[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, October 19, 1995
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[English]
The Chair: Order.
Today we are examining Canada's reporting requirements under international human rights instruments. We are very grateful to Mr. Duern and Miss Young for appearing before us today. I understand Miss Young is inconvenienced by a touch of laryngitis. We understand. Mr. Duern is from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Mr. Duern, you may begin with your opening remarks.
Mr. Normand Duern (Senior Officer, International Instruments, Human Rights Directorate, Department of Canadian Heritage): Thank you very much. We've been asked to explain the process by which reports are prepared for various United Nations' human rights committees and our role in that preparation. I believe you have been provided with some general information about international human rights instruments and their general intent. You have a list of the international human rights instruments to which Canada is a signatory.
For each one of these international human rights instruments there is a reporting requirement. Each one requests that state parties report on the implementation of the provisions of the various conventions within their domestic law and in their domestic practice. These are done at regular intervals that vary from one instrument to another.
I understand the particular interest of the committee today is civil and political rights. The covenant itself actually provides for reporting at intervals to be defined by the United Nations Human Rights Committee. In practice, this has become reporting roughly every four or five years. It is technically five years. The last report was submitted in 1990 but of course covered a slightly earlier period.
First, I would like to point out that the reports that Canada makes are government reports. This is what the conventions call for. Essentially, the conventions call for the signatory parties to do self-reporting. The report represents the official government. Every report represents the official account of the Canadian government on its implementation and monitoring and promotion of human rights.
The reports are examined by an appropriate United Nations committee in the presence of a Canadian delegation. In this case, it's the human rights committee for civil and political. Usually there's a time lag of about one year between the submission of a report and its review by a United Nations committee.
As part of the preparation for the review of reports, the United Nations committees may also call upon alternate sources of information in their examination. Of course the committee does its own study of the reports, and the review is largely to ask questions and to seek clarifications and so on of the Canadian delegation, as part of their own study.
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The United Nations committee may look to other sources of information against which to check the reports that Canada submits. This has become an increasingly common practice in the United Nations over the last ten years, but especially so in the last five. More and more United Nations committees are interested in obtaining information from other sources, particularly non-governmental organizations.
At the same time, many non-governmental organizations have taken more and more of an interest in the working of United Nations committees, so there has been an increasing number of NGOs who spontaneously submit reports to the United Nations committees. In some cases, the United Nations committee may meet with a selected number of NGOs prior to the review of the Canadian report. This has happened a couple of times in the past few years, notably with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Although NGOs do not have any formal role in the reporting process, what we are seeing is an evolution in which their presence is being effectively felt and is being encouraged by the United Nations.
Apart from the actual requirement to submit a report, the reports, of course, are supposed to be a clause-by-clause examination of how domestic legislation or domestic usage is in conformity with or reflects the contents of the convention. In addition to the broad requirement for report, United Nations committees also emit guidelines on how the reports are to be prepared.
The guidelines emitted by United Nations committees, unlike the conventions themselves, are not considered legally binding. The provisions of a convention are legally binding upon the country that signs it. The guidelines of a committee are not. They really are guidelines, but of course we do attempt to follow them as far as we can. At times there are practical problems, but by and large we follow the guidelines pretty assiduously.
At the end of the review of reports, the United Nations committee emits observations, conclusions and recommendations. Some of the conclusions may simply be general observations that certain things are going very well and others are perhaps problematic, and they may make recommendations.
The conclusions in the recommendations of committees, once again, are not legally binding in the way the convention is. They are an interpretation that the committee puts on them, but we generally regard them as a very strong moral obligation and make every attempt to follow up on these recommendations and to report on them in subsequent reports. So these recommendations and conclusions do play a role in between reports in defining policy or examining Canadian policy matters or human rights. They are taken into consideration.
At the federal level the follow-up of such conclusions and recommendations is done through committees of officials from the various departments concerned. Depending on the subject matter of a convention, different federal departments are involved. Some departments are deeply involved in virtually every convention: ourselves, as the lead department for human rights; the Department of Justice, of course, because it nearly always involves legislation of some sort; Foreign Affairs to some extent; and then to the rest, it will depend on the actual content of the report.
That is at the federal level, and our directorate in the Department of Canadian Heritage is responsible for the general overseeing of the preparation of reports. A department may be considered the lead department in terms of the actual drafting of a report, depending on the content.
In the case of civil and political matters, because the subject matter is essentially constitutional and legal, the Department of Justice at the federal level is largely responsible for the content of the report. This may vary a great deal in others. In the Convention on the Rights of the Child, for instance, there were actually two lead departments, Health and Justice.
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For example, in the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, as the department responsible for multiculturalism and various programs concerning racial relations we are the lead department.
The second aspect of follow-up and implementation is in regard to provinces and territories. Here we enter into the whole other dimension of report preparation, and later I'll go a little more deeply into how this is done. But clearly, human rights legislation is largely of provincial and territorial jurisdiction, and so the provinces and territories do play a key part.
Our department and our directorate is responsible for coordinating the preparation of reports with provinces and territories through a mechanism known as the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Ministerial Conference on Human Rights. This is a committee that meets regularly at the officials' level.
I'll make a general comment on United Nations committees, and then I'll get into the federalism aspect, which is very key to all this.
In recent years, United Nations committees have become increasingly attentive to the means by which countries ensure implementation of the conventions and the follow-up to recommendations. The United Nations has increasingly called for the establishment of specific mechanisms in signatory countries, mechanisms that are set up to look at implementation, monitoring and follow-up. This is a new emphasis, and we're still very much in a period of transition as to satisfying as much as possible the United Nations concerns in this respect. As it is, this role is largely filled by the continuing committee I've just mentioned, but we are continuing to look for ways to improve the whole implementation, monitoring and follow-up functions.
I hope that has clarified a few things about the formal reporting requirements as far as the United Nations is concerned. Now I'll go on to the other broad heading.
My second heading is ``International Human Rights Treaties and the Federal System'', because we have to take our federal system into account in the entire field of international human rights conventions. According to a decision of the judicial committee of the Privy Council of the House of Lords, it was determined in 1936 that the Government of Canada had the sole power to sign international conventions. However, it was also noted that the federal government is incompetent to legislate on performance of treaty obligations in matters that are of provincial or territorial jurisdiction, which puts us in an interesting position.
The federal government alone may sign treaties, and it may do so without asking anyone's consent; it has an absolute power to do so. However, it does not necessarily have the absolute power to live up to those treaties if the subject matter is under provincial or territorial jurisdiction.
That is the situation that led to the setting up of certain mechanisms, the main one of which is the continuing committee of officials that I mentioned before. This came out of a 1975 meeting of federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for human rights. There was an agreement concluded between the federal and provincial governments - at the time, only provincial; territories were later included - on how we would go about the entire process of ratifying international human rights treaties, implementing and reporting.
The agreement was that there would always be consultations with provinces and territories prior to Canada's ratifying any international human rights instrument. The object of the consultations is to determine that either existing legislation and existing usages were already in conformity with any convention we were considering signing, in which case, presumably, there is no problem, or else that if any modifications, amendments, or new measures were required, the provinces would indicate their willingness to take whatever steps were necessary to ensure that Canada would be in complete conformity with a given instrument, within a reasonable time.
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The same federal-provincial-territorial agreement provided that in the preparation of reports to the United Nations, provinces and territories could draft their own reports on their implementation of the human rights treaties within their jurisdiction. The provinces and territories have the prerogative of preparing their own sections if they wish to do so. They do not have an obligation to do so.
However, the federal government has an obligation to report on all jurisdictions, so in the event that a province or territory declines to submit a report of its own, the federal government is still responsible for preparing a section of the report covering the jurisdiction of that province.
There have been a few instances in the past where provinces, for various reasons, have in fact requested the federal government to prepare their sections, in which case anything we do prepare is submitted to the provincial or territorial government for prior approval before becoming part of the report.
By this agreement, the provinces and territories also have the privilege of being represented on Canadian delegations to the reviews of reports. Again, there is no obligation. The federal government generally encourages provincial representation so that there is someone there from a province or territory who can respond directly to any questions that might be posed by a United Nations committee. Generally in the past there has always been some provincial or territorial representation.
The rest of the federal delegation of course is composed of Foreign Affairs as chief of delegation, as is always the case, and representatives of the federal governments most directly concerned with the subject matter of the convention, to which may be added any provincial or territorial delegates if they so request.
Finally, according to the agreement, generally provinces and territories, even if they are not part of delegations, are entitled to be informed through federal channels of any conclusions or observations by a United Nations committee. The federal government serves as a channel for any reply that provinces or territories may wish to make.
That's the basic mechanism. There is perhaps one other thing I would talk about for a few minutes, because it's certainly a matter of importance in report preparation and I think it may be of interest to the committee. It is the aspect of consultation with non-governmental organizations.
I've mentioned before that we're in a bit of a period of transition. The role of NGOs has greatly increased over the years. They've been encouraged by the United Nations and the NGOs themselves are increasingly interested. We have found that not only have the human rights committees turned to non-governmental organizations as alternative sources of information, but they have encouraged signatory states to themselves maintain a dialogue with non-governmental organizations in the human rights field and to use these contacts to help stimulate public discussion of human rights issues and so on. So a dialogue with non-governmental organizations has become an increasingly important part of the whole United Nations human rights committee system.
We have been looking now for a couple of years at ways in which we can, as much as possible, take into account the role of non-governmental organizations, notably in the preparation of reports. As I mentioned earlier, the reports aren't government reports. They are reports that are intended to be a communication from the Canadian government to the United Nations. So the final version of any report must be one that represents the position of the Canadian government, one that the Canadian government is willing to defend in front of a United Nations committee during a review. Report preparation is essentially a governmental process.
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However, we have tried to include, as much as possible, NGOs' input in the process through several ways that are still experimental. In the preparation of the report on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, for example, which was submitted to the United Nations in the summer of 1994, in the year prior to that submission, while report preparation was going on at the federal level, a number of key NGOs working in the field of children and children's rights were invited to submit fairly extensive reports on their concerns and views. These views were taken into account in the course of the preparation of the report.
Depending on the subject matter, the particular way that was followed for that convention is not necessarily always practical. In the case of the Convention of the Rights of the Child, most of the NGOs involved in the area are members of an umbrella organization called the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, so that direct consultation in that case was quite practical. For other conventions, this is not always so easily done.
In the case of civil and political rights, the way in which we tried to get NGO input into the preparation of the fourth report, currently under way, is that earlier this year we asked over 200 NGOs working in human rights areas - civil liberties associations, human rights associations, various numbers of other groups known to us to be active and interested in this area - to contribute their opinions, concerns, and views, which we would then be able to take into account in the preparation of our own report.
In our mail-out, we informed the NGOs that of course the final version of the report will be that of the Canadian government, and that perhaps some of their submissions might not be completely reflected in the Canadian report, but that to compensate for that, the procedure would be that along with or parallel to our report, any submissions made by the NGOs would be sent to the United Nations directly, the integral text or whatever they send, so that the committee would have the original, which they could look at in parallel with the Canadian report.
Of course NGOs are perfectly at liberty to submit whatever they like directly to you in committees, if they would prefer to do it that way. The goal of our consultation was really to try to get some kind of dialogue going so that in our reports we at least know we are covering all the bases in terms of what non-governmental organizations are mostly concerned about.
We are continuing to do this with other conventions, notably the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In the case of civil and political rights, we did get some response from NGOs - some extremely thoughtful response. We perhaps would have liked to have had more response than we got, but it seemed to be a useful exercise, and it's a new procedure.
We have tried to be as open-ended as possible. We sent out an extensive mailing, but in our letter to the organizations concerned we specified that if they knew of any other organizations that might be interested, by all means to pass the letter on - anybody who wants to write in, please do so.
That is essentially where we're at in terms of report preparation. I know it's a lot. This may be a little complicated, but perhaps we can just answer questions.
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The Chair: Thank you so much, Mr. Duern.
We are open for questions. John Finlay and then John Maloney.
Mr. Finlay (Oxford): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As a new member of this committee I find this a very appropriate start for my learning about it.
With respect to the document we received before this meeting, I just have two little questions of information and then a more important one. On page 2 of the document, where it outlines the things proclaimed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, this sentence under the bullet says that the covenant also proclaims the right to self-determination to pursue ``economic, social and cultural development'' and to dispose freely of natural wealth and resources.
As a member of the environment committee, I wonder whether you can tell me what that means.
Mr. Duern: I think we may have to go into a little bit of history here. As I recall, this covenant was introduced in the United Nations in 1966, which meant it was drafted some time before then. What I think you see there is a vocabulary that reflects what was at the time a prime consideration, which was decolonization. The self-determination of people was really done in the context of a period in which the old empires were breaking up.
On the question of natural resources and so on, as far as I know - as I said, this is a bit historical - the context in which it was done was by way of saying that, for example, the newly independent countries of Africa and Asia had a right to exploit and profit from their own natural resources, as opposed to having it done for them by the former colonial powers.
As to how that would be interpreted currently in a different context of the environment, I would be at a bit of a loss to say. I'm not aware of environmental issues and so on arising under that particular heading. My sense would be that there are other international fora in which that type of question is much more directly dealt with.
Mr. Finlay: Could I suggest a possible example just for my own clarification? Much of the land and the protective tea plantations of the Island of Ceylon were owned by Great Britain or by people or companies in Great Britain. If I understand what you're saying, it suggests that the people of Ceylon, if newly independent, have the right to control that natural wealth and resource.
Mr. Duern: Yes, I suppose they would. This is a little far afield from my expertise, but I think the idea would be that the country in question would have a right to regulate the exploitation of these resources, quite apart from the question of ownership. It should be recognized that they would be able to regulate or otherwise control this exploitation in a way that's consistent with the interests of the Ceylonese.
Mr. Finlay: Thank you very much.
I have another little question on the very next sentence. Under the covenant, states' parties elect a human rights committee. Does that mean the countries that belong to the UN?
Mr. Duern: All the countries signatory to the convention elect members of the committee from a slate of candidates presented by their various member countries. Any country can put forward a candidate and there is a process whereby agreement may be reached among countries to support each other's candidates in order to limit the number.
The key point there is that although every candidate is nominated by a given country, once a candidate has been named to the committee, he operates independently. He does not report to the country of origin. He is not there to represent his country of origin. Countries are not represented on the committees in that sense. It is an independent, international body.
Mr. Finlay: Thank you very much.
I'll hold my other questions.
The Chair: Thank you.
Mr. Maloney.
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Mr. Maloney (Erie): My area of questioning revolves around reconciliation of differing attitudes, both internationally and domestically.
Given the broad, general language of the covenants, the interpretations - and I use the example of China on women's rights issues - may differ substantially from the interpretation within this country. China may feel they're meeting the covenants' standards; we in Canada may feel otherwise. How does the committee reconcile these?
As well, domestically, if we have a province that takes a position on a provincial issue in the human rights area and there are differences between the federal approach and the provincial approach - say the Province of Ontario revokes their employment equity legislation, and we certainly have a different view of it - how will we reconcile even interpretations within our own country?
Mr. Duern: On the international level, of course, as you say, the language of many of these covenants is very broad and it can be interpreted in different ways. It is the role of the committees to decide in specific cases, largely through the review of reports, whether or not a country is in fact implementing the spirit and the intent of any given covenant.
It would be the committees, in their reviews, recommendations and observations, that would draw conclusions and put forward what, from the United Nations' point of view, would be needed in a given country in order to fully conform. So there is always a role of interpretation in there.
As I think has been said before, the real meaning of the law is in the interpretation. Very often this is even more the case in the international arena.
There is an ongoing controversy in the international field, as you know. Some countries have claimed that many international human rights standards reflect the standards of certain cultures and perhaps less so those of others. The opposing view is that, no, there are certain human rights so basic that they must be universal. That discussion continues and I suspect will continue for a long time.
Are they reconciled at all? At this point I would say the process of reconciliation is an ongoing one. What you have are United Nations committees pressing forward with a United Nations interpretation of what universal human rights are. You have countries that continue to differ. There is, I suppose you would say, a certain moral pressure going in both directions. The hope is that ultimately we will go toward greater and greater agreement on what international standards are and should be, and how they are to be implemented.
On the subject of different interpretations domestically, in a sense that conciliation process takes place before we ratify any international convention. As I mentioned, part of the continuing committee mechanism is to have extensive federal, provincial and territorial consultations before Canada actually signs any international convention. It is in that course of preparing for a ratification that possible interpretations and possible problems are identified. That's where we try to take them into account.
There's a number of ways in which that might be done. In practice this has not given rise to a great many problems. Where it has, obviously one possibility would be not to ratify an international convention.
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Where possible sources of difficulty have been identified in the past, the other possibility is for the federal government to sign a treaty but accompany it with what is called a reservation or a statement of understanding.
A reservation is simply a clause that will be put in saying that we are in agreement with most of the convention but may not conform to a particular article or clause. This is very rarely used, but it has been used.
A statement of understanding where there is an ambiguity is somewhat less than a reservation. It would consist of the Canadian government stating how it interprets a certain article that may pose a problem, and it is on that condition that we ratify.
This is considered acceptable practice provided that any reservations or statements of understanding are very strictly limited. Obviously, to sign a treaty and reserve on half of it would not make much sense. The reservations and statements of understanding have to be specific and limited. This has not been a problem so far.
I'm not sure if that answers all of your questions.
Mr. Maloney: I just have one further question. Is Canada deficient or has it been found to be deficient in any areas according to UN standards of any restrictive covenants in the human rights area?
Mr. Duern: Of any of the covenants?
Mr. Maloney: How do we stack up? How do we rate? Are there any deficiencies, and if so, where?
Mr. Duern: If the question is whether we are in violation of any convention, the answer would be yes and no. There is one, and this is a problem of interpretation. In the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, there is an article that calls for the criminalization of racist organizations. Canada has taken the view, along with most other countries that are of the Anglo-Saxon or the British tradition of government, that to make an association illegal would pose some severe problems in respect of the principles of liberty of association.
We have no problem, however, criminalizing racist acts or racist propaganda and so forth. Our position on that has been, no, we do not criminalize racist organizations; we just criminalize racist activities to the point where they're an organization that can't do anything. Whether it is racist or not, it has effectively been neutralized. That is the position.
Another aspect is that in practical terms, to criminalize an association is not necessarily terribly effective. The association may simply change its name and telephone number and start over again. So what matters is the activities.
Here what we have is a difference between two legal traditions, mainly the European type of Roman law tradition versus the common law tradition. That convention was written clearly in the spirit that was a little closer to the European continental legal tradition.
Technically, we are in violation, I suppose, in that we have never criminalized organizations. The United Nations committee on racial discrimination regularly points this out to us and we regularly answer, ``Yes, but...''. We do have laws on the books. We can stop them; we do stop them. And it goes on. So there's a glitch there.
That is the only example I know of in which Canada is even technically in violation of a convention. Of course, when you get into interpretation and the full unfolding of all the implications of provisions of conventions, to be sure, various committees will say, yes, you are living up to such-and-such a clause, and this and that, but really, you should be going further.
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That's more by way of a discussion.
Mr. Maloney: Thank you.
Mrs. Gaffney (Nepean): Welcome, Mr. Duern.
Today I'm a new member on this committee, but I'm an old member. I sit on the heritage committee, so there is a bit of a link.
I see a possible area of conflict here. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is coming under the jurisdiction of this committee, as I think it should. It's international, but it has domestic overtones. This is why it should be before this committee. The committee is doing the analysis and preparing the report, yet when it is presented to the United Nations, it will be the Department of Foreign Affairs presenting it. This is where I see this committee being somewhat emasculated.
This committee is doing the legwork on it, because it is a domestic issue, yet because Foreign Affairs is the international body, it is taking it away from this committee and doing the presentation.
In the last Parliament I was on the subcommittee of international human rights, as well as on the domestic one. It was a very, very active committee, and I find that its import has been somewhat lessened, shall we say.
Maybe this is not a fair question to you, Mr. Duern, but do you feel that this is appropriate, that it should be presented to the UN committee by the Department of Foreign Affairs?
Mr. Duern: I have to backtrack a second. The central point is that these reports are official government reports. They have always been prepared - and this is what the United Nations asks for with these reports - by government officials, so no House committee has in fact ever played a role in preparing the reports. It is really the government that prepares the reports.
The reports are by nature a communication between a signatory government and the United Nations. That's why until such time as they are actually tabled at the United Nations, they are in fact treated as confidential documents; from the moment they are deposited by the Canadian government at the United Nations they are public documents.
As to the role of Foreign Affairs, I should point out that because the reports almost entirely consist of reports on domestic issues - the exceptions are things such as aid policy, which would be external - and domestic law, the overall responsibility for the preparation of the reports actually belongs to the Department of Canadian Heritage. The responsibility was originally the Secretary of State's and then Multiculturalism and Citizenship's. However, the reason it is situated in that department is that it is essentially a domestic matter.
The role of Foreign Affairs is to officially transmit the finished report to the United Nations. The minister responsible for seeing that the report is prepared and the minister who approves the report is our minister, who then communicates it to the Minister of Foreign Affairs for onward transmittal to the United Nations. The Department of Foreign Affairs is our transmission belt to the outside world; it has to go through there. The actual preparation of the report, though, belongs to our department, as a domestic department.
Mrs. Gaffney: I was going to be nice and quiet today, but I had to ask one question.
Mr. Grose (Oshawa): Mr. Duern, as usual some of the questions have been partly answered, but I have three or four items here I'd like to string together.
I'm a little concerned about enforcement. Nations are self-reporting to the UN. The time lag from report to review could be a year, committee reports are not binding, and...federal and provincial sharing of responsibility and reporting.
Unfortunately, my word was stolen by my associate. I was going to say, does this not tend to ``emasculate'' the system, at least internationally? Please tell me I'm wrong.
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Mr. Duern: Internationally? You mean that it's difficult to enforce for other countries as well as for Canada?
Mr. Grose: Looking at the program from an international standpoint, with self-reporting, time lags, not binding, and so on, is there really any way - it's a terrible expression to use in this committee - of turning the screws on countries that are deliberately evading their responsibilities?
Mr. Duern: The way of turning the screws is essentially through moral pressure and moral suasion. That is the role of the United Nations committees. I think it's safe to say they're becoming increasingly good at it. One of the ways in which they've learned to be better at it is precisely through the involvement of non-governmental organizations. The increasing involvement of NGOs is precisely a response to situations in which countries either neglect to give reports or give very unsatisfactory and fairly bogus ones. It happens. That is one of the things that has impelled United Nations committees to look for alternative sources.
Obviously, we are talking about moral suasion. We can't send in the police. The United Nations can't do that. How effective is it? You can point to cases in which it has not been very effective. You can point to cases in which it has been very effective. I think it's one of those things in which you can dwell on all the things that it can't seem to help or you can dwell on how much worse off we'd be without this system.
Mr. Grose: Thank you.
The Chair: Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott (Fredericton - York - Sunbury): Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm interested in following up on Ivan's intervention in terms of the way to maybe elevate the kind of moral suasion that is provided. Specifically, you mentioned that in working between departments, the government, or the officials, prepare the report. There are more and more incidents of NGOs being engaged in this exercise. I think I heard you say that. They could participate in the preparation of the report with the officials. They might put a side note with the report so that the people reviewing the report will have something to check against. Or they might be able to deal specifically with whomever reviews the report at the UN after it's submitted by the country.
Now, if it were the case that the process included this particular committee, would it not give opportunity for domestic parties to in fact put their case in a much more open, transparent way to Parliament, such that if a moral suasion argument applies internationally, it should also apply nationally so that domestic organizations could in fact challenge the government's performance in relation to these covenants? That would have the effect, I think, of putting us in a strong position internationally to then demand the same thing from other countries. It's not that I would anticipate a great deal of success in some cases, but at least it would put us in a high moral ground to do so.
I think it would have the effect of bringing problems to the attention of the government and so on. At the same time, in defence of the government, it would also put our record against records of countries so that, when compared internationally, I think we would probably hold up quite favourably. So the idea of broadening the debate, I think, would be an interesting way of dealing with the obvious weakness in terms of enforceability, and it would bring the political pressure to bear, I think, quite significantly. It would also give many parties that feel outside the system the opportunity to very legitimately participate in the process of bringing the government to task for its non-performance in some of these areas. Would that work?
Mr. Duern: Okay. There are two things here that we have to distinguish very carefully: the preparation of the report and the review of the report.
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In the preparation of reports, one of the reasons I went into some detail about how we've tried to get NGOs involved is to keep underlining the fact that there is one thing we don't get out of; the reports are the communications of the government to the United Nations. They represent the official point of view of the Canadian government such that the final decision on what actually goes into the report must always be that of the government. It has to be prepared to defend it.
The way in which NGOs have been involved, as I said, is that we invite them to give us their ideas, their concerns, their gripes, whatever, so that at least we have the material wherewith to try to include and answer these things. But in the end the government has to decide what will go into the report.
In the period when we are in the preparation stage of any given report, I would see no problem and probably a lot of usefulness in the committee having an input of that kind, of saying these are our concerns. I think that would probably, certainly in the preparation of the report, have to be taken into account.
Mr. Scott: Again, it depends on where one.... If moral suasion is the enforcing pressure, it would strike me that we just simply have to make a judgment as to whether we think international pressure or domestic pressure has more impact on governments. I guess you don't have to choose between them, but my instinct would tell me that a bubbling-up from Fredericton - York - Sunbury has considerably more pressure on me than a bubbling-down from the UN. I think that's the way to bring pressure to bear in that kind of moral suasion.
I have one more quick question if I have time.
Mr. Duern: Actually, I did have a little more I wanted to say on that, if I may.
With these two things, the report preparation in some way may perhaps be the more limited half of the role. The other point the committee might want to look at is that once the reports are deposited with the United Nations - and then of course they become public documents - there is nothing to say that the committee could not do its own review. As a source of information to the committee on what the Canadian government is saying to the United Nations, it's probably a good thing for you to know, for one thing.
Then there are other factors that would probably be of interest to the committee. When reports are reviewed, for instance, the concluding observations of any UN committee are also public documents.
From the point of view of the mandate of our department, which is to promote public discussion and knowledge about human rights, and the fact that the United Nations is constantly pressing or encouraging countries to stimulate public discussion of human rights issues in general and international human rights standards, I think if the committee were to be a forum for that kind of discussion, that would strike me as a very positive development from every point of view.
Mr. Scott: In terms of the strategies, there was a reference earlier to common- and civil- and Roman law-approaches to.... I forget what the -
Mr. Duern: It was a committee on the elimination of racial Discrimination.
Mr. Scott: Right. It was a reference to whether one should go about trying to criminalize the activity or the association, I think it was.
Is anybody doing third-party measurement of strategy such that if we have one part of the world approaching the problem in one way and another part of the world approaching the problem in another way, we both recognize that the objectives are relatively similar? I presume that at the end of the day you're trying to eliminate racism. Does anybody recognize the differences in approaches, and does anybody measure which ones seem to work?
Mr. Duern: Again, I think you're back on the United Nations committee system. No, I don't think there's any kind of celestial angelic body that can stand outside the whole thing and make pronouncements in some scientific way.
I'm sorry; I find the question a little difficult to tackle.
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Mr. Scott: It's just to say that you recognize the fact that, in one part of the world, they've taken one approach to try to deal with racism, and in another, they've taken a different approach. It seems a subject that would be worthy of someone's attention.
There are two different approaches to the same problem. It just strikes me that it would be, if nothing else, a matter of curiosity. One of those might work better than the other, and someone could learn on the other side.
Mr. Duern: Referring back to that one, I don't know. I think it may be one of those questions that asks: which system works better? I'm not an expert on the efficacy of anti-racist measures in other countries. My sense is that the system perhaps makes less of a difference than the effort that governments actually put into doing it.
As well, it will differ, I guess, according to what kind of social pressures are at work in a given society. Germany, for example, bans racist associations. Obviously it has not eliminated the problem.
The Chair: Before I go to the second round - this is only because of the need for quorum - we have the minimum quorum for the approval of the budget for our review of the national strategy. In case one may have other appointments to go to elsewhere, I will just interject here.
We would like to ask more questions of you, Mr. Duern. I refer to your budget submission document the clerk has prepared for us. Could we have a motion for its adoption?
Mr. Maloney: I have a question, Mr. Chairman. I notice that our friends in the opposition are not with us today. As a matter of courtesy, is it essential that this approval proceed today, or should we wait for their presence, or at least give them specific notice? I guess we did, though....
The Chair: Yes, I think notice of this has been circulated ahead. The clerk is telling me that this will still go to the Standing Committee on Liaison. In fact, we are hearing the first witness next Tuesday.
Mr. Maloney: So it's imperative to proceed.
The Chair: It's imperative to proceed. But it's a good point you made, Mr. Maloney.
On that note, are you prepared to move it for adoption?
Mr. Maloney: I so move.
The Chair: Is there any discussion?
Yes, Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott: Do I understand that if the committee decided there was any travel involved, or even if individual members of the committee, for any purpose...? Since there's no budget here, does that only reflect the fact that you have to actually seek approval for that and it's a supplementary budget item? Is that what this means?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr. Scott: Okay. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
The Chair: Any further questions? All in favour of adopting the motion?
Motion agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings]
The Chair: On that note, we will resume the questioning of Mr. Duern.
Mr. Finlay, do you want to propose another question?
Mr. Finlay: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'll follow along a little on what my colleague said.
In your presentation, Mr. Duern, you said that although there wasn't a lock step every two or three years, it had become about every four or five years that we were to report on, in this case, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The last report was in 1990. We're in 1995, so we're due.
Do we have a 1995 report? If not, then am I to understand that the recent report by the UN on how Canada dealt with the inequity of women, for instance, in which we turned out to be seventh or eighth, is really based on data from about 1985 to 1990? Would that be a fair conclusion given that the 1990 report was the last one the committee had?
Mr. Duern: I believe the report you're talking about is a UNESCO report, actually. Various United Nations agencies and bodies report on different aspects of societies, but not necessarily based on countries on reports.
UNESCO, in particular, but other bodies as well put out different studies on quality of life, and on various aspects, and so forth. That is really more of a social science approach that is carried out according to a whole series of economic and social indicators.
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Country reports on human rights covenants may be consulted, but what you're talking about there is really separate from the human rights system, I believe. Obviously, rights questions come in, but really that's more of a socio-economic analysis of where certain groups fit into a given society. That's more of a scientific endeavour.
Mr. Finlay: It's more objective, more scientific.
Mr. Duern: More objective, yes.
Mr. Finlay: You've stressed that whatever reports are made under the UN covenants are from the government to the UN. It is prepared by departments of government. Is that report tabled in the House, or brought before this committee or the cabinet? Or is it simply prepared by the department and sent to the UN?
In answer to my colleague's question, you said the reaction of the UN committee is public; the report is not public. I'm not asking for the report to be public, but looking at the term ``government to UN'', where does the member of Parliament come in? Where does the cabinet come in? Where does the committee come in?
The Chair: When we say ``government'', it means that the cabinet will have been involved.
Mr. Duern, would you like to respond to that observation?
Mr. Duern: Yes, that is the sense in which I'm using ``government''. It is an official report, and as I said, a report by officials.
I just want to be clear. The report is not public until it is tabled at the UN. As soon as it is tabled there, it is a public document that we distribute.
There's another point you made here.
Mr. Finlay: I thought it was a part of the government. I thought this committee was to do the kind of work of government that I think is rather important.
Mr. Duern: To be precise, the report is prepared by officials. It is approved in all cases by the Minister of Canadian Heritage. In other cases, other ministers may also approve various sections if their respective departments seek ministerial approval.
Given that the reports are supposed to be largely factual, there is not necessarily a call for high-level ministerial approval in every respect. It is a report prepared by officials. Parts of it are reviewed by at least one cabinet minister, or several. From there, it is transmitted to the United Nations.
Mr. Finlay: It doesn't come before this committee.
Mr. Duern: No, parliamentary committees are not involved in the preparation of the report themselves.
Mr. Scott: I think it's an interesting observation. I had a lay person's passing interest in these things more than two years ago. I remember hearing of Canadian citizens going to the United Nations and basically challenging the performance of the Government of Canada in the various areas having to do with human rights.
To be honest, as just a regular citizen, I thought, gee, it's too bad people feel they have to go to New York or some other place to challenge the government. In fact - I say this in a very uninformed way - I probably thought it was a little bit of grandstanding. Now I see that in fact it's necessary, because the report isn't even public until it gets there. So how do you challenge it if in fact you feel that, as a Canadian, you want to do that?
Take the area of human rights. Part of that is the relationship between the state and its citizens. I think there's a very big and healthy role for the citizenry to play in representing our government's representation to the international community in terms of how we're doing around these conventions. I think it's a valid thing for this committee to pursue the opportunity to allow Canadians to express themselves.
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I accept the fact that, in the end, the government reports, and has to defend its reports and so on, but I think in the name of both transparency and also in the name of internal domestic pressure, which seem to be the only levers available to anybody to do anything much, that would be a huge step forward. I'm glad for the opportunity to be on the committee to find this out.
The Chair: On that point, perhaps the chair would like to say that Mrs. Gaffney raised this point - she has had extensive experience with this issue while in opposition, and now in government, and in fact was chair of this committee at one time - as did Mr. Maloney, Mr. Grose, Mr. Finlay, and now Mr. Scott.
You indicated in an earlier response that the committee could be involved after the tabling of the report with the United Nations. My question is specific: based on your experience, do you think it would be more fruitful and meaningful to have the participation by this committee before the tabling of the report with the United Nations? Yes or no?
Mr. Duern: Is it participation in the sense I described earlier?
The Chair: No. I'll make it clear, because we have little time left. I would like it to be very clear.
I think I am sensing the sentiments of the committee members. In other words, the committee would have an opportunity to see what we will call the draft report, which is the semi-final draft. That report will have an opportunity to be changed following recommendations by this committee. If changes need to be made, the committee shall have had an opportunity to consult with the Canadian public.
That, I think, is the essence of the sentiments of the membership of the committee, which I would like to reflect to you. So my question is very specific: do you see a meaningful process in that?
Mr. Duern: Yes or no?
The Chair: We would like to be guided. We know this is an opinion.
Mr. Duern: In practical terms, I think it would probably make report preparation even more difficult than it already is, if not virtually impossible. The point is to at some point have a text that reflects the official position of the Canadian government. Basically, it means the Canadian government has to prepare it in its own way.
But if the object is to stimulate public discussion and to have public input, then once the report is prepared, if the committee wanted to look at it in length - invite perhaps NGOs to come in and comment as well as government officials who have worked on it - I think you could be stimulating a very interesting discussion that would probably have a little more resonance domestically. Of course, it would also be useful to us in terms of taking into account what we'd have to be looking at in the preparation of the next report.
The Chair: Along that line, then, when is the fourth report due?
Mr. Duern: It actually was due, I believe, in June. We're a little late.
The Chair: When is the final deadline beyond which it is already too late?
Mr. Duern: There is no such deadline.
The Chair: Is there still an opportunity for this committee to look into this issue before this report is finalized - or is it moot at this time?
Mr. Duern: The reason the report is late is that we are awaiting some contributions. As you know, we have 13 contributors: the federal government, 10 provinces and 2 territories.
The Chair: When you expect this contribution to be finalized?
Mr. Duern: Shortly.
The Chair: In essence, then, you are telling us that because of the interest of the committee, it is moot at this point for this particular fourth report that the committee be involved in terms of meaningful consultations with the Canadian public?
Mr. Duern: At this point it would be extremely difficult.
The Chair: When is the fifth report due?
Mr. Duern: In another five years.
The Chair: That is the thing. We almost the opportunity unless we wait another five years. The committee will make note of that.
I do not like to put you on the spot, but following the question of Mr. Finlay about the environment and natural resources, you may have noted the clippings today and yesterday about the definition of sustainable development. The committee that issued this report said that it should be viewed in light of sustainability for the next seven generations.
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My question is specific. I understand from the research document our research staff member, Nancy Holmes, prepared for us that one of the roles of your directorate is to play a role in discussions about the need for new conventions.
You indicated in your reply that in fact this particular issue was not foreseen. Do you now see a role for a possible new convention along this thought of defining sustainable development?
Mr. Duern: I'm not sure it would properly fit into a human rights context. I'm not aware that there's any human rights convention being studied or considered on that specific subject.
The Chair: But along the line of social and economic development, is that not part of your jurisdiction? It may not necessarily be human rights specifically, although some would argue that poverty is under the umbrella of human rights.
Under that broad umbrella, do you see a possible role, or is your directorate looking into that issue now?
Mr. Duern: No, the role of our directorate is to carry out consultations and to coordinate the Canadian response to the prospect of ratifying an existing convention.
The Chair: Is the role of your directorate to examine and discuss the need for new conventions?
Mr. Duern: No, it would be on the appropriateness of our signing or ratifying existing conventions. As to the need for new conventions, that would properly be a Foreign Affairs role.
The Chair: I see.
To get back to NGO participation, you send them letters and surveys, and they reply back to you. There had never been any sort of gathering together of these people in an interactive way in one particular physical venue - a conference, a workshop, a round table, or a seminar. That had not taken place.
Mr. Duern: There, it's largely a question of feasibility.
For the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as I believe I mentioned, it was practical to do so, and we did. We were dealing with a relatively small number of very large groups, umbrella groups: the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, for general issues; and five native organizations for specific native issues, because there was a particular question there. It turns out that the way that sector exists, the way it is in reality, made it practical to do so.
In other instances, it would be a practical impossibility. On civil and political rights, the subject is very broad, and as I said, we wrote to over 200 groups of varying sizes all over the country. But the idea of bringing them together would be completely impractical, I would say.
There is one little thing I'll throw in. We're barely looking at this yet, but in addition to writing letters, we are keeping an eye on what's happening on the Internet. There may be possibilities there. That may not be for a few years, but at the point that many of these groups can actually afford to plug in, that may provide another forum. But that remains to be seen. We're keeping our eyes open.
The Chair: My last question, if I may, with the indulgence of the membership, is about the Human Rights Directorate. Is that a departmental or interdepartmental structure?
Mr. Duern: It is a unit within the Department of Canadian Heritage, but its role is to coordinate and liaise with other government departments and with the provinces and territories.
The Chair: How many staff members constitute the Human Rights Directorate?
Mr. Duern: Currently, there are eight. The current level of staffing is supposed to be at eleven, although we are currently at eight because we've had some retirements and departures.
The Chair: Do they do just that role, the terms of reference? Have they been hired specifically and solely for this function and they do not do any other departmental activities and functions?
Mr. Duern: Do they combine human rights duties with other duties?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr. Duern: No, it's entirely and exclusively human rights.
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There is a section that is entirely occupied with reports and a larger one whose job is the promotion and education in the human rights side. I belong to the report side.
The Chair: Any other questions from the committee?
Mrs. Gaffney: Yes, thank you, Mr. Pagtakhan.
Is the directorate not an independent body that is contracted out by the Department of Heritage? Am I wrong on that?
Mr. Duern: It is a constituent unit of the department.
Mrs. Gaffney: It is. Okay, thank you.
Mr. Duern: Mr. Chairman, one thing just occurred to me that I wanted to mention earlier and then forgot in answering the question by I believe Mr. Grose.
In addition to moral suasion provided by committees, I just wanted to point out that in the case of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, we are also signatories to an optional protocol, which means that any Canadian citizen who feels any civil and political rights have been violated may, after having exhausted all other venues - that is, might have to have gone up to the Supreme Court and been turned down - appeal to the United Nations and actually get a hearing in the United Nations.
The decision of the United Nations, once again, will not be binding, but under those circumstances, in that kind of appeal, a negative judgment by the United Nations has considerable moral force.
There is one Canadian example of this having worked, and that is the case of Ms Lovelace in the matter of Indian status.
The Chair: Are there any other questions?
I will thank you on behalf of the committee for your contributions to our deliberations. I'm sorry that Ms Young is indisposed to being able to share her thoughts, but we understand. Thank you again, Mr. Duern.
Mr. Scott: Mr. Chairman, this is not vitally urgent. I'm not sure of the procedure here, so bear with me. I'd like to explore the possibility of giving notice of a motion to change the name of the committee.
The Chair: That's always in order, because we have adopted that a motion may not be taken on the day it is moved if it has not been put in the agenda. So that's in order.
Mr. Scott: That's what I was hoping to do, give notice.
The Chair: Yes, go ahead, Andy.
Mr. Scott: This is in the spirit of the presentation that was given to us at the first meeting of this committee that I attended, where Mr. Clark, I believe, suggested that the emphasis should be on the people involved and not the disability. In fact, in terms of his own presentation, in terms of the language used, he suggested that we should refer to persons with disability rather than to disabled persons.
It strikes me that it would be reasonable to change the name of the committee from the ``status of disabled persons'' to the ``status of persons with disabilities''. I don't mean to evoke whole bunches of paper things, but in the spirit in which the report was given, I think it would be an appropriate action for us to take.
The Chair: Take note of that notice of motion and the specific motion to change the phrase ``disabled persons'' to ``persons with disabilities''. Okay, that notice of motion is accepted.
Any other motions? Any other ideas about what we should do about our deliberations today, or will we save it for another time?
Mr. Finlay: Mr. Chair, is it your understanding - and I appreciate your questioning of the witness following what we all were searching toward - that there isn't any opportunity for this committee to see that fourth report before it goes to the United Nations? Is that your conclusion?
The Chair: That's right, and so the committee, in its wisdom, may, today or at a later date when we have other members from the other side, look into that issue following our hearing of these witnesses, if in fact we will have learned from this kind of presentation.
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Mr. Scott: Further to that, it strikes me that they're trying to write a report around a framework, so we don't have to have the report; we just have to have the framework. We could hold hearings on the framework and get responses to the questions. Then we could simply report to the government what they said about that framework and ask the government to include it.
I really think it's the public exercise that's going to bring pressure to bear. Ultimately, it's not the report. Consequently, having the National Anti-Poverty Organization speak to this committee on the framework around which the report is written is going to have the same impact as having them participate in the writing of the report.
The Chair: Yes, and that is why I asked whether it is moot at this time. If we now convene a meeting of the Canadian public on this issue and then we realize we will have no time to complete the study before this report, the expectation could be difficult.
At the same time I think the committee will have made note from this experience that five years hence it is too late. We may even think of it now in preparation for whoever will be the composition of this committee.
John, would you like to give a notice of motion?
Mr. Maloney: Is there a question of redundancy here? He indicated that they've heard from over 200 groups or organizations or people across the country and that on the basis of this they are preparing their report. We have ten provinces and two territories also participating in this report. Are we reinventing the wheel?
The Chair: We would be reinventing the wheel if in fact we see no different route.
Mr. Maloney: The report - do you think it needs public scrutiny?
The Chair: I think that is the essence.
Mr. Maloney: If that's the essence, I can accept it, but on the basis of the first, second and third reports, does it bear it out? The study of this fourth report, based on what's in the second and third reports, would be rather a comprehensive study and take a lot of time.
The Chair: Oh, yes. It's a good observation, so perhaps we can look into it in one of the business meetings of the committee. In other words, if there is a need to study or for the committee to play a role before the finalization of the report, say, five years from now, the committee could make the recommendation, for example, that the final report be completed a year before. The committee would at least have a year before.
That is of course difficult because the life of Parliament is always on a contingent basis. But the time for reporting is fixed, irrespective of the government of the day. The committee may have to take that into account.
I think you're right, we should look into this. Perhaps following this presentation the researcher, Nancy Holmes, could give us some options to finalize some recommendations, so that we will have advanced one step when the issue is re-visited.
Mr. Maloney: Quite frankly, my personal view is that we should look at the report.
The Chair: Yes.
On that note, I adjourn the meeting of the committee. Thank you all.