SHUR Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

SOUS-COMITÉ DES DROITS DE LA PERSONNE ET DU DÉVELOPPEMENT INTERNATIONAL DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DES AFFAIRES ÉTRANGÈRES ET DU COMMERCE INTERNATIONAL

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, December 10, 1997

• 1553

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Colleen Beaumier (Brampton West—Mississauga, Lib.)): I call to order the Sub-Committee on Human Rights and International Development of the Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. We are examining international child abductions. Today as witnesses we have Heather Ritchie—I believe Heather is an attorney who specializes in child and family law and has been involved in helping get back a child of Nancy White's—and Angelina Medjed-Cosovic. Angelina is still waiting for the return of her child, as is Ron Reddy.

We're very pleased you could make it here today. We have a number of questions. We're very interested in hearing your stories, but we're also very interested in hearing what you think we can do as possible solutions and preventive measures for other parents who haven't yet encountered your tragedies.

We will begin with Heather, please.

Ms. Heather Ritchie (Individual Presentation): Thank you. It's nice to be back in this building. I grew up running around in here. My dad was head of External Affairs for years. Now it's the Senate building. I suppose that's all right.

The point at which lawyers become involved in this sort of situation is the point at which the damage has already been done. We set out to recover the child. We set out to establish jurisdiction. We try to put legal protections in place at that point to prevent a repetition of the same thing. You would be horrified at how often this happens more than once to the same family.

I'll receive a distraught call from a parent, or in some cases, such as Nancy's, a family member. The bottom line at that stage is that time is of the essence. I'll contact Gar Pardy over at External Affairs, without whom I'm sure most of us would have failed. I'll contact the consulate in the country in which the child is now located. I'll contact Child Find and the International Social Services. We have a representative here of the International Social Services. And I'll contact the reciprocity office in Toronto if it's in fact a Hague application or a Hague signatory country.

• 1555

For the parent whose child has been abducted, there are two ways out of this situation. The first is self-help or, as Gar Pardy put it to me, “gunboat mentality”. It has to be used with some caution. The second is the legal process, and that legal process has to occur in both jurisdictions.

If I'm going to use the first technique of self-help or gunboat mentality, I must establish unequivocally that Canada has jurisdiction under both Canadian law and the Hague, if in fact the Hague is applicable. If I take the self-help approach and I can't establish jurisdiction, then we're going to be back fighting the good fight again when a Hague application or other legal processes are commenced in Canada against the person who has recovered the child.

In other words, it may well backfire unless you have a good solid case to establish habitual place of residence in Canada prior to the abduction. And that's the bottom line. You have to establish “habitual and ordinary place of residence”. In the Hague convention that's the definitive clause. In our legislation, both in the Criminal Code and in the family law statutes, that's the critical clause.

You have to establish that habitual and ordinary place of residence was not changed on consent. Did you move to Greece or Pakistan or Jordan or wherever? That habitual place of residence cannot be changed by abduction under Canadian law, but can it under the law of some other country where perhaps a religious dictate will determine that the best interest of a child is better served by establishing that the habitual place of residence of a child is where the parent originated? And it should not be able to be altered by the passage of time, but it is. Status quo is everything.

Once we've used that gunboat mentality and we have the kid back here we just sit tight and get ready to defend ourselves from the onslaught, both personal and legal. The same thing, as I'm sure you will hear, that can be done to recover a child in another country by means of self-help rather than through the legal channels can be done in reverse, and our borders are not secure from someone coming and doing exactly the same thing and removing the child yet again. And we of course have the legal onslaught through the Hague convention or any other means that may be brought in the courts.

If, on the other hand, we determine that we're going to use the legal process with respect to recovering the child, if it's a Hague convention country we contact the reciprocity office. The reciprocity office, which is under the office of The Children's Lawyer in Ontario, will allow us to bring an application through their office. This is a provincial jurisdiction.

As Mr. Reddy was pointing out in our discussions today, the fact that we have a difficulty with the provincial jurisdiction and the federal jurisdiction with respect to children creates an enormous problem in trying to recover children.

The Hague application process is agonizingly slow, and again, I say time is of the essence. Status quo is everything. The best interests of a child may well be determined by where the child is and for how long, no matter what brought the child to that place.

I have to say that one of the big difficulties with using the Hague application is the limited quality of representation that the person will receive in the other country. It's a little difficult to ask the national in the other country who's on the equivalent of a legal aid retainer—just slightly above the poverty line in Canada—to actually make a strong representation with respect to the return of what may be perceived as a national child back to Canada.

Quite simply, it's not vigorously pursued, and the administrative steps that are taken in some countries cause undue delay. In fact, they enormously prejudice the child's safety and the position of the parent trying to recover the child.

Furthermore, however, the reciprocity office and the Hague application has the one advantage of in itself having a limited cost, but sometimes you get what you pay for. If it's a non-Hague Convention country and we're going to start the legal process, the first step I recommend is to pray. The second is to revert to number one, and that was the gunboat mentality. Failing that, you move for an order in Canada. For what it's worth, you establish jurisdiction and get an order for the return of the child.

• 1600

Unless this is a post-separation abduction, there may already be an order in existence. Let's say the parties have separated before this abduction occurs. The mom may already have the order for custody of the child, and dad scoops the child. It's a little easier to get the child back because you already have a court order in place, but not a whole lot, as my friend here is going to indicate to you. The court order in Canada is good in Canada.

We attempt to have the country where the child is found to recognize a valid Canadian order, but as all three of my friends here will advise you, that just simply doesn't happen. What's the ordinary place of residence? What are the priorities that will determine the best interest of a child? We get an order in Canada and, under a Supreme Court of Canada decision, it may in fact not even be granted or found to be valid because it is what has been determined to be a chasing order. In such a case, the child has left the country and you're getting an order to try to get the child back, as opposed to an order to keep the child from leaving. The likelihood that another country is going to recognize a valid Canadian order is just not bloody likely.

I'm going to give you a couple of scenarios. They should give you an indication of what the difficulties are and what the process is.

Mrs. Siddique's case originated in Pakistan. Ms. Casselman, who's sitting behind us, was of great assistance with respect to this particular file. Mrs. Siddique went back to Pakistan on a holiday to see her mother, who was dying of cancer. When she arrived there, she discovered that her mother was neither sick nor dying, and at that point her husband had her admitted to a psychiatric hospital. It took him two cracks at it. The first one said the only problem she had was him. The second one admitted her and she was kept sedated in a coma for up to 36 hours at a stretch. When she was allowed back out, she was kept separate and apart from her children, and the only contact allowed to be made was under supervision.

The Chair: Could you slow down just a little bit? I've just been told the translator is having a little bit of a problem keeping up.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: Absolutely.

As a lawyer, when they tell us ten minutes in court, they mean go.

So there's Mrs. Siddique, she's living separately and apart from her children in Pakistan, and she is allowed to see them if she behaves. She calls the consulate. The consulate tells her that if she gets back to Canada, they can help her. So she attempts to do just that. Prior to leaving, she gathers her two children, stays at her sister's, and tries to find a way out. The door is kicked in, and her brother and his family come in and take the two children from her. The children are screaming and crying, and the little boy, eleven years old, is saying, “Mommy, is it all right to ask God to let me die?” That's the last she's ever heard of her son; we don't even know if he's alive. Mrs. Siddique gets back to Canada and is told by the Government of Canada that she has misunderstood. If she could have gotten back with the children, they could have helped her.

In any case, we went into the court in Ontario and established habitual place of residence. The children had been born here, were raised here. There was no question that there was jurisdiction over the children, although they were now in Pakistan and although he had now filed for divorce.

We established criminal proceedings. He had abducted the children, and there was in fact a criminal charge laid eventually. We had some legal impediments. There was an apparently voluntary leaving by Mrs. Siddique when she went to see her dying mother who wasn't dying. There was a status quo that had become entrenched. Those children had now been there for a substantial period of time. The test for the best interests of a child is frequently stability.

When the child has been there for awhile, you're fighting a losing battle. Even if they say the child was habitually and ordinarily resident in Ontario at some stage, that child is now habitually and ordinarily resident elsewhere, and it's going to disturb and upset the child who has now tried to re-establish his or her life somewhere else. You have children who have been told terrible things that are not true about the other parent. If you ask them now, they don't necessarily want to return. The abducting parent has had time to block your proceedings with their own domestic proceedings, either by way of divorce or custody. If it's a criminal abduction, we must establish that in fact it was an involuntary return to the country, in this case Pakistan. This is generally applicable under an already established order using the Criminal Code of Canada.

• 1605

The approach we took was that we obtained an ex parte order on notice to establish jurisdiction over the children and then we got Mr. Siddique in, who asked if he could just have a couple of weeks to put his paperwork together. The court declined to give us the order that would have protected those children and brought them back or that would have kept Mr. Siddique in this country and taken his passport from him. Mr. Siddique went back to Pakistan and has not come back since.

We had established jurisdiction over the children, we had Mr. Siddique here with his passport, and the court could not give me an order that would hold his passport and prevent him from doing just what he did. We had jurisdiction over the father. We asked legal aid for help. They refused. I had an indigent woman who had just barely made it back. We asked for help in Pakistan and the women's defence fund was going to help us, but the process was too slow and by the time we got to the point where anything could have been done, too much time, too much status quo had been established.

The consulate made contact with the children. The International Social Service offered to check on the kids, and the children's lawyer was eventually appointed. At about 5 o'clock one morning we made a surprise call to the home and we were actually able to have my client speak with her daughter for the first time in years. Her daughter cursed her roundly, knowing nothing about her mother but that her mother had deserted her, and there was no word about the son.

At the end of the day we achieved minimal contact with the daughter and not one word about the son. Our problems were time delay, bad or misunderstood advice from a consulate, no Hague Convention, and no money. Nothing we did in Canada was recognized. The bottom line is that we've lost Mr. Siddique.

A second but shorter scenario is in the Republic of China, in which a dear little baby girl went back with her parents for a holiday. She stayed with grandparents. Was the habitual place of residence changed then on a voluntary basis? We brought a civil proceeding on notice in Canada to try to recover the child, but the father would not allow the child to return. We got a general civil court order for the return, for the seize of the passport, and for the warrant, and Mr. xxx Chen just left through the United States.

We did have Interpol involved and the RCMP, and they did block the Vancouver airport, the Montreal airport, and the Toronto airport. They did pick off a Mr. Chen. It was the wrong man, a foot and a half shorter, twenty years older, and mad as a hornet. Our guy got out through the States.

Our next step was that we retained a lawyer in China to negotiate to see if we could obtain the return of the child, at least for access. We were successful, but not for reasons you would anticipate. He had to return to Canada. He had a job. Interpol was going to stop him at every airport and apparently he had had a fairly significant experience at Tiananmen Square that suggested he should get the hell out, so we did get the child back.

Then we have Nancy's situation. That's in Greece, which is a Hague Convention country. She lived there, she married there, she had a child born there. She came back to Canada to live for a few years, or less than that.

Ms. Nancy White (Individual Presentation): I established residence.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: Yes, she established residence here and returned on a holiday to Greece. On the day she was to return, he said no, neither one of them was going to return and he had their travel documents of all sorts.

The fact that she had lived there, married there, had the child there, and was present there would create a Greek jurisdiction. We then documented with all the evidence you can imagine, affidavits about that deep, the evidence that she and he had established residence here. He'd even applied for landed immigrant status. However, it was all too weak for any criminal abduction charges and we were going through the civil process.

The parents contacted me. Nancy was there with her baby boy. We brought an application. I had to obtain my instructions from Nancy in the most coded conversations you can imagine at the family restaurant in this little tiny town of Killini in Greece. She gave me her very clear instructions and the strength in her voice grew.

Her father and I obtained an order and it is a chasing order. It's an order after the child has been removed. We had a problem; we couldn't serve the order. We were terrified he would carry out his threat and kill himself and the child—they'd be floating in the bay—or that he'd do what he eventually did do, which was to threaten her with a gun.

• 1610

She attempted to leave with both the court order in hand and with the assistance of the consulate. Her father went over to get her. They didn't understand, I suspect, the seriousness and how fast you have to move. He got wind of it. They were arrested at 6 a.m. on Christmas Eve and convicted by 1 p.m.

We contacted the reciprocity office and began the slow process of the Hague Convention application. It was agonizing. It was virtually useless. It was almost an impediment. They were cautious, and they had a limited ability to act directly.

Time and bureaucracy stood in our way. Time was of the essence. The status quo was being established with each and every day. The solution—as was the solution with the lady from the Republic of China, and was absent in Mrs. Siddique's case—was money.

We drafted documents and translated material at enormous expense. Her parents funded her stay while she stayed and refused to abandon the child. It cost a fortune. We hired an aggressive, Greek, non-Hague Convention representative—a lawyer in Greece—to give a good poke to the Hague Convention lawyer, who didn't seem overly anxious to do much towards getting a national's child removed from him and from the country.

We pushed from both sides of the Atlantic. In the final analysis, however, I have to tell you it was self-help again. We had the court order. He had left with the child somewhere; we couldn't locate him. We had gone through the Hague process, the courts in Greece and in Canada. He was nowhere to be found. The threats stood.

He came up and bothered Nancy one day and she clocked him. He returned the child. She had enormous parental support and fantastic tenacity. We harassed that man. We had private investigators. We were bugging his phones. He couldn't move. We knew exactly where his socks and underwear were stored. We had that man tied up so tight that his life was going to be miserable. We had criminal charges laid, but they were pretty weak. They seem to last about 48 hours over there.

Eventually, however, when he returned that little boy, and I saw the boy come through the Toronto airport with Nancy, it was this stunned little child of about three years of age who called his mother “aunty”, because he didn't recognize her and spoke no English. Nancy just gave me a picture of him—he's fine now.

My general observation would be that we have to somehow get better representation in the other country where this is happening, and that it's going to have to come from here. Wherever I've had money in the other country—not for the lawyer in this country, but the money in the other country—I can get some action. We have to get representation for people in this country when they have to deal with this sort of thing. Not everyone is going to be flush with money, and frequently people are quite indigent. The reciprocity office is pathetic. They mean to do well, but they're underfunded, and they just don't have what it takes to be able to give it some muscle, and we have to give them some muscle.

What we need from Parliament and from the legislatures is better legislation. We have to block the borders so that someone cannot get out.

I was talking to Mr. Reddy on this, and his suggestion is, if you want to leave with a child and you're one person without the other parent, you should have not only a consent that has been signed, but some kind of a standardized, notarized document that goes through some central location, so you can verify that “From this date to that date I allow that child to leave with that person, and that jurisdiction is not changed by my doing so”. What's happening is people are going through with a signed consent, and who knows who's signed it? Who knows who commissioned it? Who knows whether it's legitimate?

We have to stop the flow through the United States. It's far too easy an access. We have to have education somewhere out there so people understand the impact of having a child go for a holiday to another country or to travel elsewhere. We have to fund some expertise and some courage into the reciprocity office. We have to make the legislative changes bolster something akin to legal aid for this purpose, and get somehow in court orders that which the judges don't want to give us. They say it's unenforceable if it's a chasing order, but I want it anyway. I want it because it has weight, and because if this person does come to Canada or does go into a country where I may be able to enforce it...but I have judges who are trying to refuse. We need non-removal clauses and limited consent in court orders that are made with respect to children. That's a lawyer's job, not yours. We have to tighten up the borders.

• 1615

We have two success stories and a tragedy. I daily hear of the tragedies more than the successes. There's a desperate need to somehow bring this together so we have some kind of central repository, as Mr. Reddy has said, with respect to custody orders and so that we have some way of controlling the borders as much as it may inconvenience people. When you have a child taken from a parent, the tragedy will go on for the rest of that generation and the generation after it. We have responsibility to these children above all else.

If there are any questions I'd be happy to field them.

The Chair: We generally leave our questions until the end. That was very informative. Thank you.

Ms. White, were you going to make a presentation as well?

Ms. Nancy White: If I may, I'd like to say a few things.

The Chair: Yes.

Ms. Nancy White: I have prepared a written submission as well, which I believe everyone has a copy of, identifying briefly my background and also identifying some problems and recommendations.

The Chair: That sounds like just what we're looking for. Thank you.

Ms. Nancy White: I won't bother going through that, but I would like to thank you for inviting me here today; it's a pleasure. I want to thank as well Heather Ritchie and Gar Pardy, as well as all of Foreign Affairs, who have helped me enormously and continue to. I also want to take this opportunity to thank the Canadian embassy in Greece; they were incredibly supportive. I understand through Ron that the Canadian embassy in Jordan have also been extraordinarily supportive.

I've lost my train of thought, give me a moment.

Heather outlined some of my background. I went on a brief trip back to Greece with my first husband and my son, Tom, who was at that time one and a half. It was actually the second day we arrived when I looked in my purse to find that all of my documentation as well as Tom's had been taken. At that time I still had access to a phone so I was able to call home and let my parents know I needed help. I was being held against my will. They were able to start the process.

Four months later, after that phone call, although Heather had been working furiously with Foreign Affairs to get court orders here, there was just a block in the process. We couldn't move forward. Finally, my parents found another translator in Toronto who said you should get in there and get your daughter out. This was the only advice they were able to get after four months. There was no one else in the government that told us where to go. No one seemed to know what to do. There was no contact source. There was no process established as to who we should contact and what do we do next. We didn't know the name of the lawyer who had been appointed to me, although one had been appointed by the Hague Convention in Greece. I wasn't aware of it; he wasn't able to get in touch with me.

Anyway, four months later, after making that first call, my father came to get me—to kidnap me, basically. We are convicted of kidnapping my son. Six weeks later finally the Hague hearing was held. Three weeks after that, although we hadn't received a decision from the Hague trial, my ex-husband had filed for custody and that was being heard. That apparently is against the Hague rules. You can't have a custody—well, I'm sure you're aware of the order.

Heather, help me if you can.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: You can't bring a separate proceeding when one has already been brought under the Hague.

Ms. Nancy White: That's right, because residency had still not been established. Yet it was heard in Greece. No one there seemed to know the rules as well. It started here, but it proceeded throughout. I imagine it's the same in many other countries, if not all other countries.

• 1620

So there's no definite process. Without my parents' financial help, I am sure I would still be in Greece, living with this criminal and my son, to stay with my son.

As Heather pointed out, we had this very unmotivated Hague-appointed lawyer, who didn't speak a word of English. He didn't really care what happened to me. So I had two more lawyers appointed for me in Greece, or we found two more lawyers. I think the translation fee alone was $15,000.

About translation, when the Hague order was sent over to the Greek courts, it wasn't translated. It had to come back, be officially translated, then sent forward. There just seemed to be no easily identifiable process.

Without the money, without my parents' and Heather's perseverance, I would not have my son back. Although I received incredible support from External Affairs and the embassy, a lot more could have been done.

As Heather has pointed out, time was of the essence. My life was threatened. My son's life was threatened. You hear about these people all the time. They turn around and they kill their whole families and they kill themselves. It's real. It's real. So time is of the essence, and you certainly won't get through it quickly with the process that's established today. I'll look forward, when following up, to hearing what recommendations this subcommittee will take forward.

One I've outlined in my submission is a databank of information, so people can take others' experiences and go forward with those. Heather and several other lawyer friends have offered their services, and you couldn't find a better source. I will look forward to hearing your recommendations as well.

The Chair: Thank you.

Angelina, would you like to make a presentation?

Ms. Angelina Medjed-Cosovic (Individual Presentation): Yes. I would like to thank you for inviting me today to the committee. I hope we will achieve something if we work together really hard. I hope it's not going to prolong my case. I would like results in the future, and the rest of my life I will be trying to achieve something.

I'm a new immigrant. I've been in Canada only seven years. I cannot speak English. I'm trying hard to learn. Excuse me if it's a little broken; I'm not shy about that.

When a marriage has broken up, custody is the major issue. I hope the judge will recognize sooner or later if he is unable to separate the two parties like civil people he really should consider it very seriously and as soon as possible, to avoid a family conflict. I'm really talking about my own experience, and I'm truthful from the bottom of my heart.

More than one year ago I started proceedings to obtain sole custody. My ex-husband tried to avoid anything and he used all the resources he had, including my mother. I had to send him to court and then prove myself. It's not easy; but for me it wasn't that hard. I know myself and I work hard. I can do anything if I'm healthy. I'm looking forward to that goal, and I will achieve it.

Secondly, after a very difficult case—he was very brutal, sarcastic, humiliating, uncooperative—I was able to obtain custody. He asked about joint custody. I didn't agree to that, because I tried to avoid all verbal, emotional, maybe physical, abuse. It's not easy to explain to a child what is really going on. They get confused and it's not easy for them. I concentrate on the well-being and safety of my children. I try my best and I work hard to achieve my goal.

Secondly, my major issue was to prevent issuing the passport, because from the bottom of my heart I knew he was going to abduct my son.

On April 27 he was abducted. It was a Sunday, Orthodox Easter. He picked the geographical way, he picked the time and everything else, such that he could succeed. He certainly planned very solidly.

In court, on March 11, I begged the judge like a little girl, “Please, please, can you see he's going to do that?” My plea was ignored and my access was denied. I was told I don't know how to behave in court and I was really irritating him. This hurts me, and I'm going to face him in the court sooner or later. I couldn't sleep. It just bothered me day by day.

• 1625

I tried and tried so hard: “Please, can you understand, can you see?” On the way in, when the judge turned away, he showed in a very ugly and sarcastic way.... I could see it in his eyes. Maybe I'm the only one who knows how he's manipulative and sarcastic towards me.

I tried so hard, but I couldn't succeed.

On the way I phoned the passport department and the University of Toronto and I told them about my situation. Certainly I didn't have yet the court order that I could fax them as proof. However, they seemed quite understanding.

Also, I phoned the Yugoslavian consul in Ottawa to try to prevent them from issuing a passport, because I knew what he was going to do. Also, I told them of the possibility that he could buy another empty passport, take some seal and attach it. That was his plan, and certainly when people are planning sometimes they have to speak the truth, because their conscience has to work somehow.

It seems as if nobody considered it very seriously. I went to the school. I talked to the school about my son and I told them, please, you have to phone me if he leaves for only five minutes. I put on a list who could pick him up. I brought the pictures. I showed the teachers and everything. I tried everything to prevent this incident.

But I couldn't, and then when he was missing I was very frustrated and mad.

The school phoned me. He hadn't come to school. I knew right away. I phoned the police and they said to me, “Oh, Madam, calm down, it's not time yet, we have to wait 24 hours.” I said, “Can you realize he's missing?” “How do you know?” “I know because I had awful dreams and I phoned somebody and I told them, I don't know what else he can do to me.”

I started procedures right away, even though I didn't have the ruling. I tried to pursue them. I was angry, nasty, assertive, and I used my dirty language. I just burst out. I couldn't control myself. How could they not understand?

I phoned some agency, tried to trick them. I was able to locate him. He bought a ticket and he flew to Germany. After that they told me, I know he's going towards Yugoslavia.

He's a very incapable man. He needs somebody. He needs his family. His family, certainly from the government.... His uncle used to work on the central committee of the Communist Party, and I know they have an influence. They are very influential. It's very hard to fight with them.

I phoned everybody. I started with the police, missing children, Child Find, then the ministry in Ottawa. Then I phoned the Yugoslavian embassy in Belgrade, my friends, international social service, police in Montenegro, police in Bosnia, some of my friends. I phoned the social service, tried to be involved in my case to the maximum, because I know he's going to fly with the child like a bird, from one place to another. I tried to prevent this and I did everything that's possible, but certainly I didn't receive any results, and still haven't today.

I'm trying so hard and it's very difficult. It seems nobody is considering this to be a very serious crime, offence. This is not just crime, this is sickness. To do such a crime, you have to be sick.

I have lots of experience in psychiatry. I've faced it for 20 years; I know what's the manipulation and what's the sickness.

I hope my child is not going to be a death case. Personally I know the case because I work on it, and if anybody can consider the safety issue not criminally responsible, this is wrong. One child died.

I hope I'm not going to see this, because I asked them to prevent this issuing but nobody seems to consider it very seriously.

Then I started a procedure in Yugoslavia. I hired a lawyer. The lawyer asked for U.S. money because of international law. I took out $5,000 on my credit cards and I paid her by e-mail right away so she could start the procedure.

He found a way to delay the case. First of all he accused me of being a mentally ill patient, in psychiatry for my mental health, saying I'm a drug abuser and I'm in severe depression and have contemplated suicide.

It took me one month to improve. I went to my co-workers and to my nurse manager. I went to payroll and they wrote me a letter and that proves that I'm working there, that I'm not a patient. That takes time. It's very serious and it's a very ugly time.

I won the first part of the custody, but somehow they issued a...because certainly his family are very influential and they do it to delay everything.

• 1630

Then he started phoning me weekly, taunting me. Then he paid some gentleman who was 53 years old to attack my 16-year-old boy. I was continually with the police. I didn't know what to do. How could he be this way? What's going on?

On October 30, he phoned me again. He put on the other child, who couldn't speak English. He didn't have a bloody clue about Halloween.

I tried to phone the police. I tried to trace his number through the police department, but certainly, they're very uncooperative. They certainly don't know what to do, and they're blaming the two countries. They told me my son is not Canadian. By birth, my son is Canadian. My son is missing from Canada, not from Yugoslavia.

When I phoned the Yugoslavian authorities, they said I was Canadian, so they didn't want to deal with me. How can I be Canadian? I had citizenship in 1994 and my son is Canadian by birth. What is going to make realistic sense to a normal, natural person who doesn't make any normal friends? He's just trying to delay.

I also spoke to the ministry for foreign affairs, to social services, to supervise and to check on my son frequently. Certainly nobody considered this very seriously because they got the statement from social services in Montenegro that he's well and has been attending school. He was in school five days, but he just phoned now. What's five days between three months?

This is psychological and emotional abuse. He doesn't let him speak on the phone with me. He isolates him. He's pounding him. Who knows what else? If he's capable of doing this thing, he's capable of doing anything.

Nobody cares about the child. They said it's expensive. I tried to pursue the RCMP to pursue him in Interpol. He can't flee from the country. They said it's expensive. They said I knew what was going on. Certainly, it's because I'm an immigrant woman. If the son of Mike Harris or Jean Chrétien was missing, within 24 hours, I believe he would be in Canada. Honest to God, I'm talking from the bottom of my heart.

Money shouldn't matter with the child's well-being. Consider that if the child is damaged, he can't be rectified for the rest of his life.

Through all this, it's the fear. They blame themselves. Then after that, they've been taunted by other parents. Certainly, how can he see me as a parent? Nobody even looked into that.

Plus, I have to work every day. This is my first day off today. I worked six months without any days off. I have to include that, financially; I have to live. Also, I have another child too. Nobody considers that. I'm baking cookies to survive. I'm doing anything. I'm working in the ships and all kinds of stuff, but somebody's sleeping in the La-Z-Boy chair in the ministry of foreign affairs while my heart is bleeding and crying—this is from the bottom of my heart—because a fine judge didn't consider this very serious. This damage is done to me for the rest of my life.

I didn't come here today to cry, but I just have to because I don't know what else to do. Whatever I do, it seems like it doesn't work.

We need more education in Canada, because my kid is missing from Canada. My child was born in Canada. I'm thinking of staying here, but what do I get? Nothing. I work hard to improve. Thank God for my co-workers because they're really good to me. Anything I do, they're considerate.

Sometimes I ask how I can function. One day, I'm very low and down; another day, I'm an optimist again and I can go on with my life.

But I'm sick and tired of the police statement in which they say he's with the father, so what do I want. I don't like that statement when they say they know how I feel. Nobody knows how I feel. I don't wish that my biggest enemy felt like this.

Honest to God, I was expecting to see Bob Mills. Certainly, his clerk came to see me. If I could get six hours in one week to take the day off and pedal over there, why can't I meet that gentleman? It's because he's going to work on an old case.

How can we achieve something if we are not strong? No, that's not right. I'm expressing myself...and I'm not counting on anybody any more. They said we are doing some truly good things and the Canadian embassy people went three times but they didn't see my boy.

• 1635

I asked them to see him, to check on him. They don't believe me. It seems they are focusing more on what the grandparents said than on what I am saying as a guardian and custodial parent. This is not right.

Something must be done. Somebody has to re-educate those people. I don't know what to do. I'm calling the police back home and I know. I work all the time in forensic psychiatry. Then I was involved a little more in the law and I know what to do a little, but the geographical distance, then the holidays, then the days and nights reversing the time...I am losing. I have now spent $15,000 U.S. I put my cards for baking the cookies everywhere. My eldest son is feeding me. What more could I expect from a child 16 years old? I don't know.

I don't know where to go any more. I think something will be achieved with this committee, and I hope not within two or ten years....

The Chair: Thank you, Angelina.

Ms. Angelina Medjed-Cosovic: You're welcome.

The Chair: You said something there that I think struck us all. When people say they know how you feel, they don't know how you feel. And we don't know how you feel. Certainly your presentation here today brought us a little closer to understanding maybe a little of what you feel. I know it was difficult for you. Thank you.

Ron.

Mr. Ron Reddy (Individual Presentation): Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

First of all, I'd like to say that my prayers and best wishes are with all my friends here as witnesses today.

I'm going to preface my argument with the premise that international child abduction should be considered child abuse and kidnapping. It's not abduction; it's kidnapping.

I'm the father of a beautiful two-year-old baby girl named Yasmine Reddy. Just like any loving parent, my daughter is the light of my life. Therefore, I was devastated to learn on February 16, 1997, that my estranged wife and her father had kidnapped my child and taken her to the Kingdom of Jordan. I spent the next eight months of my life in a living nightmare while desperately sifting through a corrupted bureaucratic quagmire to save my daughter. It was clear there was nowhere to turn.

On February 16, 1997, I reported to the RCMP that my daughter and wife were missing. The RCMP were reluctant to help.

Mr. Svend Robinson (Burnaby—Douglas, NDP): Excuse me, Madam Chair, and sorry to interrupt, Ron, but in terms of time, is it your intention to read the—

Mr. Ron Reddy: No. I have a presentation that I've given to everybody. I'm not going to read it all. I'm going to skip and sift through it all and try to get to the bottom.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure there's some time for questions.

The Chair: We have a lot of questions here for the panel.

Mr. Ron Reddy: I just want to get the main premise of my arguments and some background in front of you.

The Chair: Yes, please.

Mr. Ron Reddy: Finally, after three weeks of persistence and searching, the RCMP took a statement from me and began to pursue the case.

Nevertheless, I discovered from my own investigation that my wife was staying with her father in the Islamic nation of Jordan. Despite the fact that it was nearly one month since I had seen or heard from my daughter, the RCMP still refused to pursue charges and investigate further. Obviously, my case was not a priority.

On March 20, 1997, I left my job as a pharmacist and flew to Jordan to save my daughter. Before departing, I received a telephone call from my wife's father and I asked him where my daughter was. He replied, “Come here and get her and I will kill you.”

As a result, when I arrived in Jordan I was stalked and harassed by my estranged wife's father and his cohorts. They even stalked the Canadian embassy and staff. The situation grew so serious that at one point the Canadian ambassador called the Jordanian government for extra police security around me and key embassy staff. The security arrived in the form of a jeep equipped with a machine-gun turret.

These are serious situations. That's why I say it's not abduction, it's kidnapping. The children are in danger and we're in danger. Certainly, there should be more done.

As was mentioned by Nancy, the Canadian embassy was very helpful, but I think it was on a personal level. Mrs. Laurie Poirier, who is the consul at the embassy, was extremely sympathetic and helpful as a person, as a human being, but it was clear that the embassy had no assets or effective protocol from Ottawa to deal with my case or any serious case like this matter. Their hands were tied.

• 1640

I realized I was facing Islamic law, a foreign culture, and a foreign language alone. The merits of my daughter's case were clear to me. She's a Canadian citizen. She's not a Jordanian; she's only a Canadian. What jurisdiction did Jordan have over my daughter, and why was Ottawa not acting decisively to protect my child's future? These are questions I had. I decided to examine the situation myself.

I met, through my own contacts, the chief of the Jordanian supreme court, the chief of the Jordanian Islamic court, several members of the Jordanian parliament, a general in the Jordanian military, and the former adviser to the Jordanian prime minister and founder of the U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce.

They told me that I would never make any significant progress as a foreigner in the Jordanian court system. The system was based upon a feudalistic Bedouin tribal form of justice that was driven by family influence. I was told that judges and police would be reluctant to issue orders against large influential families. I was told under Islamic law only the mother could get custody of the children, especially a girl until the age of puberty. Also, I was told that the father would only be given supervised access for one hour per week in the interim. Of course, as a foreigner you probably wouldn't get any of those rights.

They told me there was no judicial protocol between Canada and Jordan; therefore I was advised that the only solution to saving my daughter was an appeal by the Canadian Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs to the King of Jordan to issue a royal decree to repatriate my daughter, who, again, is a Canadian citizen.

Confidentially, they told me the Jordanian system was subject to corruption and influence pedalling; that is, bribes to key government officials, foreign ministry officials or judges by influential Jordanians would get government projects or cooperation on certain decisions. Therefore, many key initiatives would be stopped at lower levels by my estranged wife's Jordanian father with well-placed bribery or influence pedalling.

I was also advised that Jordan, like many other countries, was servicing its economy, which is operating a negative cashflow, with large amounts of foreign aid from countries like the United States, Canada, Japan, and Europe. As a result, strategic pressure in the form of withholding, delaying, or reducing economic aid would be highly effectively in encouraging compliance with respect to issues like international child abduction, human rights or child abuse. All Jordanian officials unanimously agreed that my case would require much more vigorous intervention by the Canadian government.

In mid-November 1997 our Honourable Minister Lloyd Axworthy travelled to Jordan. I understand that Mr. Axworthy raised my case, my daughter's plight, with the Jordanian minister of foreign affairs in the presence of Crown Prince Hassan. No response from Jordan has been received to date. It is clear that vigorous follow-up will be needed to solve my case. As well, this case can be used a template and a guide through which bilateral relationships can be forged with respect to solving international abuse issues.

Clearly, addressing the needs of many Canadian and international children and parents experiencing such blatant forms of human rights abuses requires vigorous intervention, starting from the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as Ottawa, with the same intensity, I might add, that recently forged the historic landmine accord.

The strategies I've outlined in my paper that I've submitted to you involve basically breaking up the treaty negotiation process. Right now we're trying to address the issue of child abduction by having a repatriation agreement like the Hague Convention, which is a multilateral agreement. I do not believe this is going to work in the world. It's certainly not going to work in the Middle East. We need to break up the issue into access and visitation, and repatriation—two separate treaties.

The main concern of a parent, the number one concern, is we want to know where the child is. Is the child alive or dead? Is she or he okay? Will International Social Services have access to that child? Will that child be given the same rights they had in Canada? Will they have medical attention? Will they have food? Will they have clothing? Will they have education? Will they be taken care of? These issues can be taken care of in a separate treaty while the repatriation issues are heard. Repatriation is a very complex issue, certainly when it comes to the Middle East, where you have overriding religious and cultural issues and traditions that have to be addressed.

• 1645

Therefore this is my suggestion for the bilateral accord for access and visitation in non-Hague countries where child kidnapping is involved. The left-behind parent should immediately be allowed unfettered access to their child on a periodic basis unless this access is deemed to be harmful to the child. In this case supervised access can be granted until the merits of such an argument are verified.

The period should be at least three days per week, or more on mutual agreement. Therefore the left-behind parent would be allowed free access to their child for three days a week.

Non-compliance would be subject to criminal sanctions and fines. The order would be enforced by local authorities.

This application is made through a central authority similar to The Hague, usually the attorney general's office. Parents should be given this right without delay.

The RCMP could, by agreement, issue a request, which would be recognized by the foreign jurisdiction. The foreign authorities would locate and question the abducting parent. The abducting parent would be required to report to local authorities on a weekly basis as to the whereabouts and well-being of the child. Failure to report would be subject to criminal sanctions.

The embassy could request at any time, and would request, and provide for the first time a medical doctor, who would assess the child's health. ISS, or International Social Services, would also be allowed to assess the child on a periodic basis thereafter. This order would be enforceable by local authorities and provided without delay.

Any attempt to travel must be reported by the abducting parent.

The Canadian child kidnapped and held in a foreign jurisdiction would still maintain basic rights to food, shelter, medical attention, clothing, and education. International Social Services would be allowed to assess the child and the embassy would be obliged to provide social services for the child.

A forum for dialogue for the parents should be facilitated.

A response team should be formed by the Department of Foreign Affairs specifically to deal with this issue; that is, child abduction. The team would involve attorneys knowledgeable in international law, such as Heather Ritchie; perhaps attorneys who are familiar with Islamic law; social workers; medical doctors; whoever is necessary, as determined by the committee.

Specific targets and goals should be ascertained. With or without ratification of such bilateral treaties, international foreign aid should already be included as a factor for complying with specific human rights issues, such as child abuse and child kidnapping.

The second accord would be the accord for repatriation. It would follow positions similar to those of The Hague. These bilateral accords could be done on a country-by-country basis in the Middle East. I think Jordan would be the ideal country to start, because the King of Jordan is certainly pro-west, and he has an ear for us. Once a bilateral accord is established with the King, certainly this accord could be used as a catalyst to move into other areas of the Middle East. The King has a lot of respect from other Islamic leaders in the area, and I think it would be an ideal forum for Canada and the international community to help solve a lot of these cases and certainly help a lot of these children.

In closing, I would like to address some of the consequences of child abduction.

Some of the consequences of child abduction are these. It's not just the child who is being abducted and is in another country. Certainly in some of the Middle East countries the child would be exposed to some physical dangers, such as female genital mutilation, honour crimes for women and children—I've included some articles from Jordan in my presentation to you to show these honour crimes, where a woman is accused of certain things and she's murdered, basically—lack of education, lack of medical care; many things. It is a crime, it is kidnapping. There is a definite physical risk to these children, and it should be addressed immediately by committees like this.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mrs. Debien.

There is so much, isn't there? This is a lot to digest today.

[Translation]

Mrs. Maud Debien (Laval East, BQ): Good afternoon, ladies, sir. First, I would like to thank you for coming to testify before our committee about such concrete, pathetic and tragic cases.

In view of this mass of information, you can understand that our committee will have very specific recommendations to make to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and to the Canadian government.

• 1650

A number of you, including Ms. Ritchie, offered a certain number of potential solutions and concrete examples. I'll ask a question in this area since that is part of our mandate as legislators. You said that one of the most powerful ways of trying to solve the problem of international abductions was to make significant legislative improvements. We are legislators and I would like you to tell us, knowing that we can't do everything and that not all your recommendations can be implemented immediately, what recommendations we should include in our report and what legislative improvements the Canadian government should make right away to obtain concrete results in the immediate future. Of course, there are short-term, medium-term and long-term solutions.

For now, however, since we are closely examining this problem, what do you suggest? What do you recommend be done immediately? What could the Canadian government do right away to begin to solve the problem of international abductions?

[English]

Ms. Heather Ritchie: There would be a number of areas in which some changes with respect to legislation would be helpful. Some would be regulatory, and those would be the ones we've referred to with respect to tightening the border. Those of us who practise law find that the legislation dealing with the issues of child abduction is sufficiently general that it's far too easy for another country to interpret them quite differently. I suspect that if in the Criminal Code the references to child abduction—and what I'm referring to there is under the Criminal Code, if there is no court order in place that says the custody is with one parent or the other, it's difficult to prove it's abduction. So we have to put something in place under the Criminal Code that's going to deal with situations such as those you've had described here.

This would be something that is going to in fact provide that there can be abduction where there are two parents who, by definition, have joint custody of the children since they reside as husband and wife or as parents of the children, and if one of them removes the child it becomes abduction without there having had to be a separate court order. In other words, if you don't anticipate or you don't want to precipitate a separation, what you have to have is the security that if one parent removes the child from the jurisdiction it will be seen as abduction in the absence of any court order. I think that's one area.

What we deal with in the civil courts, both in general and provincial levels, is the issue of habitual place of residence or ordinary place of residence of the child. It needs to be more tightly defined and the court has to be more willing in this country to take that jurisdiction. The court is, of course, going to be directed by the legislation; the legislation has to be more specific to allow judges in fact to do so.

One of the other problems, as we've discussed, has to do with chasing orders, where we have judges who are saying they cannot give us an order that cannot be enforced. If the child is in Jordan, for example, and Jordan is not going to recognize the chasing order, they don't want to give it to me. Of course, if Mr. Reddy's wife goes into a country where it may be recognized, or comes to Canada, it would be incredibly valuable. So we need something that is going to give them the muscle to be able to make what are now called chasing orders.

Once again, the Supreme Court made the rulings, and they had to do it on the basis of the legislation. We're asking that “ordinary and habitual place of residence” be very clearly defined to establish that you cannot change it by an act that may not be illegal but that does in fact amount to an abduction. We need the definitions to be tighter to allow the judges to do the job that most of the judges in fact wish to do, but they're limited by the legislation they have.

• 1655

We need to have much higher sanctions against anyone who commits these offences and is then found within the jurisdiction of Canada, and we need to have some protections in place with respect to the children once we do recover them. For someone who has committed such an offence in which the child has been recovered but the other parent comes back and scoops the child yet again—and I have to tell you that this happens repeatedly—you have to have some heavy consequences.

That's just touching on some possible areas, but it's just that, across the board and from a practical standpoint, you must give the courts and us the muscle to do the job.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Robinson, Mr. Bonwick has to leave shortly.

Mr. Paul Bonwick (Simcoe—Grey, Lib.): Do you mind, Svend?

Mr. Svend Robinson: No, go ahead.

The Chair: We'll give you seven minutes.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: I don't need that much. I'll keep it brief. And I apologize for having to run, but I have another committee as well.

This is certainly one of the most difficult situations I've had to sit in on and hear about. Having children, I certainly can't imagine what the feeling is like, but hearing it is moving just the same.

On some specific points, as each of you was speaking, I was taking down some notes with regard to statements and possible solutions. Mrs. Ritchie has commented or suggested—as previous witnesses have as well; not today, but as the committee has been sitting in previous weeks—that this is not necessarily a one-time crime. In fact, they're being returned or are effectively coming back into custody where they belong, and then it's happening again. I have a couple of points to make on that.

From a solution standpoint, I'm just wondering about sentencing possibly being a deterrent for a second time, about cost recovery possibly being associated with the person who is in fact taking the child or abducting the child, thereby establishing a significant deterrent to going through that again. The third was extradition. Would that be a significant counter?

I'll give you all of my questions at once, Mrs. Ritchie. Perhaps I can ask you to take some of them down so that you can comment on them.

With regard to border controls not being secure enough—I think that was the statement that was made—do you have some suggestions on some solutions with regard to tightening border controls. As we've heard from previous witnesses, we've identified some of the higher-risk areas, higher-risk countries, higher-risk cultures. Perhaps you have some suggestions on how we might pointedly deal with those as they're travelling out of our airports or across our border with the U.S. by train or whatever it might be.

With previous witnesses again, the committee has discussed specific policies on how to deal with suspicious circumstances. I'm curious about your comments on that. There do not appear to be any policies. For example, if Mr. Robinson and I are flying and we see a situation that we deem to be somewhat suspicious, there isn't a formal series of steps governing what we're supposed to do. We'll report it to the airline hostess or host, but there is no set of rules this person is supposed to follow. It's somehow left to the discretion of the individual to surmise whether or not it is a legitimate suspicion or an illegitimate suspicion. I'm therefore wondering if perhaps there should be a set of rules. If somebody complains, this is what you must do: you must report it to the captain because it is not your call; the captain must report it to the authorities because it is not his call; and there must be an affidavit or a notarized report when that plane lands or they will not be released into the country where they are actually going.

• 1700

You commented on seizure of passport, Ms. Ritchie. Whose passport are you talking about? Canadian passports or passports from other countries, keeping in mind the properties?

You also touched on the idea of The Hague sometimes actually being a hindrance. Certainly from previous witnesses we've heard the exact opposite, that it is extremely difficult to resolve the situation in non-Hague countries and try to return the child to his or her homeland.

You talked about some of the consulates not being as cooperative as they could be, or perhaps not administering. That certainly was my understanding in a couple of your statements. Again, that counters everything we've heard to this point, that in fact the consulates abroad are at least trying to be extremely cooperative.

Mr. Svend Robinson: That's the last time I give you my turn.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: I still have three minutes.

I'm just wondering about one last point on costing. Is it possible that perhaps it might be a benefit that all your costs would be a write-off or income tax credits?

Ms. Heather Ritchie: Yes.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: I'll back off, Svend. Sorry.

Mr. Ron Reddy: As long as you have income during that period, you can declare.

Mr. Paul Bonwick: Well, of course, there are carry forwards as well unless there's a bankruptcy. You have carry forwards for years in advance.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: In terms of the cost issue, under the Income Tax Act in Canada, if you have to take a court proceeding to deal with the issue of support, that is tax deductible. I agree with you that it's an excellent way to give some modest relief, though I must say most of the people I deal with who have this problem don't have any income to go against it.

With respect to the consulates, it wasn't the consulates we had the problem with; it was the reciprocity office. I have to say that in every event where I've used the consulate or External Affairs or Gar Pardy, I cannot say enough good. As for the reciprocity office, I don't think they're being difficult. I think they are understaffed and undereducated on the subject.

When I say they're a hindrance, I don't mean a hindrance compared to a non-Hague country. What I'm saying is that we see what they should be able to do, how they should be able to speed it up. The very administrative process they have seems to hinder exactly what they set out to do. What they set out to do, what's in their mandate, is right. What actually happens is that it's such a slow speed that the status quo gets established in the other country, and as we've discussed, that's a big problem.

The Chair: Could I have a clarification? You refer to the reciprocity office. Is that the central authority? Are you interchanging them?

Ms. Heather Ritchie: That's right. We address it in the reciprocity office in Toronto.

In terms of consequences, sentencing could certainly be an issue. I suggest seizure of property would probably be a really good way to hammer somebody. As for this fellow Siddique, he didn't have anything here of any great consequence, but if he'd had a business or something and we'd been able to seize it.... We work the other way around. In Nancy's case, we got a support order that was so high that if Mr. Spiros Voultsos shows up in this country, he thinks he's going to be bankrupt in 15 minutes.

In terms of border controls, I think Mr. Reddy's idea is an excellent idea. I'll give you an example. The father of my kids happens to be of Greek origin. Their last name begins with a Z, there's a great many “ou”s, and it does not resemble mine. Their father is deceased. We went to Mexico the year after he was deceased. I was travelling with two minors. I was stopped at the border. I didn't have an affidavit or anything from him. They insisted I had to get something from him, which did present a minor problem since he wasn't available to sign anything, and we had to actually hire a lawyer in the airport to do an affidavit. They had no idea who I was. The lawyer had no idea who I was. I signed an affidavit that said he was deceased. The kids were old enough to explain that they were all right, but some kids wouldn't have been.

Mr. Reddy's suggestion is that there be some sort of a central mechanism with a card or a document you receive that's notarized by that particular office that says that from June 9 to June 25, so-and-so may travel with that child and it does not change the habitual and ordinary place of residence. The signature of the person who is involved should be verified in some respect so that I couldn't have gone off in the back room and signed by husband's name to the affidavit and gotten away with it. I think that's an excellent mechanism.

• 1705

We find that the United States is the way a lot of people get out. I know it's difficult with the cars going through there, but when you have a child in the car, there's got to be a solution to that.

As for the reporting mechanism you were talking about, surely it could be the same as the reporting mechanism with respect to the CAS. As Mr. Reddy says, this is a form of child abuse. If you have a kid next door who you know is being thumped by its father, you have to report it whether you're in a position of trust or not.

Perhaps if that kind of an obligation was upon everyone with respect to international travel, I'm not sure how often that would make a difference, but it might well do so.

Perhaps something to do with how we passport kids needs to be addressed. Maybe it's too easy to get a passport for a kid or get a kid on somebody's passport.

Say there's a court order in place. The child's on mom's passport. Dad gets custody of the child. Mom's going to scoop the child. The child's name is still on mom's passport, or it's not visible anywhere on anybody's passport and just goes through as an infant.

Those are just a few suggestions on that.

The Chair: Thank you. Mr. Robinson.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Thank you very much. I want to thank the witnesses. I apologize for being late. I was at another meeting before coming here.

Ironically, today is International Human Rights Day. I think there can't be any more profound violation of human rights than having your child stolen from you, effectively—

Ms. Heather Ritchie: Or being the child who's stolen.

Mr. Svend Robinson: —or being the child who's stolen. So I think it's particularly appropriate that we're hearing this evidence today.

I've been around this place for a long time, a little over 18 years, and I've sat on many committee meetings, but I tell you that it's rare that one has the combination we've heard today both of really solid, hard-hitting analysis and also some emotion and really very moving personal evidence.

I just want to thank the witnesses. I know that sometimes it's not easy to speak from the heart in that way. I want to really thank all of you for taking the time.

I met with Ron in my own constituency office. I want to just assure you—I'm sure I speak on behalf of all the members of the committee—that we're struggling to come up with effective recommendations for the government to act quickly. Angelina is absolutely right: we don't want to wait two, five, or ten years. Whether it's changes in the law or in policy, we want to have something that can be acted on very quickly. That's our commitment, I can assure you.

I just have a couple of questions. It seems to me, in hearing the evidence, that with both of these witnesses, and others, clearly one of the most important things we can recommend is how we can prevent kids from being taken out of the jurisdiction in the first place, right? Because once they're out, particularly if it's a non-Hague country, let's face it, you're into this nightmare situation of lawyers and embassies and everything else, as we've seen with Ron. So personally, it seems to me that this is where we really have to do everything we possibly can to prevent the kids from being taken out in the first place.

The border issue is an important one. I think there are countries—I don't know if our researchers could look at this or whether Ms. Ritchie perhaps has had a chance to look at it—that have much tougher rules for taking a child out of the country. I know there are. I've spoken with friends about this.

One example was Cuba. You can't get anywhere near an airplane with a child if you're a single adult unless you can absolutely prove you have the right to leave that country with that child.

Canada is way too loose, I think. So I'm hoping that perhaps we might look at that.

Here is one of the specific questions I'd like to ask. I guess it would probably go to Ms. Ritchie. It's on dual citizens. This is a tough issue, because they can have two passports, effectively. The Government of Canada owns the Canadian passport. It's the property of the Government of Canada. But what legal power does a judge have, for example, to order the seizure of a passport that belongs to another country? Otherwise, what happens is that a judge takes the Canadian passport, but then the person just takes their second passport and is on their way.

Ms. Ritchie, do you have any assistance for the committee in this area?

Ms. Heather Ritchie: I know that, for example, in a People's Republic of China case I had, a general court judge did order the seizure of Mr. Chen's passport, which was a Chinese passport. The RCMP was prepared to back that. So he must have felt he had jurisdiction. I don't know where he got that jurisdiction from, but he must have felt that he had that jurisdiction.

Mr. Svend Robinson: As I said, our researchers are trying to determine if there's a legal basis for seizing a passport of another country.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: Perhaps for anything that prevents a crime, I suspect you could probably squeeze it in that way.

• 1710

Mr. Svend Robinson: If you're able to come back with any assistance on that it would be helpful. Obviously we don't want to be in a situation where we seize the Canadian passport and the person just takes off on a dual passport.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: You have the other problem with dual citizens. For example, you may not be a dual citizen by choice but you may effectively be a dual citizen. For example, Nancy's little boy is a Canadian citizen and was never registered as a Greek citizen, but is seen to be a Greek citizen. My own children have never been to Greece, but are seen to be Greek citizens. That presents a problem.

Mr. Svend Robinson: I have just two more brief questions, and then I'll turn it over to my colleagues.

Mr. Reddy, you talked about bilateral agreements and their importance and I fully agree with that. Obviously there are countries that will probably never sign the Hague Convention for whatever reasons. If we can't get The Hague, then perhaps we can at least get some agreements dealing with both elements you've raised. Step one is just being able to see your child to be sure that child is safe, and step two is getting the child back.

I understand Canada recently signed a bilateral agreement with Egypt. I'm wondering whether you could comment on the efficacy of that agreement and whether you see that as being a step in the right direction.

Mr. Ron Reddy: Certainly. I spoke to André Dugas at Gar Pardy's office about that agreement. I haven't read the agreement, but from what they told me it's not really a treaty, it's more of a forum for two parents to get together to try to work it out.

I'm pushing for an accord whereby you have clear rights to access your child. It should do more than just say “Okay, you get together and let's see if you can work it out”. A forum for dialogue is important, but you must have clear steps that say “Okay, you are the father, you are the mother, you both have access to this child”. That should be ratified between two governments.

I spoke to the Jordanian government and it certainly wasn't opposed to it, and it's an Islamic nation. It's within its religious law for both parents to have access to the child. I think most governments in the region will not sign the Hague Convention, and I'll tell you that up front. I spoke to Jordanian lawyers and many people of Arabic decent and they will not sign the Hague Convention. They made it very clear. But they are willing to sign agreements that guarantee access and visitation.

In the Egypt agreement it's not very clear whether you will have access or not, what that access period will be, and who will see the child. A lot of times a Canadian parent is in Canada. Will he or she leave his or her job to go to Egypt, see the child for a week or an hour once a week, and fly back and forth?

There should be another mechanism there so the embassy or International Social Services, in the interim period, can also assess the child. The main thing is not Dad or Mom but whether this child is okay. That needs to be addressed clearly, even within that Egypt accord, and certainly within subsequent accords that are going to be developed.

The Chair: Mr. Reddy, in your particular case the problem is the father-in-law threatening to kill you.

Mr. Ron Reddy: Yes, that's a factor, and he's very influential in the country.

The Chair: So how would these recommendations help in a situation like yours, or would they?

Mr. Ron Reddy: They certainly would. The father-in-law has influence at the lower levels of the government where he can stop any negotiation process I begin. The king, however, is a very reasonable man. I think most of the leaders of these countries, whatever their beliefs, are reasonable people. They know the rights of a parent. Even within Islamic law it's entrenched. There's an absolute right that says both the father and the mother should have access to the child.

If it's brought around on a bilateral basis, government to government, and I'm visiting my child, I don't think a country, especially Jordan, would be too happy to allow this gentleman to threaten me, because it would make that government look bad. I know Jordan gets a lot of economic aid from various foreign countries. I think there would be support from the royal palaces and the upper echelons of the parliamentary system that would help the situation.

Mr. Svend Robinson: Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Augustine.

Ms. Angelina Medjed-Cosovic: May I comment on the passport, please?

The Chair: Oh, yes, please.

Ms. Angelina Medjed-Cosovic: Since I begged the judge and he ignored my statement, is there any possibility that right away, on the day you are in court, something can be done through the court and through e-mail? Canada is a computerized country. Something must be done.

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Also, I'm just trying to figure out who signed the passport in my name. Who signed it? Why don't the police interfere and do something? I phoned them. I asked them why nobody can do anything. Who signed it? Who was representing me with my documents?

Something must be done by the court right away, that day. We have e-mail, we have a whole system whereby they can just put out the messages, put them on alert. That's it. It's not that big.

I think if I was in Yugoslavia I wouldn't pass, because I think my son was sedated. He was sedated in the airplane. I asked him how he tolerated the plane. He said “I didn't see, Mom”. What happened? He was sedated on the airplane. He doesn't know when he travelled.

Why didn't they help him? Why don't the police interfere? I didn't get any support from the police, believe me. I'm cursing them day by day. They just said, “Oh, Mom, he's with dad”. That's not right.

I think we should call them.

The Chair: I think you have some very legitimate questions that need answering. Certainly we will be having the passport people in here, asking those kinds of questions and asking why it happened and how we can prevent it from happening the next time.

Ms. Angelina Medjed-Cosovic: How the gentleman can—

The Chair: We will be asking those questions.

Ms. Angelina Medjed-Cosovic: How somebody could sell a ticket or something without my.... The agency is making business with us. This is the business; this is a crime. Nobody considers that.

The Chair: Ms. Augustine has some questions for you.

Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke—Lakeshore, Lib.): I too want to join with my colleagues in saying that the seriousness of this issue was brought home by your testimony.

I want to understand better the criteria for habitual residence and how that works. If you can spend a couple of minutes on that, I would appreciate it.

Secondly, Mr. Reddy, some extra documentation was given to us here, exhibit A, and I just wondered how that connected with your case. Was your wife also abducted—

Mr. Ron Reddy: No.

Ms. Jean Augustine: —by her father?

Mr. Ron Reddy: This documentation is referred to in my discussion as the exhibit that goes along with whatever.... I make certain statements and they're supported by these exhibits.

For example, there's an Interpol circular that I referred to and it's in here. There is another letter from the Canadian embassy that's in here that I referred to in my letter. There's a letter from the Queen's office in Jordan, and she specifically states in that letter that there's no judicial protocol. I'm just supporting my argument with appropriate evidence.

Ms. Jean Augustine: I was reading the harassment one, in Sacramento.

Mr. Ron Reddy: Yes.

Ms. Jean Augustine: That was before your marriage?

Mr. Ron Reddy: We were married, and because I'm a Christian and she's a Muslim her father came around and threatened to kill her and threatened to kill our baby. There's this whole history, and I'm just showing that the mental state of this person where my daughter's living is not a good environment for her to be in.

I have a court document issued by the courts in Sacramento. This is my wife. She wrote this about her father and what he did to her. Now she's living with him and my daughter's there. It's showing the type of control that these people have over their children and the type of environment that my daughter's currently living in.

Ms. Jean Augustine: But you knew about shariah before?

Mr. Ron Reddy: No. I studied it. I got my Ph.D. in it when I was in Jordan. I studied it extensively so that I would be familiar with it when I went up against the shariah law to help repatriate my daughter and gain access to her.

I have a court order in Jordan now for access. I got that about a month ago, after eight months. I studied the shariah law in order to approach the Jordanian system in the proper way. If you approach it in the wrong way, you will get nowhere. I had to know what I was fighting and what the appropriate environment was. That's why I learned about it.

Ms. Jean Augustine: Could I hear Ms. Ritchie on the whole issue of habitual residence? Could you take us through that?

Ms. Heather Ritchie: Sometimes it's referred to as habitual residence and sometimes as ordinary residence. Ordinary residence is generally in the Criminal Code. I haven't brought my copy of the Code.

• 1720

Under the Children's Law Reform Act in Ontario it's referred to as habitual residence, and all the other provinces have similar statutes.

Under the jurisdiction of the Ontario court:

22. (1) A court shall only exercise its jurisdiction to make an order for custody of or access to a child where,

(a) the child is habitually resident in Ontario at the commencement of the application for the order.

Now, although the child is not habitually resident in Ontario, the court is satisfied that the child is physically present in Ontario at the commencement of the application for the order, or there is substantial evidence concerning the best interests of the child in Ontario—that there is real and substantial connection with Ontario.

Habitual residence is then defined.

(2) A child is habitually resident in the place where he or she resided

(a) with both parents;

(b) where the parents are living separate and apart with one parent under a separation agreement; or with the consent, implied consent or acquiescence of the other; or under a court order; or

(c) with a person other than the parent on a permanent basis

The problem you have here is “habitual residence” is really quite general. Does the child have to be habitually resident in Ontario the day I make the application for the custody order? In Nancy's case she was stuck in Greece with the child when I brought that. I had to establish that there was a substantial connection and that they had not in fact cut their ties with Canada. They had, for example, left their things in storage. They had return plane tickets—although that turned out to be a little iffy because in fact he hadn't bought return plane tickets. She had a job and day care set up for when she returned. This is where this mass of translated material came in. We had to show there was a really strong connection.

But what happens in Mrs. Siddique's case, where she goes over there but her husband cuts off all connection so that there's no sign of it by the time she gets out of the psychiatric hospital, out from under the drugs, and actually starts to bring this application when she gets back to Canada? By this time the child is obviously not resident in Canada, at the time I bring the court application. In addition, there are no ties left in Canada with respect to these children in terms of job, schools, and the like, because he's kept them over there for a long enough period of time.

At what point does a court in another country or in this country take the view that there's been some kind of consent, implied consent, or acquiescence? In Nancy's case she went over for an extended holiday—two or three months. Was she consenting in fact to changing her place of residence? What the courts will look to will be basically things that will just by implication tell you whether the person has maintained their connections.

Ms. Jean Augustine: It has nothing to do with months of the year, or number of years?

Ms. Heather Ritchie: That's one small element of it. But if I have packed up everything I own, put it in a packing case, and headed for another country, lined up a job there, and arranged for the school for the kids, and if I have found accommodation and I've said “bye, bye”, I guess I've changed my place of residence.

On the other hand, if I've left everything behind and gone over there, and I say, “I went over there on a holiday, or maybe six months, but I'm not changing my place of residence”, it's very iffy. That's why I'm saying what establishes habitual and ordinary place of residence needs to be tightened up. People also have to be better educated on the subject themselves.

Mr. Ron Reddy: If I could make just one comment on the issue of habitual residence, as Ms. Ritchie pointed out, the time that the child is abducted should not be counted in any way. This is a criminal act. You cannot reward somebody for a criminal act. You cannot add that time that they have been left in Pakistan or Jordan or wherever as applying as a factor for habitual residence.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: In the civil court that's exactly what happens. But if you take a look at that section of the Criminal Code—

Mr. Ron Reddy: They allow it.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: —it's quite specific that if you abduct the child that's not going to change the ordinary place of residence.

However, you can't have abducted the child if in fact you both have joint custody of the child—which you do, unless there's a court order that says you have sole custody. In other words, if you and your husband have a child, and you have no court order, obviously, because you're living happily ever after, then the child is in joint custody of both parents.

At that point the RCMP like to take the view then that there is no custody order, and therefore no abduction. We take the view that that's not the case. Where you start stretching it and saying they've been separate and apart under the same roof, living under duress....

In Nancy's case she was forced to live, eat, and sleep with the man because otherwise she would have been in Killini with absolutely nowhere to go, with her baby boy, on the street. He would have had the kid unless she cooperated. It was a horrendous situation.

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The Chair: I have something here, the Criminal Code, section 283 on abduction. Does that—

Mr. Ron Reddy: There is section 283. Actually there is a section that says “Abduction where no custody order exists”, and it's section—

The Chair: This is with no custody order.

Mr. Ron Reddy: Yes, section 283, or in this case it was section 250.2.

The Chair: So if there is a custody order giving joint custody, then it's not abduction. Is that what you're saying?

Ms. Heather Ritchie: It won't be abduction, but what I'm also saying is that if you have not had a reason to go to a court and get an order, you have joint custody, de facto custody. It's recognized as being joint custody where there's no court order in place but you're living happily ever after, you're parenting and co-parenting—

The Chair: But under section 283, is that not abduction?

Ms. Heather Ritchie: There are two or three sections of the code that are about abduction. You may have a different version because the numbering—

Mr. Ron Reddy: It coincides with section 283, the one I have.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: Yes, the numbering changed recently. She may be talking about the same one. And there is that section of the code that basically says it is abduction if in fact there's a court order in place. It's iffy if there's no court order in place, so a precipitous act by one parent should in fact trigger it. That is certainly no acquiescence.

But then what happens if I say to my husband that he may take our baby boy back to Iran, or wherever it is, for a holiday? I've acquiesced to this child leaving, so how is it abduction? Well, I acquiesced to the child leaving and coming back—

Mr. Ron Reddy: In section 283, I think the argument could be made that the act was done to deprive that one parent of access to the child, and under that act I think there would be an abduction order issued.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: Your problem is that it's an evidentiary issue and in order to be able to bolster it, we need it to be made tighter and stronger.

The Chair: Mrs. Bradshaw.

Mrs. Claudette Bradshaw (Moncton, Lib.): I want to apologize for being late. I was speaking to a university class.

For a long time I worked with abused children. Whenever parents lost their children, I was always afraid that my two boys would be abducted. I'm listening to you, and I want to thank you, because being with us this close to Christmas must not be easy. I assure you we will be thinking of you Christmas morning.

There are two things I'd like to get your opinion on. I agree that the first thing we have to do is prevent this.

I thought Madam Debien was going to ask about this, but she didn't ask it this time. What about the legal support? We were asking every person that came in. I guess because I've worked in poverty and I've seen it happen...I don't know how much Nancy's parents had to pay for a lawyer. I know you've mentioned that you're up to $15,000, Angela, and Ron, I have no idea where you're at. As a lawyer, first of all I wonder what happens to poor people who just can't afford legal support. Secondly, how can we compensate and what can we do? We talked about that taxation.

As a lawyer, you're obviously very involved in this and you've probably written recommendations to many people about this. Do you really feel you've been listened to? What's your feedback on that?

For the parents, I have two things to ask. First, do you get together as parents, as a support group of parents who have had your children abducted? I'm wondering if there's a national committee of parents. I see it as PR. We don't hear a lot about it. I see it as educating the police department, because from what we've heard from a lot of the people we've talked to and from listening to you today, it seems that's where it starts: it starts when you do your first call.

Also, we're going to have a lot of people coming in front of this committee and making recommendations, but as I look at the four of you today, I can assure you that your recommendations will certainly be the ones we're going to look at, because you're there and you're the ones we're here for, along with your children.

Also for the parents, have you been in touch with the Missing Children Registry? Did you have anything at all to do with that federal organization?

If we're running late, you can write us with your answer or you can answer it, whatever—

The Chair: I think some of the answers are in their presentations.

Mrs. Claudette Bradshaw: Yes. I arrived late.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: I can answer my question very quickly. Mrs. Siddique was indigent and had legal aid. I was limited to what they would allow me to do in Ontario. They wanted me to keep it in the provincial court. At our expense, we had to bump it up. They would not give me any funding out of the province.

• 1730

On the other hand, in Nancy's case, by the time we paid translation fees and the like—they were $15,000—she must have knocked off $100,000; and not a whole lot of that was coming to my office. It was just the nature of what we were doing. We had to put the money in the other country.

We've tried to start—this is just to let you know—what we call the Tommy Fund, named after Tommy, Nancy's kid. That is to try to put together some funding—the Bank of Montreal has offered to try to manage this for us—to get money into the other country. It's not here we need it. We can get someone to act pro bono here, but we can't get someone in the other country, and that's where the expense is.

The difference between winning and losing is sometimes how much money.... I can see in Mr. Reddy's case even money hasn't won it, but that is the difference, so we're trying to establish funding in the other country for the person who is the parent left behind.

About support groups, you would probably find it about the most gut-wrenching experience you could ever have. No, I don't think I've been listened to, but I think that's because there hasn't been a mechanism, and I'm delighted there is now.

Mr. Ron Reddy: I made a point in my presentation about the funding question. I agree with you. I'm glad the Bank of Montreal is involved. As a pharmacist, I'm rallying all the pharmaceutical companies for corporate funding. I think a partnership between the government and the corporate sector would be a great thing for these types of issues. As Heather mentioned, the funding is not that important in Canada. It's more important in the foreign country.

One of the issues I had with the embassy was that they could have provided a lot of translation services. They did anyway, but they were told not to. I had volumes of documents I had to translate and get notarized by the embassy. They were charging me $10 every time; my embassy was charging me $10. Of course Laurie tried to put two or three documents together and stamp them, but technically she was supposed to charge me $10 per document; and I had thousands.

That thing should definitely be waived. Right now you could phone up the minister and tell him to waive that.

I was paying...and I was already there for eight months. I'm by no means a millionaire. I spent everything I had. I would have spent more. If I could have taken my kidney out and sold it I would have, to get my daughter back. It was insulting to me. I went back to the embassy and they were telling me, well, she was caught in a catch-22. I certainly don't blame her, because she tried to shuffle it through. But I was supposed to pay $10 for every piece of paper that went to court, and I had to get an embassy seal on it, and get her signature.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: We had that too.

Mr. Ron Reddy: I argued with them. I said this was ridiculous. Laurie of course put two or three or four together and she would stamp them, but she was supposed to charge me $10 every time.

You should look at those fine details. They would save a lot of costs right there. The embassy could have done lots of translation for me. Again, Laurie went out of her way. She sent some embassy personnel with me to the courts and they translated for me. But eventually I had to hire translators to get documents translated, and they were $20 to $30 a pop. All day, for a translator in the court...and they don't give you the proper translation. These kinds of issues can be immediately addressed. It's no problem.

The Chair: There are issues that could be immediately addressed.

Any other questions? I have lots I would like to get a rolling dialogue on, but I'm afraid there isn't time for that. Certainly your presentation has been most worth while and your recommendations will be seriously considered.

Angelina, we'll try to get some of the answers.

Ms. Angelina Medjed-Cosovic: I don't think so.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: They are going to try.

The Chair: We will try to get some of the answers.

Ms. Angelina Medjed-Cosovic: Try even if it's not going to help me; even if it's negative results. I have to face reality and I have to take the consequences.

Somebody who is in External Affairs and authorized by Canada is faxing what the grandparents and my ex-husband say, then what I'm requesting. When I called social services my ex-father-in-law answered the phone. I said for God's sake I must have forgotten the number. I looked at the book, dialled again, and he answered again.

How can I prove that I have something to be considered a really serious matter? They say they don't have a magic solution. What is the magic solution? This is a child. This is a life. This is not an object. I don't get it. In no realistic sense can somebody approach me and pursue me; no.

• 1735

Ms. Heather Ritchie: We're going to try.

Ms. Angelina Medjed-Cosovic: What's to try? It's seven months. We have a child. We know where the child is. I asked social services to watch the child, not because he is there.... He's good and healthy and all kinds of stuff, but to watch that he doesn't damage the child, that he doesn't fly like a bird. He has already changed places five times. Nobody knows now where he might fly. Somebody delayed; somebody didn't want to do the job.

Nobody can say anything to me. I want a result even if it is a negative result. I have to face the consequences. I have to find a way to succeed. Why? I want to know why.

The Chair: We'll be asking why as well.

Thank you very much. I know this has been an extremely difficult thing for you to do and we appreciate your being here.

In regard to other business, we were going to have ended our hearings before Christmas. Perhaps we should hear from people from Immigration to maybe ask some of these questions of Immigration. Is everyone agreed that we can continue these hearings in the new year?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: I for one would be happy to continue any input with respect to this committee on a long-term basis.

Mr. Ron Reddy: Myself also.

Ms. Heather Ritchie: It's a critical area.

The Chair: I'm sure you'll be hearing from us again. Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.