Canada is a hypocrite when it comes to taking meaningful action to defend human rights at home and abroad

By Fareed Khan

At a time when human rights in Canada and around the world are under assault like never before there is one word that describes the Canadian government’s lacklustre approach to dealing with human rights at home and abroad.  That word is ‘hypocrisy’.

It speaks to the limited or absence of meaningful action by the Canadian government to address human rights and injustice against targeted minorities at home and abroad with actions that have effect.  And it should remind Canadian political leaders of the words of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. who said, “The greatest sin of our time is not the destruction of the good around us by the few but the apathy of the vast majority who sit idly by as it happens.”

 

Canadians should feel ashamed that the federal government claims to be a vigorous defender of human rights but is actually a charlatan when it comes to taking action to defend rights guaranteed to us under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms against the actions of provincial governments, or robustly defend the human rights of oppressed and persecuted minorities overseas in compliance with Canada’s international legal obligations.

 

International Human Rights Day was established on this date in 1940 to commemorate the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN General Assembly, which is the foundation of international human rights law.  It occurs this year against a backdrop of ongoing rights violations in Quebec with its racist Bill 21 “secularism” law, and its Bill 96 French language law, both of which target minority communities in that province, and Ontario’s use of the Section 33 “notwithstanding” clause of the Charter for the third time since it was elected in 2018, to violate fundamental rights of a segment of Ontario’s population. 

 

Across Canada the Charter rights of Canadians have been violated 26 times by provincial and territorial governments since 1982 when the Charter came into effect, not because there was some urgent civil emergency that required it but because governments chose to sacrifice basic human rights on the altars of their political agendas.  In none of these 26 instances did the Canadian government use its authority under the Constitution to override those provincial laws and protect the fundamental rights of those Canadians who were targeted.  The worst offender is Quebec which has used the notwithstanding clause an unprecedented 17 times to violate the rights of Quebecers guaranteed under the Charter over 40 years.  These violations are an affront to the principles of democracy and justice. 

 

In addition, we have to acknowledge the worsening human rights environment internationally. 

 

The Chinese government is following Nazi Germany's example in its persecution of democracy activists and the genocide it is committing against the Uyghurs.  Meanwhile the Canadian government does very little to penalize them politically or economically for their anti-democracy pogrom in Hong Kong or the horrific crimes that Uyghurs in East Turkestan are being subjected to.  By comparison, the US government has not only officially recognized the Uyghur genocide (unlike the Canadian government) it is also taking meaningful action legislatively and diplomatically to penalize China.  Donald Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement, “I believe this genocide is ongoing, and that we are witnessing the systematic attempt to destroy Uighurs by the Chinese party-state."

 

The Canadian government also continues to pursue a free trade deal with India despite the fact that leading members of Narendra Modi’s fascist government have called for the genocide of the country’s 200 million Muslims, in a nation where Muslims speaking out against the governing party or merely being suspected of eating beef leads to lynchings often with the complicity of police.  If the FIPA investment agreement that Canada signed with China in 2014 is any example of future repercussions this could be another deal with the devil. 

 

As well, it is deeply troubling that Canada continues its business as usual attitude with Israel, a nation designated an Apartheid state based on in-depth research done independently by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Israel-based human rights group B'Tselem, which has called Israel “a regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea”.

 

 

And last but not least is Canada’s weak response to the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar. Whereas it started out as a leader by committing $300 million in humanitarian aid and becoming the first country to officially recognize what was happening to the Rohingya as genocide in 2018, in subsequent years there has been little action by Canada to punish the Myanmar government or its political leaders for their role in the abuses and atrocities committed against the Rohingya who are now refugees in neighbouring Bangladesh, or the approximately 500,000 Rohingya remaining in the country.  Furthermore, while Canada issued multiple media statements since 2018 about how it will help Gambia’s Rohingya genocide case at the International Court of Justice it has done nothing to follow through on that promise. 

 

In each of these countries brutal and violent human rights crimes – crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide –  are being committed by governments against minority communities under their control, and yet Canada does very little or nothing at all legally, politically or economically to punish the leaders of these countries or their governments.  These are not the hallmarks of a nation committed to defending human rights.  Were they alive today the Canadian diplomats who helped draft the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Genocide Convention would hang their heads in shame at how far Canada has fallen.

 

So Canadians need to call their MPs and pressure the Canadian government to live up to its Constitutional obligations to protect their Charter rights against provincial excesses, and fulfil its international legal obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention if this nation is to claim the mantle of a true defender of human rights. 

 

No one should have their fundamental rights violated in Canada, or be subjected to the brutality of racist, fascist and authoritarian regimes internationally.  Canada must do better.  Because the price of not doing so is to willfully ignore the principles of fundamental justice and the human rights of the oppressed. 

 

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