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Results: 1 - 30 of 153
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?
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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.
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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?
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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?
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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?
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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?
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Exactly, so I represent a slight slice of the St. Lawrence—
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
I'd have to ask the CFO.
Voices: Oh, oh!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
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.
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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?
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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?
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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.
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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?
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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?
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
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.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Ms. Fenner, do you have a couple of words? I don't want you to miss your flight.
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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.
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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.
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View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
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?
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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