[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Wednesday, December 13, 1995
.1539 
[English]
The Chair: Order, please. This is the Sub-Committee on Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
We have quite an impressive group of people here today before us. I thank you all for coming.
Just before we start, I would like to explain that our subcommittee is new. We're just getting ready to take off and fly. What we have decided for the first group of hearings is we would like to listen to what you people who have worked in the human rights areas feel our committee could be focusing on. It's one thing to stand up and shout about human rights abuses from the top of a hill, but it's another thing to focus our efforts and look at something that is doable for us in terms of putting out a report and recommendations for the government. We really appreciate your input.
.1540
Mr. Yalden, I'm going to start with you. If you would introduce yourself and take the lead, it would facilitate things for me and make them much smoother and easier too.
Mr. Max Yalden (Chief Commissioner, Canadian Human Rights Commission): Fine. Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the committee. I do have a very brief statement. I understand that time is limited and you have a lot of witnesses, so I shall be brief.
May I first introduce Madame Michelle Falardeau-Ramsay, who is the deputy chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
Due to the need to be brief, I'm going to concentrate almost exclusively on one aspect of human rights internationally where our commission has been directly involved, and that is in the provision of technical assistance aimed at creating or strengthening national human rights institutions in other countries.
We are fortunate to live in a country with a very well-developed system for human rights implementation, human rights legislation, constitutional provision, and furthermore, with effective machinery for administering and enforcing those laws. I want to make that point very forcefully, because it's the latter that's missing in most places.
Our success in protecting human rights at home has not escaped the attention of other countries. We have a well-deserved reputation, and for this reason our commission has often been called upon to provide advice and assistance on how to create national human rights institutions, or how to make such institutions that exist already more effective.
[Translation]
We believe that this type of assistance is extremely important if Canada is to encourage other countries to improve their human rights performance. We do not see it as a replacement for diplomatic iniatives. These, of course, are essential and must continue.
However, it is also clear that the full exercise of human rights is only as meaningful as the tools that are available for their promotion and protection. A country may have a genuine desire to improve its human rights record, and it may have human rights protection included in its constitution and in legislation. But without effective machinery to put the principles into practice, even the most eloquent words have a hollow ring.
[English]
Our efforts to assist countries in the area of human rights have taken a number of forms. To begin with, in recent years, particularly since what is often called the end of the Cold War, our commission has received dozens of visitors from other countries, government officials, human rights practitioners, representatives of NGOs, lawyers, jurists, journalists and so on.
This year alone we've had visitors wishing to discuss human rights matters with us from Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Pakistan, India, Algeria, Burundi, Peru - and that's only a partial list. More recently, we've been able also to develop more extended cooperation with human rights institutions in other parts of the world, notably in Indonesia, India and Mexico. During the past year, members of the national human rights commissions of all three countries have visited Ottawa, including the presidents of the Indian and Mexican commissions.
During those visits, we signed cooperation agreements with each of those commissions, which provide for future exchanges of both information and personnel. In addition, both the deputy chief commissioner and I have been invited to visit a number of countries to provide advice and assistance related to equality rights.
Over the past several years I have met, for example, with government and NGO representatives in the Baltic states, in Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Mexico, India, Indonesia and, most recently, in China.
.1545
I'd be happy to answer any questions members may have on those activities, as I'm sure would Madame Falardeau-Ramsay on similar visits and activities in countries like South Africa, El Salvador and Guatemala.
[Translation]
We have also worked multilaterally with human rights agencies in other countries under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Centre.
I am currently chairing the coordinating committee of a network of some 35 national human rights institutions from various parts of the world.
The primary purpose of the network is to exchange information, discuss issues of common concern, and provide advice to the UN Centre regarding technical assistance programs, with a view to creating new institutions in countries where they do not exist and strengthening and reinforcing them in others where they may be new or in a fragile situation.
[English]
Needless to say, none of this could we do on our own. The Canadian Human Rights Commission does not have budgets for this kind of activity. We therefore rely on the support of CIDA and we are hopeful that this support will continue, particularly in the light of the priority that has been given to assistance in the area of human rights and good governance.
I also believe that supporting our bilateral work by itself is not enough. We must also support international organizations, including the Commonwealth, la Francophonie, the OSCE and, of course, the United Nations, in their efforts to assist member states to protect and promote human rights.
During his recent visit to Ottawa, the UN Secretary-General declared that in his view human rights would be better protected in the long run by the reinforcement of democratic institutions than by the various conventions and pacts that constitute international law in the matter of human rights.
Although I would certainly not want to minimize the importance of the conventions, I'm entirely in agreement with the Secretary-General that we are talking about an area in which aid programs for the development of this type of institution, of a culture of human rights, of a culture of democracy, through the United Nations, could be - and in my view likely would be - the most effective way to go. This, obviously, requires the support of all the member states, and I very much hope that Canada will continue to be a leader in this area.
I promised to be brief, Madam Chairman. I hope I have. I'd be very happy, as I'm sure my colleague would, to answer any questions or comment on anything that members of the committee might wish to raise.
[Translation]
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Broadbent.
Hon. Ed Broadbent (President, International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development): Madam Chairperson, it's a pleasure for us to be here. I say ``us'' because with me is Madame Côté-Harper, who's chairperson of our board.
What we would like to do, if you agree, is to speak very briefly about some of the things that we have been up to in the field of international human rights, which Madame Côté-Harper will address in her few minutes, and then in my few minutes, added on to it, we'll try to comply with your request, as I understood it, to make some suggestions as to how this important committee that's been established might usefully spend its time.
[Translation]
Ms. Gisèle Côté-Harper (Chair of the board, International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development): Thank you, Madam Chairman.
I believe that the members are familiar with the mandate of the centre, its history and its budget, but I will remind you briefly of some elements to give you a better idea of the environment in which we work.
First, I think it is important to emphasize what Mr. Yalden just said, namely that the Political Internationals brought togheter in April three political internationals to adopt a common statement on human rights and democracy, showing thereby that it is possible to go beyond partisan attitudes. We have to keep working in that direction.
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Secondly, in July, we were granted consultative status by the United Nations as a human rights and democratic development organization. In August, the centre attended the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing where like many others we tried to make the United Nations and the international community more accountable for the commitments that have been made on women's human rights.
On behalf of the UN High Commissioner, Mr. José Ayala Lasso, we organized during the World Conference, jointly with UN agencies, a seminar on the incorporation of women's rights as human rights into the corpus of human rights protection mechanisms of the UN.
During this seminar that I chaired and where the president of the centre and the High Commissioner made presentations, there was a meeting of independant experts from the human rights committees established under two covenants, the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. There were three special rapporteurs dealing respectively with the violence against women, torture and freedom of expression and, in a common forum, they explained the difficulties they faced to incorporate the rights of women into their work and also how joining forces may make it possible.
I will refer to three other activities. In Tanzania, we completed our democratic development study and held a successful workshop in Dar es-Salaam which brought together government and NGO representatives. Helping the NGOs and the governments to work together is a major aspect of our work. This meeting was followed by an electoral observation mission.
We continue to monitor closely the situation in Rwanda and Haïti, particularly in Haïti because the centre drafted the terms of reference of the National Commission of Justice and Thruth and we are looking forward to the report of that commission. Of course, as we all know, Rwanda and Haïti are preparing to enter a crucial period in their history as they both have to deal with the issue of impunity.
Regarding the trade and human rights issues, a highly controversial area, three workshops have been held on globalisation of trade in Mexico, Indonesia and Thailand where we heard first hand from the workers how globalisation is affecting the daily life of people.
There was then a meeting of human rights and trade union activists together with about twenty other people in Kyoto, Japan, a few days before the summit meeting attended by the heads of state of APEC countries, APEC beeing the organization for ecomnomic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. Together they produced the Kyoto Statement which provides key indications of what APEC should be doing if it is to acquire a legitimacy in the minds of the people of the region.
In concluding, I will say that we keep developing our links with indigenous people, primarily toward the Americas, through our indigenous women's initiative, working jointly with organizations from Central and Latin America, including the Inter-American Human Rights Institute of San José, Costa Rica, as well as in Mexico, where we put more emphasis on it.
Regarding the program that we would like to see and that might be useful to this committee, the president will talk about our plans for the future as well as make some suggestions that might be useful to you in your future work.
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The Chair: Mr. Broadbent.
Mr. Broadbent: Thank you, Madam Chairman.
[English]
I have a number of items, which I'm going to reduce to two, about our forthcoming plans as a centre. I'll mention those two, and then I'll concentrate on some suggestions from our experience that your committee might consider as part of its work in the coming year.
One of the aspects of our work in the coming year that I would draw the committee's attention to is what we think will be a very important conference, which will take place in Toronto on February 22, on the continuing issue of trade and human rights in the context of the globalization of market economies. What is particularly important about this conference is that 80% of the participants are going to be leading Canadian business people, CEOs and vice-presidents of companies, and the other minor percentage are going to be human rights and labour experts and specialists from Canada and abroad. We have the participation in this session of two distinguished former foreign ministers of Canada as well. We think the discussion is going to be an important one because, to my knowledge, it will be the first time the business community in Canada will be discussing in an open and direct way this very important business and foreign policy issue.
The second item I would mention in terms of our forthcoming work concerns indigenous rights. The centre has participated in the first session of the working group created by the United Nations Human Rights Commission to draft a declaration on the rights of indigenous people. We are now in the process of completing a publication that will help make that declaration better known globally. We hope to have this work completed in time for the next session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva.
Now, Madam Chairperson and members of the committee, I'd like to briefly mention four areas where the committee might consider spending its time. First, it could hold hearings on this issue of the three-pronged policy position of the government-stated foreign policy of being concerned with security, trade and rights, but particularly to take up this issue of business activity and rights in the global economy.
Some of us will be participating in a meeting of the full committee tomorrow where Nigeria is going to be discussed. Central to the problems of Nigeria is the Shell corporation. Central to what is going on in many countries of the world is what big corporations are doing either positively or negatively. It seems to me that one of the important items this committee could look at would be that issue.
A lot of questions are raised. The debate as it has been put forward by the Government of Canada itself seems to me to be the right context; that is to say, a country like Canada should favour both trade and rights. How do you square this circle? All kinds of questions are very pertinent to the performance of large multinational corporations in developing countries.
If we're going to pursue what the Secretary-General has alluded to in a number of recent speeches that building democratic societies constitutes the best foundation for human rights, then what role, positively or negatively, do corporations play abroad, especially in developing nations that are not yet democratic or not fully democratic? Should there be guidelines for corporate behaviour? Should there be government-established guidelines for corporations from that country performing abroad and so on?
As I say, I think this issue will be discussed tomorrow in the case of Shell in Nigeria. It is an important question, particularly, I believe, since the collapse of the Cold War and the adoption on a global basis by governments of every kind of regime of some kind of market economy. Are we going to leave open the argument, for example, that Shell has made that it has no business telling governments what to do when governments happen to be killing people? Well, to make a point succinctly, big corporations don't hesitate to make recommendations on environmental matters, on tax policy, on labour issues, on a whole range of matters, when it's in their commercial interest to do so.
.1600
So a big question in the globe today surely should be - or maybe this is one issue a committee in a democracy like ours should be looking at - what role multinational corporations from democracies should have in spreading democracy.
That's one issue. The other is this. Both in the Commonwealth and the Francophonie, is there a way perhaps these two institutions could give greater attention...? The staffs they now have are scandalous in their size, in terms of human rights and democracy. I think the Commonwealth secretariat has half a person allocated to democratic development, for the whole Commonwealth. Could the Commonwealth and the Francophonie play a more useful role in developing democracy?
A third area is whether this committee should contribute in some way to making international human rights crises non-partisan matters. The Nigerian crisis is before us now. We've had Rwanda. Certain matters, when they come up.... If I can put it this way, from my experience as a member of Parliament in the past and looking at the present, is there some way you can depoliticize these issues from a partisan point of view in the House of Commons? Maybe this committee, either itself...or it could facilitate other organizations within the House to act quickly and promptly; that is, members of Parliament of all parties who want to see a governmental response to crises that are of a human rights nature.
Finally, another useful area to consider would be to monitor, from the point of view of political participation, the program of action for women's rights as human rights, adopted in Beijing. As you know, very specific aspects of human rights for women were looked at in Beijing. One of these was the political participation of women. Maybe, again, this committee could look at our country - I think all of us, male and female alike, would agree at the national level...and, Madam Chairperson, perhaps better than anyone else in this room, you would understand - the low level of women's participation in national politics, and what the reasons are for it in our country, and what perhaps can and should be done to get a higher level of participation.
The Chair: Excuse me, Mr. Broadbent. Was that low-level participation or low level of women participating? What was it you meant to say?
Mr. Broadbent: The low level of the electoral success of women.
Ms Côté-Harper: Madam Chairperson, 3.5% of women are involved in economic ministries around the world, and 144 countries have never had any women involved in those aspects of economics.
The Chair: Thank you. Your point is well taken.
Mr. Kingsley is here. Those of us in politics have heard his name before in a different context.
I'm hoping you're going to enlighten us a little on Canada's role in international democracy.
Mr. Jean-Pierre Kingsley (Chief Electoral Officer of Canada): Madam Chair, I welcome this opportunity with open arms, because we sometimes feel a little like the mouse that roared, at least on the international scene. I'm sure you will be interested in knowing that over the last 5 years Elections Canada has been involved in over 255 missions, in over 75 countries. We've been able to do it through budgetary allocations coming from either CIDA or Foreign Affairs, or sometimes international organizations.
I will go into that later. I thought I would start off by putting that up there just so people know. I was wondering if you had become aware of that through some means, because I was surprised to get the invitation to appear before the committee. I know initially you had invited Ron Gould. He's just off to Bosnia. I'll talk to you about that in a minute. That's why you get me instead of him today.
.1605
The chief electoral officer is primarily known for what he does or, eventually, she does in Canada. But since 1990, with the fall of the Iron Curtain, the business on the international scene has really mushroomed for Elections Canada, all of it, as I said, or principally funded through other budgets. This I've made clear to the committee before which I answer in terms of budgetary items for Elections Canada, and yet we succeeded in meeting these requirements.
We do not decide to which countries we go. We have not set up a mini-foreign affairs office in my office. Foreign Affairs decides if a mission is acceptable for whatever reason, obviously, and our decision is whether or not to participate, depending upon availability of resources.
Our priority has to remain what goes on in Canada, and that's the reason why the assistant chief electoral officer, Mr. Ron Gould, is principally involved on the international front and I'm principally involved on the national front. We're pushing through ideas on the permanent register of electors, and so on and so forth, and that requires my attention.
That doesn't mean I'm absent from the international scene. I have been involved in Mexico, Bulgaria, and Zaire, and I have been involved as well in a project with Russia that, if you're interested, I can talk about further. But essentially Mr. Gould has been handling the brunt of it, and obviously he's been handling the national scene much less so.
Why is Elections Canada solicited so much? Well, I think first of all it's Canada's reputation as a democracy that is reflected in this.
Secondly, it's Elections Canada's reputation within Canada that is being reflected outside through principally the ambassadors who are here and who watch electoral events and wonder who's running this. They find out that 75 years ago the Parliament of Canada established an independent officer of Parliament called the chief electoral officer, and that Canada's been a democracy since it started being a country. I think all of this has enhanced and made the reputation of Canada what it is in terms of electoral processes, which effectively serve as the footing to the democratic processes of Canada, with the foundation being Parliament and its institutions, and the rest of the House being the people who have testified before me and others who will come from the NGO sector.
I think a third factor is that Elections Canada, through our own parliamentary process where you can hold an election any time - there is no set time - is an institution that is geared to act within very tight timeframes. I think we carry this with us when we go outside. Our ability is our ability to roll up our sleeves and get the job done.
I would add one last factor, and I think it is related to the approach we take when we go on the international scene. Obviously if people were to say to us that we could only go to a country that has a democratic process and an electoral process that has evolved to the same extent as Canada, then there would be no need for Elections Canada to go. They would have achieved what they needed to achieve.
The approach we take is that we talk to people about what it is that works in Canada, but we also respect the cultures in which we find ourselves and ensure the basic principles are appreciated and respected to the fullest extent possible. We in effect quasi-participate with them, and that is the mindset we take with us.
I could give many examples of how that works in practice, but I can tell you that with the numbers I quoted to you it's obvious there is some success being achieved.
We respond to requests from a number of sources, and I will name a few: the Parliament of Canada itself, whenever there are things that Parliament wants to do; the Department of Foreign Affairs; CIDA; the United Nations; the OAS; the CSC, or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe now, under which Ron Gould has gone to Bosnia right now; the Commonwealth; la Francophonie, which Mr. Broadbent was mentioning; the International Foundation on Electoral Systems - I sit on their board, and they hold meetings every three months in Washington; the Inter-American Centre for Electoral Assistance and Promotion, a portion of it called Qu'Appelle; the Carter Center; the National Democratic Institute; and the Asia Foundation.
All of this is done always and only when it's acceptable through the Department of Foreign Affairs for us to participate. We established a long time ago that we would not make the decision ourselves without the approval of Foreign Affairs for involvement, or CIDA for that matter.
.1610
The activities fall into several broad classes. I would call them observing and supervising elections, observer missions where effectively people go one week before the event and stay two or three days after. Usually this is attended and led by people from the political arena as opposed to electoral professional persons.
We provide technical advice and assistance, and evaluations of electoral processes; we assist in the development of constitutional portions dealing with electoral law and political parties; we assist in the development of electoral laws with those people; and we work directly with electoral bodies when they're establishing the process and when they're effectively running the process.
South Africa is a case in point where, for all intents and purposes, there were a dozen Canadians. The South Africans came to Canada to express their thanks to Elections Canada for the work that was done in really making that happen as a reality. You know, where the rubber hits the road, that's where heat is generated. That's where our expertise has served well.
I will not keep you much longer. It's an example of the type of task we do, but as a breakdown I would say that 30% of our missions are pre-electoral assessments of some kind or another, 30% are for the provision of assistance of one kind or another, and 40% approximately are what we would call straight electoral observation. Quite frankly, to my mind as a professional in electoral administration, it is the first two that are of greater interest and of greater benefit to Canada in terms of where your professionals should go to help or to provide assistance on the international scene.
I've mentioned Bosnia. Palestine is another area where we're involved. Right now we have people from Elections Canada in Haiti helping the OAS run that process; the second in command is a Canadian recommended by Elections Canada.
Regarding Russia, we're going to be holding sessions with them. I have three people in Russia right now, not only related to the event that is taking place but in terms of an 18-month, $700,000 development project jointly with the Russians to help the Central Electoral Commission organize itself and get up to date in terms of modern management techniques, and to provide our expertise.
I will be visiting Mexico for the third or fourth time in January of this year, and I will be meeting with the representatives of three states where they are holding elections in the near future, to talk about the Canadian experience and Canadian history in terms of democratic development, especially as it affects elections.
There's a whole slew of countries - there's 75 of them - so there's no point in my listing them for you. They're on practically all the continents except Australia.
But you were asking where there were opportunities for your committee to assist. First, the very interest of your subcommittee is much appreciated. I think certain things could be achieved that are not being achieved and where we could get what I would call a bigger bang for the buck.
I think it must be recognized that investing in something as solid as electoral administration is an investment, not an expenditure. This is something that may amount to several million dollars a year. When we compare that to other forms of assistance, I think there's a real case to be made that this is where the longer-term development can occur.
The other thing is that I don't think this will go away simply because one election has been held in a country. They have not sufficiently developed, they're recognizing this, and they're beginning to come back.
I think it would stand us well if we were to develop our capacity better to handle the international front, because believe it or not, there are very many developments affecting the electoral world in Canada going on right now, and it is disruptive. I must maintain the balance between national priorities and our ability to meet the requirements on the international scene.
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I have made recommendations that a unit be established. It could be under the aegis of Elections Canada. In dollars, it would not spend more. But I am relying on the funders - CIDA, Foreign Affairs - for support to achieve this.
Another area - it's not one where I would expect there would be much discussion, but perhaps just the committee's support - is that it requires a lot of coordination, because there's still a lot of red tape before people can go on a mission. We are finding ourselves signing contracts with CIDA to allow Canadians, people from Elections Canada, to go on a mission. This is delaying the whole process. It's also adding to the burden involved. There are ways of streamlining this. Obviously, if your subcommittee can provide support, that would be much appreciated.
I will give you one very simple example of how difficult this can be. Ron Gould always maintained, when he was touted as the leader of the mission to Bosnia, that he needed to bring along one other Canadian who's an expert on planning. Of course we know who those experts are. Well, the approval for that person to go was provided yesterday afternoon for an evening plane. The contract was being negotiated....
If this were an exception, I would not have brought it forward to your committee. It is the rule 99% of the time. It is infuriating. It is not necessary, in my view. Just a letter of support would be much appreciated. I certainly don't want to take up the committee's time in discussing this kind of matter.
But that, Madam Chair, gives me an opportunity, which I much appreciate, of going around the mulberry bush about what Elections Canada does on the international scene. It is looking forward to continuing to making its own little contribution to the world scene.
The Chair: Ms Damianenko, did you want to speak, or are you here to answer the tough questions?
Ms France Damianenko (Assistant Director, International Services, Elections Canada): I think everything has been covered. Thank you.
Mr. Kingsley: I should have introduced Mrs. Damianenko. I got carried away. She is the assistant director on the international scene. She is listed on the agenda. She is Ron Gould's right-hand person for the international scene.
The Chair: Christine Elwell.
Professor Christine Elwell (Faculty of Law, Queen's University): Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing me to address this very fine committee. I have brought additional copies of my recent study produced by the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, in both official languages. I apologize for the picture. It was a very bad hair day.
At this time may I also put in a plug for my latest paper. This is a paper on the arms trade. It is entitled Trade and Environment Compliance Measures to Enhance Conventional Arms Agreements: From Landmines to UN Peacekeeping. It has some very timely discussion about economic sanctions which may be useful in your deliberations on Nigeria. Perhaps I could ask the clerk of this committee if she could redirect this paper to the Standing Committee on National Defence. A number of timely matters are raised in the paper.
To go back to the human rights and trade paper, it basically considered three main areas. One was the historical initiatives, unilateral, regional, and indeed global, to try to link trade and human rights, and in particular internationally recognized labour standards. It reviewed the arguments both for and against linkage from a north and south, east and west, left and right perspective. It tried to present both for and against. Finally, it documented the commitments made at Marrakesh by the trade ministers in 1994 when the World Trade Organization was created to consider the relationship between trade and internationally recognized labour standards. The paper essentially concludes with a review of the options for a linkage and suggested there was enough substance on the table to deserve serious Canadian discussion of the options.
Now or at any other time I would be happy to answer any questions the members or their staffs may have about anything in the paper. There were some 164 footnotes, so it is a very well documented study. I enjoyed working with the centre very much in producing the paper.
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Since the time the book was written, there have been major world events that have continued to shape the discussion on a linkage. Mr. Broadbent referred to Shell in Nigeria, and to the role of corporations and government in shaping an ethical level playing field. It's on this area that I'd like to focus my brief comments today.
There is increasing recognition of a link between successful international trade and human rights. Consider the issues of the Chiapas uprising in Mexico the day the NAFTA came into effect. Consider the ongoing problems with China in trade. Consider child labour, and now Shell in Nigeria. Governments and corporations can no longer seem to operate in an ethical vacuum.
If today's corporate managers are not very good at these issues, it is because they work on a basis of an almost complete separation of trade from politics. In exchange for unprecedented access that they now enjoy to almost all national economies, there seems to be an unspoken agreement that corporations will take few ethical stands and generally resist any attempts to use trade sanctions to bring about political change. One side is free to trade as it sees fit. The other side is free to rule as it sees fit. But surely this is a question of degree.
A serious gesture by Shell would have hurt the Nigerian government in perhaps the only way it could be hurt. It would have set an important precedent that morality and advantage might coincide in an effort to adopt common standards of production, safety, and environmental care and to avoid collusions with bad governments. Well-known trade critic Susan George has noted that all the corporations think about is doing good public relations and not of doing good, even though doing good might turn out to be the best public relations of all.
The worst fear is that corporations have gone beyond neutrality over local political conditions to develop an attachment to a particular level of bad government - not so bad as to create chaos for the conditions of business, but tough enough on its citizens to ensure public order, cheap labour, and low environmental and safety costs. Comparative advantages now seem to rest more and more on social and environmental factors so that corporations have indeed an interest in the maintenance of certain kinds of authoritarian governments.
Corporations tend to look to others to set the ethical rules of the game. Successful companies will increasingly take into account all stakeholders - suppliers, shareholders, customers and staff - as they respond to increasing public demands that companies act more responsibly and ethically. This is especially true given the declining role of governments today.
Good governments continue to have a critical role to play in shaping the ethical level playing field by integrating the economy, environment and social policy into a coherent whole, and indeed through cross-institutional linkages, both domestically and globally. In 1991, for example, the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, signed by heads of state and government, including Canada, recognized that there are three pillars of sustainable development: ``that economic liberty, social justice, and environmental responsibility are indispensable for prosperity''. I suggest this is the conceptual framework that one must now adopt when one reviews policy options and ethical bottom lines.
I admit there is a difficulty for corporations and governments in trying to balance these three pillars of economy, environment, and human rights - especially human rights. These are delicate matters, which everyone realizes, but because fundamental human rights have a claim to universal recognition, the general prohibition against intervention into the internal affairs of states in article 2(7) of the UN Charter has never prevailed to bar international scrutiny of deliberate breaches of basic human rights of member states.
Under the UN Charter, states have the obligation to promote universal respect for human rights, and under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to secure universal and effective recognition and observance of human rights.
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Professor Graham from his international law days will remember the Barcelona Traction case in the International Court of Justice, which emphasized that:
- state obligations derived from the principles and rules concerning basic rights of the human
person, including protection from slavery and racial discrimination.... In view of the
importance attached to these rights, all states have a legal interest in their protection.
The basic premise underlying the achievement of prosperity for all is that social progress and environmental responsibility ought to increase, and not decrease, with the economic prosperity that trade agreements can create. When one is not able to see a parallel rise of economic, environment and social policy, then one can begin to ask whether or not this is a result of the economic development of particular states, or a result of the policy of particular bad governments in trying to keep the level of the natural rise at an unsustainable level.
With respect to the third pillar of sustainable development, social justice, one must applaud the analytical work being carried out at the OECD on the relationship between internationally recognized labour standards, and - I understand from Professor Armand de Mestral at McGill - the creation now of a WTO committee on labour standards; the renewed interest in revitalizing the ILO; the call from the UN Secretary-General for a formal role for ECOSOC in international trade policy at the WTO; and the UN code of conduct on investment.
Indeed, we see more need to have cross-institutional linkages to be able to coordinate a coherent policy to achieve sustainable development. From a Canadian perspective, the work of the foreign policy review process has been critical in shaping this government's position on these delicate issues in its global dealings, and I applaud very much the work of the foreign policy review. I think it's just marvellous, and I'm very pleased to see these two new subcommittees created, although I hope that there are linkages between the human rights committee and the trade committee. It would seem to be a shame if they weren't talking to one another.
I would just like to conclude by suggesting that this committee undertake a number of important studies on the linkages between human rights and trade, including defining criteria and indicators of sustainable development, and engage in broad public consultations. I would also like to recommend an innovative legislative idea, and that is human rights impact assessment and monitoring of free trade agreements. It's similar to environmental impact assessment in the sense that you're trying to identify where economic activity is having negative impact; then you try to eliminate those negative impacts, where possible, and if not possible, at lease mitigate those negative impacts.
Why couldn't we have human rights impact assessment? Why couldn't this be something that deserved a legislative response? Why couldn't Canada take a leadership role in developing something along this line? I think it's something that all parties could support. I think it's something that would allow us to at least identify and monitor the situation. If we have the facts at hand, we'll be able to come to better policy conclusions.
Indeed, that would be consistent with the commitment at the Beijing world conference, where the government said it committed itself to gender impact assessment of all federal government policies. A more general assessment of human rights impact of current and future trade agreements would be the next logical step forward, and I would recommend this innovative initiative to you, Madam Chair.
Thank you for inviting me.
The Chair: Thank you.
I'd like to tell you that one of the reasons.... Since foreign affairs and trade have been meshed in the committee, needless to say, the focus has really been on trade. The purpose of forming the subcommittees was to give us some double-duty time on both sides of the issue, so hopefully this subcommittee will help balance the act.
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Mr. Morrison, I believe.
Mr. Morrison (Swift Current - Maple Creek - Assiniboia): Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'd like to address my initial remarks to Mr. Kingsley. I'm tempted to ask him for his opinions on redistribution, but I won't get into that.
Mr. Kingsley, I was really astonished at the little bit of information you gave us, that your people, in order to go on these overseas contracts, have to go through the incubus. You certainly have my personal support, for whatever that's worth, and I hope I can influence the committee to give you what you want on that.
I would like to ask you a little bit about these missions. I'm fairly familiar with what Elections Canada people do when they go over there. I think it's very commendable; I'm very supportive of your activities. But I do have problems with the fact that when there is an actual election in progress, there always seems to be a troop of MPs flocking along looking over your shoulders or perhaps getting in the way. I think a lot of these people don't have any experience or background working in restrictive or backward societies, and yet they feel they have to go and get a photo op.
Can you, knowing you're in a friendly territory here, make any comments on that - about the MPs going along?
Mr. Kingsley: Sure. I'd like to start off, Mr. Morrison, by telling you how much I appreciate the support you've offered. Because I've made the statement I have, I will say that out of the 5 or close to 6 years in this position I've appeared before parliamentary committees probably more often than anybody except the Auditor General, and it's the first time that I've ever had a word of reproach to mention to anybody, and it relates to that relationship which is much too bureaucratic to get people out and going on to the missions. I thought I'd mention that. This is not something I do at every committee before which I appear.
In terms of members of Parliament going out on missions, I think what we have to understand about these electoral observer missions is that the country that is inviting people to go and observe is seeking a degree of credibility internal to its affairs by inviting people from the international scene to come. I think it would be very misleading for anybody to think that whenever observer missions go abroad - they arrive one week before or 3 days before - there is any chance of that observation being statistically valid. There just are not enough people.
However, the real work that can be done and that, in my view, makes it worth while if it's done, is the meeting of local or national groups that exist in most countries - human rights groups who are concerned about the electoral process - with the different political parties. This is usually part of what transpires on these electoral observation missions. I think those missions need to be conjoint; that is to say, electoral experts, as well as the people who are involved in the political process in the other countries, who are invited and who accept the invitation to go. I think it is that credibility that is achieved.
I think in order to gain any kind of statistical validity, you have to rely on what is done internally to the country by independent agencies. That could be the electoral agency itself, should it be independent in its own country, but usually it will be outside groups, and they participate in the process. A lot of them have observers all over. In effect, you wind up with an ideal trilateral system whereby you get an independent electoral body running the matter there and you get the international observers supporting them in the face of a government and making sure those two independent bodies, the international visitors, support the national body, which is keeping an eye out. The national body has not only its hand, but it has its foot and its eye in every corner of the country. I think this is the value-added for electoral observation on the international scene.
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But this is also why I told you I favour the two other forms of intervention as far as Elections Canada is concerned, and in getting the bigger bang for the buck.
Mr. Morrison: Thank you, Mr. Kingsley.
I would like to direct a single question to Mr. Yalden.
You mentioned you recently had discussions in your official capacity on a trip to China. I wonder if you could enlighten us a little bit as to the gist of what was said and to whom. What reading did you get from your discussions? What advice did you proffer to your hosts, and so on?
Mr. Yalden: Surely, Madam Chairman, the principal reason for my visit to China was to talk to organizations in that country concerned essentially with equality rights for the types of groups and issues we deal with in Canada: women, children and child labour, ethnic and racial minorities, the disabled and older people.
We saw Chinese organizations that they might describe as, in some way or other, non-governmental. But given the political set-up in that country, of course, they're not non-governmental in the way our NGOs are. They are a part of the political apparatus in China and one has to accept this. It was a similar situation many years ago when I was posted in the Soviet Union, and one had to be well aware of to whom one was speaking.
We also talked to two or three organizations which, we were told, have some authority to accept complaints from Chinese citizens about abusive administrative practices by the state. Once again, one has to take this with a very large grain of salt. But there are such organizations. One is called the Ministry of Supervision. They take complaints. They told us they are even able to take complaints about discrimination. But they also told us their main point of concern at this time is with matters such as corruption and bribery by officials. They said they hoped they could later on turn to matters like discrimination.
In the case of people representing groups such as women and the disabled, China has constitutional provisions and China has ordinary statute provisions respecting the equality of women and equal access for the disabled, proper treatment of ethnic and racial minorities and so on. Our question to ourselves in going out there, and to the Chinese as well, is how does this work out in practice? We had descriptions of what they do from each of these groups.
My interest is a little bit in a different area. Mr. Kingsley's interest is to see whether there are any mechanisms to guarantee that rights set down in unexceptionable legal text are in fact upheld in practice. And, of course, the very short answer to this is no. They don't have agencies like the Canadian Human Rights Commission. They do not have a Chief Electoral Officer or an Auditor General, or whomever, who are independent of the government of the day although financed by the state.
Indeed, when they spoke to me, it was clear they have very grave difficulty in even understanding the concept that there could be a person or an office financed by the state but at the same time independent and criticizing the government for its shortcomings in whichever area we're talking about. Nevertheless, they have organizations such as the one I mentioned which have this potential. I think it's worth talking to them about what they do and how they do it.
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I would like to see further exchanges with the Chinese to permit this. I'd also like to see further exchanges between the Chinese women's organizations and organizations of a similar sort here. There was a visit in the lead-up to the Beijing conference, but I think there should be more permanent exchanges.
Certain of their organizations such as the China Disabled Persons' Federation is headed by Deng Xiaopeng's son. So it is an organization with some clout. And I think it probably does some useful work, but always within the confining limits of the Chinese political system. It's unrealistic to think anything else.
Within this obviously restricting set of limits, it is my belief we could and should try to bring them out of their shell a little bit. As the Secretary-General has also said, we should try to work for a situation in which authoritarian countries become somewhat less authoritarian. I think you do this by strengthening some of these institutions.
I might add one further point of support for Mr. Kingsley. Making arrangements with the people who have the funds is also extremely difficult and very complicated, much more complicated than it needs to be. And it only holds up our operations. So I support him on this.
Excuse me for making my main point one last time, Madam Chair. My response toMr. Morrison's question is that legal text, constitutional text and electoral provisions don't mean anything unless there is someone there who monitors and supervises. The more independent this outfit is, the better.
Of course, they don't have this in approximately 150 of the 185 or so countries in the UN. We're very lucky we do. But I think we can help these countries develop something, however embryonic it might be.
The Chair: Mr. Graham.
Mr. Graham (Rosedale): Thank you, Madam Chairman. Unfortunately I have to leave because I have another appointment. So I'd like to apologize to the committee for leaving.
But before I go, I think the committee should recognize that the other day Madame Côté-Harper was the recipient of the Lester Pearson peace prize. I think we're very privileged to have her here with us so recently emblazoned with the recognition of the tremendous contribution she has made towards the cause of human rights, both in Canada and internationally.
The committee would like to recognize you for this wonderful achievement and for the work you're doing at the centre.
Ms Côté-Harper: Thank you very much.
Mr. Graham: I wonder if I might just leave with a question for the members. I would like to touch on the issues of human rights, environment and trade, which both Mr. Broadbent andMs Elwell referred to in their comments.
It seems to me these are two of the most difficult and perplexing issues we're going to have to deal with in the course of this part of our parliamentary career in this committee. This is largely, I might say, because of the issues of global governance they raise and the sensitivities of national governments in respect of national sovereignty, which is perfectly legitimate.
Ms Elwell was good enough to mention the Barcelona Traction case. I actually argued this case on behalf of the Spanish government, so this shows you how old I am. I will tell you that to hear you and Mr. Broadbent speak today, it is clear we're getting a totally different discourse than we had25 years ago.
If someone had suggested to Mr. Broadbent 25 years ago that a major corporation could go to a socialist country and tell this country its economic policies were crazy and it wasn't doing the right thing, I think he would have been the first person to stand up and say this is outrageous. How dare a corporation go around the world telling properly elected socialist governments how to run their country? Now, however, we are proposing to mandate corporations to go to countries and tell them how to conduct their human rights, their environment policies and others.
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If we're going to mandate corporations to interfere in the domestic political activities of governments, it seems to me - and I do not disagree, by the way, that this is going to be necessary, because the way the world is being integrated we are being drawn willy-nilly into this, so please don't get me wrong from my intervention - that we will be called upon to devise the instruments whereby this can be done with the degree of global credibility that makes it effective and proper. Otherwise, we will be no better off than the gunboat diplomacy of the Americans and others when they were interfering in the business of other countries under other circumstances. So that seems to me to be the trouble we're in.
I think the work you're doing at the centre and the work we must do is to try to find the international conduits to enable that to be done. You mentioned the OECD and the WTO. If I might suggest, I think that is the type of area where it would be of enormous help to this committee and to all of us in Parliament to know where we could be putting our efforts internationally to make this work. Otherwise, it seems to me that we'll be just creating a new form of intervention as to orthodoxy that will be replacing the old.
It reminds me a little bit of when we were doing the the international financial institutions report, when the Sierra Club told us we should be telling the World Bank that they should stop telling governments to follow a certain conduct regarding economic policies but should start telling them to follow a certain conduct regarding the environment and other areas. So we're just substituting one set of conditionality for another set of conditionality.
If we are to do that, we have to have the means to do it. I would be very grateful for the expertise of these groups to help us understand that.
Mr. Broadbent: Madam Chairperson, perhaps I can just comment on Mr. Graham's comments. Without wanting to indulge in debate, I would simply say that the countries he's describing, which now describe themselves as socialist, are ones I would never have applied that term to even 25 years ago, nor do I now as a political theorist, and I know many others who share my view.
However, just to pick up on the point in a serious way, if 25 years ago corporations talked about going into countries such as China that have the nerve to call themselves socialist and saying, we would like to operate here only if you set up a minimum set of workers' rights, for example the ones the ILO is looking at, I would have been delighted, and I would be delighted now.
Just to pursue your point - and I take it, Mr. Graham, you're supportive of the committee looking at this issue - I think it is a complex issue, and it is one that the whole world is going to face particularly now, because in one form or another, whether a regime calls itself communist, socialist, Reaganite conservative, or Canadian liberal, we're having some kind of market economy and, as Christine Elwell has said, rights are affected.
I'm amongst those who would argue both positively and negatively, and what we are all interested in is shaping an order, it seems to me, where it all ends up positively. Perhaps this committee could have a hard-headed look at that over a period of time and have some corporations come before it. A number of corporations do have codes of behaviour that they apply or try to apply abroad. Many companies don't. I think that a serious debate and discussion on the modern world of international democracy could be very important.
The Chair: Did anyone else want to comment on that? Christine, did you want to say something?
Prof. Elwell: No, I think they've summarized that well.
Mr. Broadbent: Madam Chair, just one further point, Christine has called for a kind of human rights impact assessment. Again, if I may say so, that's what the International Centre tried to do when Mexico was added to the Canada-U.S. agreement. We proposed precisely that, and after President Clinton was elected in the United States, some form of it was added to take into account the environmental and labour impact of that particular agreement. I believe that internationally that in fact sets a very important standard in terms of principle, showing that there is a connection between trade and commercial activity, on the one hand, and rights and environmental issues on the other.
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Whatever the verbal formulation of it, we can get into the WTO and into regional trading organizations such as APEC - human rights standards in some way realistically linked with trade and commercial development. With all respect to a lot of other people who argue about rights in the world, it probably could have a greater impact on the real lives of ordinary people in terms of rights than almost anything else we do if we'd link effectively commercial activity with rights performance.
After all, most of us, to be banal, spend most of our daily time in our places of the work. The set of rights connected with that - freedom of association and freedom of expression notably - are very key. If we could find some effective way, as a democratic state, of internationalizing this concern, I repeat I think it would be a very important contribution if this committee could work on that.
The Chair: Thank you.
I have a question first of all for Christine and then I would like Mr. Yalden to answer the second part.
You're talking about a human rights impact assessment. How do you do that in a country that does not allow human rights monitoring groups in it? I'm going to take the example of India. This also gets into defining what human rights violations are.
We talk about the one issue of child labour in India. Yes, in fighting poverty, which in turn will help to improve education, perhaps you can do that. But human rights violations on religious discrimination aren't necessarily related. They're usually not related to poverty.
In areas of poverty, I can see a government allowing you to do that. I'm asking you how you would propose, in countries where there are overall abuses of human rights, setting up and being able to do this human rights impact assessment.
Mr. Yalden, how does Canada determine its assessment of human rights violations in countries where Canada's involvement has primarily been in the alleviation of poverty to improve social conditions? Once again, we can use India or Pakistan as an example.
We'll go back to India, where Canadian international human rights observers are not allowed in and where NGOs are basically working on improving social conditions for the poor people. The government will say come and have a look, but of course they're obviously not going to take you to the places you hear about from people who have come from these countries and have observed these violations.
I guess I could have asked it in two parts, but I thought I'd get it all out at once.
Prof. Elwell: First of all, we're dealing with a country that has a general picture of rights abuse, and we're standing outside as a country that is a potential trading partner. Even though in my statement I said basic, fundamental rights have never stopped the scrutiny to review how countries are managing these basic rights, I have to take a step back from that.
I dealt with this somewhat in the book by saying there needs to be some sort of link between the rights a country may raise and the economic playing field. That's why it's often easier to look at internationally recognized labour standards, look at some of the human rights that directly have an impact on the market, so you can justify in dollars and cents why you're interested, why it's important to you that there be basic understanding. I don't mean harmonization, but a basic, bottom-line playing field on the types of rights that have economic impact: basic labour standards, children's ages, work standards - whereas maybe for religious freedom, unless you can show some sort of market economic impact, you may have real difficulty in making your point.
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I apologize to human rights advocates in the true sense, who may feel that's just not good enough. But I'm afraid from a practical point of view you need to show some sort of economic link to the rights you're complaining about.
The other point I'd like to make - and it's picking up from Mr. Broadbent's and Mr. Graham's discussion about this work - is that it's not necessarily true that trade will cause an increase in rights observance or an increase in environmental responsibility. I think your committee will have to be very clear when speaking to the other committee that while trade can provide rights enhancements and environmental protection, it's not necessarily so, and it won't necessarily follow that you'll see increases.
That's why if you don't see parallel rises in rights performance and environmental responsibility with economic progress, then you can say, well, maybe it's government policy or the structure of market institutions, labour institutions, that is suppressing the natural tendency for these things to rise in parallel. Trade can be very good for all these rights we want to have, but it isn't necessarily so. That's why you need to watch the institutions carefully, to make sure you're not just relying on trickle-down economics for all this to come about.
The Chair: Mr. Yalden.
Mr. Yalden: My comment on your other questions would be that I suppose the primary source Canada has for human rights violations around the world is our own embassies. That's what they're there for. They're all required to report annually, at least, on the human rights situation in whichever country they find themselves. These reports are filed with the foreign ministry on a regular basis. That certainly is the number one source.
About India, I don't think it's correct to suggest they don't allow NGOs in anywhere. The point in India is that they don't allow them into Kashmir or Punjab or other places where they consider there's unrest and they don't want to be seen, but it's not the case that it's impossible to see the results, let's say, of child labour in various parts of India - it is - or that it's not possible to know objectively what happens to women in India as a result of ancient and unacceptable practices vis-à-vis women - it is.
On the matter of what's going on in Kashmir or Punjab, as I say, in the first instance the government must rely on its own diplomatic representatives to find out what's going on. I might say the Indian human rights commission, our counterpart, has strongly recommended that Amnesty be allowed into Kashmir. They thought, as recently as a few months back, when I saw the head of the Indian human rights commission, they had the agreement of the government to let Amnesty into Kashmir. I can't say it's come unstuck, but it hasn't happened. They must still be trying to negotiate the conditions under which it would happen.
This is one of the reasons why we think the Indian human rights commission can and does perform a useful role. The head of that commission is a former chief justice of the supreme court of India. Most of the members of the commission are former justices of their court system. They have spoken out quite firmly on the unacceptable activities of the military, and particularly the paramilitary forces, in Kashmir, and to a degree in the Punjab. They've also spoken out on issues relating to women, on issues relating to child labour.
About child labour, they're trying to help the Indian authorities set up a pilot project involving child workers in the glass industry in one Indian province with a view to seeing what can be done about the problem in a practical way.
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Once we look at it as a practical problem rather than an ideological one, one sees it as extremely complicated. If you simply take the children out of whatever it is they're doing, and if they're the only source of support for the family, let's say, you're likely to have an even hungrier family, or you're likely to have the children go from glass works into child prostitution or something of the sort. This isn't necessarily what you want to achieve.
So you have to do something for the family. You probably have to subsidize the family so the child can actually go to school. That's the object of the exercise; the child should go to school at least until it reaches the minimum age, and that minimum age should be set as high as possible. But to do that, with the kind of numbers they have in India, with now 920 million going on 1 billion people, is extremely difficult.
It's easy to say don't buy their carpets if they're made by children. That's fine except in and of itself it doesn't accomplish what we're trying to accomplish.
The Chair: No, and I think the thing I said was that those things are fairly easy to monitor, because it's a matter of poverty, whereas the others are -
Mr. Yalden: The political situation in places like Kashmir, of course, is more difficult to monitor. I would hope our counterpart can eventually persuade the Indians to let in organizations like Amnesty. There are a lot of sources, after all, as to what's going on. It's not unknown what's going on in Kashmir.
Ms Côté-Harper: In the platform of action on education that was adopted by 189 states and the European Union in Beijing, there was a commitment on behalf of those states that there should be primary education, especially for girls in the world. I think that's a crucial element.
Madam Chairperson, members of the committee, I wish to thank you very much for having invited the centre. The president will be staying, but unfortunately, I am forced to leave you because I have a plane to catch. However, I thank you for having allowed me to speak in front of you.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr. Yalden: I would like to add before Madam Côté-Harper goes that - and I may sound as though I'm preaching for my own parish - in our view in order to make sure the commitments of Beijing, for example, are carried out, just as in order to make sure you have elections that work, you have to have monitoring organizations, which is what they do not have in most of these countries.
They have this very new, about 18 months old, human rights commission in India. It's a serious outfit, but it has an awful lot of very difficult problems and a long way to go. I think if the committee is prepared to look further into the matter of these national institutions, whether they're electoral offices or human rights commissions or ombudsmen or whatever, it could do a very useful service.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Yalden: Au revoir.
The Chair: I think there is a vote coming.
Mr. English (Kitchener): I think we probably only have about two or three minutes.
The Chair: I agree. Could we get more details on the February conference, please.
Mr. Broadbent: Sure. I just happen to have with me the agenda and list of some of the key participants, which I'm happy to make available to members of the committee.
Very briefly, there was a deliberate effort from our point of view to reach out to the business community to involve them in serious discussion as opposed to a polemical exchange, and we've been pleased with the response so far. There will be representatives of the ILO, of the OECD and other international bodies, as well as Canadian business.
The other representatives are going to be some activists from China and from Indonesia who will present a very different perspective from the one Canadians are likely to hear from the official spokespersons, that is, the governments in those countries.
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It is a serious effort to see if national and international policy can be developed in a globalized market economy situation that makes both trade and rights viable coterminus options.
As I just said, I would be happy to give you the agenda and some of the names of the participants.
I should mention, too, that the Business Council on National Issues has been a full supporter of this conference, encouraging business participation.
The Chair: Thank you. Do we have 5 or 10 minutes?
An hon. member: No.
The Chair: Thank you, everyone. I'm sorry we don't have more time, because I know I have many more questions to ask. However, I assume you will be available if we have questions.
Mr. Kingsley.
Mr. Kingsley: If I may just add, this was to us a welcome opportunity. If there is any information the committee ever requires about the missions, or any particular mission, or any other aspect of anything, we will be more than happy to come back or to provide you with the written information you require.
[Translation]
I thank you very much for your attention.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Mr. Morrison has expressed his support for the committee's support for your issue, and I think we could probably do a letter. I think I just need a general consensus on that.
Mr. Kingsley: That would be much appreciated, thank you. I'm sure it would be appreciated over there.
The Chair: Thank you. This meeting is adjourned.