Senator McPhedran: Bill S-259 would Provide Remedies for Victims of Human Rights Abuses

Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Honourable senators, today I rise to speak in support of Bill S-259, An Act respecting the repurposing of certain seized, frozen or sequestrated assets.

I would like to thank Senator Omidvar and her colleagues at the World Refugee Council for their leadership on this important bill.

Dear colleagues, this bill would put us in a better position to provide redress to victims of human rights violations. It offers an innovative solution to address international concerns about the number of refugees and displaced people in several countries.

As noted by Senator Omidvar, this bill is a response to the World Refugee Council’s report, A Call to Action: Transforming the Global Refugee System, which was submitted to the UN this past January.

Honourable senators, I would like to highlight the role of the World Refugee Council in regard to this bill. This bill is a clear example that committed and informed civil society organizations can and do have a strong impact on governments and lawmakers. In order to achieve the goals within international human rights law, international civil society and governments must work together. Not only is this bill a product of such collaboration, but, if implemented, it would facilitate further collaboration between civil society and governments.

Through the creation of the public registry outlined in this bill, international advocacy would be strengthened. Transparency and openness are necessary for civil society to hold us and other governments accountable for our responses to human rights violations. The more information that is available to civil society, the more civil society will work to effectively advocate for governments to respect human rights obligations and uphold human rights standards.

The Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, also known as the Sergei Magnitsky Law, came into force here in Canada in 2017. This act, which originated with leadership from Senator Raynell Andreychuk, allows Canada to freeze the assets of corrupt state officials who are known and recognized as international human rights abusers.

Upon application from the Attorney General, this bill would give provincial superior courts the power to redistribute these frozen assets. In turn, these assets could be reinvested with the goal of rebuilding and responding to the needs of the communities impacted by the human rights abusers. Decisions to redistribute frozen assets would be made at the discretion of independent Canadian judges. This is an innovative and smart way to leverage the independent role of the judiciary in Canada to assist victims of international human rights violations.

The principles of this bill, as identified by Senator Omidvar, are accountability, justice, due process, openness, compassion and good governance. Within this bill, I have also identified another important principle, the principle of providing effective and appropriate remedies for human rights abuses. Access to remedies is a defining feature of human rights law, both internationally and within Canada.

Our response to human rights violations is not limited to imposing consequences on a perpetrator. Our response to human rights violations also emphasizes the importance of providing a remedy for victims.

Through this bill, we would be in a much better position to provide such remedies. Because of Canada’s geography, unlike what some fear-mongering Canadian politicians would have us believe, we do not experience the impact of large influxes of refugees in the same way that countries like Bangladesh, Uganda, Colombia and others do. Eighty-five per cent of displaced people in the world are in disadvantaged developing countries. One person is forcibly displaced every two seconds. These are staggering numbers.

While Canada welcomed 44,000 resettled refugees in 2017, less advantaged countries are, by and large, shouldering the burden of the world’s refugee crisis, the largest such crisis we have seen yet in human history.

Of the 25.4 million refugees in the world, over half of them are children under the age of 18. Protracted refugee situations across the globe now last an estimated average of 26 years. Millions of children are spending their entire childhoods in refugee camps without adequate health care, without access to education and often without opportunity. The consequence of this is a generation of incredibly vulnerable young people who every day are being denied their basic rights.

As Senator Pate discussed, sexualized violence is endemic in refugee and conflict situations, which further contributes to the vulnerability experienced primarily by women and girls. A consequence of this increased vulnerability is that women and girls in refugee camps and conflict situations become easy targets for traffickers.

In 2018, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime released a global report on trafficking in persons, which describes how traffickers often explicitly target persons who are coping with difficult situations, including those in refugee camps. Traffickers recruit people, typically women and children, with lies and false promises of receiving payments and/or transport to safer locations outside of the camps.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons has identified examples of this and notes that trafficking has especially affected women and children. For example, the rapporteur notes:

In some refugee camps in the Middle East, for example, it has been documented that girls and young women have been “married off” without their consent and subjected to sexual exploitation in neighbouring countries.

Refugee camps are volatile and fragile places in which to grow up. Through the redistribution of funds, Bill S-259 would likely mitigate some of the harms experienced by the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.

This bill provides Canada with the opportunity to reinforce our leadership on global human rights. Switzerland has enacted a similar law. The United Kingdom and France are also considering similar legislation. Through the implementation of Bill S-259, Canada would be leading by example to encourage others to adopt similar legislation.

International human rights violations are increasing. However, through the adoption of legislation like this, we can better position ourselves to respond to international human rights violations. Bill S-259 would enable us to provide remedies to victims, and it would demonstrate to perpetrators that abuses of power will not be without tangible consequences.

Thank you. Meegwetch.