FAIT Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 3rd SESSION

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

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The Chair (Mr. Bernard Patry (Pierrefonds—Dollard, Lib.))

Mr. Jean-Louis Roy (President, International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development)

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1600

The Chair

Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ)

Mr. Jean-Louis Roy

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Ms. Francine Lalonde

Mr. Jean-Louis Roy

Ms. Francine Lalonde

Mr. Jean-Louis Roy

Ms. Francine Lalonde

Mr. Jean-Louis Roy

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Ms. Francine Lalonde

The Chair

Hon. Art Eggleton (York Centre, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Louis Roy

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The Chair

Ms. Iris Almeida (Director of Policy, Programmes and Planning, International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development)

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The Chair

Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP)

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The Chair

Mr. Jean-Louis Roy

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Louis Roy

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The Chair

Mr. Bryon Wilfert (Oak Ridges, Lib.)

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Mr. Jean-Louis Roy

Ms. Iris Almeida

The Chair

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Ms. Iris Almeida

The Chair

Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, CPC)

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Louis Roy

The Chair

Mr. Deepak Obhrai

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Ms. Iris Almeida

The Chair

Mr. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.)

Mr. Jean-Louis Roy

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The Chair

Mr. Paul Harold Macklin (Northumberland, Lib.)

Mr. Jean-Louis Roy

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The Chair

Hon. Art Eggleton

The Chair

Hon. Art Eggleton

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Louis Roy

Ms. Francine Lalonde

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

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NUMBER 003

l

3rd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

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[Translation]

    The Chair (Mr. Bernard Patry (Pierrefonds—Dollard, Lib.)): Good afternoon.

    Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we are studying Canada's relations with Muslim countries.

    We have the pleasure to welcome as witnesses today the President of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, Mr. Jean-Louis Roy, and his Senior Assistant, Mr. Lloyd Lipsett,

[English]

and Ms. Iris Almeida, who is the director of policy, programs, and planning.

[Translation]

    Welcome, Mr. Roy. You have 10 minutes for your introductions, please. Then we will go to questions and answers.

    Mr. Roy.

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy (President, International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Good afternoon, members of the committee, and thank you. I have met nearly all of you over the past year in all sorts of other contexts. I would like to mention, Mr. Chairman, that I attended an international symposium yesterday on the problems in the Ivory Coast. One of the recommendations that came out of the symposium was to organize committees in that country's national assembly. It is quite extraordinary, when one sees a committee like yours, to look at the situation in another country, which has a national assembly and has had a Parliament for 40 years but has not ever had committees where civil society could come to debate issues.

    If I make that reference, it is by way of thanking you for allowing us to speak to you today and tell you how much importance we attach to the complex work that your committee is doing, especially your study that brings us here today, on Canada's relations with countries in which Islam is a significant factor.

    Mr. Chairman, I would like to just say a few words about the mandate of Rights and Democracy. The main mandate of our organization, which was created by the Parliament of Canada in 1988, is to initiate cooperation programs with or in developing countries. We have two major areas of focus, which are obviously human rights and all the issues involved in democratic development.

    We have worked for a long time with a certain number of countries and public and private organizations in countries where Islam is a determining factor, but over the past two years we have considerably intensified our work in those regions of the world.

    To begin with, I would like to explain our perspective on Islam, and then give a brief overview of our activities in regions where Islam is a determining factor.

    We are working with a number of legal experts, women's groups and academics familiar with Islam who broadly agree on the following three points that I will summarize for you. These three points enable us to have a very substantial dialogue with them on human rights and they come from a very important work written by an eminent Tunisian legal scholar, Mohammed Charfi, which is called Islam et Liberté. A number of you have probably met him. He has often come to Canada. He is a former Minister of Education and Minister of Justice in his country. Then he ran into problems with the regime. He was even sidelined for a time and wrote Islam et Liberté in prison.

    The first point is that the Koran contains no constitutional provisions and cannot be considered a constitutional doctrine.

    Second, the law is not divinely inspired and stating the law is a human responsibility.

    Third, to state that the law is unchanging and that it is based on the Koran amounts to an appropriation of Islam by those who want to take power for political purposes.

    There is no discussion possible with societies in which Islam is a determining factor if these three points are not agreed upon: the Koran contains no constitutional provisions; stating the law is a human responsibility; and declaring the law to be unchanging amounts to an appropriation of Islam for political purposes.

    I know that you visited a number of countries. You must have met many men and women representing the Islam of the Maghreb, the Islam of the Near East and Middle East, and the Islam of Africa, which is an important region where Islam is concerned.

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In Africa, 300 million Muslims share these points of view while fully supporting Islam as a religion, that is, as an explanation for life and a personal ethical reference. So there are many people who share these positions, and they are the ones that we are trying to work with to make things happen.

    What do we do at Rights and Democracy, to promote adherence to international standards for human rights and democratic values in Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, where Islam is obviously solidly rooted, and in the Near and Middle East?

    Mr. Chairman, I will outline the types of activities we do. For a long time, we have been supporting a number of major networks around the world as individuals, men and women who are working within civil society to find another way of defining freedom, another way of enhancing rights and freedoms.

    We support networks like Women Living Under Muslim Law, a very large network that links women from many countries. The Women Living Under Muslim Law network involves women from other religious backgrounds but also Muslim women. They focus on legal issues, the legal status of persons, to try to bring about an evolution of the law in the various countries where you would expect these issues to come up.

    We also support groups in the Near East, in particular in Lebanon, and in the Middle East that are doing significant work in monitoring democratic values and democratic development.

    I give those two examples to illustrate this aspect of the support that we offer. We are talking here about financial and intellectual support. When there are real problems—and I will come back in a few minutes to Nigeria—and the Women Living Under Muslim Law network mobilizes, we also work with the network to support its activities in a given country.

    We are also active in another way in Canada and many other countries with a view to supporting, in this case not groups that are fighting for human rights in countries where Islam is an important factor, but groups in Canada and elsewhere in the world that are trying to increase our understanding of Islam, and in particular Islamic fundamentalism, through research and debate.

    A major seminar of Canadian experts on these issues will be held in Montreal in a few weeks, and we are hoping to hold a major symposium—this is an extremely complex, but extremely important initiative for us—in Amman, Jordan, in April. The topic of the symposium will be human rights, democracy and Islam, and it will bring together legal scholars, civil society groups from many countries in the region, particularly from Jordan but also from Syria, Lebanon, Morocco, Iran and Iraq, for the purpose of having these people meet each other, take stock of the situation in each of these countries, and hold discussions with us and other Canadian experts that we will be inviting on the basic issues surrounding rights, democracy and Islam. I want to be clear that our goal is to pave the way for two programs that we would like to put in place in Iraq and Iran when conditions allow. That is the second type of activity that we carry out. In addition to supporting networks of activists, in the best sense of the word, we work with networks involved in information analysis and consensus building. That is the second aspect of our work.

    The third aspect is our work in specific countries on projects, some of them on a large scale, involving capacity-building and support for initiatives underway in the particular country.

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    That is why we are so involved right now in Morocco. We are there to support the transformation movement, the movement to create a democratic culture in that country. We are in Morocco to support the network of major Moroccan NGOs working to enhance rights and freedoms. We are in Morocco to support the institution to foster fairness and reconciliation, which was established by the King a few weeks ago. It is a bit like the commission that has been active in Peru over the past two years and similar ones in other countries. We are also involved in a major project in Morocco, which is a study being carried out jointly by Rights and Democracy and a large number of Moroccan organizations and experts to do an audit or assessment of democracy and human rights in that country.

    We are investing considerable resources in our work in Morocco, and we hope that at the end of this work, in approximately two years, we will be able to use a certain number of the results of our involvement with that region of the world to do the same thing in Algeria.

    You may be aware that we are also active in Kabul. That is the only other office we have in the world. We have had an office in Kabul for nearly two years. We have staff there and are working on three major projects, which I believe have been of great significance over the past two years, in particular for Afghan women. Our office in Kabul is staffed by Afghanis only, and that provides continuity. We have not had the considerable problems with staff turnover as people arrive and depart that many NGOs have had.

    Our work in Kabul has had three objectives. We have supported the women's groups that were fighting to have provisions on the equality of men and women included in the new Afghani constitution. We have supported the creation of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and have offered financial support to women's NGOs in the country for some of the difficult and complex work that they had to undertake in this post-war period. I almost wanted to say this ongoing unacknowledged war, but it is still, to some extent, a rebuilding period for civil society, in which people are redefining relationships and the equality of citizens, in particular men and women, in the country.

    Mr. Chair, having described our activities in Morocco, Afghanistan, Algeria and in the near future, Amman, with a view to getting involved in Iraq and Iran, I want to say that we are also trying to be very active in these areas in sub-Saharan Africa. We often forget that there are 175 million Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa, that societies that had little connection with Islam just 30 years ago—I come back to the example of the Ivory Coast—are now 40% Muslim, and that this religious movement in Africa is growing rapidly and exponentially.

    Over the past few years, we have been active in Nigeria. We have supported a group of female lawyers in an organization called BAOBAB. These women have shown extraordinary courage, especially in the northern states of Nigeria, by mobilizing to oppose the establishment of charia law and the extension of charia in major parts of this large African federation.

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    We have supported them by providing assistance for both their organization and the legal cases brought before the Supreme Court of Nigeria, some of which were won by this women's group. We chose the BAOBAB organization of Nigerian women lawyers as the recipients of the John Humphrey Freedom Award last year.

    Mr. Chair, I believe that Africa is important to focus on. In particular, if we look at the various international conventions that have defined human rights since 1950 and consider which countries have signed on to the International Criminal Court, we see that: where countries having Islam as a determining factor are concerned, most of the African countries have signed on to these international conventions and the ICC, and few countries of the Near East have done so. That is important, since sub-Saharan Africa has a great deal of influence on the Islamic conference, the Islamic Organization for Education, Sciences and Culture, the major organizations to which the world Islamic community belongs, ALECSO and other major intergovernmental forums.

    Much of our work in African countries is directly or indirectly linked to the issues we are addressing here today.

    I would like to say a word about the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. We support that commission very strongly. We are supporting it with our own resources and we are negotiating with CIDA to provide massive support to it over the next three years.

    What is the connection between the commission's work and the topic of our discussion today?

    The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights has just established an additional protocol on the rights of African women. The protocol was defined very broadly in a context of preserving the rights of African women living in societies where Islam is the dominant religion and restoring those rights in certain societies, such as the northern states of Nigeria, where women's rights have been sacrificed and where charia now dominates. The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights now plays a key role with respect to the status of African women. It is not simply the commission's work in Banjul and Addis Ababa, but there are also regional meetings throughout Africa. This series of meetings is being held in a number of African countries and we are supporting that.

    As you know, the commission has also established the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, which came into force a few days ago. Fifteen signatures were needed, and 18 countries have already signed. The mandate of this rights court also contains important provisions concerning issues involving Islam.

    In closing, Mr. Chair, I want to mention three important lessons I take from these various activities.

    To begin with, it is absolutely vital for a country like ours to do what you have done in carrying out this study, that is, to get involved in this extraordinary dialogue between the spiritual and cultural currents in the world, in particular with Islam. In nearly all Islamic communities and societies today, there are many courageous groups trying to remain faithful to Islam but also to introduce within their communities and societies the common rules of democratic values and the universal rules of human rights. That dialogue is extremely important.

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    They are waiting for us. They are waiting for us everywhere. Our country's help is awaited everywhere. We felt that in the countries that I have mentioned. I could have mentioned others, such as Pakistan and Bangladesh, where we have been involved. Many groups are waiting for us to support the difficult and courageous work that they are doing.

    Second, the more the political dimension of States gives way to some extent to international agreements of all kinds, the more political sovereignty will decline in importance. As we have seen in many places, the cultural dimension will occupy the vacuum left by politics. And the population of 1.3 billion people currently concerned by these issues will grow to 2.3 billion in 20 years.

    Islam is a religion that is growing exponentially; the population in Islamic countries is growing at an almost unbelievable rate. So we are going to be seeing, and are already seeing, populations that are extremely young, with a majority of young people under the age of 20 or 25 who are looking for both economic security and a set of rights and freedoms.

    That is the third lesson from our work that I wanted to draw to your attention, after the need for dialogue: we must support those who are fighting for freedom in countries where Islam is a determining factor. We need to provide support and it needs to be solid support. Second, we have to take into account the growth of the cultural dimension in human societies. Third, we need to promote social development, economic development, cooperation, international trade agreements, fair trade, debt remission and international development and to ensure development, growth and wealth creation in these countries. Otherwise, we are going to have to manage an extremely difficult world.

    That is a summary, Mr. Chair, of the work we are doing and the lessons we are starting to draw from it. Ms. Almeida, Mr. Lipsett and I will be very pleased to answer your questions. Ms. Almeida knows these issues better than I do and has been with the organization for a long time; she is in charge of programs and planning. Thank you.

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    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Roy. We will now go to questions and answers.

[English]

    I just want to tell my colleagues that I asked Monsieur Roy to bring with him a study and a report concerning Haïti. It's up to date from January 2004. There are some English copies and French copies available here, and we're going to have them distributed. It's not a subject today, but I thought it was important for you to have such report.

[Translation]

    Ms. Lalonde, please.

    Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you, Mr. Roy. Your remarks take me back to a field in which I have done so much work and on which we need to do a study. But I should start by saying that, in listening to you, I found you very optimistic. When I took a break from these issues over Christmas, I was not as optimistic as that, far from it. I am not saying that we should not take any action. That is our role, and you are telling us about the lessons you have drawn, but it seems to me that at the same time there are factors you have not mentioned that work against these groups and the assistance that you mentioned. These factors include poverty, hunger, lack of education or poor education, which are also realities in what we generally call the Arab-Muslim world, and these factors work against everything you have said. There is a very strong trend in that direction.

    I first went to Morocco, and then we went to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt. In a number of those countries—not to point the finger at any one country—when we asked various people whether the Islamists would win if free and democratic elections were held, the answer was always yes. I make a connection between that and the problems linked to poverty and lack of education.

    I would like to hear your comments on that, since it seems to me that developed countries cannot provide support only for generous and courageous groups that are like a toothpick trying to hold back the ocean. There also has to be a call to people to fight hunger, AIDS, etc.

    I know that my question is a long one, but you have forced me to reconsider my views. That is the only question I wanted to ask you, because I find your other recommendations interesting.

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy: Thank you, Ms. Lalonde. I think that you are taking up right where I stopped. I concluded by saying that the world will be difficult to manage if efforts are not made in terms of development, wealth creation, fair trade, real debt forgiveness, investment in areas of the world where people are no longer investing. I have just come back from Africa. There is no longer any investment going into Africa, except a bit in the mining sector, etc. I believe I have described the major demographic dimension you are aware of.

    The only country in which fundamentalists have recently been counted is Morocco. Ten years ago, everyone said that if elections were held in Morocco the fundamentalists would win. They got 18% of the vote.

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    Ms. Francine Lalonde: Because they did not run.

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy: No, there were candidates.

    Ms. Francine Lalonde: Yes, but they were not running as hard as they could.

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy: Perhaps, but that is the only time they have really been counted. I basically share your point of view. What causes fundamentalism? It is an extraordinary situation, and I almost said a dangerously vicious situation, that creates fundamentalism. It is this kind of widespread social service. Morocco is a good example. Casablanca is a good example of a place where fundamentalist Islamists work things to give people the impression that, when it comes to health, they are looking after people, except that when they take power, they dramatically impoverish the countries that they run.

    Ms. Francine Lalonde: That is true.

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy: This is a rather shameful situation they are in.

    However, if you are a young person in Morocco, in Egypt, in Iran or in Saudi Arabia, just to mention the four countries that you raised, of course there are two choices, and you can see this happening in those four countries, even in Saudi Arabia, where many people are demonstrating.

    It is not very well known, and has not really been in the public eye, but over the past two or three years in Saudi Arabia, there have been some significant protest movements, even though this has not affected those in power. Either you are for that side, or you are for fundamentalism. And why? Because, as you pointed out, there is poverty and therefore no future, no opportunities.

    We are talking about areas of the world where 2 billion people will be born over the next 20 years. Ninety per cent of those 2 billion people will be born in Africa, in South Asia and in Latin America. Obviously this is a catastrophe in the making.

    Are we optimistic? Are we pessimistic? I will come back to Morocco. What is happening in Morocco has many limitations, but something there is changing. Our partners, many of whom have been in prison, many of whom have been part of the most fierce opposition, have decided to take this chance and to say that they will be a part of this process. They harbour doubts, but between what they have known and the potential openness that they are being given as a choice today, the great majority of them, especially the women, have chosen openness, freedom, as their option .

    I think that both things have to be said at the same time. On the one hand, we need to say what you are saying, that is that this world, the state it is in and the way it is changing, cannot allow us to be absolutely optimistic. At the same time, if you work in the area of human rights, it is your vocation, in a manner of speaking, to believe that those who are working today for freedom, in this area of the world and in other areas of the world, are perhaps going to surprise us. Who could have said in 1985, in 1988 and in 1990, that there would be this extraordinary liberation of Central and Eastern Europe? The best interpreters of what happened, the great Polish historians, Geremek and others, say that it is Helsinki, that it is the inclusion of the notion of human rights that was a determining factor.

    Ms. Lalonde, I come from the Beauce area. We have seven weeks to sow and to harvest. We are neither optimistic nor pessimistic. You cannot get your seeding date nor your harvest date wrong. We do the best we can within those complicated contexts that you described so well. We try to support those who are fighting in those areas of the world. Now there is also the issue of international cooperation, the issue of fair global economic relations, which is inextricably linked to the discussion we are having today.

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    Ms. Francine Lalonde: That is what I wanted to hear.

    The Chair: Mr. Eggleton, you have the floor.

[English]

    Hon. Art Eggleton (York Centre, Lib.): Following on that, I'd be very interested in hearing your remarks with respect to Iran. While there are hopes, as you say, in a number of these countries that ultimately, even in an Islamic society, principles of democracy could advance, in Iran we seem to be going backwards. While there was a revolution where they got rid of a dictatorial kind of government, which we see in many of the other countries still, now they seem to be suppressing attempts at democratic reform.

    Aside from that, I wanted to ask you, first of all, about the programming you've outlined. You've given us detail about your programs in different countries, and it's a very wide range of programs. I congratulate you for that, but unless you have an unlimited budget, what is the impact of your program?

    It almost sounds like it's a mile wide but maybe only an inch deep. What kind of impact are you really able to have in terms of advancing human rights or democratic reforms in the programs you're operating in the countries, as you've mentioned?

    Secondly, what would you recommend to this committee on things that we could do to advance human rights and democracy in Muslim countries, without appearing to be paternalistic, without saying “Here's the way we do it in Canada and we think this is good for you”? I don't think we want to do that at all. How do you do it in a way that will advance human rights and democracy, but appear to do it in a context that is relevant to the people in those individual countries? What would you recommend to this committee should be part of its report?

    The Chair: Mr. Roy.

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy: Mr. Eggleton, thank you very much.

    It's difficult to answer your first question. How do we know, in those domains, the long-term effect of what we are trying to do? It's very difficult to know.

    There were people who were supporting Solidarnosc in Poland in the 1980s. I was publisher of Le Devoir and writing a lot about that at the time. We were not sure what the net result would be in the long term.

    I would say that what we are doing now in Morocco is I think of great importance for those in Morocco who have decided, in civil society and also in institutions, to test the will of the system and to develop a democratic culture. We'll be with them for three years. We are financing some of their research. We are helping them with Canadian experts. I would say that in the case of Morocco, what we are doing will have, I hope, a real impact.

    I am sure what we have done in Afghanistan concerning women's rights, concerning the help of those women in charge of NGOs, concerning the writing of this new constitution, has had an impact. We were alone in doing that and supporting the women in that country in the last two or three years at that level.

    I'd like to take another example about

[Translation]

    the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights.

[English]

    Here we are in Africa in this

[Translation]

    continent with all its difficulties and with all its problems today. We are one of the few providing solid and long-term support to the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights. Either we must decide that this continent is not ready to have institutions like those we have in Europe and in America for rights and freedoms, or we decide that it must have them and that a country like ours, Canada, must support that effort. We will support this commission. We will fight for it. We are going to find resources for this commission. I believe that in the long term, this will have an impact on a great number of African countries.

    What would I recommend to you?

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[English]

It's a very difficult question. You have been all over the place. We cannot be in a global system and have the reflex of a closed world. I think we have to speak. We have to say the truth. We have to go there and say what we have in our mind. A country like ours can do that.

    I have been living in Europe for 15 years. I know there are a lot of subjects--and Diane knows what I'm talking about--that are very difficult for Europeans and that we can't refer to very frankly.

    Yesterday there was a very important meeting in this city about the future of the Ivory Coast. We were not responsible for that meeting. I cannot see another place, except maybe South Africa, where this meeting could have been held with the success they had in bringing people here from all segments of the political spectrum of this country to negotiate a better future for the Ivory Coast.

    I think Canadians should speak very frankly. We in this country strongly believe that there are some democratic values and human rights that all people all over the place really want.

    There are two ways to look at this. It's a bit theoretical. We can say we have to refer to human rights in terms of their indivisibility and interdependence or we can say what those young women and men in Burkina Faso, Indonesia, and Morocco really want today. They don't want torture. They don't want to go to a court and have the judge read something that has been written by the palace or who knows who. They want some freedom to move, some freedom to speak, and some freedom to meet. That's where indivisibility and universality come to the front row of a discussion about human rights.

    I say that a country like ours should be quite clear. You said that one doesn't want to be paternalistic. You're right. But saying nothing is another way to be paternalistic. It means we know and we're not prepared to talk. What do we do? We just make photos of the world like it is, and we will not intervene and help those who try to change it.

    I would say that one of the most important things may be that we have to keep in mind, in the context of your reflection and question, how much it will cost in all terms, not only financial, if the incivility continues to mount in central Africa, Colombia, and some parts of southern Asia. If the incivility were to develop, we would have to intervene. I think you have no choice.

    The Chair: We'll go to Ms. Almeida for a last comment, and then we'll go to Ms. McDonough.

[Translation]

    Ms. Iris Almeida (Director of Policy, Programmes and Planning, International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development): I would like to add a few comments in answer to this question, which I think is a very interesting one.

[English]

    Impact and recommendations. The first thing I'd like to say is that our work in the Muslim world, which began a few years ago, was based on more or less five key ideas. It crystallized and grew as it went along. The first is that when we talk about the Muslim world, we look beyond the Middle East and North Africa. As important are Indonesia, Nigeria, large countries with large populations of the Muslim faith, or elsewhere. So that's the first principle.

    The second is that the Muslim world is not homogeneous. It's extremely heterogeneous. Any attempt to simplify is just missing the boat for most cases. So simplistic analyses and gross overgeneralizations need to always be avoided.

    The third is that economically and geostrategically, from those two points of view, understanding the Muslim world is in the interest of us as Canadians.

    The fourth is that Islam and democracy are compatible. Even if ideologues of all kinds try to say the contrary, the reality in country situations demonstrates that Islam and democracy are compatible.

    Lastly, I would say the Muslim countries have many moderate democrats working in them. It is important for democracies like Canada to be out there, active rather than reactive, and to have a stance.

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That stance comes from knowledge. I find that the biggest critical stumbling block for us to have a policy or a strategic approach in the Muslim world is lack of knowledge, in most cases.

    Lastly, a sixth point on the Muslim world is that we cannot understand the Muslim world if we don't understand the reality of humiliation that many Muslims in the world have been experiencing over the last couple of years by global policies, by international media. This humiliation is at the root of a lot of the atrocities and expressions of incivility. When I talk about humiliation, I mean isolation, I mean poverty. Those three go hand in hand.

    Lastly, within that context of this isolation, humiliation, and poverty, I see in specific terms the realities of women and children or youth. If we do not have in our policy or in our understanding what we see as the role of youth from an economic point of view, from a political point of view, in the next 20 years our discussions will be too closed-minded.

    On the question of impact, it seems to me that unless we have a long-term approach, that we start somewhere and we're moving.... We're not starting from scratch, because even institutions like our Canadian institutions have worked there for some years. So we go with what we have, but we decide and commit ourselves to a longer-term approach in order to see impacts, because you can see impacts just...but a longer-term approach based on a step-by-step approach and in order to be strategic, to have a reactive but also a proactive strategy.

    In terms of recommendations, I would just say that most of the time the groups in some of these countries.... Take the case of Tunisia. In Tunisia, in 2005, we will be celebrating the World Summit on the Information Society, the second phase of this great summit. Civil society in Tunisia is telling us there are no basic human rights and democratic spaces. What can the international community do for that? So we will be sending an international mission of inquiry to look at the situation and to inform the international community, and we'll try to do it multilaterally with several countries and people who know that country and understand the process.

    In many of the countries like Tunisia it is not only a question of money. Most of the time they tell us we need very small sums. You will be surprised to note that with such small amounts of resources.... Sometimes it's $20,000 for a major network of women.

    In Nigeria, for example, the case Mr. Roy just spoke to you about, it's $20,000 over a three- to five-year period, because that's what they like, to have lawyers provide assistance that is creating legal precedents and even working within a sharia law framework.

    All I want to say is that in most of our cases it's $10,000, $20,000, or a maximum of $80,000 sometimes. In the case of Morocco it's an $80,000 project. But you will see that it's small amounts with a lot of political support, a lot of monitoring intelligence, an exchange of what's happening in Canada, what Canadian institutions do. They want that kind of policy exchange, which will break the isolation, and to look at issues of how we can deal with poverty and humiliation.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Ms. McDonough.

    Ms. Alexa McDonough (Halifax, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    I'm really delighted that we're having the opportunity for this discussion today, given the scope of the work you're involved in. What is difficult is zeroing in when there is such vast scope to the subject matter and to your initiatives.

    I really want to pick up on Ms. Almeida's latter comments about the degree of humiliation felt by many Muslims in the world—and regrettably the same is true here in Canada in many instances.

    We've heard from many witnesses before this committee in the context of our study of Canada's relations with the Muslim world. Although there were many, many points of view, one recurring theme was the extent to which the seemingly intractable Palestinian-Israeli nightmare continues to be a stumbling block to progress in many, many situations. I think there have been a variety of viewpoints. Some have suggested it becomes a bit of an excuse for not dealing with human rights, civil liberties, and democratic development within certain other repressive regimes, and so on. But this was a recurring theme.

    I'm wondering if you can indicate whether Rights and Democracy has done any research papers, symposia, or particular initiatives around this issue, and whether you could give us a bit of a summation, and perhaps also refer us to any documentation that has flown from work you've done in this area.

    Secondly—and I just raised this question in our meeting yesterday—a concern that was widely shared in the committee was the situation in Haiti, which has reached the very crisis proportions that were predicted in your own document, just fresh off the printing press. I know this is not the subject of today's discussion, but given how urgent this matter is and how widespread is the interest and concern of members around this table, I'm wondering if you could indicate whether you have any current thoughts flowing from where you left off in your study on this subject in the fall of 2003.

    Again, if there isn't time to discuss it in detail here today, could you follow up with some further recommendations to the committee of what it is we might try to do to be helpful in terms of making recommendations to the government, and in terms of any kinds of initiatives we might take as an all-party foreign affairs committee?

    Thank you.

º  (1625)  

[Translation]

    The Chair: Mr. Roy.

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy: Thank you, Ms. McDonough.

    I will make a brief comment regarding Haiti because you have asked me to. I would call on Ms. Iris Almeida to recall what the Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development has done within the Palestinian context that you have just referred to.

    Mr. Chairman, can we talk about Haiti?

    The Chair: Yes.

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy: Very well. I was not sure; I thought you might have some reservations.

    In the case of Haiti, I do not want to be too severe. The OAS has been active and is present in Port-au-Prince.

    The Caribbean community is also there. However today, in many areas, multilateralism is being used as an excuse to avoid taking initiatives.

    Several weeks ago, we hoped, as we wrote in La Presse, that Canada's Prime Minister would appoint a personal representative, along with the Mexicans, the Brazilians, the Americans, to work in that hemisphere at another level and in a less intergovernmental fashion. Intergovernmental work can give good results in normal times, but in times of crisis, one rarely obtains concrete results in that way. We had hoped, therefore, that the Prime Minister would appoint a personal representative and that Canada would lead much more decisive action than what we have seen.

    The report that we have tabled with you today will show the extent to which Haitian society has been abandoned, including independent lawyers' movements, journalists who have been killed, most of them being hurt on a daily basis—machine guns are carried in the newsrooms— as well as women's groups. We have allowed the most distressed country in our hemisphere to sink as low as it is today. I think that the Government of Canada, Canadian society and an organization such as ours can do much, much better than that.

    Ever since I have been with Rights and Democracy, I have been fighting for an intervention in Haiti. We drafted this report. We have someone who will take care of Haiti when the situation will has been somewhat normalized. We created Rights and Democracy so that international human rights standards would be respected in developing countries, and I think that we have a special mandate for those countries in distress, such as Rwanda at a certain point in time, and Haiti today.

    If you were to ask me what Canada could do with its partners within the context of the OAS, I would answer that we need to hear Canada, and not simply react. I know that this is complex and that Canada has already made efforts in this area; but is Canada willing to propose to its partners today that we act to restore a minimum of security, a minimum of respect for people in a country such as Haiti? Without that minimum, we have a slaughter in the making.

    In conclusion, I would like to add a comment on Haiti. Canada has already worked hard in training its security forces, etc. Have we done enough, over a long enough period of time? That is often the problem. I think that Canada has made a true effort, an effort that is laudable and significant, but which has perhaps ended too soon. That is the question that Mr. Eggleton put earlier: are you sure you have made a deeper impact? I think that that is also true for government interventions. Do we stay for long enough? Are we determined to be there to support the movement, or are we leaving and allowing events to take their course? That, Ms. McDonough, is what I can say.

    I would add one more thing about Haiti. Those who know Haiti know that for 15 years, there has been this eternal drama of the curse of successive regimes. I think that Canada has to take an extremely strong initiative. I am not talking about going back to the trusteeship council, but I am talking about a long-term involvement with a number of partners who want to work with us, so that we can overcome this half century of misery that Haitians have been living in, so that we can have a more significant impact to create another outcome. I do not think it is worth having a six-month program in Haiti. We need to make up our minds to be there for a long time.

º  (1630)  

[English]

    The Chair: We're now going to go to Mr. Wilfert.

    Mr. Bryon Wilfert (Oak Ridges, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Your comments and what the findings have been so far from this committee have dealt a lot with the Middle East and with Africa. I'm familiar with that region, but my area is Asia. Obviously the democratic heart of Islam is in Asia, particularly in Southeast Asia.

    One of my questions has to do with the strategic opportunities Canada has in that part of the region because of our middle power role, our economic and social and political contexts. I would ask you this. What are the types of instruments we should be using or that we're not using presently in that part of the world to advance many of the issues you've outlined? You're quite right in your comments: it's not a homogeneous area by any stretch.

    Secondly, significant change is going on in Malaysia at the present time. Since the assumption of the then and now the current Prime Minister Abdullah, there have been significant changes, in fact changes that would be unheard of a year ago. He sent out Christmas greetings to churches across Malaysia personally last year, which was unheard of, in an attempt to try to build, as he says, a really pluralistic society in a state that is clearly based on Islam.

    Are there any lessons we can be learning there, given the nature of our own society, that you might recommend to us?

º  (1635)  

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy: Mr. Wilfert, thank you very much for your questions. I have not been perhaps, in the 10 minutes the chair gave me, sensitive enough to this part of the world, to Asia.

    I'd like to let the members of the committee know that we will have in May in the Philippines a symposium with Canadians and people from that part of the world on a request we have been receiving for a year and a half from Thailand, from some people even in Vietnam, and other parts of Southeast Asia. They are in the process of creating those economic regional communities, ASEAN Plus Three, and there is not a single reference in those new economic communities and organisms about human rights, contrary to what is done in the Americas, in Africa, in Europe, and all over the world.

    We will have, then, a first symposium with the Asian NGOs of importance about that question in May in the Philippines, and we will have in January, in Toronto or Vancouver, a second phase of this reflection that we will organize with them at their request.

    We will bring to those meetings, at least at the second meeting, people from the European Community and people from the Americas working in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the court, in order that they know about and have concrete contact with what is going on.

    I was surprised when I first came to the Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development as president. The first request I received--it was from your office--was for a symposium in Montreal, and there were a lot of NGOs from Asia there. They came to us saying, “Can you help? We want to do something. We don't know exactly how it works elsewhere in the world, but can you be there with us?” That was the result. I have worked with them in the last few months on those two symposiums I mentioned.

    I should have also said that in January 2005 we will start in Indonesia on what I mentioned we're doing now in Morocco. It is a kind of inventory, with Indonesian researchers and NGOs, about the state of democratic values and human rights in their country. We will start this year to prepare that work, and we will be in full operation for two or three years in Indonesia starting in 2005.

    I'll ask Iris to add something to that.

    Ms. Iris Almeida: Just very briefly, Mr. Chair, I think the opportunities available for Canada to play a strategic role in Asia on the economic front, on the human rights front, on the democracy front, and on the justice front are enormous. We have received numerous requests from countries ranging from India to China to Indonesia to Malaysia--countries we work with--and quite simply we do not have the resources to be able to respond or to work in a long-term perspective, except very, very modestly.

    I just want to say that this seminar we are doing in Asia will bring together about 15 networks in the same room: networks working on security, on human rights and regional arrangements--regional processes, as they call them, regional mechanisms--and economic integration. We would be very happy to share with you the results of that process.

    If you will permit me, on the question of Palestine and Israel--

    The Chair: Yes, very briefly, because that was Ms. McDonough's question.

º  (1640)  

[Translation]

    Ms. Iris Almeida: Thank you. I think that in terms of Palestine and Israel, we simply need to acknowledge that we have not done a lot of work, for several very simple reasons. To come back to the issue of modest amounts, I would say that this institution cannot do everything with $4.8 million per year and with a five-year review that requires that we concentrate our efforts so that our work has an impact. That was my first point.

    That being said, this issue is at the heart of the work that the centre is doing here, in Canada, as well as in the Middle East and in the Maghreb. We try to ensure that a dialogue is being maintained within civil society in these very troubled regions of the world, and that there be places, zones, where there can be contact, dialogue and exchanges. We continue to reflect on that part of the world and on international law.

    We would be willing to send you a report on the internal discussions that we have had as well as on the mission that we undertook in that region. However, we continue to say that if we do not have the necessary resources to be in that region permanently, then we will not have all the necessary information we need to effectively promote and advocate for the rights of the people in that region, here in Canada as well as in the rest of the world.

    Currently we are not present there, but we continue to reflect on this and to report on the atrocities committed by the various factions. We could share some of these documents and information with you; they are already public.

[English]

    The Chair: We'll pass to Mr. Obhrai.

    Mr. Deepak Obhrai (Calgary East, CPC): I'm sorry, I came a little late, so I didn't get a complete picture of your presentation. Nevertheless, I picked up certain points.

    I'm interested to see if your institute has done any study on minority rights in Islamic societies or countries. During the time we visited all these things, we have always looked at the factor that there is a lack of democracy and a lack of human rights vis-à-vis the Islamic populations. However, there is always the component of others in those societies. Most importantly, although I can quite clearly state where the others stand--I am well aware of it and I know what it is--I am interested in knowing if your institute has done any kind of study on it. Have you looked at that situation as part of your mandate, and have you come out with any kind of recommendation or solution with reference to minority rights?

[Translation]

    The Chair: Mr. Roy.

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy: Sir, even though I would like to be able to answer you in the affirmative, I must tell you that we have not undertaken a specific study on the status of minorities in so-called Islamic societies. However, we have just recruited someone who went to the London School of Economics. This person, whose specialty is minority issues, will be working with us.

[English]

    As I mentioned earlier, we want to be part of some work in Iraq and Iran at some point in the future. We hired him for that, because he knows a lot about those parts of the world and the question you referred to.

    The Chair: Are there any supplementary questions?

    You're very quiet.

    Mr. Deepak Obhrai: Well, the fact is minority rights is a pretty big issue. Since you haven't done any studies...and I'm sorry to say, even we, during the course of our own visits across the Muslim world, did not really give much attention to that aspect. The other aspects of the war on terrorism--women's rights, democracy, compatibility with the word “democracy”. Everybody has been focusing on those issues, yet we seem to have forgotten this one critical area that seems to have fallen through the cracks. We're not recognizing it and seeing how it fits into the facts.

    We were in India, which is a Muslim minority country, you see, and we looked at that aspect. It was kind of lost in this thing, so I was interested to see where you had gone.

    It'll probably come up in other issues, which we will try to bring up as well.

º  (1645)  

[Translation]

    Ms. Iris Almeida: Thank you very much.

    For each country that we have had a long-term involvement with, we draft a final study on the state of democracy, based on the United Nations international instruments such as the International Bill of Rights. In a few of our studies, particularly the one on Pakistan, we dealt with the issue of minorities.

[English]

    The Ahmadi Muslims in Pakistan were a very important issue within this study.

[Translation]

    I would just like to tell you that we feel that the problem of minorities has become one of the main phenomena that can help us understand and manage diversity and democratic pluralism in many countries. There are several angles from which one can look at the problem, and for now we are mainly doing this through a project called

[English]

Fundamentalism and human rights.

    We try to do fact-finding missions in those countries where there are major atrocities, for example, in Gujarat, in India, where there were major atrocities against Muslims. We would send a mission or we would do reports about those specific situations.

    But as you say, the issue of minority rights, more globally integrated, needs much more work than we have done so far.

[Translation]

    The Chair: Mr. Simard, you have the floor.

[English]

    Mr. Raymond Simard (Saint Boniface, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    I'm a new member of this committee, so I don't have the same perspective as the other members here. This is one of my first meetings. But I did have an opportunity last fall to visit Pakistan with the subcommittee on international trade. I spent four or five days in Islamabad, Karachi, and Lahore.

    You could tell that the chamber of commerce in Lahore, for instance, does not have visits from people from Canada or any other country, for that matter.

    I was very impressed, first of all, with the economic possibilities of that country. I was also intrigued, though, by how the stereotypes of an Islamic country prevent these people from doing business with a lot of other countries. It was almost palpable how they wanted acceptance from Canada, and it was almost as if they were saying “If Canada doesn't do business with us, who will?”

    I'm not sure this is a question; it's more a comment. When you say that Canada has a role in the Islamic countries, they're counting on us to open doors for them. I think that's maybe one of the roles we have.

    Maybe you can comment on that.

[Translation]

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy: Well, sir, your comment contains both a question and an answer, in a way. Basically, you are asking us what comparative advantages a country like ours has in those regions of the world we are talking about today.

    If we set aside certain continental security considerations that have arisen during the last few months and years, it is absolutely certain that the image projected by Canada, especially in the area of diversity, is better appreciated than the images certain other countries project, especially in Europe, in that same area. What you don't have here is an anti-Islamic attitude that could almost be characterized as structured, I think. As I was saying earlier, I lived in Europe for 14 years. I unfortunately witnessed in France, where I was, and in a lot of European countries, extremely distressing attitudes. It's generally the extreme right that has won the political debate on those matters and that means that those who come from elsewhere, and especially from the Maghreb and Africa, are seen as dangerous people stealing jobs. The general image is extraordinarily negative. I think that we're not viewed as having those attitudes.

    Moreover, I don't think that any country in the world has anything at all to fear from Canada. We are not the United States of America, India or the European Union. We can entertain relatively equal relations with a lot of countries without causing them to become suspicious. They can take the measure of what we really are, no more, no less. I think that's an important factor.

    Moreover, Canadians—you can see this a lot in Africa and you've observed this in Pakistan—are everywhere to be seen in the world and are appreciated wherever they are. Canadians are on stage everywhere in the world, very much so, and are appreciated where they are. I think that's part of some of our comparative advantages. However, I believe that Canada's image under the authority of the former minister responsible for CIDA was certainly starting to pale a little because we decided to intervene in the world's affairs a lot more through multilateral institutions than was the case before. We have very little latitude for specifically Canadian interventions.

    You will say that it is hard to do otherwise. No doubt, but I don't see many countries who do it as much as Canada. Canada has taken this sort of change to an extreme level. If you look at the evolution of CIDA's budgets, what CIDA could do worldwide 15 years ago and how much of a budget it has left today after its annual contributions to multilateral institutions, you'll see that the leeway remaining is very thin indeed. That is certainly a major problem.

    I find what you said very interesting. What you say concerning the economy is also true for justice, democratic values and also rights and freedoms. Our partners in other areas of the world look at the nature of the dialogue we're entertaining with the major NGOs in the region of the world you were mentioning, and others also, and wonder how we go about establishing such frank dialogue. Maybe that also stems from Canada's strong tradition or its history devoid of any past heavy-handedness in the those areas of the world, and so on.

    Yesterday, in the Ivory Coast, certain things were said about the legal system in that country. The Ivorians there said that they would have walked out of the room if that had been said by any other country in the world, but that they had stayed because Canada had made those statements. The statements made concerning their legal system, which were actually extremely severe, were non-violent in nature and were not negative. I think that is very significant.

º  (1650)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Macklin, your turn.

[English]

    Mr. Paul Harold Macklin (Northumberland, Lib.): To some extent, I suppose, you were just discussing what I wanted to approach. You say the opportunities for Canada to participate are enormous. One of the suggestions I believe you made was that we need to take a major role in a dialogue with spiritual Islam.

    Can you expand upon what you believe we should be doing with, as you termed it, I believe, “spiritual Islam” in a dialogue format?

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy: Thank you very much.

    That is a very involved and very fundamental question.

    As you know better than me, for a great majority of men and women in the world, the religious dimension is still extremely predominant, more maybe than in this part of the world or in some parts of Europe. We have to recognize that and we have to respect that. We have, as Iris said earlier, to try to understand what this means in the life of a man, or the life of a woman, or the life of a community. This presence of the religious dimension is very important and we cannot just neglect it.

    We have to try to understand what the connection is between the religious beliefs people have and the human rights perspective we have. Is there any connection there?

    I have here a book that was published 10 days ago in Tunisia by one of the greatest writers in the Islamic world, Kakim Ben Hammouda. At the end of his book on the last page he says we have to stay what we are. We have some religious beliefs....

º  (1655)  

[Translation]

    The book is written in French, but Hammouda also writes that we should abandon three things. First, we should stop referring to the golden age of Islam as being the future. The golden age of Islam happened five centuries ago. Second, we must let go of Saladin's image and stop believing that the salvation of our societies is always collective. We must give the individual the freedom as well as the means to live out freely his individual understanding of his own existence. Third, he says, we must stop making others responsible for what is happening to us and start questioning ourselves and asking ourselves a certain number of questions on the problems we face.

    That is the answer of that great philosopher, which is better than mine: we must retain Islam, so he says, but we must stop dreaming of our future in terms of a golden age that happened five or six centuries ago, we must stop thinking communally and go back to individual freedoms; we must stop finding the rest of the world responsible for our own problems and become more critical about what we do.

    I think we can establish a dialogue on the last three points, which are interesting insofar as we also consider his first statement: we belong to Islam, that is our faith. As we said previously, there will be two billion believers in Islam in 15 years. So we cannot make believe that it does not exist.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Roy, Ms. Almeida and Mr. Lipsett. Your presence among us was most interesting. We will certainly have the opportunity to meet again and hear you again. Thank you once again for having taken the time to come and meet us here in Ottawa.

[English]

    I want to mention to my colleagues that we have a notice of a motion to the chair of a meeting with the United Nations World Food Programme. Mr. James T. Morris, who is the executive director, will be in Ottawa on March 23, 2004, which is a Tuesday, and since it's budget day we're looking at the possibility a meeting with him in the morning. I just want to let you know.

    Hon. Art Eggleton: One document says the afternoon and the other says the morning.

    The Chair: We changed it because in the afternoon we have the budget--

    Hon. Art Eggleton: He is available in the morning, is he?

    The Chair: Yes, the budget is in the afternoon and I don't want to call a meeting in conflict with the budget. I don't want to go against the budget.

    This is just to let you know.

[Translation]

    Mr. Roy, you have the floor.

    Mr. Jean-Louis Roy: I wish to apologize to the members of the committee because we do not have any documents. We thought we would be addressing two subjects. The first was the five-year review of Rights and Democracy that has just been finished but that has not yet been tabled in Parliament.

    As for the second subject, we will send the chairman and the members of this committee a note, early next week, which will contain the pith and substance of what we said here today.

    Thank you very much.

    Ms. Francine Lalonde: [Editor's Note: Inaudible] You cannot even change it.

    The Chair: The clerk has just informed me that the document was tabled yesterday, towards the end of the day, in the House.

    The meeting is adjourned.