally step up and confirm that this decision was made by his government?
Foreign Affairs April 13th, 2016
Mr. Speaker, I do not understand. What is the point of the risk assessment process for arms exports if it is a done deal before the process even takes place? On the issue of the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister told Canadians repeatedly that there was nothing they could do, that their hands were tied. Now we learn that the minister authorized the sale himself last Friday.
Why did he deliberately mislead Canadians?
Why did he lead Canadians down the garden path?
Foreign Affairs April 13th, 2016
Mr. Speaker, the Liberals said they were going to be different, but now they are becoming just exactly what they opposed.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs claimed that he had no choice when it came to the Conservative-backed arms deal with Saudi Arabia. He told us it was a done deal, but that was not the case. He approved the deal himself last Friday.
This is about human rights. Why are Canadians being misled on such an important issue?
CBC/Radio-Canada March 22nd, 2016
Mr. Speaker, under section 48 of the Broadcasting Act, CBC/Radio-Canada cannot sell a building valued at more than $4 million without the approval of the governor in council. That means that CBC/Radio-Canada cannot sell the Radio-Canada tower in Montreal without cabinet's approval.
Will the minister step up and halt the fire sale of the Radio-Canada tower and ensure that real public consultations are held?
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question, which I feel touches on an essential point.
One of the basic principles of human rights is that all human beings are equal. Since we are all equal, we all have equal rights. Human rights encompass women's rights, the right to health, the rights of LGBT communities, and so many more. All of those rights are equal because all humans should be equal in the eyes of the law. That is why we have the basic principle that no particular right takes precedence over others.
Many consider the Office of Religious Freedom to be more an outgrowth of ideology than anything else, but I think that we will leave it to Canadians to decide. They already have, in a way.
Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more. That is absolutely essential. Earlier on in today's debate, I heard someone mention a puzzle. Freedom of religion is a very important piece of the puzzle.
If we really want human rights to be respected, we cannot start looking at rights individually. We need to look at the problem as a whole and we must ensure strong, well-established governance and democratic development, because those are the best ways to guarantee that human rights will be upheld within a society.
We need to work on the whole issue. Although religious freedom is very important, it should not be given precedence over other rights.
Mr. Speaker, some religious groups supported creating the Office of Religious Freedom as well as keeping it open. Many people pointed out, just as we did, that there was a fundamental problem with having one set of rights take precedence over another.
As members are aware, I worked for foreign affairs for 15 years. I worked mainly on thematic issues, and I worked very closely with the people in the department who deal with human rights.
The people working on this file know the issues and take a holistic approach by addressing all rights. I always wondered whether, instead of giving so much money to the Office of Religious Freedom, the government should have given more support and additional resources to the existing resources within the department, which were already doing extraordinary work.
Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Beloeil—Chambly.
It will likely surprise no one to hear that I, and I think most if not all of my colleagues, will be voting against this motion. It comes as no surprise because when the Conservative government created Canada's Office of Religious Freedom, we were already against it, and not because we are against freedom of religion. Freedom of religion is extremely important, but we had some serious problems with this initiative. Part of the problem had to do with the context in which this office was created, but a bigger part of the problem was based on an important matter of principle.
Let us talk briefly about the context. What we need to keep in mind is that the government that created Canada's Office of Religious Freedom is the same government that literally killed Rights and Democracy, which had been around for 25 years and did absolutely extraordinary work to defend all rights and promote democracy around the world. The government killed Rights and Democracy and then created something that focused exclusively on freedom of religion.
It was the same government that also broke its promise to create an institute for democratic development with the pretext that it did not have the funds to do so, and that it was not worthwhile investing in democratic development.
It was a government that always gave the impression that it was making very deliberate choices and giving priority to religious rights over other rights, even though we know that all rights are equal. I would also like to say in passing, I cannot help it, that it was the same government that readily agreed to sign trade agreements, free trade agreements with countries that were known to have serious human rights issues. It was the same government that said yes to arms sales without being able to show that studies had been done to ensure that Canadian arms would not be used to commit human rights abuses.
It is the same government that mounted a very weak defence of people like Raif Badawi, who was convicted simply because he wanted to assert his right to freedom of opinion and expression. It is the same government that literally harassed civil society organizations, here in Canada, that dared to even remotely criticize their policies.
Religious freedom is important. The government that prioritized religious freedom over other rights was the same government that refused to honour its promise to create an office for democratic development. Let us remember this. Democratic institutions and democratic development are the best guarantees of all human rights, including freedom of religion. It was the same government that basically killed Rights & Democracy, a great Canadian institution that had 25 years of experience, and was protecting all the rights of everyone around the world.
Rather than work to defend rights across the board, the government decided to give priority, as I said, to one right over the others. It is an important one but one right should not be above the others. When we talk about human rights, we have to remember one fundamental principle, and that is that all rights are equal, that there is no hierarchy in matters of rights, and that all rights are interdependent. We cannot defend one without defending all.
That is the crux of the problem, the problem of principle. All rights are equal. There is no hierarchy of rights. In order to promote rights effectively, we must bear in mind that they are all interrelated and interdependent instead of making one set of rights more important than another.
Of course, I said, I repeat, and I cannot say enough that freedom of religion is important, but all human rights are important and we must work on them all.
I wish to inform my colleagues opposite that we are here to push the new government to entrench human rights in all of its policies, including its policies on foreign affairs, international development, and trade.
It is also essential to work on developing and promoting democratic institutions in the world, because they are the best guarantee of human rights.
That is the problem of principle. I talked a little bit about the context and the fundamental principle, but we also need to have a closer look at the work that has been done in recent years. Yes, some good work has been done; no one is denying that. However, I would like to point out that certain questions have been raised about the scope of the Office of Religious Freedoms.
For example, a doctoral candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School pointed out that Christian minorities have received almost twice as much attention from that office as Muslim and Jewish minorities. This could be attributed to a number of factors, but nevertheless, it does raise some questions. What raises even more questions is the fact that the office, specifically in Iran, focused mainly on the Baha'i community. I have absolutely no problem with defending that community. I have met with representatives of Baha'i groups. I think it is extremely important. They are in a very difficult situation in Iran, which is one of the worst countries when it comes to human rights abuses in general. However, Sunni Muslims, Jews, and Zoroastrians also face oppression in Iran, so why did that office not work on their behalf, too?
Moreover, in more general terms, the office never examined traditional or aboriginal religions. We know that these files are raising more and more concerns and that acts of repression against traditional and aboriginal religions are on the rise around the world.
We hope that the office's approach was not biased, but we do note some rather significant shortcomings. Nevertheless, even if this was not the case for the office, focusing on and giving priority to one type of human right is problematic because all rights should be considered as a whole.
In fact, Canada must speak out and defend all rights and the rights of all.
National Defence March 9th, 2016
Mr. Speaker, I want to understand something. Apparently, the mission in Iraq is not a combat mission, but our soldiers are going to be on the front lines and will have the right to shoot first. Is that not a combat mission?
Can the Minister of National Defence explain why the government is so determined to deny the evidence and why it refuses to tell Canadians and our soldiers that this is in fact a combat mission?