There are very serious short-comings in Canada’s human rights record, both at home and abroad, says Alex Neve, secretary general of Amnesty International Canada. This year Canada was up for a review at the United Nations, but the rights group says the Canadian government “dismissed criticism made during the Universal Periodic Review and made no commitment to close the gaps in human rights protection.”
Indigenous rights a top concern
The disappearance of indigenous women topped the list of domestic concerns along with more general concerns about the government’s handling of aboriginal issues including provision of clean water and housing, protection of land and resource rights and equal services like education for children.
Canada “punitive,” “miserly” with refugees
Canada’s treatment of refugees also concerns Neve who says its record as a country long-revered as generous and hospitable is slipping quite a bit. “Recently we’ve seen law reform that’s actually quite punitive, that’s punishing refugees and trying to deter them from coming to the country.”
Cuts to refugee health program have been drastic, notes Neve and he calls Canada’s willingness to resettle Syrian refugees “remarkably miserly” and surprising.
Dissenters under “siege”
Harsh treatment of protesters during the G20 meetings in 2010 and the student demonstration of 2012 elicited concern as did government efforts to “silence” critics. “People who speak out, whether it’s civil society organizations, government bureaucrats, scientists, academicswho speak out and particularly raise concerns about hot button issues like the rights of Palestinians, women’s equality, environmental issues…There is a siege underway against those sorts of critics,” says Neve.
Restore lost international standing
Mining, oil and other Canadian industries operating abroad should have to abide by a code of ethics guaranteeing the respect of human rights in the countries they operate, says Amnesty, and it should stop “obstructing” and instead ratify international treaties to limit the arms trade and prevent torture.
“We absolutely need a(n)… international human rights action plan that’s going to ensure that we do not continue to lose ground in terms of what we stand for on the world stage when it comes to human rights and in fact we start to regain much of the ground we’ve already lost,” says Neve.
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