Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  If I were the UN Secretary-General, the main priority would be to restore moral clarity and credibility. If the United Nations cannot tell the difference between victims and their oppressors, it loses the very reason that it exists. We need to restore moral clarity and credibility.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable member. If I were Secretary-General, I would say that the main thing that needs to happen at the United Nations—

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I would like to thank the honourable member for this question about an agency that employs 30,000 people. The UNHCR employs something like 16,000 workers, and UNRWA employs nearly double that: 30,000. It's a $1-billion agency that is extremely influential; it is one of the UN's largest humanitarian agencies.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you for the question.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The quick answer is that speeches are important. We call out the President of the United States, but meanwhile, the United States is the only country that took the floor on April 8 at the UN Economic and Social Council to say that electing China and Cuba is wrong, and it is the only country that said nominating the Islamic Republic of Iran is wrong.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you for the question. I agree that this double standard is completely unacceptable. China is a country, a regime that represents 1.5 billion people. We're talking about one-fifth of humanity. So, if we remain silent regarding the Chinese, that means we remain silent regarding one-fifth of all humanity.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Canada has a long history of being a leader when it comes to the principles of human rights, democracy and decency, and it should not forsake those principles for expediency, trade or pragmatism. We heard earlier in this session from an honourable member whose family was involved in the Dutch resistance.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  We could look at grand issues for reform, but these are very elusive at the UN. It is difficult to achieve grand reform at the UN. We could look at simple things that could be done more concretely. One is to clean up who gets to sit in judgment. Just as we spoke about before, the UN Human Rights Council includes China, Cuba and Qatar.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you, honourable member, for this timely question. It's an issue that has sparked outrage around the world in parliaments, not only in Canada but also in the United Kingdom, the European Parliament, Australia, Finland and other places. On April 8, at a meeting of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, two decisions were made by Canada as well as other democracies, including France, Germany, the U.K., Finland, Australia, Norway, Austria and the Netherlands.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, honourable members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify on the current situation of democracy and human rights defenders around the world. My organization, UN Watch, leads a coalition of 25 human rights NGOs. For the past 18 years, we have organized the annual Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The mandate was created in February 1993. It goes back nearly three decades, and it even predates the Oslo accords, when the Palestinian authority entered Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron—cities that they controlled—as well as Jenin and Bethlehem, and Hamas-ruled Gaza. The mandate predates that.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Terrorism by Islamic Jihad, the PA and Hamas are systematically ignored. They're presumed to be violations, and that is why Amnesty International in the past, and other groups, have said the bias is one-sided.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you for that timely question, because the appointment is to happen in a few weeks. Indeed, I do have concerns about the nomination of Francesca Albanese for this position as special rapporteur on Palestine. Those concerns would have been expressed by Stéphane Dion, Canada's foreign minister several years ago.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  That is absolutely the case. There was a law professor from McGill who had written on this phenomenon, where certain individuals were chosen, not despite their prejudicial statements and their bias but precisely because of it. He was referring to someone who was appointed at the time of the Goldstone report, but sadly this is becoming systematic.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Thank you. It's an honour and a pleasure to be testifying before the committee. I'd like to share with you some of my thoughts from the United Nations Human Rights Council, where I'm speaking to you from in Geneva. The 2022 session has just opened. Sadly, with the founding resolution of the council, 60/251, which was adopted in 2006 when the council was created as a body to form the Human Rights Commission, although members were supposed to be those upholding the highest standards, we see the very opposite.