THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, February 15, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade met with videoconference this day at 4 p.m. [ET] to conduct a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of the Sergei Magnitsky Law, and the Special Economic Measures Act; and, in camera, to conduct a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of the Sergei Magnitsky Law, and the Special Economic Measures Act.
Senator Gwen Boniface (Acting Chair) in the chair.
[English]
Chantal Cardinal, Clerk of the Committee: As clerk of your committee, it is my duty to inform you of the unavoidable absence of the chair and deputy chair, and to preside over the election of an acting chair.
I am ready to receive a motion to that effect.
Senator MacDonald: I would like to nominate Senator Boniface.
Ms. Cardinal: Are there any other nominations? It is moved by the Honourable Senator MacDonald that the Honourable Senator Boniface take the chair of this committee. Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Ms. Cardinal: I declare the motion carried. I invite the Honourable Senator Boniface to take the chair.
The Acting Chair: My name is Gwen Boniface, I am a senator from Ontario and the Acting Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
Before we begin, I wish to invite committee members participating in today’s meeting to introduce themselves.
Senator M. Deacon: Marty Deacon, Ontario.
Senator Housakos: Leo Housakos, Quebec.
Senator MacDonald: Michael MacDonald, Nova Scotia.
Senator Greene: Stephen Greene, Nova Scotia.
Senator Coyle: Mary Coyle, Nova Scotia.
Senator Simons: Paula Simons, Alberta, Treaty 6 Territory.
Senator Woo: Yuen Pau Woo, British Columbia.
The Acting Chair: I wish to welcome all of those people across Canada who may be watching.
Today we continue our review of the provisions and operation of the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, or JVCFOA, also called the Sergei Magnitsky Law and the Special Economic Measures Act, or SEMA pursuant to section 16 of the Sergei Magnitsky Law.
As a reminder colleagues, each panel today will be only 45 minutes, so at 5:30 we can go in camera to discuss drafting instructions for the report on this study.
For the first part of our meeting today, we are pleased to welcome a familiar face to many of us and the sponsor of the legislation we are studying, our former senator colleague, Honourable A. Raynell Andreychuk.
Senator, it is a pleasure to have you back with us today and to welcome you back to the committee that you once chaired, so I feel quite daunted sitting here.
We are now ready to hear your opening remarks, senator, which will be followed by questions from members. Senator Andreychuk, the floor is yours.
Hon. A. Raynell Andreychuk, former senator, as an individual: This is a committee that is not often in the news but if you go across Canada, in the foreign policy domain, it is very well known and very well respected and that was when I inherited the chair of this committee and previous to it and since then, so it’s a special honour to be back and to be a witness this time.
I’m going to talk about the Sergei Magnitsky Act. I think senior senators who were here when I was here heard me often speak of the act, so I’m not going to dwell too much. But what I thought was important was to remind senators how this act came into being and what the aims and principles of the act were at that time. It was passed unanimously in both houses and, therefore, hereto entrenched human rights as an equal pillar in the foreign affairs policy, which had not been, hitherto, really explored too much.
It was also put forward for the universality of the human rights violators of internationally recognized human rights, and they should be treated and sanctioned equally throughout the world. That would be our aim. It was also to support human rights defenders. I recall at the end of the 1980s, I was at the Human Rights Commission when we raised the issue of human rights defenders in Canada and did take leads in that. It was not a topic identified. We talked about human rights violations but not about the defenders. This act was put in place five years ago to support human rights defenders in general.
The thrust of the bill was to ensure that Canada does not aid and abet violators or abusers of human rights violations, namely, foreign nationals, and excludes Canadians and permanent residents here in Canada. It is to make sure that within our borders we take steps under the Magnitsky Act to ensure that we are not aiders and abettors.
This committee had before it several times Mr. Kara-Murza, whom I believe you have also had his wife testify. He passionately and forcefully stated in this committee: if you let those violators whom you know about to park their illegal, ill-gotten gains in Canada, money in real estate, business, housing, and send their children to schools here, you’re welcoming them and you become aiders and abettors. Because that was the gap we talked about. National laws, national human rights issues, international laws and international, but in between there was this gap.
If we are going to preach and talk and live by the issues of human rights internationally, we’d better make sure that we are not aiding and abetting it at home. That was the thrust of the bill five years ago. It is intended to be, not only a tool that can be used after the violators commit their acts, it’s intended to be a clear signal that Canada will not tolerate this kind of behaviour within Canada and that it should be a preventive tool.
Don’t even bother coming to Canada was a phrase that one of the witnesses at that time used.
After many valiant attempts to pass a similar act, and speaking with many citizens, many parliamentarians, and many human rights advocates and often many human rights defenders who are caught in the web, and I travelled a lot, particularly in Eastern Europe and in Africa, who wanted Canada’s assistance, help, et cetera.
So the Magnitsky Act at that time was to be a start, a compromise in some cases and in some sections. For example, a five-year review was accepted by the majority in place of having a parliamentary reporting mechanism at that time. It would allow the government to put in practices and procedures. As we know, when we work in justice issues, there is the act but its process of implementation is as important and it leads to justice or injustice.
We said, okay, government, this is a new field. We will give you time to put in processes, practices et cetera and then we will look at the gaps. So it was then indicated that it was a work-in-progress because societies change, expectations about human rights change and we would then know where the gaps are, et cetera. So you are at a pivotal point, unfortunately for you, because you have probably more work than we did. We had concepts, themes and principles, but you are now to look at the effectiveness of the act, what needs to be added, how it should be added, and the concerns and where do you look for the answers? Obviously, many of them are with the Government of Canada.
I will list some of my concerns. The act has not been used since 2018. I know you heard from Bill Broader. He eloquently pointed it out. I don’t know why it hasn’t been used. I can give you privately all the answers I think, but I don’t know if I’m right or wrong. But it must be used, and it hasn’t been, and we need to get to it. More often than not, international people want it. The question is whether it should be tied so closely with the Special Economic Measures Act, or SEMA, issues. One that troubles me is that in our act, we gave latitude to the government to say, “gross violations of human rights.” In SEMA, they talk about “gross and systematic human rights violations.” What does the word “systematic” mean, and does it exclude a single horrific act or a series of acts? It is an unusual phraseology that I have not found. We have “systemic,” but we don’t have “systematic” in international law. The government should explain that. I know that the act has been used more because of the fact that the UN sanctions are stalled and many of the attitudes, shall we say, toward human rights have changed internationally, and the systems have stalled.
I should note that you had an excellent briefing note on October 20 that listed a lot of the salient questions. If I had time, I would go through them and discuss them. Those are the questions that need to be answered, so bravo to the Library of Parliament services for doing that. We rely on them so heavily.
We need parliamentary input. We need civic society’s input because human rights are our rights as much as government’s rights. Its individual rights, and I won’t belabour that point.
I will try to say three things very quickly: We need to engage with others who have duties under this act. About the trade issues, we need to know that money laundering, human trafficking and slave labour are all intermixed with the same violators in many cases. We need to not have these in silos. We need them together. The natural place is foreign policy and foreign affairs. However, it could be elsewhere. I look forward to your suggestions or answers.
My only fear — there should be no bureaucracy. It takes too long to plan and set up. What we’re looking at is policy. I would hope we’re not looking at structures. We need a capacity to bring all government actors together, and we need to link.
In the act, there are two things: we should make it automatic that if you’re sanctioned, no visa entries. There are exception, and the minister can grant visas, but it should be tied. SEMA is the same thing. If you go on the sanctions list, you shouldn’t be allowed to come into Canada. That provision has not been used — as with a few others.
I will stop now. There is much more I could and should say, and I will perhaps follow up in some written form. Thank you for at least allowing me to open up the debate and to say that your job is critical in the second phase of a work in progress. Thank you.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much. We did go somewhat over, but I think it was well worth hearing. Thank you for that.
I wish to inform members that you each have a maximum of three minutes for the first round, including questions and answers. As Senator Boehm would say, be brief and concise. We can always go to a second round if time permits.
Senator MacDonald: You, of course, were instrumental in the creation of this act. You put so much time into it, and we want to thank you for all your efforts in getting this act together. Some have argued — and you touched upon it there — that the Magnitsky Law and associated amendments to the SEMA were passed primarily for symbolic reasons and neither Canadian legislators nor the government really intended to pursue autonomous sanctions. Instead, the intent was to cooperate in conjunction with allies to ensure the greatest effect. Was that the intent both in relation to your initial proposals and with respect to how the government amended it in the house?
Ms. Andreychuk: Thank you. I certainly will not take credit for the act per se. I worked on human rights defenders’ law for a long time. A lot of people have attempted to. My contribution was to be part of that process, to understand the political and parliamentary processes and figure out the best act we could come up with while having the input of civil society in Canada, lawyers who work in this field and parliamentarians. It was never intended for the purposes of others. We hoped that ours would be the example.
The only other act that was pointed to Russia in the United States. We, in Canada, value human rights in our way, and we have our own structures, so the universality became very important here. First of all, as I said, if we were going to go out and talk about developing international human rights standards and laws, we had better be sure that we were carrying that out here — that we were not encouraging and abetting the violators. We talk about the violators elsewhere, and we talk about their governments doing something about it, and that was the missing piece. What has happened, however, when it became a universal that wasn’t pointed to any particular country, I and others were able to go to countries — like-minded and others — and talk about the need for this kind of act.
I think Mr. Browder has eloquently pointed out that it is a signal to the human rights defenders that we know they’re there, we do care about them, and our first step is to make sure we have our house in order.
Secondly, how can we further the international systems and get at the countries and the perpetrators in their own countries? It was not to supplant anything else. We want to build a coalition. There is a coalition, and that’s one of the good benefits that have come out of the act here. I had delegations come from other countries, saying, “Oh, is that what it is?” They reflected on it and made it their own in their own way.
Senator Housakos: Welcome, Ms. Andreychuk. The Magnitsky Act is just one example of the great work you carried out while you served in the Senate, and the institution misses you dearly.
Like you, I am baffled as to why it has been a number of years that the Trudeau government resists using this wonderful tool to hold violators of human rights to account. My question has to do specifically — and you have alluded to it now on a couple of occasions — with the fact that we have examples of oligarchs living right here — friends connected to Putin running mining operations in Quebec. We have examples of Beijing police stations in Toronto that are here harassing Canadians of Chinese descent. We had a news story on CBC yesterday of three sympathizers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, working and benefitting here in Canada.
What can we do to tighten the Magnitsky Act in order to go after friends, families and sympathizers of these human rights violators so that at least a future government that is serious about implementing this tool can do so? What do you suggest we need to do to tighten the legislation?
Ms. Andreychuk: First and foremost, there is education. There are a lot of people in Canada who do not know the Magnitsky Act. If I can be permitted a personal opinion, people understand sanctions in South Africa. That was a totally different situation in a different time, and that’s what they think sanctions are. The Magnitsky bill is different. It’s about activity in Canada or near activity to Canada.
I think the government has to tell us why they’re not using it. But to get to that point, it was understood that the government would put in practices and procedures that we would know about and could then comment on. Because there may be some valid reasons for not employing the visa section. But not to use the act and not to have put in place practices and procedures — regulations was the word I used in the negotiations; regulations should be put in place. Well, the only regulations that I can come up with — and it may be my lack of help like you have here — are the regulations announcing under what section the violators are going to be sanctioned. But there isn’t a generic “here is the process that we go through.” I suspect a part of it is that we need to do the preventive work. We have CSIS, RCMP, the CRA — we have everything. If one of my previous colleagues were here, he would talk to you about money laundering nonstop.
We haven’t moved on these because we haven’t gotten the information. You can’t restrict someone on a visa if you don’t have all the information.
I’m pleading for the government to be more transparent, more responsible, more accountable and to involve parliamentarians and citizens of Canada. If you do that — involve the citizens, involve parliamentarians — we’re all on the same side of this. We might have different approaches to it, but by and large, Canadians want adherence to human rights; we don’t want to be aiders and abettors.
Use our intelligence networks and our understanding of other countries. Rather than doing it somewhere where we don’t know how you came up with that — if there’s a valid reason for using SEMA, let’s use SEMA. If it’s a valid for using Magnitsky, let’s use Magnitsky. They are different tools.
The Acting Chair: We have pushed far beyond the time. We will move on.
Senator Coyle: Welcome back. Thank you again for the service you gave us here and the service you’re continuing to give us.
You’ve said so many interesting things, such as that this was very important for embedding human rights as an equal pillar in Canada’s foreign policy. I’d like to understand where that came from; what was the genesis of that? Was it not an equal pillar in Canada’s foreign policy before the Magnitsky Act?
Could you speak to where it fits?
You spoke to universality and sanctioning equally throughout the world. Do you mean violators throughout the world being sanctioned in Canada, or do you mean Canada and our allies sanctioning — is that the universality? We seem to be picking and choosing whom we are sanctioning, and it tends to be tied to geopolitical concerns and not always strictly to the worst human rights violators in the world.
Could you speak to those two things to start with?
Ms. Andreychuk: I should preface that I’m not speaking as a lawyer but just an ordinary citizen.
The idea of human rights is fairly new. We have had the Geneva Convention, et cetera. It has been a developing field. After the United Nations came into existence, human rights issues weren’t being touched, so the mechanism was the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, where you could speak to it. That left the freedom to do other things within the UN.
When that commission had difficulties, the Human Rights Committee came into effect.
Human rights have been a part of our foreign policy, but they have not been identified as being as important as trade, et cetera.
But this act left that procedural thing for the government, because it is the government’s responsibility to protect Canada and its interests, and it has to weigh many issues to determine where they are going to go and how they will go. It’s a question of timing, capability, et cetera.
That’s why the plea was for the government to put out their process so that we know. If someone says that rights are being violated, they need to have some response from the government. That has not happened.
So it’s very hard to answer.
Regarding the issue of pillars, if Senator Boehm were here and a few others who were in foreign policy — we talked about the pillars. You talked about what’s most important in “this situation at that time.” You canvass all the issues. If you do X, it will hit trade and human rights. It’s the government’s responsibility to determine how to proceed on foreign policy, having weighed them. I found human rights was always an add-on. That was said by me but also said by many people to me.
Senator Woo: I would like to pick up on Senator Coyle’s question, which draws upon witness testimony from a previous hearing. The proposition was made by a witness from the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research that the practice of Magnitsky by the countries that have Magnitsky acts gives the appearance of geopolitical motivation rather than even-handed treatment of human rights abuses across the world.
Do you agree with that assessment?
Ms. Andreychuk: Everything has a geopolitical aspect to it.
Senator Woo: [Technical difficulties] geopolitical use of Magnitsky?
Ms. Andreychuk: No, I don’t think that is what I’m saying. I’m saying that it hasn’t been used geopolitically. The responses have been from countries that have Magnitsky to the extent — Magnitsky was not intended as a geopolitical tool in this form. I’m not going to talk about other acts, other times or other things. This act was intended to be utilized. It was a coalition of people who approached me in that universality.
We can only go where we have some capability of doing something right for the defenders. That’s where we need to test this act to where we can go, because we don’t want to identify and make them more vulnerable.
I worked through the International Criminal Court. Witnesses and those human rights defenders are under more pressure when you identify them than even before. One has to move cautiously. That’s why it’s a work-in-progress.
Let’s move cautiously to maximize it. But we’re talking about using the levers within Canada. We should have them open to all. Do we have the information to do that? It’s a work-in-progress.
Senator Woo: I take it you advocate applying Magnitsky evenhandedly across human rights abusers everywhere they take place rather than giving the appearance of a geopolitical side.
Ms. Andreychuk: Yes, that’s our goal. That’s why we joined the international conventions, et cetera. The goal of Magnitsky is to ensure that those violators do not have a haven here in Canada. That’s the focus that needs to be addressed.
So wherever they come from, if we can prove their violations —
[Translation]
Senator Gerba: It’s a real privilege to meet you for the first time. As you know, I had the honour of taking your place in the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association. I didn’t get to work with you, but I’m glad to meet you in person today.
You said that Canada doesn’t use the Sergei Magnitsky Law, but that we should use it more often. You have been all over the world, so can you give us examples of countries that make use of the law appropriately and examples involving violations or success stories?
[English]
Ms. Andreychuk: This law is very new, and I could not answer your question. Is it being used? We’re attempting to point this out to other colleagues throughout the world, but at the moment, Magnitsky-type laws are in 27 countries only, I think, and it’s the start. They are basically democratic countries, to be fair about that.
I’m hoping that just like every one of the other human rights methods and ideologies, et cetera, it will take time, but what we need to do is educate and talk about it, let people know it’s there. I thought Mr. Browder made a particularly poignant point. We don’t know, but with the new communication, people know about the Magnitsky Act in other countries and they would hope that their country would have that kind of a bill. As I say, it will be adapted to them. I think we’re just still in the starting phases of this.
The other thing is, just the point that I was trying to make, is that we need the evidence to be able to sanction. Some evidence is easily available; some evidence is not. We need to work on building that information within the government. Maybe it’s there; I just don’t know about it.
Senator M. Deacon: It’s a thrill to see you here in person. We’re really sorry about the technical difficulties last week, but we’re not really sorry, because we have a chance to see you in person. Thank you for that.
I do also feel like the questions we are asking, there’s a bit of commonality and threads through all of them. I’m trying not to be repetitive, but I want to come back to a previous answer that you started with my colleague, Senator Housakos. That is that the government needs to do more to explain why they’re imposing sanctions. We’ve heard from other testimony that there was also a gap in understanding the role that the Canadian private sector has in interpreting them and understanding their role in our sanctions regime.
Would you agree with this, and do you think the government should do more to communicate how the sanctions are to be interpreted by business and their responsibilities?
Ms. Andreychuk: Thank you for that. I think it was Mr. Herman who really laid out that the business people and the bankers need to know. I remember when FINTRAC was put in, there was a lot of misunderstanding, lack of communication, before it worked. The police services, the chair will let us know that that was an issue. I am understanding that there hasn’t been enough communications if Mr. Herman’s testimony is correct. That is what we are asking the government. That’s what I meant by practices and procedures at the start. Reach out and let us know: Have there been some difficulties or are there any difficulty? What are the difficulties? How do you overcome them? That’s why I think a parliamentary overview would be helpful because different business sectors work differently throughout Canada. Parliamentarians represent all of Canada. It would be a natural way to be able to feed — it would also be a tool that parliamentarians could use to help business in Canada. We need that.
A lot my answers are presuming that there might be something there and I don’t know about it. I don’t even know if anyone has laid a charge. I don’t even know why we’re not using it. It’s a plea for government. It’s a valuable tool. We want you to use it and we need to correct it if it needs to be. Parliament needs to be front and centre on that.
Senator Simons: My question is as much about philosophy and psychology as it is about politics. It occurs to me as I’m listening to everybody else’s question that the Magnitsky Act was drafted specifically in response to human rights abuses in Russia. The name signifies that connection. I know that’s not the intention of the text of the act, but I wonder even the fact that we keep calling it the Magnitsky Act, does it create an unconscious barrier to using it to apply to human rights abuses in countries like Eritrea or Myanmar? I wonder, too, if because Russia is a European country and part of Western and Eastern European history, that we pay more attention to human rights abuses there than we do to human rights abuses in countries that have not had such dominance in our political discourse?
Ms. Andreychuk: I wish I had three hours to answer, and that would be my short version of what you’ve just said.
There was history to this bill before and it was targeted with great justification, because the facts were known and something needed to be done. You’ve had Mr. Browder and you can read Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice, and many human rights activists will talk about that. It was an opportunity, however, to make it universal and to start addressing this issue. The people who came before us were people who were well versed in that particular country, Russia, at the time.
One of the interesting sidebars is one could never talk about the large countries. Our accusation was that we always picked on smaller countries, whether it was the International Criminal Court, otherwise known as ICC, or whether it was other issues. And here was one of the major countries.
The genesis came from Sergei Magnitsky because the facts were there. The facts aren’t there elsewhere. The ICC and even specific tribunals struggle to get the facts. They may be kind of known, but when you come into a justice system of any kind, you have to prove your case, and that’s been the difficulty.
I don’t apologize for naming it Sergei Magnitsky. Here was a lawyer doing his job and he just happened to have a client that had the issue, and he saw the injustices, he saw the illegal acts, and he, as a citizen, could not tolerate that. He stood up to the institutions, to the violators, and he paid; he paid with his life, torture and his family continued to be in difficult situations. So we called it the Magnitsky Act.
Don’t we do that in our criminal law in Canada? We name it after somebody. In time, Magnitsky is just one example of millions of other human rights defenders.
Senator MacDonald: I suspect you’re aware that the Wallenberg Centre that reported in November, Multilateral Magnitsky Sanctions at Five Years, brought up so many questions as they would; I’m trying to reduce it to one. They mentioned Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and the EU are all missing opportunities to ensure greater impact by multilateralising their targets. How could these four jurisdictions work together to maximize the impact when they target?
Ms. Andreychuk: Of the Magnitsky Act?
Senator MacDonald: Yes.
Ms. Andreychuk: I think that they’re attempting to do it. As I say, we have to get our house in order first and then we work with allies. It isn’t just those four. I would hope that those who are concerned about the same issues that the Magnitsky Act is addressing within that broad human rights will slowly build coalitions. I would hope that would be part of our foreign policy in Canada to reach out to other countries.
I know it would be of value in other parts of the world to know that Canada will not allow harm to their citizens.
The issue, also, is that the government has used SEMA where, I think, the Magnitsky Act should have been used. So they have addressed some of those issues, Haiti, for example, Venezuela. But Magnitsky hasn’t been used, and it is targeted for activity within Canada. I think that’s what Canadians want — that protection — and we need to reach out to all citizens.
Part of the problem is that I know for myself personally, but others, who have been approached, saying, “What about Myanmar?” They have instances where human rights defenders are vulnerable, and they will give you information and they’re going to say these people are going to make their way to Canada.
We had quite a bit of difficulty trying to figure out how to prosecute someone from Rwanda whom we let in. We managed to accomplish it.
It’s a work-in-progress from our side. We need to do more. That’s my plea.
Senator Housakos: Senator, we have so many cases in Canada of individuals who are directly affiliated with authoritarian regimes and are doing business in this country. When you go to CRA, they say we don’t have enough intelligence. When you go to the banking industry, they say there’s just not enough intelligence or, for that matter, laws to prosecute. You go to Immigration Canada, and they say they don’t have enough intel in order to do the kind of search that’s required.
Where are we headed? If we’re just going to pass legislation and laws just so we feel good about ourselves and it isn’t followed, as you said, with strong regulation and alignment with what our allies are doing — there hasn’t been a single case. A few months ago, we had one case of a Chinese spy at Hydro-Québec who has been charged and is before a court of law right now.
Have we as a country decided to lower the bar on human rights in order to pursue our economic trade objectives?
Ms. Andreychuk: My short answer would be, no. That may be the consequence of some of our other actions as a country, but I don’t think that was the intent. I simply don’t believe that.
I believe that when they’re weighing issues, whether the human rights issues are taken into account, and how, is unknown. I think I know more about the trade area than I know about that. I know more about money laundering. My plea is that we start getting the data, using the bill, whichever bill, appropriately and have some coordination within Canada and certainly with the like-minded.
Senator Coyle: You’ve actually just answered my question. What I’d like to do, then, is to give you the time to tell us what you didn’t get to tell us yet but that you wanted to. You made reference to a number of things that you didn’t get to go deeply enough into, so please tell us.
Ms. Andreychuk: If you think this will be the last appearance in this committee, I will be back in five years, I hope.
There are so many practical things that I could sit down with the government and talk about. It’s not rocket science to collect a lot of this, but I’ve lived through the criminal justice system. I’ve lived through family courts. You need the mechanisms and you need the procedures. You need the law to start with. But the devil is in all those details of how you get to the point of justice in a courtroom, equally when you’re talking about international issues.
I really think that we need to get to those procedures and practices to answer those questions. Are they using SEMA because it is simpler? Or are they using it because it’s the appropriate way? If the bill has ministerial exemptions, I’m not aware of them. SEMA has no connection on its side to the visa regime. I know the turmoil that it creates in Immigration Canada to have to deny a visa, particularly to someone in the high office, but I know ministers in many governments in Canada have utilized that. There is a ministerial exception if the person has some violations in his past.
This is no different than what we did by letting people in for immigration purposes. It’s the same struggle to find the evidence. We’re sometimes right and we’re sometimes wrong. I can’t answer your question if I don’t know what the government has done procedurally and practically, so the answer is there.
Is there some inconsistency with SEMA? We’re talking about peace and security more often. That’s been driven because of Russia. Maybe the next case will have none of the peace and security aspects to it, and it may be that Magnitsky can be used there.
To follow up on your question, the number of human rights issues in the world is shocking. We have a long way to go to be proud of any of our efforts. We should take pride that we are trying, and that’s what the Magnitsky Act is doing. I would hope Parliament and citizens would encourage the government to utilize it because it is not a piece of paper and it is not a name; it is the lives of individuals.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much. I think that is the perfect way to end this panel.
On behalf of all committee members, we are deeply honoured to have you back among us, and we want to thank you very much for taking the trip and for your candid answers.
Ms. Andreychuk: Thank you, chair. I’m going to give a course. When you retire, go back, because the accolades and the comments make retiring all worthwhile. Thank you.
The Acting Chair: For our second panel, we are pleased to welcome Brandon Silver, Director of Policy and Projects from the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights; and Amanda Strayer, Supervising Staff Attorney, Accountability, Human Rights First. You each have five minutes. Mr. Silver, the floor is yours. We welcome you.
Brandon Silver, Director of Policy and Projects, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, as an individual: Thank you, honourable senators. It’s an honour and privilege to be here to testify today on this important act. I appreciate the very compelling remarks of Senator Andreychuk, who played an instrumental role in the establishment of this act. I also bring warm regards from our founder and chair, Professor Cotler, who regrets he couldn’t accept your invitation to join due to prior commitments. He sends his best to all of you and, of course, our written submissions to the committee were reviewed by him. We plan to continue in a fulsome way our engagements with the committee and its important deliberations.
This study presents a propitious opportunity to chart a path forward in how Canada can be a leader in safeguarding dignity and democracy by strengthening the use of targeted sanctions. It’s especially timely as Putin’s illegal and unjustified aggression against Ukraine is giving violent expression to a broader authoritarian assault on the rules-based order and all those who seek to defend it.
Targeted sanctions have proven to be a powerful tool in pushing back. The visa bans, asset seizures and business dealing prohibitions that these sanctions entail is isolating the architects of repression, turning them into global pariahs and cutting them off from the financial flows that fund their oppression. These sanctions are also protecting Canadian sovereignty from the corrosive effects of corrupt foreign capital and ensuring that our financial institutions, markets and economy are not contributing to these abuses abroad. These are all, honourable senators, measurable successes in our sanctions frameworks.
Indeed, Canada’s adoption in 2017 of our Magnitsky Law was a game changer. It lowered the implementing threshold for triggering of autonomous sanctions from:
. . . a grave breach of international peace and security that resulted or is likely to result in a serious international crisis;
And then also it includes gross and systemic human rights violations and acts of corruption. Accordingly, we use the term “Magnitsky Sanctions” to refer to actions undertaken pursuant to these post-2017 lower thresholds under both the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act and the Special Economic Measures Act.
When you look back, out of the over 2,000 targeted sanctions that have been implemented since 2017, 428 of these sanctions have been Magnitsky-style for human rights abuses and corruption, thanks to the adoption in 2017 of these Magnitsky Law amendments. Out of roughly 35 Magnitsky jurisdictions around the world, this makes Canada a leader in Magnitsky implementation. We’re a very close second to the United States in terms of quantity, far ahead of every other Magnitsky jurisdiction, and it’s all the more admirable and remarkable when one considers that we have a fraction of the resources of any of them, whether the EU, the U.K. or the U.S.
However, as some of you had suggested in your questions of the previous honourable senator, the overwhelming majority of these sanctions are undertaken autonomously and without structured cooperation among allies, despite shared interests, values and threats that we all may be seeking to address. This has serious consequences because it can often result in asset flight, with the sanctioned individual just laundering their ill-gotten gains or conducting their business in another parallel jurisdiction. It also lessens the significant rhetorical and reputational value, as the listing can be presented as a singular aberration among more reasonable democracies rather than an achievement in the pursuit of justice and accountability. Therefore, an international contact group, a diplomatic contact group of jurisdictions with Magnitsky laws should be established, which would greatly assist with the coordination and multilateralisation of sanctions implementation, while also creating a forum for the sharing of best practices.
Canada should also take a whole-of-government approach to sanctions and create a single focal point to implement sanctions across governmental departments and along with our allies internationally. In particular, the policies and practices relating to Magnitsky implementation can be pursued in a way that helps to advance Canada’s foreign policy priorities, the protection and promotion of human rights, and advancement of democracy and the important safeguarding of human rights defenders, which Senator Andreychuk referenced, as a guiding factor in the initial adoption of Magnitsky legislation.
An excellent example of that, I believe, as we approach the second anniversary of the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations, which Canada led internationally, we can use Magnitsky laws to give it teeth and thereby shift the calculus in hostage taking. The prime minister has already set an excellent example and precedent in that regard for Canada and like-minded states to build upon when it was announced at the G20 that Canada would be implementing sanctions on the architects of oppression and those responsible for the persecution and prosecution of Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Russian democratic opposition leader who had testified before this very committee in pursuing Magnitsky laws. It is a sense of poetic justice that it should then be used to assist him.
The Acting Chair: I’m sorry, I’ll have to stop you there. Perhaps you can incorporate the rest in your answers.
Amanda Strayer, Supervising Staff Attorney, Accountability, Human Rights First, as an individual: Thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. Human Rights First is an independent, non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to promoting and protecting human rights and urging the United States to take a leading role in this effort both at home and around the world. For the past six years, Human Rights First has built a global coalition of 300 civil society groups to advocate for the use of targeted human rights and anti-corruption sanctions in the U.S. and other jurisdictions with Magnitsky sanctions. We’re proud to have the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights leading the coalition’s work in Canada, as well as partners in the U.K. and the EU.
From the first U.S. Global Magnitsky Sanctions in 2017, civil society has been integral to their effectiveness. By our estimate, one third of all U.S. Global Magnitsky Sanctions have had a basis in recommendations from civil society. I’d like to offer three ways we have seen civil society provide critical contributions to governments implementing targeted human rights and anti-corruption sanctions, and which I would encourage the Government of Canada to build on.
First, civil society groups are a key source of information that governments need to impose sanctions. Civil society has unparalleled evidence of abuses and insight into who bears responsibility, based on years of research, monitoring, interviews with victims and on-site documentation. These are sources that government officials often don’t have. We have worked with civil society groups to bring more than 160 well-documented files to the U.S. government, recommending specific perpetrators for Magnitsky sanctions.
This pipeline of recommendations is reflected again in about one third of the U.S. Global Magnitsky Sanctions cases, including ones that U.S. officials have cited as among the most impactful. This speaks to the quality of evidence and analysis that civil society provides, and the fact that sanctions in the name of human rights and anti-corruption are more credible when they reflect the priorities of independent human rights and anti-corruption groups.
As more jurisdictions have adopted Magnitsky sanctions, we have encouraged other governments to take a similar approach to engaging civil society and expanded our coalition efforts in this aspect. For example, we helped coordinate the submission of sanctions recommendations for the arbitrary detention of Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza in multiple jurisdictions. We were pleased to see that Canada was the first to announce sanctions in Vladimir’s case in November, after a submission from the Raoul Wallenberg Centre. We would encourage the Canadian government to build upon this positive engagement with civil society going forward.
Second, civil society plays a vital role in understanding the impact of sanctions and their enforcement. For example, in the wake of U.S. sanctions against Bangladesh’s Rapid Action Battalion for human rights abuses in 2021, civil society groups tracked the abrupt halt in extrajudicial killings by the unit, as well as the eventual resumption of those abuses. They highlighted how the sanctions cut through government efforts to suppress free speech and sparked unprecedented calls for accountability and reform. They reported on law enforcement’s threats to victims’ families to recant reports of disappeared loved ones, and increased surveillance of and harassment against human rights groups. This information helps governments as they monitor sanctions enforcement, consider additional measures and address delisting requests.
Finally, civil society groups identify gaps in the implementation of sanctions programs and urge governments toward more equitable use of these tools. As Senator MacDonald referenced, in November we released a report, Multilateral Magnitsky Sanctions at Five Years, analyzing how the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and the EU have used these tools.
Together with our partners the Raoul Wallenberg Centre, REDRESS and Open Society Foundations, we found key gaps across the four jurisdictions. These include significant shortcomings in how Canada uses sanctions for human rights abuses and corruption under the JVCFOA and SEMA, such as missing opportunities to multilateralise these sanctions and strengthen their impact; rarely imposing sanctions for corruption; excluding close partners and allies from sanctions even when merited; and failing to provide accountability for certain marginalized victims. On this last point, we found that in five years, Canada had never imposed Magnitsky sanctions for human rights abuses against LGBTQ persons or Indigenous persons. In its public announcements, only 7% of its Magnitsky cases mentioned female victims, and just 1% mentioned children. If these are tools for accountability, we found they are overlooking most of the world’s victims.
Many government officials have thoughtfully engaged with these findings. We heard Global Affairs Canada is considering changing its sanctions processes in light of our report. We’re eager to build on this engagement, to share the perspectives of those fighting human rights abuses and corruption in their countries and around the world, and to strengthen the use of Magnitsky sanctions to hold perpetrators accountable. On behalf of Human Rights First, thank you and I look forward to your questions.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much. We will move to questions starting with Senator Simons.
Senator Simons: I think you were in the room for Senator Andreychuk’s testimony. The more I listen, the more I wonder if the fact that we’re still operating on the residue of a Cold War paradigm means we focus more on Russia than on other parts of the world. Part of that has to do with Magnitsky and is based on financial penalties. You have to be a wealthy enough country with oligarchs trying to squirrel money away in Canada; somebody in Uganda whose persecuting people on the basis of LGBTQ2 identity is less likely to have financial dealings in this country.
Senator Andreychuk made the point over and over again that we don’t have information about what’s going on in some of these other countries that are not at the top of the news cycle. What do we need to do to make sure that the civil society groups that you represent are able to get us practical information that will lead to the use of the act by linking what’s happening in countries that aren’t always at the top of the news agenda giving us the concrete information that is needed to make those sanctions meaningful?
The Acting Chair: Who are you directing your question to?
Senator Simons: This is to Ms. Strayer but also to Mr. Silver. The Raoul Wallenberg Centre is still that post-World War II paradigm, and this is a much more global world now.
Ms. Strayer: It’s a great question. Thank you. I referenced earlier, that there have been about 160 civil society cases that we’re aware of that have been submitted to the U.S. government to date. Those span over 50 countries.
The scope of what civil society is concerned with — with respect to human rights abuses and corruption — goes far beyond Russia. As I mention earlier, they’re tracking situations that the U.S. and perhaps other governments maybe aren’t able to track as closely and bringing forward recommendations to identify the specific perpetrators, individuals or entities involved in those abuses and providing that information to the U.S. and other governments in ways that they can’t otherwise develop that same level of access and information.
The work is truly global. We have more than 300 organizations that span far beyond the United States, far beyond Canada and Europe. We’re really doing a lot to try to do greater outreach into Latin America, Middle East and North Africa regions, and bring forward these cases that are not top of the news cycle or top of the policy priorities for these governments, but that should merit attention and sanctions action.
Mr. Silver: Building off of the important comments of my colleague, I believe there are legislative amendments that could undertake to further strengthen the role of parliamentarians, such as the committee, and that can be guided by well-worn parliamentary practices that would entrench the role of civil society. For example, civil society submissions for countries that might have less political salience or public resonance that might not otherwise get the same attention from the Foreign Affairs Ministry can be highlighted by committee members.
If you look at the House Standing Order No. 39, it talks about Order Paper questions which parliamentarians can use to get governmental responses. There’s a well-worn practice of House petitions by members of the public that get governmental response. Perhaps to integrate existing parliamentary procedures into our Magnitsky Act so there are fulsome responses to civil society or parliamentary submissions could help anchor those NGO submissions our coalition is receiving from around the world from the front lines fighting for justice who have the evidence. It’s not a question of having it, but of using it. All of you can play a role in that.
Senator Woo: The point of autonomous sanctions is presumably to have some autonomy in making decisions on foreign policy. I see the value of a contact group, and multilateralising sanctions so there is a greater impact. How do you prevent that from becoming a follow-the-leader approach to sanctions?
The world champion of sanctions is, as you mentioned already, the United States. The United States has a variety of sanctions that are politically motivated, and they have secondary sanctions which we don’t agree with. How would you overcome that problem? How can we maintain a sense of Canadian independence in our foreign policy, Canadian choices in targeting the areas we feel are the most important to us and having some pride in doing it the way we believe is best?
Ms. Strayer: That’s a great point on the autonomy and the tension between autonomy and multilateralising sanctions. From our perspective, there should be a happy middle. You wouldn’t want all sanctions to be totally multilateralised because then you run the risk that maybe this is falling to the lowest common denominator, only the cases that everybody can agree on, and you’re missing opportunities to take an important stand on cases that maybe can’t get that sort of immediate consensus.
On the flip side, if everyone is going their own way, it blunts the impact that’s possible when you do multilateralise sanctions, and you can effectively shut perpetrators out of financial markets in Canada and the U.S., the EU and the U.K. simultaneously.
There is certainly a pathway for countries to carve out their own foreign policy priorities in the areas they want to take the lead on, and hopefully that will encourage other governments to follow suit. We’ve seen that certainly.
As you mentioned, the U.S. is the leader of sanctions, but there are a number of cases where other governments have stepped up in place of the U.S. and taken the important step to sanction individuals or in cases that the U.S. has been reluctant to take action on to date.
I mentioned Vladimir Kara-Murza’s case earlier. There are others we could point to as well. This is a conversation I think we’re having with all the governments at the moment.
Mr. Silver: When I think out of the 428 post-2017 Magnitsky sanctions, 79% of them have been autonomous, separate from U.S. sanctions. While the U.S. is in the lead, these are entirely separate. The idea of Canada convening this group is leveraging our unique role as a convenor multilaterally to press other countries rather than by default the U.S. taking the lead, it would be Canada taking the lead and working multilaterally as we do in so many other institutions to ensure that, in the case of human rights defenders like Vladimir Kara-Murza and the case of Haiti — which Canada has a made a priority now — in response to Senator Simons’ earlier question where some of the folks we sanctioned were recently visiting the U.S. So I think it could help Canada that our autonomous sanctions are having far wider impact and resonance.
One point that might be of interest even autonomously is that Canada can be looking to decisions of independent bodies, like the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, like treaty-monitoring mechanisms like the Committee Against Torture and using the decisions of these multilateral bodies, of these independent, quasi-judicial mechanisms, as a basis for our own sanctions, whether within a diplomatic, coordinating group or autonomously.
Senator Housakos: In your opinion, which of the two have more teeth in terms of sanctions and effectiveness, the Magnitsky Act or SEMA?
Why do you think we have many cases of individual Canadian victims of human rights abuse that have filed complaints with the government calling on the government to take action and those complaints seem to fall by the wayside into the abyss? They are not being answered.
The third open-ended question, is Canada doing enough to make sure that those that are directly or indirectly involved with authoritarian regimes that are abusing human rights are not welcome in this country? Three simple questions.
Mr. Silver: A lot of the conversations surrounding SEMA versus the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act are perhaps a question of messaging rather than substance or legal thresholds. Something that we’ve suggested in the written testimony, which I think will be disseminated to you all once it is translated, is that the term “Magnitsky-style” should be used for both uses of SEMA and Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act.
It is confusing, both for those who submit evidence and our allies around the world that we have these seemingly disparate but largely similar sanctions mechanisms. They are similar in terms of their thresholds and the idea that has SEMA has human rights and anti-corruption as triggering mechanisms because of the 2017 Magnitsky Law adoption.
We can past those questions by calling all human rights and anti-corruption sanctions Magnitsky sanctions. That’s what some of our like-minded allies do. In the United States, they have been using an executive order rather than their Magnitsky laws. But they call all human rights and corruption sanctions there, whether pursuant to that executive order or the legislation, “Magnitsky sanctions.” Some of our allies in Europe are moving toward doing the same. So there is no reason for us to create, at least in terms of government implementation, a false dichotomy between the two. We should just be moving forward calling all human rights and anti-corruption sanctions Magnitsky ones.
In terms of the broader questions you have identified as sanctions enforcement, there is an opportunity, as you referenced in earlier questions to former senator Andreychuk, to move beyond the sanctions of individual perpetrators and make sure they can’t evade designation, as has often been done. We saw reports of Iranian companies that were operating in Canada but then proceeded to register under family members’ names or simply start a new company to continue to supply weapons to the Russian government to be used to oppress Ukrainian citizens and commit atrocities. That is occurring on Canadian soil.
Rather than any legislative amendments, it is a question of meaningful enforcement to ensure that not only the principal targets but that, if an entity is listed, particular scrutiny is paid to its executives, board of directors and family members. It comes down to the government using the recent announcement of expanded funds to follow that money trail.
The Acting Chair: Thank you.
Senator M. Deacon: Thank you both for being here this afternoon.
I’m trying to absorb some of what I just heard. In addition to some of the testimony already today, we have heard from witnesses that Canada is perceived to lack any meaningful policy guidance when it comes to how sanctions are to be administered by those entities required to abide by them.
While the onus is on the government to pick up their own slack in this area, I am wondering if civil society could play a role in filling the gap to provide a reference for how these sanctions are to be interpreted and applied on a case-by-case basis, especially for those smaller enterprises that can’t afford specialist legal counsel to help them understand what their obligations might be that they don’t even know.
Ms. Strayer: Regarding civil society, we have five years of experience working in the U.S. context, in Canada and in other countries to help NGOs bring forward information and recommendations as to which types of perpetrators or situations merit sanctions. Based on that experience, we undertook a study over the course of last year that resulted in our Multilateral Magnitsky Sanctions at Five Years report, with findings on more of those policy questions you mentioned: Where are the gaps in the implementation of these sanctioning programs? What are governments maybe not paying enough attention to? How could these sanctions tools be used in a more equitable way, in a way that is appropriate and in a way that is mindful of the calls for accountability from civil society?
I referenced earlier, some of the gaps that we noted and the lack of attention to certain marginalized victims of human rights abuses. That wasn’t previously on the government’s radar and something our analysis lifted up. It has been a policy priority for us.
Other areas of policy priorities include, especially on the U.S. side, encouraging the governments to be doing more to ensure they’re targeting and sanctioning individuals or entities in governments that might be considered close partners or security partners but who have longstanding histories of engaging in very serious human rights abuses and where those strong bilateral ties and relationships might provide opportunities for a more productive pathway forward. Sanctions can be a tool to apply pressure and to potentially engage in furthering U.S. interests on particular human rights and anti-corruption issues.
We’ve seen that some of the most impactful sanctions to date have been in countries that the U.S. government has close ties with, such as Bangladesh. In Liberia — some powerful impacts where government officials who were sanctioned for corruption have since been removed or been forced to leave office.
Those are very tangible impacts and things where we’re encouraging governments, from a policy perspective, to focus not only on countries that they have a more adversarial relationship with, but to think, also, about how these tools can be used productively to push closer partners toward accountability for human rights and corruption abuses.
Senator Coyle: Thank you for your testimony and the work that you do when you’re not testifying. It is very critical work, and we’re fortunate to have you with us.
I have a question for each of you, which I will get out there right now. Mr. Silver, you mentioned that Canada should take a more whole-of-government approach. I would like you to dig a little deeper into that one.
Ms. Strayer, on this overall issue of the contributions of civil society, which you are shining an important light on, I would like to dig deeper there. We know civil society all over the world can help identify human rights abusers. What I am curious about on the end of a country like Canada — not that we don’t have our own human rights abusers — where we are trying not to aid and abet human rights abusers, what role, specifically, can you see civil society playing on this end of the equation in terms of getting at the information that our government needs here on the ground, in Canada, about those potential human rights abusers and their engagement, citizenship and business involvement in Canada? What does the Government of Canada need to do to better make those links with the organizations that can provide this?
Mr. Silver: Thank you for that important question senator. We will elaborate further in our written evidence as well.
In brief, ensuring that our sanctions implementation is not undertaken in an ad hoc way or siloed within only the foreign affairs ministry but ensuring that as these decisions — to ensure that they’re ironclad if there were to be a legal challenge — within elements of the Department of Justice. Similarly in terms of enforcement, there are relevant interventions from Public Safety Canada, the RCMP and the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, with reference to colleagues’ earlier questions about visa bans, admissibility questions and FINTRAC on tracking.
We realize that, regrettably, those kinds of things end up being done in isolation, which can lead to some of the enforcement issues that some of your honourable colleagues have highlighted. We believe that — and I think this is addressing the earlier questions as well — that by creating — we talked about coordination internationally in a multilateral working group — but cleaning house internally to make sure we have a governmental working group that, to my understanding, does not necessarily exist in a sustained and sustainable way — that there are high-level officials from all the relevant departments actively working together with a central focal point — and that the focal point is not only one internally but externally as well — that other governments know there is an individual who is a point of contact in Canada to address all matters relating not only to bilateral, but multilateral engagement on sanctions enforcement.
Moving beyond that, we realized that something both of our organizations undertake is not only helping civil society members ensure that their evidence, putting their lives on the line to pursue justice, actually see the light of day and lead to accountability for violators but to encourage democratic allies “retrospecting” states to adopt Magnitsky legislation. Often they face immense pressure, internally and from malign actors externally, against these very courageous political stances and it falls on civil society voices to supplement those campaigns. Something that Canada can do is to support those countries looking to emulate our Magnitsky Laws and asset repurposing laws, both of which originated in the Senate, a unique Canadian contribution that has had worldwide resonance that a Canadian focal point can help catalyze abroad and which would strengthen what we’re trying to do here at home.
The Acting Chair: Moving to second round.
Senator Woo: To pick up on the last point about the leadership that Canada has shown in freezing, seizing and repurposing assets both Magnitsky and SEMA, would you agree with the proposition that the philosophy of sanctions in Canada and other western countries has moved away from what I thought was the original purpose of changing behaviour, and to some extent being a deterrent for other bad acts, from that original motivation, which really, I think, encapsulates the original SEMA to one which is more about punishment? Would you agree with that proposition?
Mr. Silver: I believe that the implementation of targeted sanctions has been anchored in legal thresholds, reflective of international human rights law. So, gross and systemic human rights abuses, anti-corruption and that, challenging those abuses providing accountability to victims and justice to violators is perhaps the overarching motivating factor. There seems to be a reinforcing of the intentions of changing behaviour by having elements like asset repurposing, where if there is not a change of behaviour it helps to tighten the screws to show there is a sense of finality that victims will receive greater recompense, greater justice. All those who have suffered in order to shine a light on these abuses can actually have their endeavours supported, strengthened and see access to justice. I believe that this shift toward accountability in sanctions and enforcement and implementation helps with behaviour change because of that sense of finality. I think they are mutually reinforcing goals.
Ms. Strayer: From the U.S. perspective, what we consistently hear from the Treasury Department and State Department is that encouraging and promoting behaviour change is one of the driving principles behind their sanctions policy. I know that’s something we’re keenly aware of, and getting to the previous question as well, the information that civil society provides to governments is not only an overview of the types of abuses that occurred and who was responsible or engaged in those abuses but also grappling with the policy ramifications of sanctions and putting forward a policy argument tailored to the respective governments to underscore why Canada, why the U.S., why the U.K. should be taking these particular measures.
It may be that there is information that the perpetrators frequent these countries and we have information that — they don’t just have assets here, but they’re coming here. Maybe they have other ties or connections to these countries they are aware of. Maybe some of these governments have certain ties or interests with this individual, or the entities they work for.
Laying out some of these connections, laying out what anticipated impact these sanctions might have, is part of what we encourage and push NGOs to be doing in providing that analysis to governments and to identify what potential behaviour change might happen from these sanctions and also what other forms of impact we would anticipate seeing.
Senator Coyle: You’re going on the question that I asked, so anything further you want to add.
Ms. Strayer: It’s about building that policy argument and that rationale and looking at the impact, perhaps, beyond the scope of just what sort of specific behaviour changes might we see, but what other ramifications could there be from these sanctions and how can the U.S. or other governments think more holistically about those sanctions.
As I referenced in my comments, the example of Bangladesh, we saw not only an abrupt halt to extrajudicial killings, which is certainly behaviour change, at least for the time being, but we saw a lot of other secondary impacts from the sanctions. We saw for the first time civil society really have an opportunity to create a new public discourse on these atrocities and abuses and on the lack of accountability from the Bangladeshi government for those abuses.
These things are invaluable and hard to quantify in terms of the impact of sanctions, but matter so much and are so much of the reason why civil society is so passionately engaged in advocating for these sanctions. Because they realize that, in the accountability deserts that many people around the world live in, sanctions are often the closest they can get to actual accountability and recognition from the international community of what human rights abuses or corruption is going on and how it is impacting them.
Sanctions impact is much greater than just assets frozen, visas revoked or blocked. It’s really about sending a message and setting a tone and making clear to both the perpetrators and similarly situated people around the world that these types of behaviours will not be tolerated by Canada, the U.S. and the international community.
The Acting Chair: Let me take this opportunity to thank both or witnesses for being here and sharing your perspectives and we appreciate the work that you do. Senators, we will continue our meeting in camera.
(The committee continued in camera.)