Selection from House of Commons Subcommitee on International Human Rights Meeting of May 1, 2007

---

http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/cmte/CommitteePublication.aspx?SourceId=205894&Lang=1&PARLSES=391&JNT=0&COM=10945

(1300)

The Chair:

Colleagues, we will recommence.

The next item on our agenda is the consideration of the Burton report. As our regular members know, this is an ongoing drama at this committee. In effect, as a result of our various motions, we were all provided early on with the public version of Burton's “Assessment of the Canada-China Bilateral Human Rights Dialogue”, dated December 31, 2005. There was a confidential annex consisting of supplementary materials that had been excised from the public version of the report.

Pursuant to our various protestations, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has furnished us with an excised version of the confidential supplementary materials, which you have before you. You've all been sent copies, at least regular members of the committee have.

Originally we were told that this would have to be considered in an in camera meeting for 10 minutes, with no note-taking, but apparently the department has now furnished us with copies, so I'm advised that we're not required to review this in camera.

A voice: Is that correct?

The Chair: Could the clerk please say something about that?

(1305)

The Clerk of the Committee (Ms. Bibiane Ouellette):

I received an e-mail saying that the report would be available and the committee didn't have to look at it in camera.

The Chair:

So we're in a public session. I don't think there's anything to discuss here. We have what we have.

As I said at the last meeting, in terms of the process, this committee has already reported three or four motions to the main committee with respect to this issue. It is now up to the main committee whether they want to make any reports to the House of Commons on this. It's out of our hands, and this is what we have before us.

I would suggest that it would not likely alter any of our recommendations or the content of the report that we submitted to the full committee last Tuesday.

Mr. Sorenson, perhaps you could elucidate for us.

The full committee has received our report, is scheduled to review it, and hopefully adopt it on...which date?

Mr. Marcus Pistor (Committee Researcher):

On May 10, next week.

Ms. Denise Savoie:

Chair, can I get a clarification?

The Chair:

Yes, Madam.

Ms. Denise Savoie:

Our purpose was to compare and make a determination as to whether information was withheld. From what I read last night, it seemed like these two reports were comparing apples and oranges. There are blacked out portions that do not reappear in the last version, so you really have no point of comparison.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

The only point of comparison—

Ms. Denise Savoie:

Was the purpose to compare? If it was, then it seems like a pointless exercise.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

The only point is that now you see and know how much is blacked out. You're right, it does not disclose what's in there, and they have made that clear.

The Chair:

Yes.

Denise, the point is that this committee has had an ongoing dialogue with the Department of Foreign Affairs. This goes back to when Professor Burton appeared before our committee and revealed that some information had been excised from the public view of the report, which had been made available to us by the department.

Pursuant to a motion moved by Madame St-Hilaire, the committee unanimously requested the unexpurgated version of the report, and then this became a complicated matter.

At the end of the day, the committee decided to ask DFA to send us whatever they would reveal, and that's what's before us. It's the position of the department that the blacked out bits are classified. The committee has adopted a number of motions on this matter that have been reported to the full committee. So I think it would not be fruitful for us to spend more time on the matter; the committee has expressed itself clearly on this.

Madame St-Hilaire, you look perplexed or concerned. If you would like to suggest anything, perhaps a discussion, it's in the committee's hands.

(1310)

[Translation]

Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:

I hope you're not allergic to the committee.

Ms. Denise Savoie:

Bless you.

Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:

I want to make sure I have understood correctly. I received two reports: one with some blacked out bits and another marked "confidential".

The Chair:

This is a public report that the committee received at the start of its study.

Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:

It now has blacked out bits.

[English]

The Chair:

There are blacked out bits here too.

Mr. Marcus Pistor:

There are some other omissions.

The Chair:

Are these blacked out bits blacked out in the public version?

Mr. Marcus Pistor:

No.

[Translation]

That is the version of December 31, and it contains additional information. So it is Mr. Burton's first version.

[English]

The Chair:

So it's not the version we received.

Mr. Marcus Pistor:

That's not the public version. The public version was dated April 2006.

The Chair:

All right.

[Translation]

Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:

Then what is this one?

[English]

Mr. Marcus Pistor:

According to page 4 of the December version of this report, “Findings based on the classified materials consulted are given in a classified appendix to this report”. I assume that's what this is. So these are some additional findings that are not integrated in its first draft, in the December version of the draft.

He told the committee that about 1,200 words had been deleted or taken out. Some of them are blacked out; some of them aren't blacked out or taken out. So I don't know.

[Translation]

Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:

You know, we know even less than you do. You say that you don't really know, but neither do we. I am having trouble following.

Mr. Chairman, you seem to be saying that we are turning the page, that it is over. But I see that Mr. Sorenson has changed his mind; he wants to have the report. He said that he would not be present to avoid leaks to the media, but I see that he is happily present today. In the end, there is nothing in this report.

[English]

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

That's why I said that if we were going to continue, and then the department was going to come with the report, with their concerns that there is classified information here that may be a security risk, I wouldn't be here. I don't have to be privy to that information; I don't want to be privy to it.

If the department says that it's intelligence or something else that can hurt something, I don't have to be here. But they've come with the report and with those segments still omitted.

[Translation]

Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:

Are most committee members satisfied with that?

The Chair:

I don't know.

Ms. Denise Savoie:

That was the purpose of my question.

Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:

We were given five censored pages, but we are continuing without any problem. Is that it?

The Chair:

It is up to the committee to decide.

Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:

You can influence us somewhat, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair:

No. I was very clear on that point. The committee did the same with four or five motions.

Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:

There was a lot of discussion, but there was only one motion.

The Chair:

Fine.

[English]

I take from what you're saying that you're not satisfied.

I'm the chair; I'm in the committee's hands. We have been around this several times. We have what we have. We've expressed our concern about this matter through several unanimous motions. I'm speechless; I'm just a procedural referee here.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

I don't think we can jeopardize our complete report by waiting, fighting, or trying to continue this debate on whether we can have the classified information.

Our standing committee is prepared to look at this report on May 10. I would hope that we aren't going to drag it out here. It might jeopardize going ahead with that report on May 10. We've been given what we've been given. There may be avenues where we can voice our frustration, but let's not let that jeopardize the report.

(1315)

The Chair:

Let me remind you, Madame St-Hilaire, just to be clear, that as you know, the deputy minister kindly appeared before the committee to discuss this matter. At the same time, we received legal advice from parliamentary counsel on the prerogatives of Parliament with respect to production of papers. The deputy minister then kindly sent us a letter last week indicating that his department was prepared to furnish excised versions of the report. We adopted a motion to respond to the deputy minister by way of letter, which I signed and sent last week, accepting his invitation for the members to receive original excised versions of the report, with classified elements excised.

We also discussed last week the fact that we had reported several motions to the main committee, chaired by Mr. Sorenson, requesting unexpurgated, unexcised versions of the report. Those are now at the main committee.

The Clerk:

They've been returned.

The Chair:

Oh, they've been returned, including the last one?

Oh, it has.Thank you for correcting me.

These have been returned, back to this committee.

This committee, as I say—

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

I think we brought that out at the last meeting, didn't we, that it had been returned here?

The Chair:

My view on this, Caroline, is that insofar as the full committee has the power to report to the House and we do not, this matter is effectively now in the hands of the full committee, now that they have the report. If you're concerned, you're free to talk to your counterpart on the main committee about this to raise these concerns when they come to consideration of the report on May 10.

As legal counsel advised us, Parliament has certain powers, but subcommittees do not have all the delegated powers of Parliament, so the committee is quite limited in how it could respond if it chose to do so. I'm just giving you the factual basis of where we are.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

Madame Lalonde and Madam McDonough and the Liberals are very aware of the frustration at not seeing the report. We brought it forward. When we were continuing with asking them to go to the Burton report, that is why they brought it back.

That being said, it's back here, and we still have those dates for the study of this report, as long as it gets back to us.

Mr. Marcus Pistor:

Which report?

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

Are we talking about the draft?

Mr. Marcus Pistor:

The draft report is before the...that's been sent; it's done.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

It's there. So what are we...?

Mr. Marcus Pistor:

This is the Burton report.

The Clerk:

We're talking about the subcommittee report asking for—

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

For a look at the Burton report?

The Clerk:

Yes.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

And that's been sent back?

I would suggest that we have the dates on the China report, but.... I'm just speaking as chair. I have no idea what the others may say. They may want to continue with a look at that report. But if this thing is still before us here, where we're going to drag this out on the Burton report, there is a bearing on the China report. There very well could be a bearing on whether we're going to continue, seeing that the subcommittee is still fighting this fight.

That's why I'm hoping that we can say we're done with it, and we're going to lodge our complaint with the standing committee, but there's our report.

The Chair:

I'm in the hands of the committee. As always, as chairman I'm here to make sure the procedure is fair and followed. If the committee wishes to express itself to the main committee yet again on this matter, that's the committee's decision.

My personal view is that we've been amply clear on this point à plusieurs reprises, and at some point I think we reach a point of diminishing returns on this issue.

As I said, the full committee will be seized of the China report, one related issue of which is the Burton report, obviously. If the full committee wishes to take up this issue, the full committee is obviously free to do so.

(1320)

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

As long as we aren't still taking it up here.

The Chair:

No, we've reported the report out.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

Yes, you've reported the report, but as long as this issue is before.... It may not play; we may go right into it. But as long as there's still some dissatisfaction on this Burton thing—because at one point in time, Madame St-Hilaire said that she was not prepared to sign onto that report until she had seen the complete Burton report, unless I've missed something since then.

The Chair:

Madame St-Hilaire.

[Translation]

Ms. Caroline St-Hilaire:

Let's calm down a little, sir. That is what I said, however the report was adopted and it was sent to the main committee. Let's not take statements out of context. Let's leave this up to the main committee.

The Chair:

Last time, I believe we decided

[English]

not to let the procedural issue here hold up the substantive advancement of the report.

Is that right, Mr. Cotler?

Hon. Irwin Cotler:

That's what I understand.

The Clerk:

Yes, it's out of our hands.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

If it's all been signed off, then what are we talking about?

The Chair:

Madame St-Hilaire is sort of asking the question, what should be done? I'm saying the committee decided.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

It's signed off, yes. Burton was part of China.

The Chair:

Monsieur Cotler.

Hon. Irwin Cotler:

It seems to me that the full report, our report, has gone forward, with our concern about the procedural matter.

Now the full committee can have both of those aspects before them; they can determine both aspects. They can deal with the main report, or they might even refer the procedural matter back to us, or I don't know what. But both of those issues should now be cleared before the full committee.

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

Okay. Then there will be no holdup on May 10, plain and simple.

The Chair:

I certainly hope there's—

Mr. Kevin Sorenson:

In fact, I'll be honest with you; I wish it was long before May 10, because the whole point of speeding up the reports was so that we could use this as leverage with the Celil deal.

The Chair:

All right. So we have what we have. I hear the frustration from Madame St-Hilaire; it's been expressed by this committee. But we're where we are and we will proceed.

We all have this. Can I suggest that we move now to our last item of business, the motion on Iran?

Okay. Then we'll move to committee business.

Mr. Cotler has given notice of a motion with respect to Iran.

Mr. Cotler.

Comments to a Friend on Canada's Approach to Relations with the PRC

It is becoming more and more apparent that the Chinese authorities are not prepared to reverse their determination that Mr. Celil is not a Canadian. So Mr. MacKay's principled demand for consular access while in Beijng was not likely to yield the desired result. At this stage, I think we should try and finesse the issue by requesting "informal access" to Mr. Celil on the basis that he has his immediate family in Canada and because of the high level of concern about Mr. Celil among Canadians. I wish that it would have been possible for Mr. MacKay to have discussed this with officials at higher levels in the Party than FM Yang Jiechi and State Councillor Tang Jiaxuan. Our message may not be getting through to the people who really count in the Chinese system. Mr. MacKay could have requested this on the basis of his capacity as a senior member of Canada's ruling Party, not simply as our FM. I think that our Embassy's strategy of focusing on the Chinese Foreign Ministry rather than seeking influence where the power really lies in China has contributed to this problem. Our Embassy in Washington reaches out to Congress directly not just the US State Department. We should have a comparable strategy in Beijing.

The Team Canada approach was not sustained once the Canadian PM cleared Chinese air space a couple of days later.

Canada lacks influence in China because we do not have ongoing engagement with the people at the senior levels of the Communist Party who hold the real power in the PRC.

Fragment of my Comments about HR Dialogue on IM with a Friend in Beijing

My judgement is that the Government of Canada would not be prepared to resume the dialogue unless the Chinese Government agreed to substantial changes to the format. This would be quite a big step as it would also lead to demands for the same changes by the other nations in the Berne group. Whether the Chinese side would actually be prepared to undertake a "productive results-based discussion" is hard to say. Their idea of dialogue is that it should promote mutual understanding, but not that it lead to the Chinese Government changing its policies in response to what foreigners tell them in dialogues.

Letter to the Globe and Mail RE: "Horror stories spring from one-child policy" April 28, A9

The side-panel suggests that the on-child policy was "instituted almost 30 years ago under Mao Zedong." The "almost 30 years ago" is accurate. But not about the "under Mao." The Chairman died in 1976, more than 30 years ago. Throughout his career Mao promoted high population growth in China and persecuted intellectuals such as Ma Yingchu who warned against it. The birth control policy could only be implemented after Mao was no longer in charge. Based on my knowledge of the late-Chairman's character, I frankly doubt that Mao recanted after his death, but perhaps there are otherworldly sources of information to the contrary.

Reflections at Middle Age on the Path Not Taken

This morning I received a 'phone call from a friend and colleague from my second posting at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing. At my stage in life, re-connecting with an old friend with so many shared memories from a different time and place is a special joy. It was really a boost to my spirits to start my day with a happy chat and to feel his enthusiasm over his important new job at the U.N. and to catch up with news of his family. I am getting used to hearing from colleagues that their children, frozen in my recollection as elementary school students, are getting married, working for NGOs in far off lands, completing Ph.D.s, etc., etc. So I was not surprised when he told me that his young son had just been accepted by the Université de Montréal to study physics. I expressed admiration that his son had chosen physics, a noble pursuit, and so he wouldn't have to be following us into jobs related to political science.

Sometimes I despair that my political science is not really "science" at all. But that I make my living simply spinning tedious stories signifying nothing of sustaining value for 200 minutes a week in term -- as a kind of intellectual fraud. So I been encouraging my daughter to think of a future career in scientific research, not humanities and social sciences. My attitude is a variation on Willie Nelson's "Mama don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys," substituting social scientist for buckaroo. After all she does very well in science and maths in her Grade 7 class. There is a lot of potential there, I think. Actually quite a number of my close friends are mathematicians specializing in sub-fields like combinatorics and optimization. I am not sure exactly what they do but it seems pretty important and of enduring value to society. My math professor friends to a man intensely love music as well. There is evidently a connection between ability at high level math and appreciation of fine music. I like music a lot too. Maybe I should have studied math at university.

Actually, when I was in my first year at Carleton University in 1972, I did take a couple of courses in the then new discipline of Computer Science. I loved that stuff. The programs were stamped into IBM 80-column punch cards and then hundreds of these things fed into a card reader. Often the programs failed not because of a programming error on my part but because one of the cards had not fully descended into the card punch when I was typing it in, so it wouldn't read properly. Then I had to figure out which of my hundreds of cards was to blame and replace it. Anyway I did very well in the computer science courses. In one of them bonus points were given so I ended up with marks higher than 100%. So, as I was showing some talent for this kind of thing, I was approached about majoring in computer science. Being young and foolish I rejected the idea out of hand which, as I recall now, got the computer science professor's back up a bit. My reasoning was that after all, computers might be of value in doing statistical regressions for social science research, but in the final analysis these computers were just glorified calculating machines. I was therefore certain that there was no future in computers. So I decided to major in ancient Chinese philosophy instead. Later I regretted this hasty decision, especially in the 80s when the micro-computers came out. I just had to have one of those cool machines with the 64 kb of ram, 360 kb of storage on 5.25" floppies, 2.5 mhz of raw computing power and especially the 300 baud modem (I was an early adopter of e-mail having an account at Princeton as early as 1984). And after all I am the same age as Bill Gates.

But when the high-tech stocks collapsed in the late-90s, a number of my computer science and electrical engineering grad friends found themselves suddenly out of work and in difficult circumstances in their early-40s. I realized that that could have been me.

By the grace of God maybe things have worked out for the best for me in the end.

Correspondence with Daniel Bell about the Lysøen Declaration

Dear Daniel,

Thanks for that tip about the Norwegian Dialogue. I will look into it. Canada, Norway and China still jointly host something called the "Plurilateral Symposium on Human Rights" which is an annual regional meeting. I found working with the Norwegians really good. We had a Lysøen Declaration in 1998 when Lloyd Axworthy went to Norway to visit his friend, their Foreign Minister Knut Vollebæk, which committed Canada and Norway to "a framework for consultation and concerted action in the areas of enhancing human security, promoting human rights, strengthening humanitarian law, preventing conflict, and fostering democracy and good governance." (http://www.nisat.org/export_laws-regs%20linked/Norway/lysoern.htm) I am not sure what the status of that is under the Harper Government.

Take care,

Charles