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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Things could always be more expedient, but we have deployed resources into the community.
If Valerie Gideon is on the line, I'd perhaps allow her to talk about the specific assets in the communities at this time.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I thank the member for the question.
Indeed, as the Prime Minister has said time and time again, and as we have said time and time again, we will compensate first nations children for the harm that they have suffered. The member knows this well. There are three cases that are outstanding, and we are making modest progress but very positive progress on these cases. I hope to have more information to share with the House at a later date.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Chair, in the course of implementing those court orders, the budget of Indigenous Services Canada allocates over $600 million to achieve equity between first nations children and non-first nations children. This is significant progress over years. Progress is slow. It is sometimes too slow, and we keep moving aggressively to make sure that first nations children aren't left behind. We will continue to do so, Madam Chair.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Chair, as part of implementing child and family services legislation reform, we're moving forward with first nations to ensure that they exercise that right of self-determination, to ensure that they have control and custody of their children. We will absolutely continue to do so.
We are also, as part of COVID, allowing and ensuring that first nations communities, and children aging out of care, are properly supported as well. The federal government will not cease to ensure that first nations children are indeed properly taken care of in the conditions set forth by first nations communities.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Chair.
As I am in Ottawa, I do want to acknowledge my presence today on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people.
Kwe, good afternoon, bonjour.
Before I begin, I would like to say a few words on the current social climate. Right now, we are in a moment when Canadians are recognizing that there's unfairness built into our systems and that these systems have always been unfair towards indigenous peoples.
I look to my colleagues on this committee among others and across government to reflect and question ourselves on why injustice towards indigenous peoples still happens and how we can move forward in the short, medium and long term.
This is obvious. We need to ensure that there is accountability and that policing services are committed to ensuring that they are always worthy of the trust we put in them. Indigenous peoples and their communities are entitled to the best, and the best there is of the RCMP.
We need to constantly question and reflect on the issues of systemic racism in institutions, particularly those that hold exceptional powers, ones, at times, of life and death. The exceptional powers exercised by police services across Canada come with correspondingly exceptional responsibilities. We must keep fighting to remove systemic racism from these institutions, institutions that are meant to serve everyone living in this country equally and fairly.
With that, I welcome the opportunity to provide you with an update on our continuing effort to confront the evolving COVID-19 pandemic and to answer your questions on supplementary estimates (A).
As of June 15, Indigenous Services Canada is aware of 247 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in first nations communities on reserves. Of these, 208 individuals are considered to have recovered. In terms of Inuit in Nunavik, all of the 16 cases reported have recovered.
Our commitment to supporting communities in their response to COVID-19 has never wavered. That is why our 2020-21 supplementary estimates (A) reflect a net increase of $1.7 billion. This was essential to address the needs of indigenous peoples during this global crisis. These supplementary estimates include $950.5 million of statutory funding, mostly related to the COVID-19 response measures, in addition to new funding support for key programs such as Jordan's principle and child and family services.
To date, the Government of Canada has made roughly $1.5 billion in distinctions-based funding available to indigenous peoples and northern communities to support their efforts to successfully battle COVID-19. Specifically, these estimates contain more than $280 million to support Indigenous Services Canada's health response in first nations and Inuit communities. This is essential funding that will help to provide first nations and Inuit communities with additional health care providers; personal protective equipment; health infrastructure, specifically retooling existing community spaces or purchasing mobile structures to support isolation, screening and/or accommodations; and community-level infection prevention and control measures that are essential.
In addition to this, these estimates also reflect $305 million for the distinctions-based indigenous community support fund. Of this amount, $215 million was dedicated to first nations, $45 million to Inuit, and $30 million to Métis nation communities, plus $15 million in proposals-based funding for first nations off reserve and urban indigenous organizations and communities.
An additional $75 million was also sought for organizations supporting first nations individuals off reserve and Inuit and Métis living in urban areas, as well as $10 million in funding for emergency family violence prevention shelters on reserve and in Yukon.
As part of our COVID-19 response, we are also providing $260 million to respond to financial pressures on income assistance.
Outside of funding to support our COVID-19 response, these supplementary estimates also include $232 million to support the ongoing implementation of Jordan's principle, and $468.2 million to support the ongoing delivery of the first nations child and family services program. These investments demonstrate the government's ongoing commitment to fully implementing the orders of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal.
This investment more than doubles the program's budget, bringing it to nearly $1.7 billion. Funding will be used to ensure that first nations children and families are getting the services they need.
You'll note that we have also made a few other announcements recently. These items will be reflected in future supplementary estimates. These include $75.2 million in new investments to support first nations, Inuit and Métis nations post-secondary recent graduates impacted by the pandemic, and $440 million in funding in support of indigenous businesses and the indigenous tourism industry in response to the hardships created by COVID-19.
I will close by saying that we are committed to responding to the needs of first nations, Inuit and Métis and to stopping the spread of COVID-19. We're committed to getting more nurses, paramedics, nursing stations and health centres to help those who need it most.
I want to take a moment, as I close, to thank all health care professionals working in indigenous communities for their continued dedication and determination to ensure that quality and culturally appropriate care, testing and treatment are provided during this pandemic.
I want to thank members for this opportunity to meet with you today, albeit virtually.
Again, I am happy to answer any and all questions.
Meegwetch. Nakurmiik. Merci.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Chair, as the honourable member knows full well, a number of cases are pending, and we are currently negotiating with the parties. We are making progress, and I would be delighted to tell the member and the House about it in response to a later question.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Chair, let us first set the record straight. It is not a barricade, it is a safety checkpoint. The safety of indigenous communities is critical. I have been informed that the band council has set up road checkpoints to protect the residents from COVID-19 in the context of the reopening plan launched by the Government of Quebec.
I am aware that this situation raises concerns both inside and outside the community. Indigenous Services Canada, my department, is working with the appropriate authorities, including the band council, the Government of Quebec and the Sûreté du Québec, to find a fair and safe solution to this situation.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Kwe. Tansi. Ulaakut. Good afternoon.
As we are learning from past experiences in responding to pandemics in Canada, and specifically in first nations, Inuit and Métis communities during H1N1, we need to recognize and understand from that experience that these communities have a higher risk of being disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. That remains the case.
The first nations and Inuit health branch continues to provide effective, sustainable and culturally appropriate health programs and services that contribute to the reduction of gaps in health status between first nations and Inuit and other Canadians. I would like to remind members of the House and all Canadians that improving the health of indigenous peoples is a responsibility shared by federal, provincial and territorial, and indigenous partners. Our common goal continues to be to work together in partnership to ensure that indigenous communities receive the care they need. By working together, we can save lives.
As of May 19, we've seen 198 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in first nation communities on reserve and 16 cases in Nunavik. It is important to note for the House that of those mentioned cases, 148 first nation cases have recovered, and the entirety of the Inuit cases in Nunavik have recovered. This is due to incredible first nations and Inuit leadership in stopping the curve, aggressive screening and testing when cases manifest themselves in communities, and the amazing work in tracing contacts as quickly as possible when a case arises in a community. It is thanks to that aggressive action and the passage of time that these cases have recovered.
In addition to the direct funding of approximately $300 million that we've provided to indigenous communities and in addition to business support in excess of $300 million, to date more than $107.8 million in funding has been allocated by my department specifically toward the health response to COVID-19 to ensure the procurement of supplies and nursing services in communities, as well as preparedness measures led by the communities themselves, the leadership of which has been exemplary.
We continue to monitor closely the situation in northwestern Saskatchewan in particular, and to support communities in response to the outbreak, we've provided $2.3 million in funding that has gone towards the northwest Saskatchewan pandemic response plan. This pandemic plan is a collective effort of first nations, Métis, municipal, provincial and federal partners. Meadow Lake Tribal Council and Métis Nation Saskatchewan in particular have undertaken an exemplary collaboration in leading the response to this significant and concerning outbreak.
Indigenous Services Canada also continues to work with the northwest communities incident command centre in the area, including provincial health authorities, first nations and Métis communities to support their efforts through increased access to testing, enhanced surveillance, strong contact tracing, and infection prevention and control measures.
We are all focused on the health response that will save lives. I want to reassure first nations leadership that we are committed to supporting first nation communities in activating their pandemic plans and providing the support and collaboration with provinces that best respond to each community's needs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Urban and off-reserve first nations, Inuit and Métis communities face unique issues when it comes to preventing and fighting the spread of this virus. Since the start of the pandemic, urban and off-reserve indigenous organizations and local community organizations have been working around the clock to provide direct services to indigenous peoples.
We acknowledge that COVID-19 has placed additional pressure on the activities of these organizations and has increased their overall spending. In response to these needs, we've taken immediate steps to support these organizations through the indigenous community support fund. A total of $15 million has been allocated to regional, urban and off-reserve indigenous organizations. These organizations can also receive funding from other federal initiatives under Canada's economic response plan, such as Employment and Social Development Canada's reaching home initiative, and the additional funding allocated to shelters for women who are fleeing violence and to sexual assault centres.
Additional funding for food banks has also been made available to Canadians, including indigenous peoples and northern communities, to meet their urgent food needs. In addition to federal funding, the provinces and territories along with individuals, through charitable donations, play a role in supporting these organizations.
However, we acknowledge that more support is needed. We're actively working with communities to identify the support that they need. We're working with government partners to explore other ways to further assist urban and off-reserve indigenous organizations.
As part of our COVID-19 economic response plan, and as mentioned by Minister Monsef earlier today, Indigenous Services Canada is currently distributing $10 million to its existing network of 46 emergency shelters on first nations reserves and in the Yukon to support indigenous women and children fleeing violence. In response to the final report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, the Government of Canada committed to working with territories, provinces, and indigenous governments and partners to develop a national action plan that will address violence against women, girls and LGBT and two-spirit people.
To that end, we are supporting national indigenous organizations in reaching out to their members to identify their priorities and best practices, and further understand how they want to be involved in the co-development and implementation work that lies ahead. That's why last week my colleague Minister Bennett attended the Yukon engagement session on violence against indigenous women and girls, co-chaired by Yukon territorial minister, Jeanie Dendys, and women and gender equality minister, Maryam Monsef. The engagement session was a great opportunity to allow Yukon to share wise and promising practices, initiatives, priorities, challenges and views regarding the systemic and disproportionate violence experienced by women and girls and LGBT and two-spirit people, with jurisdictions and other stakeholders from across the country.
In addition, we've recently concluded a proposal-based process to distribute $15 million to organizations that provide critical services to first nations off reserve and indigenous peoples living in urban centres. This funding is part of the government's indigenous community support fund. To date, over 94 proposals have been supported through the urban and off-reserve stream of the indigenous community support fund. This includes support for friendship centres as they continue their important work to serve urban indigenous communities in the face of this pandemic.
Supporting indigenous youth is another key area of our focus. Among our recent measures, we've included in the nearly $9 billion for post-secondary students and recent graduates, a one-time increase of $75.2 million in 2020-21. This is dedicated to providing support to first nations, Inuit and Métis Nation students impacted by COVID-19 so that they can continue, maintain and pursue their academic studies. To be clear, this funding is in addition to the existing distinctions-based support for first nations, Inuit and Métis Nation students pursuing post-secondary education and the Canada emergency student benefit funding, which is available to all Canadian students.
We are also working with indigenous partners, including youth organizations, to support and promote indigenous resources for youth. For example, We Matter is an indigenous-led youth organization focused on life promotion and messages of hope and resilience. They have developed important tool kits that are available for youth, teachers and support workers to help youth and those who support youth.
In closing, let me reiterate that we are committed to responding to and supporting the evolving needs of first nations, Inuit and Métis communities and individuals as we transition together through the various stages of this pandemic.
Meegwetch. Nakurmiik. Marsi. Thank you.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Chair, I would like to confirm that we are currently in discussion with the Government of Nunavut to flow those funds. Again, it knows that it has the financial backing of the Government of Canada. Those funds are there and will be used to combat COVID-19, in addition to the other funds that I would be glad to speak about with regard to Nunavut.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Chair, there are a number of funding envelopes that have flowed to the north, including $45 million through ITK and the land claims organizations directly to protect the Inuit people and prepare for something, as the member says, that nobody can really predict the outcome of. The vulnerabilities that are pre-existing are unacceptable, and they are ones we obviously factor in when we deploy resources in partnership with the territorial organizations and their health boards in order to prevent the onset of COVID, and when it does appear, to stamp it out.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I thank the member for her question.
As she knows, and as all Canadians should know, air transport to the north is an essential service. To that end, the Government of Canada provided up to $17.3 million to the governments of Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut to support northern air carriers and the continuance and consistency of flights and travel into the territories to provide an essential service that we take for granted here in the south.
That included $3.6 million for Yukon, $8.7 million for Northwest Territories and $5 million for Nunavut, and I'm pleased to say, Madam Chair —
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Kwe. Tansi. Ulaakut.
Hello.
I would like to acknowledge that we are on the traditional territory of the Algonquin people.
As of May 5, we have seen 161 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in first nations communities on reserve and 16 in Inuit communities, focused in the Nunavik region.
I also want to take a second to address what was made public a few days ago with respect to a false positive case in Pond Inlet. This was confirmed, luckily, earlier in the week, to the relief of many Canadians. Again, the lesson from this is that we need to stay vigilant, because we know that the pre-existing conditions in these communities make them exceedingly vulnerable. Vigilance is key, particularly with a pandemic that we have yet to fully understand.
In order to help indigenous communities cope with COVID-19, our government has provided more than $740 million in direct support to help first nations, Inuit, and Métis communities address their public health needs.
So far, more than $59.8 million has been used to buy equipment for medical personnel and to support community-led preparation measures. This money is in addition to the investments made in budget 2019, in which our government provided $79.86 million for health emergency readiness. These investments helped in developing a network of regional coordinators and enhancing the ability of first nation communities to deal with health emergencies and pandemics.
Indigenous Services Canada continues to maintain a stockpile of personal protective equipment and hand sanitizer to give to first nations communities dealing with a health emergency situation. This stockpile is available to first nations communities that might need personal protective equipment to ensure the safety of health care workers and others supporting the delivery of health services in an emergency health situation, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic.
As of May 5, yesterday, we have shipped 731 orders for personal protective equipment, including hand sanitizers, N95 masks, isolation shields and gloves to first nations communities with five orders in progress. The amounts constitute more than 167,850 gowns and more than 202,000 surgical masks to complement supplies provided by provinces and territories. We continue to respond quickly to requests and to assess them within a 24-hour turnaround time.
I would like to underscore that many communities and service providers are adapting their operations to respect the requirement for physical distancing. National indigenous organizations, such as Thunderbird Partnership Foundation and First Peoples Wellness Circle, have developed a series of resources related to COVID-19 that are available to everyone online.
One of our supports has been to financially assist the First Peoples Wellness Circle in developing an online platform for its network of local, multidisciplinary mental wellness teams that are currently offering services to 344 communities. We've increased the number of crisis intervention counsellors on shift at the Hope for Wellness helpline, which is now receiving more than 100 calls or chats a week linked to COVID-19. This experience of self-isolation and physical distancing of family members who may be at higher risk or might fall ill can have a significant and real impact on mental health. We recognize this and are engaged with partners to support solutions to address and bolster mental health, particularly for youth.
Support for aboriginal youth is another priority sector. The department is working with its indigenous partners, including youth organizations, to support and promote indigenous resources for young people.
For example, the Canadian Roots Exchange has set up the creation community support fund to support youth mental wellness during the COVID-19 pandemic with local solutions. Similarly, We Matter is an indigenous-led youth organization focused on life promotion and messages of hope and resilience. They have developed tool kits for youth, teachers and support workers to help youth and those who support youth.
We are aware that post-secondary students are facing an unprecedented situation because of COVID-19. On April 22, the Prime Minister announced up to $9 million in funding for post-secondary students and recent graduates, including aboriginal students.
Nevertheless, we know that many aboriginal students are dealing with specific and unique situations either related to financial stability, job opportunities or simply the chance to continue their studies as planned. That is why an additional $75.2 million will be provided specifically in support of first nations, Inuit and Métis post-secondary students as they deal with COVID-19. This amount is in addition to the existing financial aid programs for aboriginal post-secondary students. This support could be used to cover the cost related to buying computer equipment as courses move online, registration fees, groceries, support payments, housing and transportation, and, should graduation be delayed, cover an extra year of university and related expenses.
At the end of the day, this assistance is meant to ensure that post-secondary aboriginal students can continue or begin their studies as planned despite the obstacles put up by COVID-19.
We are also taking steps to support indigenous-owned businesses during this crisis. The Government of Canada will provide up to $306.8 million in funding to help small and medium-sized indigenous businesses through the network of aboriginal financial institutions that offer financing to indigenous businesses. This measure will help an estimated 6,000 indigenous-owned businesses during this difficult time and will hopefully provide the stability they need to persist.
Indigenous businesses, including indigenous government-owned corporations and partnerships, are also now eligible to apply for the Canada emergency wage subsidy to support them in their efforts to retain and rehire laid-off employees and weather their current challenges. Taxable indigenous government-owned corporations are already eligible for the wage subsidy.
The government has also established a business credit availability program to provide $40 billion in additional support through the Business Development Bank of Canada and Export Development Canada, which are working together with private sector lenders to coordinate credit solutions for individual businesses. Some indigenous businesses may be able to leverage these solutions as well.
As you may recall, on March 18 the Government of Canada allocated $305 million towards a new distinctions-based indigenous community support fund to address immediate needs related to COVID-19 in indigenous communities and among urban indigenous populations. This funding is part of the COVID-19 economic response plan and is in addition to needs-based support for first nations and Inuit health and emergency management.
As part of this indigenous community support fund, we are working to support first nations off reserve and urban indigenous populations. We recently concluded proposal-based processes to distribute $15 million to organizations that provide critical services to first nations off reserve and to indigenous peoples living in urban centres. So far 94 proposals by organizations from coast to coast to coast have been supported through this fund. This includes support for friendship centres as they continue their important work to serve urban indigenous communities in the face of this pandemic. We know that friendship centres are playing a crucial role in providing key support, which ranges from delivering food to families, young people and elders to responding to calls for assistance to providing support for mental health and cultural support for urban indigenous communities.
As our response to the COVID-19 pandemic continues and adapts to new data, we ask indigenous communities and partners to continue to assess their evolving needs. We ask them to reach out to their regional departmental contacts so that we may assist them in supporting community members.
I want to take this final moment, Mr. Chair, to express again my deepest sympathies to the Canadian Armed Forces. Our thoughts and prayers go to the military personnel who lost their lives in the helicopter crash in the Ionian Sea, and their families. Canada is grieving with them as we all try to come to grips with this tragic accident.
Let me conclude by saying that the government has designed and supported the measures I've described earlier today to provide timely and direct support to all Canadians in response to this unprecedented crisis. These measures offer timely financial support to indigenous peoples in Canada in particular, no matter where they reside. We are working with our partners for all Canadians.
Meegwetch. Nakurmiik. Merci. Thank you.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Madam Chair, the situation in La Loche is a very pressing concern. Members won't be surprised to know that that number will only increase as the days go on and as we implement aggressive testing and contact tracing.
We are working with surrounding first nations and communities and with the Métis and Dene communities in La Loche to ensure that medical precautions are being put into place and that strict social distancing is being put into effect. This is a situation that is very much evolving minute by minute, and it is something for which we have deployed additional resources, along with Meadow Lake and the Northern Inter-Tribal Health Authority to ensure that there is a health response to a health problem.
Clearly, we need coordination with the provinces to ensure that we have a seamless approach—
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
One of the things we see as we see the evolving dynamic and the potential spreads, particularly the fear of clusters as communities, provinces, territories may choose to relax certain measures, is the need to have a more targeted approach as to how the economy reacts and deals with it, particularly in northern and vulnerable communities. This is something for which we will need to have a serious approach, with both the Minister of Natural Resources and also our provincial counterparts, to make sure that we aren't taking hasty measures to reopen the economy while we're trying to protect—and this is our most important goal—indigenous communities from getting exposed and spreading COVID-19.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Chair, that is a very important question. We know the essential service nature of air travel into remote and indigenous communities, particularly 96 first nation communities and 50 more Inuit communities.
This is something the government has moved quite swiftly to address by assuring financial stability, funding the territories with, in the case of Yukon, $3.6 million in emergency funding for the airlines, $8.7 million for the Northwest Territories and $5 million for Nunavut.
This is something we will continue to do. With respect to first nations in fly-in communities, we are working actively to bridge that gap because we know the nature of that essential service.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank the member for his questions.
First and foremost, our hearts go out to the family of Elder Sylvester—
An hon. member: Point of order, Mr. Chair. I can't hear the response.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can confirm that I've moved over from interpretation to the English feed. I hope that's better for people listening.
First and foremost, on behalf of the Government of Canada, our hearts go out to the close family and relatives of Elder Sylvester, who passed away in the long-term care home. This is something, obviously, that is devastating our nation. I would like members to know that we are working with the Government of Saskatchewan, and in the case of Indigenous Services Canada, we are ensuring first and foremost that the members of Clearwater River Dene Nation have the resources, not only in personal protective equipment, but in surge capacity for one of these outbreaks.
In the case of the Government of Canada, we are engaging with the community, Clearwater River Dene Nation, to ensure that they have the equipment necessary to deal with and stamp out any outbreak of COVID-19. Again, working in tight communication with the Government of Saskatchewan, we are ensuring that La Loche and nearby indigenous communities do have the resources they need.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Chair, this is an exceedingly important question. The data that Indigenous Services carries and has directly deals principally with indigenous peoples on reserve and the data that is given to us through the territories as they administer the testing. This is a question that goes across the government in terms of coordinating our response, whether it's with the territories or the provinces, to ensure that those testing, as they identify people, are able to identify what background these people have.
Currently, given the urgency of this situation, that ethnocultural testing has not been done. As a government, we're looking forward to moving forward and getting disaggregated data to ensure that we do have a specific response for indigenous peoples or for people who are, for that matter, more vulnerable to COVID-19, and we—
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
—children, and this government is resolutely convinced—
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
[Member spoke in Mohawk as follows:]
Wa’tkwanonhwerá:ton í:se néne kèn:’en sewatia’tarò:ron. Kwe kaweienón:ni.
[Mohawk text translated as follows:]
I thank you all who are gathered here. Hello Kaweienón:ni.
Ms. Margaret (Kaweienón:ni) Peters:
[Witness spoke in Mohawk as follows:]
Kwe.
[Mohawk text translated as follows:]
Hello.
Mr. Marc Miller:
[Member spoke in Mohawk as follows:]
oh niiohtonhátie?
[Mohawk text translated as follows:]
How is it going along?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
[Member spoke in Mohawk as follows:]
Wenhniserí:io wáhi!
[Mohawk text translated as follows:]
It is a nice day isn’t it!
Ms. Margaret (Kaweienón:ni) Peters:
[Witness spoke in Mohawk as follows:]
Nahò:ten?
[Mohawk text translated as follows:]
What?
Mr. Marc Miller:
[Member spoke in Mohawk as follows:]
Wenhniserí:io.
[Mohawk text translated as follows:]
It is a nice day.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I first off want to acknowledge the two fluent language speakers here who are members of Parliament, members of the NDP who have spent a good part of their lives in the struggle to preserve indigenous languages. I'm just a learner. I do want to underscore that.
Kaweienón:ni, could you speak briefly? I'm going to give my colleague Kent Hehr my last couple of minutes, but I want you to speak to your struggle in your community to preserve the language.
I visited Akwesasne Freedom School. It's a school that is built out of armed struggle over treaty rights, and out of that came a school that was able to preserve and underscore language, culture, tradition. What is your experience in ensuring that people actually become speakers?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
[Member spoke in Mohawk as follows:]
Wa’tkwanonhwerá:ton ní:se ne kèn:’en sewatia’tarò:ron. Òn:wa ken’ wenhniserá:te wa’tkwanonhwerá:ton katsi’tsákwas, Amos, tánon Claudette ne kí:ken kanonshakwe’niiò:ke. Í:kehre ó:ni taietewatenonhwerá:ton tsi ionkwatia’tarò:ron tsi ionhwentsá:te ne ratirón:taks.
[Mohawk text translated as follows:]
I thank you all who have gathered here. Today I thank you Katsi’tsákwas, Amos, and Claudette who are here, at main house. I want us too to thank those that have gathered here in Algonquin land.
[English]
I want to acknowledge our presence on traditional Algonquin territories.
Thanks for coming.
I want to focus on one specific issue that I want to take up with people working in grassroots organizations.
Katsi'tsakwas, I know your work: I know you fought tooth and nail in Kanesatake to revitalize the language. I want to focus on the funding repercussions and the issues surrounding the scope of the ILA funding, the criticisms you have with it, and the necessity for persistent, consistent and wide-scope funding, and then focus on some of the challenges that students, particularly in the immersion stream, have with getting from non-fluency to a stage of fluency that allows them to start perpetuating or at least self-learning. Can you touch on those specific aspects as they touch on the financing and the flaws with the current ILA funding?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Amos, Cayuga is a language that is in a much more threatened state, even compared with Kanien'kéha. How would the question I posed to Ellen apply to Cayuga, particularly in its current state of vitality? What do you think the additional measures would be to even begin to close a gap, if that's even the proper comparison?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Okay. I'd like to note that Gordie is colour-blind, which explains the pink jacket. Actually, it is an initiative to underline efforts against bullying. There is a reason for the colour.
What's always confounded me in this legislation is the imperfect attempt to try to encapsulate the diversity and richness of 60 or 70 languages into a piece of legislation, with imperfect consulting. Money may be attached in a budget conferred to people who know best how to do it, who are outside legislators in Parliament. By the nature of the legislation itself, it's always been an imperfect endeavour, while important symbolically and important in terms of real rights.
Mr. Joffe, you have much more experience in this field as a lawyer than I have. In a vacuum, absent money and cognizant of the fact that governments are catching up with courts and there is much work to do, what is the value in and of itself of the rights recognized under this piece of legislation—all in a minute?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Exactly, so I represent a slight slice of the St. Lawrence—
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I'd have to ask the CFO.
Voices: Oh, oh!
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I can guarantee that I'll wield the immense power that I hold within government to move this forward.
Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I'd like you to speak briefly regarding your concerns with the drug trade in the northern triangle states, and the effect it's having geopolitically, particularly on a society level with respect to those states, and your organization's ability to further the human rights agenda.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you.
The question to both of you is, how do you choose your priorities? Let me explain.
The frustration we feel as a committee, as politicians, is generally that there seems to be an obsession with capturing the one-off successes, the release from jail, and obviously one person sweltering unjustly in jail is one person too many. The human rights agenda writ large seems to be, from a popular perspective, inherently individualistic—for a number of reasons, and with cause—but sometimes the sense is that there is an impossibility to capture, advocate, or push for systemic changes in countries, pushing for a simple thing: one country observing one clause in their charter of human rights that would save 1,000 lives we've never heard of, or don't necessarily have to hear about, but it would save those lives.
I guess, Professor Cotler, you faced this first-hand as Minister of Justice, that tension between systemic change—the desire as a progressive country to achieve systemic change throughout the world with other states—and this seeming obsession. It's obsessive in the media, and I don't blame the media for that. I blame the human mind, focusing on one person who has been released or on one success story in a country that has a systemic record of human rights violations.
My question to you is, how do you choose your priorities? I think you answered why: it's because you're optimistic. Sometimes you must feel like Sisyphus. How do you address your daily activity with helping individuals who desperately need it, and advocating for systemic and progressive change?
Professor Cotler, perhaps, could answer first.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you both. It's great to have Canada's foremost human rights defender in front us, together with the world's greatest chess player. It's a true honour to be able to ask questions to you about this extremely compelling case and the bodies of legislation that we are studying.
For your benefit, there's no conclusion yet. We haven't finished our report and we haven't completed the witness testimony, but what we have been able to identify clearly is a gap in the ability to freeze assets of foreign nationals who have committed gross human rights violations. Now, proceeding from that premise or conclusion to putting that into effect is a lot more difficult than it seems at the outset. There are grave concerns in a pluralistic democracy with respect to the rule of law as understood in many facets, one of the facets being gathering evidence of those gross human rights violations. In the case at hand that you've mentioned, obviously there was a sufficient determination that those occurred. I'm not contesting that.
What I'm trying to ask, I guess, is about placing those into a body of law. We're concerned, obviously, with the rule of law, the ability of someone who is accused of these acts to appear and be able to plead their case. You are asking us to freeze assets of someone, assets that may be ill-gotten, in which case there's already a law in our Criminal Code that deals with that, or they may simply be assets that were acquired in a different manner. There are valuable arguments for freezing them as a deterrent, or as a moral imperative.
Mr. Cotler, you're a jurist and a pre-eminent lawyer. Essentially, what I would like to hear are your concerns for the rule of law.
Then Mr. Kasparov, what do you think the effect...? You mentioned earlier, when you responded to Mr. Kent, about the impact on Russia of this type of sanction by a country such as Canada, and the countermeasures that we need to be aware of if we're to enact this legislation vis-à-vis such a country, or indeed other countries.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
With your colleagues present, and on behalf of the Minister of Canadian Heritage, I had the honour of announcing a grant of $1 million in the light of your civic engagement. I was able to see your colleagues in action and to have your activities well described to me.
I would like to come back to your domestic activities, because here we are talking mostly about civic engagement in Canada.
In our study on the Yazidis, a witness mentioned that most human rights violations are committed by people known in the villages, when they were experiencing social disintegration, an erosion of the social fabric.
How can your action help to strengthen the dialogue between the parties who may be threatened where their society is being weakened, such as with the Yazidis and those around them?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Absolutely.
In terms of education and awareness, which specific steps have to be taken in a program in a third-world country, a developing country?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
You work with state players, not just with civil society specifically. Have you been able to bring awareness to the authorities, telling them, for example, that they cannot use the fight against terrorism as an excuse to brush aside human rights? That is certainly a very hard discussion, I agree. However, the excuse is often used by state players in order to justify human rights violations.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Do you feel that there is progress or do you feel that the state sometimes uses you as an excuse to somehow justify its actions with respect to human rights? Is there any tension on that front?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
My next question is about the involvement, education and awareness of Canadians. When I spoke with your colleagues, we mostly talked about raising awareness of human rights among Canadians.
Could you briefly explain the usefulness of that initiative?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you both for coming. This study has gone off on a bit of a tangent. If we were purists about the bodies of legislation we are studying, you wouldn't be here, although I think, Ms. Fenner, you raised an extremely important point. The relevancy of your presence here today is that corruption causes the behaviour that we are, at the basis, examining today, whether it's violations of international law or human rights violations or different reprehensible practices by governments, or by corporations in this case. It hits on an extremely important point, which is that corruption is at the root of a lot of behaviour.
The question I had generally was on deferred prosecution agreements and what their impact is on recovering the assets. The U.S. has them. It has gone after a number of corporations. Those corporations are listed on a website. Their guilt, their culpability, is clearly stated. The idea behind it is that once a corporation makes a payment, that money is gone to the official in question. However, in prosecuting the corporation in question, at the end of the day, more often than not it isn't so much the shareholders or the beneficiaries who will pay, but the employees, because business will be lost.
I'd like your view on that as it applies to Canada with respect to deferred prosecution agreements.
Perhaps Professor Ferguson can go first.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Ms. Fenner, do you have a couple of words? I don't want you to miss your flight.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, gentlemen, for coming today.
I want to continue on the human rights path, although on a different tack. Richard, perhaps the first question is for you.
Generally, the realm of sanctions, whether unilateral or multilateral, has been reserved for areas of high politics, nuclear interests, interests where the behaviour of an actor in question to be sanctioned has threatened international peace and security. The migration towards sanctioning individuals and not states on the basis of a level of human rights violation that is deemed to be intolerable generally answers to a call to condemn based on a moral imperative, as Mr. Levitt alluded to.
I'm wondering what the limits to that approach are intellectually, and even from an idealist perspective. We have disagreements with our closest ally as to the death penalty. We have disagreements with the way certain European countries behave. I'm not talking about a relativist moral slippery slope. I'm simply talking about where we draw the line. Effectiveness is one argument, but it doesn't necessarily counter the moral imperative.
There is also a beauty in freezing someone's assets that are situated here where they have committed a gross indecent act. It would be reprehensible to let them derive gain from those assets.
I'd like you to take a few minutes to reflect on that sort of tension that we're facing, from a geopolitical and trade perspective.
Thanks.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you.
Mr. Juneau, you said that closing the consulate and our sanctions against Iran have hurt us a great deal, particularly with respect to trade with that country. You said that we are practically behind the wall.
Can you elaborate on this with examples of the negative impact this has had on Canada?
I would also add that you can sign up for a membership on our party's site at liberal.ca, and it is free. Just joking, of course.
I will let you answer my question.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
The North Korean sanctions regime, in terms of sanction regimes writ large, is probably the most closed system we have compared to any other ongoing regime. Yet, you've identified a number of holes, and principally I guess they deal with workarounds in the system.
Could you speak briefly to what you see the North Koreans doing, and where they're trending in terms of trying to work around these things?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
This may not be in your realm of expertise, but I would like to hear some of your reflections on the impact of the North Korean people. Obviously, news is sporadic and probably unreliable, but you do hear of periodic famines and crop shortages.
There's that, and if you do have time, could you touch on consular relations? Obviously Canada has none. Most countries do not have any. I believe the Swedes have an embassy, and that's pretty much about it, with a few more exceptions.
What is your view on limited openness and engagement with the North Korean people?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you.
Ms. Prost, I want to focus a little more intensively on the standard that you came up with. You raised concerns which we echo concerning the rule of law, due process, whatever you want to call it. As a democratic country we don't have the luxury that some other countries may have of putting people on our list and doing certain things to them that we might want to do, but we can't, because we respect the rule of law.
I may be overstating the case as well, because there is a tendency immediately to jump to a more criminal standard and burden of proof, which may not be necessary in cases.
To back up, what we're examining is the potential holes in SEMA or FACFOA or concurrent criminal legislation with respect to gross violations of human rights and the ability to put someone who may have committed these gross and indecent acts on a list and freeze their assets in Canada, whether they're ill-gotten or not.
Some of the legislative tools that we have exist in Canada already, and they're subject to the standard review, more often than not by the courts. In SEMA that may not be the case; in FACFOA it may not be the case, and you have rightly highlighted that. As well, there is the UN act that is implemented here. The standard of administrative review through administrative action, on the other hand, might be too low a threshold.
I'd like to put this kind of tension in your hands and see what you think is a proper venue for a piece of legislation that would contemplate freezing the assets of someone who, on the balance of probabilities, has in fact committed such acts and whose assets are situated in Canada, and what sort of safeguards would be desirable.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
To be clear, the freezing of assets can obviously have a chilling effect on these people, who may be at large, in their ability to perpetrate further actions that are undesirable.
On the other hand, the challenge at a domestic level is the ability of those people who, as foreign nationals, obviously don't have the same charter protections that we have as Canadian citizens, but who may have some form of protection they can use. Trying to build that in from the get-go, I believe, is a challenge. As you mentioned earlier with respect to the legislation that's in place, it's already in the Criminal Code with respect to proceeds of crime, or terrorism. There is obviously a built-in protection.
The other tension that exists has to do with the operational level. What do you present to a bank in terms of evidence or documents to have them freeze an account, or to prevent a security from being transacted?
I don't know if you have any experience with that, but I'd love to hear from you on it.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Money laundering is actually an important distinction, because what it prevents.... It's not so much the freezing but the effect of freezing, insofar as the bank that is holding the account or the security or whatever it is can't then transfer it out, because it does not have the proper assurances that it is going to the right place or is duly held by the person wanting to transfer it. I think that's an important distinction to make.
That's it for my questions. I will pass on the rest of my time.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you for coming in.
I have a quick question as to the logistics of tagging a bank account or freezing a bank account or a securities account. You're talking to a former mergers and acquisitions lawyer who knows how conservative you are and has spent many Friday afternoons wondering why funds weren't wired, so I get it, and I get that you're conservative.
I'm now wondering about the rights of your custodian of funds or securities. I'm wondering about the people who have entrusted their funds to you, and what they expect their institution to be doing, and how there can be overcompliance and you're faced with this perhaps bureaucratic or logistical nightmare.
What happens when a law enforcement official or a public administration official comes and says an account is suspicious and you should freeze it? I'm being silly, but do you ask where the warrant is or ask where the proof is? What does your legal team ask at the outset?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
There is a range of thought processes that you go through. I understand if we're talking about SEMA or FACFOA, your frustration is finding out in the first place, and then it's pretty easy to freeze, as opposed to more of a money-laundering situation.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Chair.
Dr. Sangay, welcome. I have a quick question. I'd like you to perhaps develop on the middle way and how you see that as the way forward, touching perhaps on two aspects. First, how do you perceive the reception of this approach by the Chinese government? Second, how are you able to do this given the very difficult reality that you face as an administration in exile? How do you achieve consensus and how do you know that this is the proper way to reflect what both the people in Tibet and those in exile believe? I'm just curious as to how your structure achieves this policy perspective.
I guess the first question is with respect to the Chinese government.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Just to re-centre what I had asked, how do you believe this approach, the middle approach, will be received by the Chinese government? Second, how do you achieve a consensus that reflects the wishes of your people both in Tibet and abroad, in exile?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you.
I want to focus a little more on evidence collection. I mean, obviously with mass graves, after the evidence that the acts have occurred, the concern is around trying to tie those acts to the perpetrators. I read only a short brief on what you've done. It seems like a very, very tall task in a very, very difficult situation.
Perhaps you could just speak a little more about trying to tie the crimes to individuals.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Another aspect that another witness raised was the fact that a lot of the crimes, however they're characterized, were perpetrated by more low-level operators, neighbours, and friends—more local players in villages. How do you address that, first, obviously, in terms of documenting that—I assume there's a huge challenge—and second, as you look at post-state governance, a process of reconciliation that wouldn't necessarily entail full prosecution whether that ability is there in the first place or not? I'm just curious as to your views on a form of reconciliation that may preclude a strict application of law.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I have a final question on your operating budget. The Government of Canada funded another $1.5 million. Is that sufficient, all in all? Can you give me a frank opinion, as to the contribution of member states and the people you're seeking money from, on what is your ideal world? If it's not enough, I'd be glad to hear a number.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you.
Mr. Adsett, previously when you met with us, we discussed the holes that may exist in the current legislation, particularly with respect to gross violations of human rights. It's a topic that flows throughout the discussion we've been having at committee.
You mentioned that there is no perfect fit, obviously, whether it's in SEMA, FACFOA, or the current legislation that exists in the Criminal Code, and there seems, again, to be some confusion as to where the holes are.
A lot of people discuss the ability to freeze assets that are the product of crime, or proceeds of crime, and that legislation exists. Then in the context of a threat against international peace, obviously, the instruments under SEMA exist. Some of the concerns that have been raised are more in the nature of law enforcement. That is probably something, unless I'm mistaking the roles, you couldn't answer.
The question, then, is on the hole that does exist with respect to freezing legitimate assets or the proceeds of crime, but let's focus on legitimate assets that may exist within Canada with respect to gross human rights violators.
There are a number of concerns with plugging that hole, namely, due process, the ability to seize those assets—again, more in the realm of law enforcement—and also the nature of unintended consequences and repercussions of the state that may be involved that is backing the people who are violating human rights in a gross fashion.
I want to focus on more of a legal question. If you can't answer it, I'll submit it to you and perhaps you could submit a written response to the committee. What prevents, right now, the minister, by order in council or otherwise, from finding that a person abroad has violated human rights in a gross indecent fashion and freezing their assets in Canada? Again, I'm not talking about a Canadian national. I'm talking about a foreign national.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Again, I can't afford your billable rate on my salary—
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
—so I'm glad you're now providing legal advice.
Let me ask how that is or is not precluded by an order in council, simply the minister deciding that this event has occurred and that action needs to be taken.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I want to continue on another related notion we're examining as part of the consideration of expanding this legislation with respect to gross human rights violations, but it isn't limited to that. It's limited to the individuals who find themselves on a list, often against their will, and it has to do with due process. It's the elements of due process that we don't necessarily think of.
Obviously, we think of the ability of a person to appear in front of a court and get proper judicial review. I'm sure you would like a lot of these people who come to Canada to stand in front of a court so that you could actually get your hands on them.
One of the things has to do with the judiciousness of imposing these sanctions on individuals in the first place. That is in the nature of reliable evidence gathering, the ability, as my colleagues mentioned, of a company, let's say, doing business somewhere, to access a list that is maybe cohesive, coherent, or up to date, and then challenging it in a court of law.
Hugh, perhaps you're the best person to answer this. What are your thoughts on that process as we look to expanding or at least reviewing the current legislative scheme?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I had not realized that Mr. Bertin was here with us.
Mr. Bertin, perhaps you are not the person I should be putting this question to, but I would like to know what measures the countries affected by this law can take against us and how effective they could be. What is the effectiveness of the measures we could take against these countries, especially when this is done unilaterally?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Ms. Kikoler, for coming in and presenting to us.
I'd like to go back to one of the things you said at the very beginning. I may have ascribed more weight to it than you intended, but you said you had found a number of groups guilty of crimes against humanity or genocide. That's one of the distinctions we've been trying to focus on in the House, and indeed we've recognized unanimously the Yazidi genocide. I'd like you to expand on how you came to the conclusions with respect to which groups had suffered crimes against humanity vis-à-vis genocide.
Some of the words that get lost in the definition of “genocide”, particularly in the political field, are the words “intent”, “to destroy”, and “as such”. The knee-jerk reaction, when something horrible has occurred—indeed, a crime against humanity—is to assume immediately that it's genocide, and it gets lost, particularly in the political narrative or even sometimes in the legal narrative. Can you just develop on what you've seen and what your study focused on?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thanks.
Again, in the last part of your address you mentioned doing a better job of early detection, but indeed, if you look back at the genocide convention, the two stated purposes are to punish, but obviously even more importantly to prevent. Obviously someone has done a bad job of detecting in this case. We all probably share responsibility.
I'd like you to develop the elements that you see as important in early detection.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
David, since you are a student of political Islam in the area, I'm curious about your thoughts about religion generally and the role it's playing in this conflict. I guess that's a broad brush stroke. If you look at the history of Iraq and Syria, particularly with the reign of the Baathist parties in both those countries, relative to the rest of the area, it's generally seen as a secular society, and now there's a tendency to divide ethnic groups neatly and tidily along religious lines, which, as you will agree, is perhaps not the case.
Let's hope we get to a post-conflict governance model, but as we look toward governance generally in both those areas in the next few years, I'm curious as to your views on how neatly things can be divided into religious buckets as opposed to simple power grabs and other interests, ethnocultural divides.
Certainly in the case of the Yazidis, the religious narrative of the Daesh's attempt to exterminate them was there, and there has been some suggestion by a number of panellists who have appeared before us that the religious or ethnocultural differences will be greater as there is a power void.
I'm curious to hear your views on this.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I just wanted to hear your thoughts, because I don't think there's much of an answer to that type of question. I'm just curious to hear your general views on it, since you're on the ground and a student of political Islam.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Finally, is it your sense that some of these differences, whether they're ethnoculturally based or religiously based, will get worse if there is a power void, or do you see things differently?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, gentlemen, for your testimony.
I'm interested in the numbers in and of themselves, and far be it from me to question them. It's just the multipliers that you apply can at times appear to be random, and it isn't just a question as to whether a donation is voluntary or not. Obviously involuntary donation, whether it's one or a million, is unacceptable and should be called out.
I'm simply interested in trying to figure out how you can assess the progression, or at least if there is any improvement in the way the Chinese state is behaving. How can you document that if arbitrary numbers and multipliers are applied? Certainly when you see the numbers, you start to scratch your head as to whether they can be accurate. One would indicate a much higher execution rate, for example, if this were the case, than is publicized, and then in other cases there's the cause. As well, David, you mentioned that it didn't have so much to do with the black market, but attributed it to Falun Gong, house Christians, and so forth.
I'm just trying to get to the bottom of all this and figure out how you address some of the criticisms of the numbers and the black market implementation capacity issues that are often thrown back at you.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
The next question is about the black market and implementation issues that may be thrown back as a counterweight to say that it doesn't exclusively address the Falun Gong and other religious minorities or practitioners.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I have a final small question. What is your capacity to verify whether there has been any incremental change since December 2014 and the beginning of 2015?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Halvorssen, I truly appreciate the emphasis in your advocacy. I think it moves forward a point that we are trying to study, at least when we break it down.
With great respect, where I do see quite a large disservice in your advocacy is the tendency to mix up the issues with the facts at hand. We are studying a legislative scheme. It's FACFOA and SEMA, which deal with the sanctions Canada may impose on states or actors at the request of states, and the potential holes, which you identified specifically in the area of gross human rights violations and in corruption.
What I tend to hear from advocates such as you and others, for which you are obviously not responsible, is a tendency to commit this confusion of proceeds of crime with the opposite of ill-gotten assets, assets that are not tainted by criminality, and say that there is a hole somehow in Canadian legislation.
I don't like doing this, but let me read from the Criminal Code, which states quite clearly that, in Canada:
Every one commits an offence who uses, transfers the possession of, sends or delivers to any person or place, transports, transmits, alters, disposes of or otherwise deals with, in any manner and by any means, any property or any proceeds of any property with intent to conceal or convert that property or those proceeds, knowing or believing that all or a part of that property or of those proceeds was obtained or derived directly or indirectly as a result of(a) the commission in Canada of a designated offence; or(b) an act or omission anywhere that, if it had occurred in Canada, would have constituted a designated offence.
Clearly, this, along with our well-documented money-laundering legislation, provides a pretty important net to catch people who are trying to hide assets in Canada that are derived from or are the proceeds of crime.
You may have legitimate arguments about the ability to seize assets. We have our own questions with respect to our own officials. You may have legitimate arguments with respect to people elsewhere who have committed gross human rights violations—quite disgusting ones, and we've heard a lot of evidence of that—but when it comes to ill-gotten gains, Canada has quite a tight regime. When it comes to SEMA and threats against international peace, it is quite a tight regime. It's the same thing with FACFOA, although the hole you identified was designated by the nature of the legislative scheme.
I think that when you are trying to address a very important point, there is a very important disservice done by mixing apples and oranges.
Obviously, you are cognizant of the fact that we are a pluralistic democratic country. We are often dealing with state actors or non-state actors who live under a regime that isn't the same as ours. We don't necessarily have the same tools at our disposal that a so-called kleptocracy may have, and we do have to follow the rule of law. What are your concerns with people or institutions that we may consider putting on lists, freezing their assets, which may have been gotten by legitimate means in Canada, and their ability to use our judicial system to abide by a very important rule in Canada, which they have in the United States as well, and in Britain, which is the rule of law and due process?
Thank you.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you.
I represent part of a city that has the most Syrians in Canada. They contact me and my fellow members of Parliament almost daily to express their concern. I want to underscore the fact that they obviously took politics here as well as from their home country, and they don't necessarily support one side over another. There are strong sympathies for various factions, including the government. However, not one of them has said that there is any justification for what's going on in Aleppo. They raise the concern of the humanitarian situation and the violation, especially by the Syrian government but on all sides, in what's going on in Aleppo. It's indeed a tragedy.
We rarely get the chance to hear someone on the ground speak about this. I'd like to give more opportunity to Mr. Al Saleh to speak specifically of the humanitarian challenges he's seeing in east Aleppo. Those would obviously be focused on the targeting of civilians and on the restriction of aid, food, and medical access, in his eyes and in the actions his group are facing on a daily basis.
Could you expand on that a little more, Mr. Al Saleh?
Thank you.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thanks for the testimony today. I'll match your “callow” professor with a number of callow politicians around this table any day.
In your 1994 book on sanctions, which focused on Canadian and Australian foreign policy, you noted that Canada in particular lacked the economic capability to “give the sanctions of major powers their bite”, thus essentially saying that the sanctions were symbolic.
If we go back to what my colleague MP Kent was saying with respect to a sanctions regime that would condemn or seize assets of gross human rights violators, the initial act of seizing the assets has some beauty to it, because it is smart, at least at first glance, in the sense that you're grabbing an asset on Canadian territory of a person who has manifestly committed these gross human rights violations, but the unintended consequence is what I'd like to focus on, or at least a countermeasure that could be enacted against Canada and could have on Canadians perverse consequences that were never intended in the first place.
It seems to me that there's a distinction to draw between the easiness of freezing an asset that belongs to someone if it's properly identified and then focusing on the countermeasure, which may have perverse consequences, vis-à-vis a broader regime that simply doesn't work because Canada lacks the heft to put bite into its actions. I do think we need to examine at what point our actions have consequences for other Canadians that weren't intended in the first place. The initial ability to freeze those assets, if you can actually do it, is interesting as a policy measure and, properly, to send a message to the person who has committed those acts that they can't hide their assets in Canada.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Mr. Goldman, perhaps you could speak more at length on the actions of the Russian government. Essentially, we're talking about state actors or quasi-state actors, and it is immediately perceived as an act against the state. Whether you freeze a person's assets or just say you're freezing that person's assets, they were acting on behalf of the state in question, so it's immediately perceived as such.
Perhaps you could speak to what happened in the Magnitsky case.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
At the very end of your testimony today, Mr. Goldman, you mentioned that sanctions, whether they were effective or ineffective, were still a very interesting and important tool. I was hoping you could develop that a bit.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you both for your testimony.
We have just started a vast study that could be even more vast. Unfortunately, in a humanitarian situation, the right to life is the basic right at stake.
I would like to focus the discussion on the right to practice one’s religion and religious freedom. Groups like the Yezidis are more specifically affected by Daesh’s genocidal discourse.
To what extent will that discourse influence what is going to happen later, after Daesh is eliminated? Will the situation get worse because of religion and distinctions based on religious practices or because of the fact that people are simply united against Daesh?
I know that that question could take half an hour to answer. Perhaps you could answer concisely by focusing specifically on religious freedom.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Ms. Lilly and gentlemen, thank you for appearing and thank you for taking what is a broad approach to this panel and the examination at hand. What has become evident in a number of the appearances of witnesses before us with respect to the legislation and its operationalization is that we started out thinking about where the holes are in this legislation and where we can fill them and how it can be put in place in the most desirable way as part of Canadian policy and effective enforcement of these legislative tools, and quickly we've gotten into a few observations that are rather surprising. One is the inability to impose them in an effective way, and another is the potentially perverse effects that imposing them has, absent a broad multilateral approach.
I'm glad you've raised that point, because as we look at potentially putting in place something that would address gross violations of human rights, the issues you raise today are particularly important in making sure that this legislative tool, if deemed desirable by Parliament, actually works.
The current legislation, which is supposed to deal with something equally if not more grave, you've said either doesn't work, is very difficult to put into place, or creates disincentives or perverse effects on Canadian business, as Mr. Boscariol stated. It's particularly intriguing—and it won't be part of my intervention, but as we start to engage more with Iran—that what you've seemed to suggest is that Canadian business is at a disadvantage compared with partners who can react more quickly.
The question I have is with respect to gross violations of human rights and what we need to do; with where you see an opportunity for Canada to act, and—any one of you can answer this—with a focus on the potential countermeasures facing a country that is much more powerful than us both on an economic level and a political level and potentially a partner, whether acting unilaterally for a country like ours.... One, is such an approach desirable from a legal and political perspective? Two, would it actually work? Three, one of you gentlemen raised the rule of law—condemning people essentially before they're judged—but also the perverse effect that it can have on Canadian citizens as a result.
I know that's a long statement, but go at it as you see fit.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you.
Thank you for your testimony.
You've heard today that we're examining potential holes in the current legislative scheme, including what may be missing, what's desirable, and what's needed to fix it. There has been some focus on human rights violations. It sounds as though in the legislative scheme you operate under there isn't a hole and that it's just a question of being able to do your job.
The issue I want to focus on—and it has to do with what Mr. Levitt brought up—is precisely the ability to do your job and to effectively capture an item, a good, or a person that would otherwise get out or get in, particularly in the area of dual-use equipment. Just walk me through—I have a very simplistic approach to this—the difference between a washing machine and a centrifuge that might end up, depending on how it's used, being used for cleaning clothes or for refining something.
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Lib. (QC)
Thank you.
My understanding is that a lack of resources is really the biggest impediment to you being able to do your job, and I think you said that was also what the 2016 audit showed. Is there anything else that poses an impediment from an operational perspective?
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Lib. (QC)
All right. I guess, from your perspective, your job is done once you've stopped whatever it is from going in or coming out, but I guess you're saying is there's frustration with then not seeing anything happen.
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Lib. (QC)
Mr. Van Der Klaauw, one of the accusations you hear as a recurring theme from the Burundi government is that the UN agency's foreign powers are just perpetuating foreign interests, supporting an insurgency movement. It seems to be a repeated theme throughout and it falls quickly into a colonialist discourse, probably too quickly but for opportunistic reasons. How do you respond to that on the ground and what is your relationship with the Burundian government, if any?
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Lib. (QC)
We often get caught in a bit of a circle when we talk too quickly about prosecuting people, bringing people to justice, and often then neglect something that is almost equally, if not more important, which is preventing the degeneration of hostilities, preventing these situations in the first place, which is a much more difficult issue to address. What do you recommend to a country like Canada that has very little involvement with Burundi economically, politically? I think our representation is run out of Kenya.
What do you recommend to countries in our situation that are willing and wanting to act as to how we would work in a multilateral situation, whether it's more money, aid? Really, the question is yours.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Gentlemen.
As Bob alluded to earlier, we're beginning an extensive review of these two legislative regimes and their connected acts. Part of the exercise is to figure out, actually, what they do and what they don't do, what they should do, and what is desirable for this committee to recommend if there are holes. They are complicated; they're intertwined. Obviously what has been on the top of our minds, in light of the testimony that's been given in prior meetings of this committee, is the topic of gross violation of human rights, regardless of the country or officials perpetrating them.
The question really is, when you examine the legal regimes that exist in Canada, is there anything that addresses the ability of the government to freeze assets in the presence of a gross violation of human rights by a foreign official or a foreign person in the absence of terrorism? They would not fall under section 83 of the Criminal Code, the proceeds not being from that of crime. Literally, it's assets of a person in Canada, and then in the manifest presence of gross violation of international human rights, as assessed by some standard, which we don't need to go into at this point, that does not rise to a violation or a grave concern for international peace and security.
That sort of scenario takes us out of SEMA, and out of a requesting country under the FACFOA. In my mind, there's a void there, but you're the experts, and I would like you to speak to that.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Is there anything that prevents the government from just doing it, with respect to foreign nationals and their assets situated in Canada, other than investment treaty protections?
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Lib. (QC)
As a final question or observation, I would say far be it from Canada to act in a unilateral way in such a sensitive situation. The situation I'm describing is really one in which a large part of the international community could readily ascertain that, as you mentioned or at least alluded to earlier, you would prefer to act in concert in imposing sanctions.
So, if there's a hole of the nature I described that needs to be filled, what are the pitfalls internationally with respect to countermeasures that a country that may be stronger than ours or weaker than ours may enact against our nationals, which would obviously be foreign to them? What measures could be taken on a trade level against Canada should it choose a path that would be truly unilateral as opposed to working with its multilateral partners?
I'd be glad if you would like to comment on that. If it's outside the ambit of your presentation, that fine.
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I have a quick comment about what my colleague raised about the success of SEMA. It seems to me, as I've read SEMA, that the success of the legislative regime doesn't necessarily depend on how many prosecutions there are. I think the role that you play is one of prevention and enforcing the fact that there may be export and import restrictions that are imposed upon a country. A lot of that has to do with information sharing and the work at the border in preventing stuff from going to the place where it shouldn't be going and then in turn coming in as part of enforcing the regime. It's surprising there is one prosecution only and one successful conviction.
When we're talking about assets, they may be ill-gotten or they may be “properly gotten”, or whatever the expression is.
The thing that interests me with you is the life cycle of what you do in freezing an asset. In my mind that's freezing a bank account, seizing a house, freezing a security, or preventing an export. How difficult are any of those four things to do once you get the green light, and how long does it take, typically, once you have the green light?
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