Irwin Cotler

[February 6th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, two months ago in this House, we commemorated International Genocide Day and International Human Rights Day. At that time, I spoke of the fact that the first genocide in the 21st century was continuing to find expression in Darfur and that the number one humanitarian catastrophe of our time today was in Darfur.

I asked the government if it would commit itself to combat these mass atrocities and the genocide by attrition in Darfur. I asked if it would commit itself to peace and security in Sudan as the first human rights foreign policy priority of the government and this country. I asked if it would engage in concrete involvement to stop the killing.

In particular, I asked, “Will it, for example, provide the necessary resources, equipment, logistical support...the force multipliers” for the expeditious and effective deployment of the UN African Union protection force?

As the commander has said, the force was to be deployed by the end of December 2007, yet he did not know how many troop contributions he had. He did not have one helicopter. Not one country had yet pledged even one helicopter. This is against a backdrop of 400,000 already dead, 2.5 million people displaced, 4 million people on humanitarian assistance, and mass atrocities continuing unabated.

Two months later, not only has the situation deteriorated, but the Sudanese government, responsible for the killing fields to begin with, is actively blocking any and all initiatives to stop the killing and secure the peace.

First, the Khartoum government has blocked the effective deployment of any international protection force, refusing to accept, for example, non-African peacekeepers, limiting the use of helicopters, limiting the use of access and the like, and even attacking, as it did the initial deployment of the peacekeeping force to begin with.

Second, the Sudanese government not only refuses to surrender the génocidaires indicted by the International Criminal Court but, in a mocking reaction to the arrest warrants, actively promotes the génocidaires to senior government positions in Sudan.

Third, it not only blocks delivery of humanitarian aid, but just last week attacked the humanitarian aid workers themselves and hijacked the trucks delivering the food.

It not only denies any security to the internal displaced persons camps but actively engages in ethnic cleansing in that regard.

I could go on.

So this is my question to the government at this point: what will it do to help ensure that the international United Nations African Union peacekeeping force can be effectively and expeditiously deployed as quickly as possible? Will it not only help to ensure that the Sudanese government is no longer engaged in blocking the deployment of this force but also help to work with the international community to mobilize the necessary troop contributions that are still wanting and the necessary equipment that is still missing? As I mentioned, helicopters have not even been pledged for this mission.

Will the government help to assist in the promotion of the peace processes, both with regard to Darfur and with regard to southern Sudan? Both the Darfur peace agreement and the comprehensive peace agreement are in danger of unravelling.

Will it help--

[Foreign Affairs, February 5th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I support Motion No. 410 which calls upon the government, crown corporations and divisions to divest from corporations conducting business in Sudan and Iran, to divest from funds and other financial instruments invested in or operating in Sudan and Iran, and, which is of relevance to the comments by my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois, except where such funds support humanitarian aid and humanitarian relief programs, or are used to fund Canadian embassies, consulates and representative offices in these countries. It was crafted carefully.

The motion, in effect, calls for the strategic and targeted withdrawal of government investments in the economies of Sudan and Iran so as to deter and combat the Sudanese and Iranian capacity to engage in mass atrocities, to combat the culture of impunity, to impose a penalty for the commission of mass atrocity and reduce the capacity of corporations to enable its commission, to send a clear message through the naming and shaming of the enablers, and to deter and combat the enablers of mass atrocities, those who sell the arms, those who buy the oil, those who finance the sales. In a word, to force the countries, Sudan and Iran and their corporate enablers, to pay a price for their respective commission and enabling of mass atrocities.

I will turn now to two key questions that have arisen in the debate. First, why Sudan and Iran? Second, what can be done with regard to the enablers? I will use China as a case study and the Canadian connection.

With regard to Sudan and Iran, those two countries represent, as I will point out in a moment, the two faces of genocide in the 21st century and they constitute a standing threat to international peace and security.

In the matter of Sudan, it represents, as has been mentioned, the first genocide of the 21st century: 400,000 dead, 2.5 million displaced, 4 million on a life support system and in desperate need of humanitarian assistance, mass atrocities that continue unabated.

We have not only the perpetration of mass atrocities by the Sudanese government, but the culture of impunity that underpins it. Here reference has been made, for example, to the UN Security Council resolution with regard to the deployment of a joint UN-African Union protective force.

It is the Sudanese government that is impeding the effective and expeditious deployment of that force, that continues with the indiscriminate bombing and burning of villages, that refuses to comply with UN Security Council resolutions and that refuses to surrender genocidaires to the International Criminal Court which has issued arrest warrants.

I will give one scandalous example. One of the arrest warrants is with respect to Ahmad Harun, the minister of humanitarian affairs in the Sudanese government. Not only did the Sudanese government not surrender him to the International Criminal Court, it has actually promoted him. It has put him in charge of investigating the human rights complaints with respect to mass atrocities committed by Sudanese. It has made him the liaison officer with respect to the deployment of the UN-African Union force. It has forcibly evacuated internally displaced persons from the refugee camps and replaced them with Arab tribes who have been recruited to take their place and have undermined both the comprehensive peace plan with regard to southern Sudan and the Darfur peace process, each in that sense undermining the other and bringing about the risk of the unravelling of Sudan as a whole.

All of this led to an impassioned appeal recently at the Conference on the Prevention of Genocide at McGill University by Salih Mahmoud Osman, a heroic figure in Sudan who himself was the victim of beatings and torture. He said, “I am appealing to Canada, act now; tomorrow will be too late”, reminding us, and Canada in particular, of our role with regard to the responsibility to protect the doctrine.

The tragedy is that while the international community continues to dither and thereby connive, however inadvertently, with the Sudanese government, Darfuris continue to die.

However, if Darfur is the first genocide of the 21st century and the perpetrator and enablers of a culture of impunity, Iran constitutes a standing threat to international peace and security. Iran has defied UN Security Council resolutions calling on it to cease the enriching of uranium and the moving along to becoming an atomic power, where Ahmadinejad's Iran, and I use the term Ahmadinejad's Iran to distinguish that from the people of Iran who are themselves the objects of his domestic mass repression, but where in Ahmadinejad's Iran it has become the epicentre of the toxic convergence of the advocacy of the most horrific of crimes, namely genocide, embedded in the most virulent of hatred, namely anti-Semitism, dramatized by the parading in the streets of Tehran of a Shahab-3 missile draped in the emblem, “Wipe Israel off the map”, and warning Muslims that those who recognize Israel will burn in the Umma of Islam.

Finally, we should not ignore the domestic mass repression in Ahmadinejad's Iran of Iranian women, students, minorities, dissidents, trade union workers and the like, which leads me now to the second question and the underlying purpose of the motion, which is to divest from enablers. Here I will use China and the China petroleum company as a case study because divestment is not simply a unilateral act. It is a support system, not apart from, but in conjunction with the United Nations and the international sanctions a regime, a support system that is working in conjunction with the international community, a support system that is part of the responsibility to protect a doctrine in conjunction with other countries and, indeed, with universities here in Canada, such as Queen's University which became the first university to divest with respect to Iran.

In other words, there is an economic underpinning to the Sudanese genocide and that economic underpinning is anchored in the Sudanese petroleum sector with some 80% of Sudanese oil revenues being used to support the military which in turn prosecutes and perpetrates the genocide in Darfur.

It is China that has invested $15 billion in Sudan and it is the China National Petroleum Company that is engaged in the extraction of oil that is financing the genocide, that has facilitated the arms trade between China and Sudan and that has financed the military expenditures that have sold Sudan the weapons that have made the military offensive and atrocities possible.

There is also a specific Canadian connection which has thus far almost gone unnoticed. I am referring to the fact that the China National Petroleum Company has been granted 11 oil blocks in the Alberta oil sands. These concessions represent over $2 billion barrels of recoverable oil here in Canada.

China and the CNPC should themselves now be the target of the divestment in order to leverage Sudan to permit the expeditious and effective deployment of the UN civilian protection force, to comply with UN Security Council resolutions banning offensive military action and the like, to surrender the genocidaires pursuant to international arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court, to put an end to the killing fields and to support and not undermine the two peace processes, the Darfur peace process and the comprehensive peace process; in a word, to ensure that the responsibility to protect doctrine is not simply a matter of rhetoric or words but that it is a matter of action, a matter of combating impunity, of ensuring accountability and of saving lives.

As a student said last night at the University of Ottawa where I participated in a forum with respect to the responsibility to protect doctrine and the combating of the genocide by attrition in Darfur and, as I said, with respect to Canada at this point, if not us who and if not now when. If we are the architects of the responsibility to protect doctrine, we should assume our responsibility to help implement it.

[Holocaust Remembrance, February 1st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, this week we commemorate the International Day of Holocaust Remembrance, the 63rd anniversary of the liberation of the death camps, of the liberation of the surviving remnants of “Planet Auschwitz”, the most horrific laboratory of mass murder in history, reminding us of the dangers of state-sanctioned cultures of hate, of incitement to genocide, of the dangers of indifference and silence in the face of radical evil.

We remember and we pledge, and this must not be a matter of rhetoric but a commitment to action, that never again will we be indifferent to incitement and hate; that never again will we be silent in the face of evil; that never again will we indulge racism and anti-Semitism; that never again will we ignore the plight of the vulnerable; that never again will we be indifferent in the face of mass atrocity and impunity.

We will speak and we will act against racism, against hate, against anti-Semitism, against mass atrocity, against injustice and against the crime of crimes, whose name we should even shudder to mention, genocide, and always, against indifference, against being bystanders to injustice. For in our day, more than ever, qui s'excuse s'accuse, whoever remains indifferent indicts himself or herself.

[Committees of the House, January 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I have to correct my colleague. Not only did the Liberals propose legislation but they in fact enacted legislation to prevent trafficking, as well as to prosecute the perpetrators. Where I felt Liberals had begun but had not gone far enough had to do with respect to protection.

I said then and say now that the issue of protection of victims of trafficking is that which has yet to be sufficiently addressed. That will require a coordinated involvement between all governments. Otherwise, if we do not protect victims, even if we have criminal law and immigration legislation on the books, we will not sufficiently protect them unless we provide those supports.

[Committees of the House, January 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I hope that the government is committed to fighting this and that it is working in partnership.

As I said, if we want the strategy to be successful, the federal government must partner with the provincial and territorial governments. There must be a comprehensive strategy not only among the different levels of government, but also at the national and international levels.

The government must work very hard to develop an international partnership. At the same time, it must work with all the departments, not just the departments of Justice, Citizenship and Immigration or Foreign Affairs. We need a comprehensive strategy, coordinated with all the departments and all levels of government within Canada and throughout the world.

[Committees of the House, January 31st, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I propose to organize my remarks around two themes: first, an appreciation of the nature, scope and pernicious effects of the evil of trafficking that we are seeking to combat; and second, as my colleague referred to it, to affirm and reaffirm a proposal for a comprehensive strategy to combat trafficking, one that is anchored in the proposal I first offered the House when I was the justice minister.

May I begin with an understanding and awareness of the scope and pernicious consequences of this evil which we need to combat, this scourge of human trafficking, this pernicious, pervasive and persistent assault on human rights, what can be referred to as a commodification in human beings, where human beings are treated as cattle to be bonded and bartered.

What we are dealing with in effect is the enslavement of human beings, what I first called in the House when I presented legislation in this regard, as a global slave trade, treating human beings as goods to be bought and sold and forced to work, usually in the sex trade, but also in agricultural labour or in sweat shops for little or no money.

Through the dedicated efforts of people like Professor Harold Koh, the dean of Yale Law School, and Radhika Coomaraswamy, the former UNHCR rapporteur with respect to violence against women, we now have a comprehensive understanding of the scope of this global sex trade.

We know that this grotesque trade in human beings now generates upward of more than $12 billion a year. In other words, human trafficking is so profitable that it is now the world's fastest growing international crime. We know that the majority of victims who are trafficked are women and children, girls under the age of 25, and that many trafficking victims also include children.

We know that the victims of trafficking are desperate to secure the necessities of life. As a result of that, their lives are mired in exploitation, rooted in the greed of those who prey upon them. In fact, exploitation is at the core of the crime and evil of trafficking.

UNICEF has estimated that 1.2 million children are trafficked globally each year. The International Labour Organization estimates that 2.5 million children are currently in situations of forced labour as a result of being trafficked. As I have said before in the House, and as my daughter has always counselled me, she said, “Dad, if you want to know what the real test of human rights is, then always ask yourself at any time, in any situation, in any part of the world, is what is happening good for children?” That is the real test of human rights, and what is happening with respect to trafficking is an assault, the most fundamental of assaults on the most vulnerable of all, namely, children.

We know that no matter for what purpose they are trafficked, all trafficked persons suffer deprivation of liberty, physical, sexual and emotional abuse, including threats of violence and actual harm to themselves and their family members.

If we are to develop a comprehensive strategy, as my colleague spoke of, in order to combat trafficking, we need to stop thinking in terms of abstract silos, of thinking of human trafficking as an abstract or faceless problem, of thinking of it as a criminal law problem, or a law enforcement problem, or an immigration problem, or a public health problem or an economic problem. It is each and all of these, and more.

Simply put, transborder trafficking is a multi-billion dollar criminal industry that challenges law enforcement people, that flouts our immigration laws, that threatens to spread global disease, and constitutes an assault on each of our fundamental rights.

Most important, behind each and all of these problems is a human face, a human being who is being trafficked, and that trafficking constitutes an assault on our common humanity. Accordingly, it must be seen first and foremost as a generic human rights assault with a human face as its victim and as being the very antithesis of the rights in the universal declaration of human rights.

The question is, what then can be done?

I am going to briefly outline a comprehensive strategy, speaking telegraphically, of which the first component must be a strategy of prevention: to prevent the trafficking to begin with; to raise awareness of this new global slave trade and of the urgency to take immediate action against it; to appreciate that by raising our voices in domestic and international fora, by making it clear that this is a priority for all of us, then this trafficking can be prevented if we mobilize this constituency of conscience, both domestically and internationally.

This motion today can serve as a call to action to ensure that Canadians across the country realize that this modern global slave trade is not something out there that does not touch us. It is not something out there that has no relevance for us, but it is something that touches all of us and that is present here in Canada as well. It is something that exists here and is part of an international connecting link, an assault for which we will need this comprehensive strategy of cross-commitment.

This leads me to the second element in that strategy, which is the protection strategy, respecting the victims of trafficking. This involves a number of elements, including the residency protection, protecting against ill-considered detention and deportation such that the victims of trafficking are re-victimized a second time. At the same time they are re-traumatized a second time, where they are sometimes detained as illegal immigrants facing criminal charges rather than trafficking victims who are deserving of protection.

There is also the need for support services. We find the need for shelter, health, counselling and the like, that must be provided to the victims of trafficking. These are services that are very often within provincial jurisdiction and so we need a coordinated effort, a coordinated federal-provincial-territorial effort, with respect to the delivery of services in the context of the protection of victims because the services very often end up having to be delivered by NGOs who themselves become burdened in the process when it is a service that is in effect an obligation of our governments to deliver and provide protection for the victims.

These victims also need protective support in the form of witness protection with respect to those who may wish to testify against those who have in effect assaulted them.

This brings me to the third component, the comprehensive legislative component. We have an Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. We previously enacted criminal law legislation in this regard. We have an international law framework that we have domesticated. What we need to do is to invoke, apply and enforce this comprehensive legislative framework.

Fourth, we need a focal point for our work. We need a focal point in terms of an interdepartmental working group that would be co-chaired by justice, foreign affairs and the like because one can only address this in terms of a comprehensive coordinated governmental strategy.

Fifth, we need to intensify the work of the RCMP, both domestically and internationally.

Sixth, we need to engage our federal, provincial and territorial counterparts. This must be a partnership of all governments in that regard.

Seventh, we need to work with our international counterparts to enhance existing legislative tools and combat trafficking across national borders.

Finally, I will conclude by saying that addressing and redressing this most profound of human rights assaults, this profound assault on human dignity, requires this comprehensive strategy of cross-commitment that is organized fundamentally around the four Ps: to prevent the trafficking to begin with, to protect the victims, to prosecute and pursue the perpetrators of the trafficking, and to engage in partnerships in that regard, both domestically and internationally.

We have a common cause and by working together we can create the critical mass of advocacy on behalf of this common cause and protect the most vulnerable of the vulnerable from this most evil of the evils.

[Saul Itzhayek, January 29th, 2008]

Mr. Speaker, I am speaking on behalf of Saul Itzhayek, a Canadian citizen and resident of my riding, who has been languishing in an Indian jail for eight months on charges of entering India on an expired visa.

This is despite having been assured safe passage to retrieve his documents and belongings.

Municipalities in my riding have adopted resolutions calling for his release. Human rights NGOs have taken up his case. The government has pressed Indian authorities at the highest level and a distinguished interfaith delegation has come to Ottawa to press for his release as well.

Through you, Mr. Speaker, I say to the Indian government, as a fellow democracy and Commonwealth country, in the interest of our bilateral relations and having regard to the humanitarian dimension of this case and the anguish of Mr. Itzhayek's family and friends, send him back to Canada. It is the right and necessary thing to do.

[Petitions, December 12th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to table two petitions today, collected by students and groups in my riding, including the Canadian Jewish Congress in Quebec. They are concerned with the genocide in Darfur.

These two petitions call on Canada to play a leading role in mobilizing and organizing the hybrid peacekeeping force in Darfur.

The first petition reminds us that more than 400,000 have already died in Darfur, that 4.5 million are on a life support system, and that mass atrocities continue unabated. It calls upon the government to take concrete measures to end the conflict, restore peace and stability to the region, and end the genocide.

The second petition is along the same lines. It also calls upon the government to use diplomatic initiatives to end the conflict and to specifically support the work of the International Criminal Court to end the culture of impugnity.

If this government does not act, the peace accords could crumble, which would cause the destabilization of the region.

The petitioners recall that Canada played a role in authoring the responsibility to protect doctrine and that this must not be empty rhetoric. “Never again”, tragically, is becoming yet again, again and again. While the international community dithers, Darfuris die. This must end.

[Darfur, December 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, I had been speaking about Darfur even before I became a minister. Anything less than an international priority will not stop the genocide. It will not stop the culture of impunity where the Sudanese minister of humanitarian affairs indicted by the ICC is actually promoted by the Sudanese government.

Will the government engage in concrete involvement to stop the killing? Will it, for example, provide the necessary resources, equipment, logistical support, command and control assistance, air and transport assets, helicopters, force multipliers to effectively deploy the unified protective mission?

[Darfur, December 10th, 2007]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday was International Genocide Day. Today is International Human Rights Day. The one genocide in the 21st century is in Darfur. The number one international human rights issue today is Darfur, yet there was no reference in the Speech from the Throne to Darfur. Darfur is nowhere a priority for the government.

Will the government commit itself to combat the mass atrocities in Darfur? Will it commit to peace in Sudan as the number one human rights foreign policy priority of this government and this country?