Irwin Cotler

[Petitions, March 11th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition from my constituents who are alarmed that the fourfold Iranian threat: nuclear, incitement, terrorism and massive domestic repression, constitute a grave threat to international peace and security of Canada.

Accordingly, the petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to support Bill C-412, the Iran Accountability Act, the only such bill before the House, to implement the recommendations of the unanimously adopted report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs on Ahmadinejad Iran's threat to peace, human rights and international law, to decry the massive domestic repression and human rights abuses in Iran, including an unprecedented rate of execution, to hold leaders in Iran criminally responsible for their state sanctioned incitement to genocide, to work with our international partners to combat the state sanctioned incitement, the quest for nuclear arms, the support for global terror and its massive domestic repression and to support the Interpol arrest warrant for terrorist action as well.

[Canadian Jewish Congress, March 10th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, as a former president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, I am delighted to pay tribute to one of the oldest and most distinguished of human rights NGOs, founded in March 1919 as the “Parliament of Canadian Jewry”. Its founding charter was inspired by a vision of equality and emancipation for Canadian and world Jewry, and indeed for all peoples and minorities, including a national homeland for the Jewish people.

Inspired later by Holocaust survivors, it fought against racism and anti-Semitism, for Holocaust remembrance and human rights, and for social justice and immigration reform.

The congress has been an ardent defender of bilingualism, the rights of minorities, multiculturalism and constitutionalism.

It played a historic role in the adoption of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, while its vision of a human rights foreign policy found expression in its heroic role in the struggle for Soviet Jewry, one of the great human rights movements of the second half of the 20th century.

Mr. Speaker, through you, I say to the Congress, kol hakavod and félicitations.

[Petitions, March 9th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to present several petitions initiated by the Fédération des locataires d'habitations à loyer modique du Québec calling for funds to retrofit low income housing.

The petitioners point out that the 65,000 families living in low income housing in Quebec need the work done in order to improve their quality of life and that this work will protect the sustainability of housing stock worth more than $7 billion, allow substantial energy savings and support local job creation in all regions of Quebec.

The petitioners are asking the Government of Canada to provide the public funds needed by the Société d'habitation du Québec to complete its renovation plan for low income housing, which includes covering an accumulated maintenance deficit.

[Holocaust Memorial Centre, March 9th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize and pay tribute to the Government of Macedonia and the Jewish community and Holocaust fund of the Republic of Macedonia for their joint initiative, under the patronage of President Dr. Gjorge Ivanov, in inaugurating today a Holocaust Memorial Centre.

This centre will serve as a lasting memory to the 7,148 Jews from Macedonia who perished in the Shoah, onto each person there will be a name, an identity, reminding us that if someone saves a single life, it is as if he or she has saved an entire universe.

The Holocaust Memorial Centre will also bear witness to the long history of Macedonian and Balkan Jewry while promoting inter-religious and inter-ethnic understanding and co-operation in the region and beyond.

So, we members of this House join with them a common pledge: that never again will we be indifferent to racism and anti-Semitism; never again will we be silent in the face of evil; that we are each, wherever we are, in Macedonia or Canada, the guarantors of each other's destiny.

[Shahbaz Bhatti, March 4th, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in remembrance of, and to pay tribute to, Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minority affairs minister who was tragically assassinated this week.

Minister Bhatti was a courageous and heroic figure who literally put his life on the line in defence of religious freedom, equality and minority rights in Pakistan. He had no illusions about the price he might pay for his courageous advocacy.

As he told me when we met just a month ago, he was under standing threats from extremists for his efforts, especially with regard to the repeal of the blasphemy laws that had been used to suppress the Christian minority and where the mere accusation can incite hatred and even death. Indeed, Minister Bhatti was already under a fatwa death threat when we spoke.

Pakistan has lost a great and courageous son of its people and we have lost a great hero in the struggle for human rights. We honour his memory best by standing steadfast against hatred and extremism as he inspired us to do.

[International Criminal Court, March 2nd, 2011]

Mr. Speaker, when the International Criminal Court was first established on July 1, 2002, I stated then that it was the most important development in international criminal and humanitarian law since Nuremberg, that it would work to bring war criminals to justice, to combat the culture of impunity, to provide redress for the victims of mass atrocity and to act as a deterrent to further atrocities.

Years later, with all the imperfections that have attended its work, the ICC has nonetheless fulfilled its initial mandate and promise as exemplified in the indictment of President al-Bashir of Sudan for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, and the referral by the UN Security Council, supported by the government, of the cases of Colonel Gadhafi and Libyan leaders to the ICC for prospective investigation and prosecution.

Therefore, it is astonishing that the government would seek to cut financial support for the ICC at a time when it is so crucial to the struggle for international justice. It is astonishing that a government that would expend billions of dollars for the building of megaprisons that are unnecessary, and that would cut funding for the International Criminal Court that is so necessary to the pursuit of justice.

[Human Rights Situation in Iran, February 16th, 2011]

Mr. Chair, I want to join, also, in commending my colleague for his excellent stewardship of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. As well, I want to recognize my colleague, the member for Davenport, who served as vice-chair of the committee, for his commendable work and submission this evening.

One of the recommendations of the foreign affairs committee and of the subcommittee had to do with providing a civil recourse for victims of gross human rights violations by removing the immunity under the State Immunity Act for foreign officials who perpetrated such violations.

I wonder if the member for Davenport could comment on that recommendation.

[Human Rights Situation in Iran, February 16th, 2011]

Madam Chair, knowing my colleague's wealth of knowledge on this and his participation in the meetings of the foreign affairs subcommittee, I would like to invite him to share more of his thoughts and perspectives if the time did not allow him to do so.

[Human Rights Situation in Iran, February 16th, 2011]

Madam Chair, I am pleased to respond to that question. The Responsibility to Prevent Coalition is a consortium of 100 international lawyers, human rights advocates, former government leaders, former prime ministers from both parties in our own House, and foreign ministers. In its report the coalition has called upon Iran, which is in standing violation, as they put it, of the prohibition against the direct and public incitement to genocide in article 3 of the genocide convention, to cease and desist from such incitement. Regrettably, Iran not only has not ceased and desisted, but in fact continues in its incitement, as the evidence of the Responsibility to Prevent Coalition report has shown, and as has the witness testimony before the foreign affairs committee's Subcommittee on International Human Rights, which my colleague chairs.

That witness testimony has identified the eight precursors to incitement to genocide in Ahmadinejad's Iran. It begins with the whole phenomenon of the exclusion and then goes on to the delegitimization, demonization, the characterization of Israel and its people as a Satanic enemy, what is called the false accusation in the mirror, where one accuses others of that which one intends to do oneself. In a word, there are eight precursors to genocide which exist in Ahmadinejad's Iran today and which in their collection form the state-sanctioned incitement to genocide.

I can say as someone who prosecuted Rwandans for incitement to genocide while serving as minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, the aggregate of these incitement precursors in Ahmadinejad's Iran even exceeds that which existed in Rwanda for which people were held accountable under the genocide convention.

[Human Rights Situation in Iran, February 16th, 2011]

Madam Chair, I was pleased to hear the minister mention again that Canada has been condemning the state-sanctioned incitement to genocide in Ahmadinejad's Iran, but we have to move beyond the condemnation and to act to combat this state-sanctioned incitement to genocide as not only recommended but mandated by the legal obligations set forth in treaties to which my colleague has referred. What are some of those remedies? I might add, this is not a policy obligation; it is an international legal obligation on our part.

First, at the very least, our government, or any state party to the genocide convention, should refer the state-sanctioned incitement to genocide to the United Nations Security Council for deliberation and accountability. It is astonishing that as we meet, not even this modest remedy, let alone any of the other remedies, has yet been undertaken by any state party to the convention which is obliged to do so.

Second, any state party to the genocide convention, such as, Canada, the U.S., any of the European Union countries, can tomorrow initiate an interstate complaint against Iran before the International Court of Justice as Iran is also a state party to the genocide convention. As such, Iran is obliged to prevent and punish such incitement, which in fact it propagates and intensifies.

Third, we can call upon United Nations Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon who, under article 99 of the United Nations charter, has an obligation to refer a threat to international peace and security to the UN Security Council. What greater threat do we have to international peace and security than the ongoing state-sanctioned incitement to genocide? We have yet to call upon the UN secretary-general to do so. We have yet to call upon the UN Security Council to refer the matter of the state-sanctioned incitement to genocide to the International Criminal Court for deliberation and accountability. Article 25 of the International Criminal Court treaty has a similar prohibition against this incitement to genocide.

I have just mentioned a number of the remedies which we are legally obliged to take and have yet to do so.