Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Basically, the Paris Principles--which we can certainly provide to you--are a set of standards to make sure that a commission is, for example, independent of government, so it's not an arm of government and it can act independently. It has to be national in scope; so the provinci

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. Interestingly, as you may be aware, all provinces and territories have some degree of social condition, either expressly stated, or an aspect of social condition. The Canadian Human Rights Act does not have a social condition provision in it. In our annual report in 2003, we

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That's an interesting question. I would have to say that certainly in our submission on the UPR we had highlighted aspects of social equality and social condition, but we had also particularly focused, if I might say, on aboriginal issues. We made specific reference. By the way

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That's correct. The tribunal hears any cases that are referred to it by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. We do not make a decision on the merits of the case. We are a screening body. So when we receive complaints, we consider them, and we may decide that we will not deal wit

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes, thank you for that question. The A status is, as I mentioned, the highest status. There are 88 of those. We also have B status at the ICC, which are near to being Paris Principles-compliant but don't fully meet each of the requirements in the Paris Principles. They're accor

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Yes. Thank you. I'll deal first with the UPR, and then I would ask to Mr. Sigouin to answer in terms of the Organization of American States, since he is the one who has been doing most of the work with the OAS. Regarding the UPR process, indeed the Canadian Human Rights Commis

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon. I thank the subcommittee for inviting the Canadian Human Rights Commission to participate in your discussion of policies and practices of human rights commissions internationally and in Canada. I am David Langtry and I am Deputy Chief C