Irwin Cotler

[Vietnam, February 22nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I recently met with some of my constituents, including Dr. Lam Thu Van of the Vietnamese Canadian Federation, who expressed their concerns about the continuous violations of human rights in Vietnam.

They mentioned the following concerns: attacks on freedom of religion such as the arrest and detention of Catholics, Protestants and Buddhists; the repression against intellectuals, writers, democrat political leaders and protectors of human rights; the greater control of the state over the national and foreign press; and the decision to impose the death penalty for 29 different crimes, which led to the execution, in April 2000, of a Canadian citizen, Nguyen Thu Hiep.

While noting that Vietnam marked the 25th anniversary of its reunification by freeing over 20,000 prisoners in the year 2000, I join my voice to those of the Vietnamese in my riding, in Canada and elsewhere to call on Vietnam to end its continuous violations of human rights.

[Foreign Affairs, February 16th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, oil development in the Sudan may not be a cause of one of the most deadly killing fields in the world, where two million have died and four million have been internally displaced, but it is certainly a catalyst, if not a condition, for its continuance and the obstacle to any peace.

Indeed, Sudan has not only used its oil revenue to double its military expenditures in the last two years while using scorched earth warfare to secure the oil fields, but it has breached its promise to Canada and the international community to increase vital investments in agriculture and food security. Rather, the warfare exposes its people to more depopulation, more human misery and more killing, including the warnings from the United Nations of a war induced famine and a genocide warning from the Committee on Conscience of the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

Canada must use its good offices to press the Sudanese government to cease and desist from its scorched earth policy, to negotiate peace in good faith, and to provide its people with food rather than target them with oil generated weapons.

We in this place must explore the legislative means—

[International Criminal Court, February 12th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the July 1998 adoption of the treaty for the establishment of an international criminal court is the most dramatic development in international human rights and international criminal law in the second half of the 20th century.

On June 27, 2000, parliament enacted comprehensive, historic, watershed legislation to implement the ICC statute for Canada and to provide the legislative foundation to bring war criminals to justice. As of today 140 countries have signed the treaty and 28 countries including Canada have ratified it.

The ICC treaty will end a culture of impunity, deter national crimes, protect international peace and security, and serve as an international justice model.

In a word, the ICC treaty is a wake-up call and a warning to tyrants everywhere. There will be no safe havens, no base or sanctuary for the enemies of humankind. As well, our domestic legislation will place Canada at the forefront of the international justice movement and give juridical validation to the anguished plea of victims and survivors from the second world war to the killing fields of today of “never again”.

[Speech From The Throne, February 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, on the matter of human rights in China generally, I would refer the hon. member to my Standing Order 31 today. I identified a list of human rights violations in China in addition to the matter of the Falun Gong. I also recently identified 10 categories of human rights violations by China, which I take to be performance criteria by which we measure the character of China's standing in the international community.

[Speech From The Throne, February 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question goes to the heart of what a human rights foreign policy is all about.

I mentioned just yesterday the fact that China in the year 2000 has been the recipient of $1.67 billion in loan assistance from the World Bank. We need to review the policies of the World Bank, the IMF and international financial institutions to ensure that we are not licensing or rewarding human rights violations, be it in Angola, China or elsewhere.

With respect to the question of my involvement in these issues, my whole approach with regard to human rights foreign policy, including not only international financial institutions but corporate involvement, is that we cannot have a situation where corporations are themselves, however inadvertent, acquiescing in those violations.

We need more than just voluntary codes of conduct. We need to review whether we can regulate the character of our corporations when they are carrying out mandates that are effectively given to them by the Canadian government in the manner in which they relate to other countries.

I am referring to where the Export Development Corporation may be assisting corporations acting in countries that are committing the most egregious of human rights violations.

We will need to review our whole pattern of both corporate involvement as well as assistance by international financial institutions to human rights violator countries.

[Speech From The Throne, February 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I take this opportunity to thank my family for their engagement in my work, and the electors of Mount Royal for their renewed confidence and trust in me, and both for their espousal and support for the human rights agenda which will be the burden of my remarks today.

In the Speech from the Throne and in yesterday's address by the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister spoke of Canada's deep commitment to democracy and human rights. The Prime Minister mentioned that we have become a model for the world and that international involvement will be a main theme of this parliamentary mandate.

I will share with members a series of principles and policies which may underpin such a commitment.

First, combating hate speech, hate crime and hate movements. We are witnessing today a growing trafficking in hate from central Asia to central Europe and North America, reminding us that we have yet to learn the lessons and are repeating the strategies of 50 and 60 years ago. As the Supreme Court of Canada put it in upholding the constitutionality of anti-hate legislation, “The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers, it began with words”.

Fifty years later, this teaching of contempt and this demonizing of the other has led us down the road to genocide in the Balkans and Rwanda.

What is so necessary today is a culture of human rights as an antidote to a culture of hate, a culture of respect as an antidote to a culture of contempt, including in particular, respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, respect for the equal dignity of all persons, respect for the right of minorities to protection against group vilifying speech, respect for our international treaty obligations which remove incitement to hatred from the ambit of protected speech, recognition of the substantial harm caused to the targets of hate speech and hate crimes, be they individuals or groups, and respect for the underlying values of a free and democratic society.

Second, the communications revolution, the Internet as a transporter of the best and the worst. Television, radio and now the Internet, all have incredible power to move people to act. As with most technologies, there is power for good and potential for evil.

On the one hand, the Internet can be used for human rights education as a means of organizing human rights defenders, as a means of accessing human rights violations and mobilizing the international community to act. Urgent appeals and public campaigns can be received instantly and can prevent further abuses.

While the information highway can transport the best, it can also transport the worst. The ability of the Internet to reach out to people on a grand scale is what attracts not only the human rights defenders and civil society generally, but also the terrorist, the child molester, the hate group leader and the pornographer.

Hate on the Internet, particularly cyberhate, also seeks to target and recruit children. We have seen a proliferation of hate sites from just one in 1995 to over 2,500 today.

What we find now is that while technology races, the law lags. Once again the scientists are beating the lawyers. We need a strategy of cross-commitment, an imaginative use of legal remedy, education, anti-racist education, heightened awareness, media exposure and community advocacy.

Third is the combating of xenophobia and discrimination in the multicultural societies of the 21st century. Xenophobic, discriminatory and exclusionary attitudes and policies toward refugees, migrant workers, minorities, immigrants and les étrangers, the stranger generally speaking, characterize multicultural societies of the 21st century.

If a watershed issue in the 1980s was the right to emigrate, particularly for those behind the iron curtain, then a watershed issue as we begin the 21st century is the right to asylum and to protection against discrimination generally.

Fourth is the global struggle against torture. Torture, be it through rape, mutilation, beatings or any form of cruel and degrading mental or physical punishment, finds expression today in at least 150 countries, three-quarters of the world states, while children are tortured in at least 50 of those countries. People have died from torture alone in at least 80 countries in the past three years. The unconditional and absolute right to be free from torture, one of the most basic rights of all of the human rights, is under international assault.

Canada must become a leader in this crucial global struggle against torture. Working against torture should become a central piece of our foreign policy, a commitment we bring to all of our dealings with other states in the international community.

Fifth is the rights of children. The convention on the rights of the child was ratified more quickly by more countries than any other treaty in history. The international community recognized that children, the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, need to be protected from the violation of their rights.

In the last year alone, three international conferences were held on war affected children, culminating in Canada in the Winnipeg conference where 132 governments issued a resounding call to action on behalf of children affected by conflict.

The Speech from the Throne should be commended for its emphasis on the rights and needs of children. As my own daughter put it when speaking to me on human rights, “Daddy, if you want to know what the real test of human rights is, always ask yourself, at any time, in any situation, in any part of the world, if what is happening is good for children. That is the real test of human rights”.

Sixth is the rights of women. The genocide in World War II and the ethnic cleansing and genocides since have included horrific crimes against women. Moreover, these crimes have not only attended the killing fields or been in consequence of it, which would be bad enough, but now become in pursuit of it.

We are witnessing 50 and 60 years later once again violent crimes against women in armed conflict. The lessons of those days need to be relearned and acted upon. The struggle for international women's rights in all its expression must be a priority on our human rights agenda. The notion that women's rights are human rights and that there are no human rights without the rights of women must be not only a statement of principle but an instrument of policy.

As UNICEF recently reported that discrimination against women was an injustice greater than South Africa's apartheid. As the women's rights movement has put it, significant numbers of the world's population are routinely subject to torture, starvation, terrorism, humiliation, mutilation and even murder, simply because they are female.

Seventh is the plight of indigenous people. If we look at the Speech from the Throne we see its commitment to the question of the dignity and welfare of aboriginal people. What is needed here is a new cultural sensibility, a respect for difference, a politics and policy of inclusion, a recognition of aboriginal people's right to self-government, a recognition of their unique status by reason of their historic presence as first nations, a generous rather than a grudging or recriminatory respect for their aboriginal treaty rights and land rights, a radical improvement of economic and social conditions on reserves, a reform of the Canadian justice system to accommodate the distinctiveness and sensibilities of aboriginal culture, and the adoption of the draft UN declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples.

Eighth is the struggle against impunity. The 20th century has been characterized by crimes that have been too terrible to be believed but not too terrible to have happened.

It is also characterized by the impunity that has accompanied the commission of these atrocities. Establishing accountability is not only a moral imperative but a practical one. The adoption of the international criminal court in 1998 was a watershed in the fight against impunity and in the struggle for accountability in protecting the rule of law while deterring those responsible for the commission of the worst of atrocities, be it genocide, war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Accordingly the struggle against impunity requires that we recognize that states have an obligation to prosecute or extradite the most serious of international crimes. It requires that we invoke the full panoply of remedies at our disposal internationally and nationally to bring those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity to justice in Canada and elsewhere.

Canada should lead a campaign for the necessary ratifications to bring the international criminal court into being. We should continue to take the lead in engendering justice both at the international criminal tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the prospective International Criminal Court. We should develop mechanisms for the protection of civilians in armed conflicts, refugee camps, security, and the integration of human rights into peacekeeping missions.

I will close with the reminders of my own constituents. We can best give expression to the struggle for human rights in the understanding that each one of us has an indispensable role to play in the individual struggle for human rights and human dignity.

Each one of us can and does make a difference. Human rights begins with each of us, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our human relations, in our daily capacity for active care and compassion. We are each, wherever we are, the guarantors of each other's destiny.

[Human Rights, February 2nd, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the welcome release of Chinese-Canadian academic KunLun Zhang should not however obscure the following facts: that Professor Zhang should never have been arrested, detained, tortured or imprisoned to begin with; that thousands upon thousands of Falun Gong remain in detention for nothing other than giving expression to their fundamental freedoms of belief and conscience, assembly and association, expression and information; that an exercise in meditation spiritual movement dedicated to values of truth, compassion and tolerance has been declared illegal; and, that we are witnessing the most persistent and pervasive assault on human rights in China since Tiananmen Square, including violations of rights of religious adherents, Tibetans, Internet users, democracy supports, workers and the like.

While Chinese-Canadian relations should be encouraged and trade is a form of constructive engagement, the trade mission cannot proceed as if this is business as usual. The protection and promotion of human rights must be a priority on the Canadian agenda, an expression of who we are and what we do.

As one who acted as counsel to Professor Zhang, I take this opportunity to thank all members of this place and, in particular, the ministers of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade for their assistance in this matter.

[Human Rights, February 1st, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I have just returned from heading the Canadian delegation to the Stockholm International Forum, whose purpose included the legal, educational, media and community strategies needed to combat racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and related forms of intolerance.

In particular, the conference concluded that, first, this growing intolerance constitutes a threat to democratic societies and a variety of legal remedies is needed to combat it. An international commission of what the Swedish prime minister called “global legal talent” is being set up to draft model legal remedies.

Second, hate on the Internet, particularly the cyber hate targeting and recruiting of children, has proliferated from one hate site in 1995 to over 2,500 today, requiring creative responses.

Third, racist, xenophobic and exclusionary attitudes toward immigrants, refugees, migrant workers and minorities, as well as the discrimination and denigration of l'étrangère, need to be combated.

Fourth, an educational strategy to combat intolerance is needed, organized around holocaust, anti-racist, multicultural and human rights awareness.

The time has come, concluded the forum, to move from words to deeds.

[Equal Rights, October 20th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, this has been an historic week for women's rights, from the women's march against poverty and violence to the commemoration on Parliament Hill of the Persons case and the Famous Five, the whole inspired by notions of equality and justice for all.

The lessons globally and domestically are clear that women's rights must be a priority on our public agenda as a matter of principle and policy, that women's rights are human rights and that there are no rights if they do not include the rights of women. As Nellie McClung and the Famous Five put it, “no nation can rise above its women. The degradation of any woman is a degradation of us all”.

The struggle for human rights, for women's rights, for equality, is the struggle for ourselves. In what we say and, more importantly, in what we do in this case and the cause for equality in general and women's rights in particular, we will be making a statement about ourselves as a people. We will be making a statement about ourselves.

[The Late Right Hon. Pierre Elliott Trudeau, October 5th, 2000]

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the constituents of Mount Royal, for whom Pierre Elliott Trudeau will always be the most distinguished and esteemed MP, may I express my condolences to the Trudeau family at this moment of private and public mourning.

Pierre Elliott Trudeau, whom I knew for some 40 years as colleague, confrere and friend, was a unique combination of intellect, integrity, passion, wit and commitment. But the thing I remember most, and what I believe touched Canadians the most, was his personal courage and his moral courage inspired by a vision not only of who we were but what we might aspire to be.

It was this vision and the courageous pursuit of this vision that found expression in an enduring legacy of a more just society whose centrepiece is the charter of rights and freedoms and the values that underpin it.

While we mourn the passing of Canada's greatest statesman and citizen of the world, let us celebrate and be inspired by the heroic life he lived.