Proceedings of the Standing Committee on
Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration
Issue 2 - Evidence for May 5, 2005
OTTAWA, Thursday, May 5, 2005
The Standing Committee on Internal Economy, Budgets and Administration met this day at 8:32 a.m. to consider administrative and other matters.
Senator George J. Furey (Chairman) in the chair.
The Chairman: I remind honourable senators that we are in public for this particular discussion. The first item on our agenda is a request from Senator Carstairs.
Senator Carstairs: Good morning. I have had had distributed to you two documents. One is my original letter to your chair regarding an interparliamentary committee of which I am a member. The other is for your interest. It has to do with the public case of Myanmar, otherwise known as Burma.
To give senators more detail, I am a member of the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians, a committee of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. It obviously has no legal power. It cannot enforce judgements upon countries. However, members of the IPU are usually quite embarrassed when a case concerning their country comes before the committee, and most of them will do something with reference to the reports we make. If you happen to be the country of Zimbabwe, you do not do anything. However, it is important that we continue to hear cases from Zimbabwe so that international pressure can be brought forward.
In very simple terms, I have been elected as a substitute member of that committee. There are five permanent members, with five substitutes, and a meeting cannot be held unless four are in attendance. In the past year, although I have been a substitute member, I have attended three of the four meetings because the permanent member did not show.
I am asking for permission from the Internal Economy Committee to use my travel points. Although the committee of the IPU meets four times a year, two of those meetings will be paid for by IPU Canada. One will probably be paid by IPU International because at the last minute I may be told that I am a permanent delegate. The Senate would be on the hook for one trip per year — perhaps two, but I think that is highly unlikely — to Geneva so that I may represent the Twelve Plus Group and therefore Canada at the meeting of the IPU Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians.
Senator Day: Why would you not have expected the IPU and the parliamentary group to pay for this trip?
Senator Carstairs: Given their own lack of funding, the IPU has made a ruling that they will only pay if they require me as a permanent member. I usually do not find that out until two or three days before the meeting. At that point, I submit all the bills to them and they pay.
If, however, they do not invite me to attend, I lose the continuity of the cases. If I do not go, then the cases are often repeated for four or five or six meetings. When I went to the April meeting, I had not been to the January meeting, so I was therefore not able to hear in person the testimony of witnesses. All I got was the report. Frankly, the report is not enough if one is to do this job appropriately.
Senator Day: I presume that your faithful and active attendance as a substitute member would put you in a good position to then run for election as a permanent member in due course.
Senator Carstairs: Canada has a slight problem in that we have kind of taken over the IPU. Senator Fraser is now the head of the women's group. Paddy Torsney, the Member of Parliament for Burlington, is head of the Twelve Plus Group. There may be some objection from the Twelve Plus Group to another Canadian becoming a permanent member.
In theory, Senator Day is right. Theoretically, if Ann Clwyd, who is a permanent member of the Twelve Plus Group, chooses not to run in 2006 in Kenya, then I would be asked to run. However, if the Twelve Plus Group said no, that would be too many Canadians, and they might ask that I remain as a substitute member and put the name of someone else forward as a permanent member. I cannot give you any guarantee about that.
Senator Di Nino: Let me first say that in principle I totally support the request of Senator Carstairs. If we are to participate in these organizations, we have to be there and we have to be funded.
I have exactly the same problem in the OSCE. NATO, I understand from one of my colleagues, has exactly the same problem.
We are fooling ourselves if we say that if an organization cannot fund itself, we will fund the organization. Last year, I actually backed off participating on a trip so that Senator Grafstein, who was treasurer of the OSCE, could go because we did not have enough money.
Again, I want to clearly stress that if we are to be part of world organizations, we have to fund them; otherwise do not go there at all. We cannot do a half job. We cannot go there half the time and be prepared to participate and make a meaningful contribution.
The problem is that if the request as proposed by Senator Carstairs is accepted, I will come back to this committee next week with a request, as will the representatives of other organizations. All of the parliamentary associations are saying that they do not have enough money to run their shops, particularly the active ones. Senator Grafstein is one of the most active OSCE members in the world. He has been treasurer for two or four years. He can run for another two years and I am encouraging him to run in Washington in July. Our group does do not have the money to send him, so we have to find another way to do so.
I have tried to make do. I have only been director of the OSCE for one year. That is the dilemma. The problem is not Senator Carstairs' request. The issue is that if we approve her request, then I will have to come back here with a request of my own for probably another two trips a year for one person, if we elect him.
Last year, we nearly elected another member. We could have had two. That means we would have to pay for four trips a year at a cost of $8,000 to $10,000 per trip. I think we have to look at the issue in total as opposed to a band-aid solution.
The Senate is doing this and we are paying the share that the House of Commons should be paying. Frankly, I am not as disturbed about that because it is from the same public purse. That is the issue we need to deal with.
Senator Carstairs: IPU Canada pays for two of those trips that I take per year, and IPU International will pay for the other two trips if I am designated as a permanent member. It is only when I attend as a substitute member that I ask this committee to pay for it.
I understand the significant dilemma that Senator Di Nino is laying before the committee. Canada has to make up its mind when it puts forward names. I did not put my name forward but IPU Canada put my name forward. I was then chosen by the Twelve Plus Group to represent them, and that was confirmed by 143 members. The reality is that once Canada puts my name forward, Canada has an obligation. If we do not want to accept that obligation, then we should not be putting our candidates forward.
Senator Poulin: I would like to put on the record the fact that the Inter-Parliamentary Union is well known for the work that it does because of its 143 long-standing members and the outstanding work that Canadian parliamentarians, including Senator Carstairs, have done in respect of the many issues that have arisen.
[Translation]
Could you give us an example of one file that has truly helped to advance certain causes that we here in Canada have worked very hard on as members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union?
[English]
Senator Carstairs: One would be the Burma-Myanmar file because it is considered generally that these individuals would not be in jail but would be dead if it were not for the fact that the IPU consistently raises this case. Having said that, in a case like Zimbabwe, where one of the parliamentarians was given a sentence of one year of hard labour for something he did on the floor of the house, which in this house would result in an apology, which he did do. We have had no impact at all on this case because Zimbabwe simply will not listen to anyone.
For lack of a better expression, we are akin to an amnesty international for parliamentarians with an extra clout in that they have to come before the IPU. We meet as a group. Therefore, I can approach the Syrian delegation and say that they are discriminating against some of their members. In such a case, we can at least buy them better treatment, if we do not successfully solve the case.
Senator De Bané: I would like to support the philosophy underpinning Senator Di Nino's argument and to add another point to the reflection. We need some consistency. For example, I am a member of the Association of Francophone Parliamentarians. Once every six or seven years, the international president of that group is a Canadian member of Parliament. In light of that fact, recently we approved an additional budgetary item of $100,000 for that association because one of our parliamentary members will be elected president. The base amount, of course, remains the same, like every year, but we are granting an additional $100,000 for this year. It is strange how we can do this for one association but we argue the point when it is for another group. We should be consistent.
The Chairman: I would like to remind honourable senators that while we are engaged in a public discussion with Senator Carstairs, our purpose is to ask questions pertaining to her application. The arguments or discussions with respect to her request should wait for the in camera portion of the meeting later.
Senator Prud'homme, did you have a question for Senator Carstairs?
Senator Prud'homme: No, but I have a few comments. I will say while she is here that regardless of how manipulative the IPU has been over the years, I was present when Senator Carstairs was elected. I was happy to campaign for her. The vote was very close, if I may say, in that she won by one vote. I also campaigned for Senator Fraser, although neither one has been my greatest supporter.
The IPU rules were completely changed before the election in order to eliminate parliamentarians. This is totally unacceptable. There is an executive opening left by Mr. Kinsella, who was induced to run but then realized that he should not be there and so he gave me his seat on the executive. By manipulation in the general assembly, I was not defeated; I was not elected; I simply do not exist in the IPU where I have spent 40 years of my life.
That has nothing to do with the request of Senator Carstairs. I am familiar with the work done by the senator. It is an important conference. However, there is a principle behind her request. How can we cope with that principle? Senator Fury is on the Joint Interparliamentary Council that will sit this afternoon. I envision many difficulties with all of the parliamentary associations that go abroad, but Canada decided that Senator Carstairs should be there. They knew before they left that a position would be vacant at that conference.
I will make a proposal when we go in camera to address that request. I am a non-voting member of the committee so there is no problem. I will not cast a ballot should there be a vote.
Senator Fury has to agonize over this issue and Senator Cook has the same problem with the Joint Interparliamentary Council, where requests are coming in for many different reasons.A solution can be found.
Senator Jaffer: Senator Carstairs, as a substitute member of the IPU Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians Committee, is your work an extension of the work that the Senate does?
Senator Carstairs: Yes and no. The work that I do for the IPU has nothing to do with the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights. It is a separate committee to which I have been elected. As Senator Prud'homme said, the election was close. I was running against the former justice minister of Germany, as well as a physician who is a member of Parliament for Switzerland.
The IPU committee deals specifically with the cases of parliamentarians around the world who have been denied their human rights. Obviously, because of my interest in human rights I sit on the Senate Human Rights Committee, but the IPU committee is separate.
Senator Jaffer: Perhaps you were elected because the world views Canada's role in human rights as very important.
Senator Carstairs: From the establishment of the IPU committee and for 10 years Canada was represented by former Senator Joan Neiman. There was then a period of time where we were not represented on the committee. Mr. Irwin Cotler was then elected, but as soon as he became a federal minister, he had to step down. That is what gave me a certain amount of acceptability because to some of the members I was finishing Mr. Cotler's tenure. The rules did not allow me to do that, so I got a five-year position of my own. The fact that he was only able to serve for one year served as the impetus for electing yet another Canadian to this committee.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Senator Carstairs. We will let you know the decision of the committee in due course.
The committee continued in camera.