Irwin Cotler

[Religious Freedom, June 13th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to commend the National Assembly of Quebec on its unanimous motion commemorating the 180th anniversary of a law.

This law, which was passed unanimously, granted Jews equality and complete political and religious emancipation.

This move to grant Quebec Jews full civil and political equality was one of the first of its kind, arising out the case of Ezekiel Hart, a Jew from Trois-Rivières elected to l'Assemblée nationale, but twice prevented from sitting solely because of his faith.

We must always remember our history, our heritage and the fight for equality.

The 1832 emancipation of Quebec's Jews was a landmark step in the struggle for freedom and justice for all.

This was a significant milestone in the fight for minority and human rights.

I invite all members of the House to join me in celebrating his most historic occasion.

We remember.

[Points of Order, June 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, on a different point of order, I rise in relation to a question on the order paper in my name, to which the government replied with an answer that was not only insufficient and incomplete, it was effectively a non-answer.

I do this in light of the recent ruling that you issued, Mr. Speaker, on the matter of a question raised by the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie concerning the government's response to written Question No. 410.

My Question No. 588 related to the budget and asked in part:

(a) with how many groups and organizations did the Department of Finance consult on?

It then asked specifically how many were represented by women and and how many were led by women respecting the individuals, groups and organizations consulted by the Minister of Finance or Department of Finance in preparation of budget 2012.

The answer I received to these questions states that the department and minister sought, and I quote, “the input of countless individuals and groups of both genders”.

As you noted, Mr. Speaker, in your ruling on April 3, and I quote:

...order paper questions are a very important tool for members seeking detailed, lengthy or technical information that helps them carry out their duties.

While you note the limited power of the Speaker in these matters, and I appreciate that, you go on to observe that in the case of the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie, the government indicated that it would table additional information. To quote your ruling:

The original response to Question No. 410 tells us that this is how the government intends to proceed in this case, just as we have recently seen the government provide such supplementary responses to other questions.

Mr. Speaker, the government has not indicated in any way that it will table any further information or further respond to my question. Therefore, the situation that I raise is distinguishable from the case brought forward by the member for Laurier—Sainte-Marie.

Let me be very clear respecting the remedy I am seeking.

You have ruled, and O'Brien and Bosc agree, that quibbles over the content of responses do not rise to the level of a breach of privilege, and I am not referring to that.

That said, previous rulings of O'Brien and Bosc do note that the ministry's “failure” to answer a question, and this is what I am referring to here, is grounds for referral of the matter to a standing committee. As such, this point of order is to ask you to refer the government's failure to answer the question to the Standing Committee on Finance.

I want to be clear as to why this is a failure to respond. Simply put, this House cannot allow situations where the government puts whatever words it wants on a page and deems that an acceptable response regardless of the question. All hon. members would agree that there has to be some correlation between the question and the response.

The rules regarding your purview, Mr. Speaker, I understand are such—and you have ruled on this matter—that you will not engage as to matters of accuracy and completeness of response. I am not referring to the issue of accuracy or the completeness of response on the part of the government to my question. I am referring to the utter lack of any response to the question.

While we could quibble about whether the word “countless” is an appropriate response to the question of “how many” groups the Department of Finance consulted, there is no way anyone can argue that the word “countless”, even with “both genders” added, is in any way a response to the question of “How many of the groups were represented by women?”, and even more specifically, “How many of the groups were led by women?” There simply is no answer in what I received.

If this were allowed as a response, it would make a mockery of our written questions process.

[1972 Summer Olympics, June 7th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the 2012 London Olympics marks the 40th anniversary of the worst terrorist atrocity in Olympic history: the hostage murder of 11 Israeli athletes in Munich in 1972 that would spawn the wave of international terrorism. For 40 years, there has been no official Olympic remembrance, no honouring of memory, no moment of silence.

An international coalition of civil society groups and political leaders has called on the International Olympic Committee to hold a moment of silence at the opening ceremonies of the summer games to commemorate the Munich massacre. This week the Prime Minister of Australia joined her opposition counterpart in sending a letter expressing all-party support for such a moment of silence.

I believe Canada should join in this movement and recall the victims of 1972 at this poignant moment of remembrance and reminder. I will be seeking unanimous consent on a motion in this regard soon.

Let us solemnly observe this 40th anniversary of remembrance.

It is our duty to observe a moment of silence to remember. We remember. Never again.

Never again, not for Jews, not for anyone.

[Situation in Syria, June 5th, 2012]

Yes, Madam Chair, I would support such a resolution by the UN General Assembly. We could get a preponderant vote in the UN General Assembly because we have to appreciate that Russia and China are isolated. The UN Security Council resolutions that they vetoed, 13 members of the UN Security Council supported. The United Nations Human Rights Council proposed a commission of inquiry and it was only Russia, China and Cuba that opposed it and 43 supported it. Again, they were isolated.

A UN General Assembly resolution would show that the preponderant membership of the international community is in support of some of the elements that I and my colleagues have mentioned this evening and would further isolate Russia and China and exercise a kind of diplomatic leverage that perhaps could shame them into supporting a UN Security Council resolution.

I will continue with some of the elements, as the member for Ottawa Centre invited me to do. This resolution, pursuant to the Annan peace plan, should mandate an inclusive political dialogue and process that genuinely respects the legitimate aspirations of the whole of the Syrian people, including the large majority that are not Alawi and in which, as the UN plan put it, “citizens are equal regardless of their affiliations, ethnicities or beliefs” and with a view to President Assad stepping down as part of that process.

The international community needs to leverage, as I mentioned, Russia and China. We need to do so in such a way that Russia in particular has to appreciate that if it seeks to be part of a Middle East peace process, as it always has aspired to do, and if it seeks legitimacy as a superpower, which it aspires to be, then it must conduct itself as a legitimate superpower would, as one that cares about peace in the Middle East would and, thereby, not veto such a UN Security Council resolution.

In the event that it would continue to seek to veto such a resolution I will invoke here as a recommendation the Kosovo precedent. This was referred to by the member for Ottawa Centre. When Kosovo occurred, we did not have a unanimous resolution that authorized intervention at the time. We had only a majority at the time because Russia had vetoed it as well. We even have a larger and more significant majority now for a resolution with regard to Syria than we had with regard to Kosovo. I would recommend that in the event that we do not get full unanimity, then we should adopt the Kosovo precedent.

In conclusion, Syria is a case study of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine: first, the notion of the principle of sovereignty as responsibility, a country's responsibility to protect its citizens; second, and this I take up with my colleague from Ottawa Centre, the responsibility to remember the lessons of history, le devoir de mémoire of the dangers of indifference and the importance of the responsibility to even prevent atrocities to begin with; third, the dangers of inaction in the face of mass atrocity and the responsibility to act in order to hold the perpetrators accountable; fourth, the danger of impunity and the responsibility to bring the perpetrators to justice.

As UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon has put it, “loss of time means more loss of lives”. Tragically, we have not yet done what needs to be done in order to save lives.

[Situation in Syria, June 5th, 2012]

Madam Chair, other agencies such as the United Nations Human Rights Council do have a role to play. When I had to abbreviate my remarks, I was about to follow with that which the UN Human Rights Council can do by way of an independent commission of inquiry as recently voted upon. The problem is Syria, because it does not admit that UN commission of inquiry in order to engage in that investigation.

Similarly with regard to the UN Security Council, the UN Security Council has not been the problem. It has adopted resolutions, admittedly somewhat belatedly. The problem has been China and Russia, which have vetoed those resolutions. I might add that two unanimous resolutions were passed, but they were not resolutions, actually; they were more by way of a presidential statement.

What is needed at this point is a binding UN Security Council resolution, the elements of which I have sought to describe. Maybe I might just continue to give some of those elements that I could not give before for reasons of time.

What is needed are expanded and enhanced sanctions that the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs as well as the U.K., France and others have called for. In other words, global travel bans and asset freezes, utter diplomatic isolation and condemnation, the expulsion of Syrian diplomats, as our government and others have done, and the treatment of the Syrian government as the pariah it has become, devoid of any legitimacy.

I might add that the Syrian government has continued to violate all principles and canons of international law. One need only look at the documentary evidence in this regard to appreciate that the authorizations for all these violations have come from the highest levels of the Syrian government, from every layer of the Assad regime's military intelligence and security apparatus. They have to be held accountable for their war crimes, and they have to be put on notice that they will be held accountable.

Seventh, and again pursuant to the Annan peace plan, the UN resolution must require the release of all arbitrarily detained persons and political prisoners. Any resolution must order and implement, as a means for verifying, a complete arms embargo again as a condition of maintaining the peace, and the member for Ottawa Centre mentioned this as well. Just recently there have been documented reports of arms shipments by Russia to Syria. We need a complete arms embargo.

[Situation in Syria, June 5th, 2012]

Madam Chair, I am delighted to have the opportunity to participate in the debate this evening, though, as my colleague from Ottawa Centre put it, with a heavy heart given the atrocities there.

The death and destruction, brutality and barbarism, of the Syrian government's latest massacres of its own civilians, as described by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the member for Ottawa Centre, have passed a tipping point, indeed if it had not been passed before, mandating the invocation and application by the UN Security Council of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine and requisite international action.

The massacre in Houla followed a familiar pattern of Syrian assault and brutality. Syrian tanks, heavy weapons and artillery, which were to have been withdrawn to barracks, in accordance with the UN security resolution endorsing the Kofi Annan peace plan, indiscriminately bombarded the Syrian town of Houla and followed it up with a particularly barbaric slaughter of its inhabitants, a wanton execution even by the standards of Hafez al-Assad, going house to house with guns, axes and knives, leaving more than 108 dead, 49 of whom were children.

The Syrian government argues that this was the work of “armed terrorists”, but it was Syrian tanks and artillery that encircled and bombed Houla, in violation of the UN-supported ceasefire that itself has been violated again and again, and Syrian militias, Shabihas, as attested to by the UN monitors themselves, that perpetrated the atrocities.

Moreover, the weekend blood-letting in Houla was followed by still more killing of 50 civilians in Homs, the oft repeated target of such brutal assaults, again in violation of this “ceasefire”.

Indeed, the massacre was so barbaric in its brutality that the Security Council moved quickly, in the aftermath of the Houla massacre, to unanimously condemn:

—in the strongest possible terms the killings, confirmed by United Nations observers...in attacks that involved a series of Government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighbourhood.

The non-binding UN Security Council statement continued:

Such outrageous use of force against civilian population constitutes a violation of applicable international law and of the commitments of the Syrian Government under United Nations Security Council resolutions...

However, the Security Council action was only a press statement, not even a presidential statement, such that it does not even form part of the record of the UN Security Council. Shockingly, it is as if, for the official record of the UN Security Council, this massacre never took place. Nor was this a resolution of the UN Security Council itself. Nor did it contain any reference to the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine, let alone invoke the doctrine as authority for collective action by the international community.

Such collective action need not, and I think this needs to be stated, involve only military action or even involve a military action. There is a whole series of initiatives that the Security Council can take that I hope to get to in my remarks and outline what said resolution could include.

However, the tipping point for R2P has clearly arrived. Indeed, this is a paradigm case for the invocation of the Responsibility to Protect Doctrine. More than 12,000 Syrian civilians have been murdered, close to 1,000 of them since the UN-endorsed Annan peace plan went into effect on April 12, and some 13 months have passed since The Economist published a cover story in April 2011, entitled “Savagery in Syria”. Thousands more have been imprisoned, some of whom were tortured and executed in detention, and hundreds of thousands have been displaced. And while Kofi Annan was visiting with the Syrian leader just last week, in the aftermath of the Houla massacre, there was, yet again, the discovery of grisly murders in Assukar in eastern Syria.

Indeed, the UN-approved Annan peace plan has been unravelling, if it has not already unravelled. Simply put, the unarmed 290 peace monitors dispatched under the plan have not so much monitored the ceasefire, which has yet to occur, as much as they have been used as a political cover for the killings themselves and the violations of the peace plan itself.

First, the Annan peace plan called for “a sustained cessation of armed violence in all its forms”, and for the Syrian government to “immediately cease troop movement towards, and end the use of heavy weapons in, population centres,” as a condition for the ceasefire, but the Syrian government has been violating this requirement since it was adopted, increasing its troop movements and bombardment of population centres, such as occurred two weeks ago and since, while the brutality of the regime has continued unabated.

Second, the Annan plan sought the “timely provision of humanitarian assistance”; yet by all accounts, Syria is experiencing a humanitarian disaster, with one million civilians deprived of food, shelter and medicine, the basic staples of humanitarian relief.

Third, the plan sought to “intensify the pace and scale of release of arbitrarily detained persons”; yet arbitrary detentions and torture in detention have continued, as have disappearances and executions.

Fourth, the plan sought to ensure freedom of movement for journalists and a non-discriminatory visa policy for them; yet much of the country remains closed to those who would seek to report on the regime's crimes and thereby even deter them.

Fifth, the plan called for respect for freedom of association and “the right to demonstrate peacefully as legally guaranteed”; but Syrians who have demonstrated peacefully, as occurred recently in Aleppo, do so at their peril, if not at the peril of their lives.

Finally, the peace plan called for a transition to a “democratic, plural political system” to address “the legitimate aspirations and concerns of the Syrian people”; but this undertaking is repeatedly mocked by the Syrian government's justification of the killings on the grounds that those who sought a democratic, pluralist political system were terrorists, thereby justifying the massacre in Houla, for example.

The question then becomes: What needs to be done, and as the member for Ottawa Centre put it, what have we learned in order to resolve what needs to be done?

One is reminded, and it bears a reminder at this point, of the poignant and painful dispatch of U.K.-based journalist Marie Colvin just before she herself was murdered in the assault on Homs two months ago, wherein she decried the Syrian government's “merciless disregard” for the humanity of the Syrian people. Her last words bear recalling, particularly this evening. “Am in Baba Amr. Sickening. Cannot understand how the world can stand by, and I should be hardened by now.... Feeling helpless.... No one here can understand how the international community can let this happen”.

Simply put, Marie Colvin sought to sound the alarm on the crimes against humanity being perpetrated by the Assad regime against the Syrian people, the classic rationale for the invocation of the responsibility to protect doctrine, when the state, as in the case of Syria, is the author of that criminality. Indeed, one might also ask what happened to the hallowed R2P doctrine.

At the UN world summit in 2005, more than 150 heads of state and governments unanimously adopted a declaration on the responsibility to protect, authorizing international collective action to protect a state's population “from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. If that state is unable or unwilling to protect its citizens, or worse, as in the case of Syria, that state is the author of such criminality.

When the peaceful protests in Syria began in March 2011 in Daraa, triggered by the arrest of young Syrians whose only crime was anti-regime graffiti, Syrian demonstrators then took to the streets, olive branches in their hands, proclaiming “peaceful, peaceful”, the march heralding the prospective blossoming of the Syrian Arab Spring after both Tunisia and Egypt.

Since then, those seeking freedom and democracy have looked for international support and solidarity in their struggle against the murderous regime. Accordingly, what is required now is a UN Security Council resolution. It is astonishing that no such resolution has yet to be adopted after 14 months of mass atrocity in order to implement the conditions of the initial Arab League peace plan, which evolved into the UN-sponsored Annan peace plan. It is time we acted on our international obligations under the R2P doctrine, whose first pillar is that of “sovereignty has responsibility”.

In particular, what is so necessary now is a comprehensive, consequential and binding UN Security Council resolution that would include the following elements.

First is the cessation of Syrian government violence; the mandated deployment of an Arab-led peace protection force in Syria; and the ordering of troops and tanks back to barracks and bases.

Clearly, the deployment of 290 unarmed UN monitors, not unlike the initial deployment of Arab League monitors, has ended up with the monitors being observers to the killings rather than a protection force to prevent the killings to begin with.

Second is protecting against the vulnerability of the targeted civilian neighbourhoods, and the related refugee flow toward Syria's Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders, through the establishment of civilian protection zones, which Anne-Marie Slaughter referred to as no-kill zones, along Syria's international borders.

Third is the provision of unfettered access to the sick and wounded for the humanitarian agencies such as the International Red Cross and Syrian Red Crescent. People are dying as much of hunger as by bullets, as much of neglect as by artillery. As Jakob Kellenberger, President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, put it three months ago, and it has only gotten worse since:

It is unacceptable that people who have been in need of emergency assistance for weeks have still not received any help.

Fourth, the UN resolution, pursuant to its implementation of the Annan peace plan, must mandate media access, both as a means of providing independent verification of violations of the plan, if not to help deter these violations—

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 5th, 2012]

With regard to the current Canadian policy on providing information to foreign agencies and using information from foreign agencies for the combating of terrorism and the protection of public safety: (a) what is the current policy on providing information to foreign agencies when there is a substantial risk this may lead to acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; (b) which departments contributed to the formation of the policy referred to in (a); (c) how long has the policy referred to in (a) been in place; (d) which external experts, including academics, representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGO), private sector representatives, were consulted in the formation of the policy referred to in (a); (e) what was the role of the Minister of Public Safety in the formation of the policy referred to in (a); (f) what was the role of the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the formation of the policy referred to in (a); (g) which official is ultimately responsible for determining whether “substantial risk” exists, in reference to (a); (h) who is responsible for deciding to which foreign agencies Canada will provide information, and what are the substantive criteria behind such a decision; (i) when deliberating the decision referred to in (h), are the “concluding observations” of United Nations Committee Against Torture reports consulted; (j) what sources are used by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the RCMP or government officials in considering the human rights records of foreign agencies concerning domestic and international activities, including the treatment and interrogation of detainees; (k) what follow-up procedures are used to verify that information transferred from Canada to foreign agencies does not lead to the commission of acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; (l) what is the current policy on the use of information obtained by CSIS from foreign agencies when there are suspicions such information was obtained using acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; (m) which departments contributed to the formation of the current policy referred to in (l); (n) how long has the policy referred to in (l) been in place; (o) which external experts, including academics, NGO representatives, private sector representatives, were consulted in the formation of the policy referred to in (l); and (p) what was the role of the Minister of Public Safety in the formation of the policy referred to in (l)?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 5th, 2012]

With respect to Federal Skilled Worker applicants who applied before February 27, 2008, and for whom an immigration officer has not made a decision based on selection criteria by March 29, 2012: (a) how many total such applicants are there; (b) how many such persons indicated (i) French as their first language, (ii) French as their language of preference for communications with Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), (iii) English as their first language, (iv) English as their language of preference for communications with CIC; (c) how many such persons have completed a post-secondary education; (d) how many such persons reside in (i) the province of Quebec, (ii) the province of Ontario, (iii) the province of Nova Scotia, (iv) the province of New Brunswick, (v) the province of Prince Edward Island, (vi) the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, (vii) the province of Manitoba, (viii) the province of Alberta, (ix) the province of Saskatchewan, (x) the province of British Columbia, (xi) Nunavut, (xii) Yukon, (xiii) the Northwest Territories; (e) how many such persons indicated an intent to reside in (i) the province of Quebec, (ii) the province of Ontario, (iii) the province of Nova Scotia, (iv) the province of New Brunswick, (v) the province of Prince Edward Island, (vi) the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, (vii) the province of Manitoba, (viii) the province of Alberta, (ix) the province of Saskatchewan, (x) the province of British Columbia, (xi) Nunavut, (xii) Yukon, (xiii) the Northwest Territories; (f) how many such persons reside in Montreal; (g) how many such persons indicated an intent to reside in Montreal; (h) how many such persons reside in the riding of Mount Royal; (i) how many such persons indicated an intent to reside in the riding of Mount Royal; (j) with respect to the persons in (d)(i) and (e)(i), (i) how many indicated French as their first language or language of preference for communications with CIC, (ii) how many possess a post-secondary degree; (k) with respect to the persons in (h) and (i), (i) how many indicated French as their first language or language of preference for communications with CIC, (ii) how many possess a post-secondary degree; (l) with respect to the persons in (f) and (g), (i) how many indicated French as their first language or language of preference for communications with CIC, (ii) how many possess a post-secondary degree; (m) with respect to the persons in (h) and (i), what are the countries of origin of the applicants, broken down by the number of applicants per country; (n) with respect to the persons in (f) and (g), what are the countries of origin of the applicants, broken down by the number of applicants per country; (o) with respect to the persons in (f) and (g), what occupations were indicated by applicants, broken down by the number of applicants for each identified occupation; and (p) with respect to the persons in (h) and (i), what occupations were indicated by applicants, broken down by the number of applicants for each identified occupation?

[Questions Passed as Orders for Returns, June 5th, 2012]

For each year from 2000 up to and including 2011, and for each country from which Canada has received claims for refugee protection from 2000 up to and including 2011: (a) how many claims for refugee protection from each country were made each year indicated; (b) how many claims for refugee protection from each country received a final decision from the Refugee Protection Division for each year indicated; (c) for each country, what is the rate, expressed as a percentage, that is obtained by dividing the total number of claims made by nationals of the country in question that, in a final determination by the Division for each year indicated, were rejected, determined to be withdrawn or abandoned by the total number of claims made by nationals of the country in question; and (d) for each country, what is the rate, expressed as a percentage, that is obtained by dividing the total number of claims made by nationals of the country in question that, in a final determination by the Division, for each indicated year, are determined to be withdrawn or abandoned by the total number of claims made by nationals of the country in question?

[Questions on the Order Paper, June 4th, 2012]

With regard to the preparation of Budget 2012: (a) with how many groups and organizations did the Department of Finance consult; (b) with which specific groups and organizations did the Department of Finance consult and, of these, (i) how many were led by women, (ii) how many were represented by women during the consultations; (c) with which individuals, if not part of an organization, did the Department of Finance consult, and how many of these individuals were women; (d) with which specific groups and organizations did the Minister of Finance consult and, of these, (i) how many were led by women, (ii) how many were represented by women during the consultations; (e) with which individuals, if not part of an organization, did the Minister of Finance consult, and how many of these individuals were women; (f) which individuals and groups were consulted with respect to ensuring the inclusion of women’s interests in the budget; (g) which individuals and groups were consulted with respect to measuring the impact of the budget on women; (h) what specific steps, measures, processes and reviews were established by the Department of Finance to ensure consideration of women’s interests in the preparation of the budget; (i) what specific steps, measures, processes and reviews were undertaken by the Department of Finance to ensure consideration of women’s interests in the preparation of the budget; (j) what specific steps, measures, processes and reviews were established by the Department of Finance to assess the impact of the budget on women; (k) with regard to (j), on what dates were these steps, measures, processes and reviews (i) established, (ii) undertaken; and (l) was the budget modified as a result of actions undertaken as described in (h), (i), or (j), and, if so, which modifications were made?