Irwin Cotler

[National Day of Reflection on the Prevention of Genocide, March 25th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, two years ago the House unanimously adopted a motion designating April 7 as the National Day of Reflection on the Prevention of Genocide.

I rise today in remembrance and commemoration of the 16th anniversary of Rwandan genocide, of horrors too terrible to be believed but not too terrible to have happened, where one million Rwandans, mostly ethnic Tutsis and Hutus, were murdered in less than 100 days.

But the worst horror is not only that of the genocide itself but that this genocide was preventable. No one can say that we did not know. We knew but we did not act.

And so, as the Security Council and international community dithered and delayed, Rwandans died.

Indeed, the great tragedy is not only how many Rwandans were murdered but how so few intervened to save them, ignoring the compelling lesson of history that the Rwandan genocide occurred not simply because of the machinery of death but because of indifference in the face of incitement and atrocity.

Never again.

[Ten Percenters, March 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to support the motion which originated in a question of privilege which I raised on November 19, 2009 in the House interestingly enough on the very day that you ruled in favour of a question of privilege from the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, whose question of privilege is also the subject of this motion and where you determined not unlike your ruling in the matter of the member for Sackville--Eastern Shore, that the mailings of the ten percenters to my constituents in the matters of combatting anti-Semitism, combatting terrorism and the like, misrepresented “my long-standing and known position on these matters” and “constituted interference with my ability to perform my parliamentary functions in that its content is damaging to my reputation and my credibility”, again not unlike the indicia used in your ruling respecting the ten percenters sent to the constituents of the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore.

Accordingly, I support the reference of these questions of privilege to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs including that the evidence heard and papers received in the preceding session be taken into consideration in this session so that the standing committee not only appreciates the prejudice and damage caused to the members concerned but also that such ten percenters prejudice and damage the reputation and standing of this Parliament as a whole.

I trust that the House committee, in appreciating your rulings and the related evidence, will order that such ten percenters cease and be desisted from in the interest of all members of the House and in the interest of Parliament as an institution.

[Status of Women, March 15th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, last week I spoke at the Geneva Global Summit on Human Rights, in a forum on the struggle for gender equality, commemorating the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day.

I noted that it was tragic that not only were women's rights still not seen as human rights, not only was their promotion and protection still not a priority, but discrimination against women remained, as UNESCO has characterized it, as a form of gender apartheid.

Violence against women persists as a pervasive and pernicious evil. Equal voice eludes women in our legislatures. Disparity of pay continues for work of equal value, fostering the feminization of poverty. Reproductive, maternal newborn and child health concerns remain acute. And underpinning all of these are the intersecting systemic inequalities of ethno-cultural, racialized, immigrant, disabled and especially aboriginal women.

Accordingly, we must ensure that the struggle for gender equality is a priority on the national and international agenda as a matter of principle and policy; that Canada, in its G8 presidency, continues the Italian G8 presidential initiative of combatting violence against women; and that the lived lives of women find expression in equality and security.

[Petitions, March 5th, 2010]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to table a petition from constituents in my riding of Mount Royal and vicinity expressing concern about the continuing imprisonment of Dr. Wang Bingzhang, a founder of the Chinese overseas democracy movement, who was convicted eight years ago of terrorism and espionage in a closed door, one day trial without legal representation and which the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention determined was without any foundation and was in violation of international law.

The signatories join the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and our own foreign affairs committee in calling upon the Chinese authorities to release Dr. Wang, particularly given his seriously deteriorating health in prison and his close Canadian connection. Dr. Wang is a graduate of McGill University. His parents live in British Columbia. His daughter lives in Montreal and is a McGill University student.

Our bilateral Canada-China relationship was founded on adherence to internationally accepted standards of human rights and the rule of law.

The petitioners therefore call upon Prime Minister Harper, the Canadian government and the Parliament of Canada to seek Dr. Wang's release from prison on compassionate grounds so that he may be reunited with his family and friends here in Canada.

[Points of Order, December 10th, 2009]

Yes, Mr. Speaker, I just want to make a number of submissions in response to what my hon. colleagues have said.

First, it has been argued that the motion, in this sense, is asking that the law be broken. The motion is not asking that the law be broken. On the contrary, it is asking that the government comply with the law with respect to parliamentary privileges and the production of papers relating thereto.

Second, privileges of Parliament are supreme, overriding, and not subject to ordinary statute law, such as the Canadian Evidence Act or otherwise. The notion that parliamentary privileges are subject to or contingent upon ordinary statute law would not only diminish parliamentary privilege, but would also undermine the authority of Parliament, its representativeness and its protective framework regarding the authority of committees.

Third, the notion that there is a convention that overrides parliamentary privilege in this regard actually runs the other way. The convention is that of the supremacy of Parliament, in that the convention seeks to underpin parliamentary privilege, not diminish it.

Number four, parliamentary privilege is subject to the Constitution in the manner of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as set forth in the House of Commons v. Vaid Supreme Court case of 2005, 1 SCR 667, but it cannot be exercised in the sense that it diminishes the rights with respect to that which is protected under the constitution.

This brings me specifically to my conclusion in the matter before us. This is not governed by the Vaid case and the charter, because this has the specific carve-out with respect to the overriding authority of parliamentary privilege. I will quote now from O'Brien and Bosc with respect to their complete discussion regarding parliamentary privilege, the authority of committees and the production of papers, exactly on point with respect to the motion before the House. I quote:

The Standing Orders state that standing committees have the power to order the production of papers and records, another privilege rooted in the Constitution that is delegated by the House.

Only if there would be an exception regarding the matter of protecting against discrimination, as the Vaid case said, would there be any issue that comes into place. It is not with regard to the production of papers, which, it is clear, is part of the absolute and authoritative power of the House.

O'Brien and Bosc continue:

Committees usually obtain such papers simply by requesting them from their authors or owners. If a request is denied, however, and the standing committee believes that specific papers are essential to its work, it can use its power to order the production of papers by passing a motion to that effect.

The Vaid case recognizes that with regard to this particular privilege.

The key is the following. As O'Brien and Bosc state:

The Standing Orders do not delimit the power to order the production of papers and records. The result is a broad, absolute power that on the surface appears to be without restriction. There is no limit on the types of papers likely to be requested; the only prerequisite is that the papers exist—in hard copy or electronic format—and that they are located in Canada.

Here, on a matter of practice also, I again quote O'Brien and Bosc:

In practice, standing committees may encounter situations where the authors of or officials responsible for papers refuse to provide them or are willing to provide them only after certain parts have been removed. Public servants and Ministers may sometimes invoke their obligations under certain legislation--

—as we hear today, or with regard to a national security carve-out—

--to justify their position.

Here O'Brien and Bosc conclude, as I do:

These types of situations have absolutely no bearing on the power of committees to order the production of papers and records.

This is clear. The language of O'Brien and Bosc is unequivocal, who go on to say:

No statute or practice diminishes the fullness of that power rooted in House privileges unless there is an explicit legal provision to that effect.... The House has never set a limit on its power to order the production of papers and records.

This is as clear as it can be from the most authoritative source on this matter.

[National Holocaust Monument Act, December 8th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in support of the member for Edmonton—Sherwood Park and in support of his private member's bill respecting the establishment of a national Holocaust monument in the national capital region. In remembrance of Holocaust victims, in recognition of survivors, in tribute to those who fought so that we may live and that our values may endure, and in order to ensure, as the preamble to the act puts it, our collective resolve never to forget, so that never again will not only be a matter of rhetoric but will be a matter of resolve and commitment to act.

I am now citing from the preamble: to ensure that the Holocaust continues to have a permanent place in our nation’s consciousness and memory; to forever remind Canadians of one of the darkest chapters in human history and of the dangers of state-sanctioned hatred and anti-Semitism; and to ensure that future generations learn about the root causes of the Holocaust and its consequences in order to help prevent future acts of genocide.

Such is how the preamble speaks and this frames my support. I must say that whenever I speak on the subject-matter related to the Holocaust, I do so with a certain degree of humility and not without a deep sense of pain, for I have neither the wisdom of the Holocaust scholar nor the horrifying experience of the Holocaust survivor.

But I am reminded of what my parents taught me while I was still a young man, the profundity and pain of which I only realized years later, that there are things in Jewish history, in human history, that are too terrible to be believed but are not too terrible to have happened.

Oswiecim, Majdanek, Dachau, Treblinka, these are beyond vocabulary. Words may ease the pain, but they also can dwarf the tragedy. For the Holocaust was uniquely evil in its genocidal singularity, where biology was inescapably destiny, a war against the Jews in which Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel put it, “not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims”.

As it happens, we meet at an important moment of remembrance and reminder, of witness and warning appropriate that we should be, in fact, speaking to this issue now of establishing a national monument to the Holocaust. We meet on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg Principles, the double entendre of Nuremberg, the Nuremberg of hate, the Nuremberg of jackboots, as well as the Nuremberg of judgments.

On the eve of the 61st anniversary of the Genocide Convention, which we will be commemorating tomorrow, as it happens, sometimes spoken of as the “Never Again Convention”, but which has been violated again and again.

On the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the second world war, in fact, there were indeed two wars at the time. There was the Nazi war against the Allies and there was the Nazi war against the Jews, and where the Nazi war against the Jews sometimes overtook the Nazi war against the Allies.

We meet on the 70th anniversary of the doomed voyage of the St. Louis known as “the voyage of the damned” where those who sought to enter our country Canada and those who sought to enter the United States at the time were turned away, so that those seeking a safe haven were forced back into the inferno that was engulfing Europe.

This came a year after the Evian Conference when the nations of the world met to ask themselves what to do about the plight of the Jewish refugees at the time, of those living and wishing to leave. It ended up that the world was divided into two parts: those countries from which the Jews could not leave or indeed could not live in, and those that they could not enter which took us down the road to the Holocaust.

And so, on this anniversary of anniversaries, we should ask ourselves: What have we learned? What must we do? And why is this national Holocaust monument so important for that learning and for those lessons?

For reasons of time, I will share only two, and if time permits, three, lessons which the establishment of this Holocaust monument will serve.

Number one is the importance of Zachor, of the duty of remembrance itself. For as we remember six million Jews themselves defamed, demonized and dehumanized, as prologue or justification for the Holocaust, we have to understand that the mass murder of six million Jews and the mass murder of the millions of non-Jews is not a matter of statistics.

As we say on the occasion of the national Holocaust remembrance ceremony that this Parliament itself enacted as a bill for that purpose, as we say at that time and as we should say again today, unto each person, each person has a name. Each of the victims had an identity. Each one was a universe.

As our sages teach us, if we save a single person, it is as if we have saved an entire universe, but if we kill a single person, it is as if we have killed an entire universe. And so, the overriding imperative which should always govern us and which underpins this national Holocaust monument is that we are each, wherever we are, the guarantors of each other's destiny.

That brings me to the second lesson; that is, the dangers of state-sanctioned incitement to hate and to genocide, that the enduring lesson of the Holocaust and the genocides that followed, in Srebrenica, Rwanda and Darfur, occurred not simply because of the machinery of death but because of state-sanctioned cultures of hate.

It was this teaching of contempt, this demonizing of the other, where it all began.

As our Supreme Court of Canada put it in words echoed by the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, “The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers--it began with words”. These, as the court put it, are the chilling facts of history. These, as the court put it, are the catastrophic effects of racism.

And tragically, we are witnessing yet again, in our own time, a state-sanctioned incitement to hate and genocide whose epicentre is Ahmadinejad's Iran. I say Ahmadinejad's Iran because I want to distinguish that from the people in Iran who are otherwise the targets of mass domestic repression.

Let there be no mistake about it. Iran has already committed the crime of incitement to genocide prohibited under the Genocide Convention. Iran is already in standing violation of international prohibitions against the production and development of nuclear weapons, along with prohibitions respecting crimes against humanity which are being committed regarding Iranian citizens as we meet.

And so, the second lesson, namely, the dangers of state-sanctioned incitement to hate takes us down the road to genocide, as we have seen.

In fact, may I make reference to the unspeakable genocide in Rwanda? I say “unspeakable” because nobody can say that we did not know. We knew, but we did not act. Just as nobody can say, with respect to Darfur, that we did not know. We knew and we did not act.

This brings me to the last lesson: the dangers of indifference and inaction in the face of such incitement and mass atrocity.

This monument will be a monument to remember, a monument to remind us. It will be an act of remembrance. It will be, also, a remembrance to act so that never to forget, which is underpinning this monument, will be translated into never again.

[Questions on the Order Paper, December 7th, 2009]

With respect to the Iranian leadership’s comments concerning Israel and Jews, does the government: (a) recognize that Iran has committed the crime of incitement to genocide under international legal instruments; (b) intend to act to combat Iranian incitement to genocide; (c) intend to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council for discussion and action regarding its state-sanctioned incitement to genocide; and (d) intend to initiate before the International Court of Justice an interstate complaint against Iran?

[Questions on the Order Paper, December 7th, 2009]

With respect to the prosecution, under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, of alleged perpetrators of such crimes, does the government intend: (a) to improve the rate of war crimes prosecution in Canada; and (b) to double the budget of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Program of the Department of Justice, in order to facilitate increased prosecutions thereunder?

[National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women, December 7th, 2009]

Mr. Speaker, the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women is a call to action.

It calls on us to: establish a national action plan on violence against women; establish an inquiry into the over 500 disappeared aboriginal women; maintain the long gun registry as an antidote to domestic violence; replicate the Yukon domestic violence tribunal; enhance protection for victims of trafficking as we combat this global scourge; protect women in armed conflict; ensure affordable, safe housing for women at risk; enact a comprehensive early learning and child care program; protect access to justice through restoration of the court challenges program and secured legal aid; and finally, combat gender inequality, including legislation, with respect to equal pay for work of equal value.

That is a national action plan.

[Questions on the Order Paper, December 4th, 2009]

With respect to international legal violations of the rights of privacy, association and bodily integrity of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people, will the government: (a) condemn deprivation of such rights on the basis of sexual orientation as breaches of international law; (b) assist the United States Secretary of State’s initiative, announced on September 11, 2009, to seek out partners at the United Nations to document human rights abuses against LGBT communities worldwide; (c) challenge states that are found to deny fundamental rights and freedoms on the basis of sexual orientation; (d) develop and implement a program, modeled on the United Kingdom Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s LGBT Toolkit, whereby Canada’s foreign missions would urge decriminalization of homosexuality in countries where it is penalized by death or imprisonment; and (e) address, through the ongoing Justice Undertakings for Social Transformation Program of the Department of Justice, the criminalization of homosexuals, and the impunity of their assailants, in Jamaica?