‘We’re protecting our sovereignty’
IRWIN COTLER WEIGHS IN ON CANADA’S GLOBAL ROLE
Human rights expert Irwin Cotler has the ear of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland. The former Liberal MP and human rights lawyer is advocating for political prisoners and has advice for how Canada can seek a seat on the United Nations Security Council. Cotler spoke to the Post’s Marie-Danielle Smith in Ottawa this week.
Q: What do you make of Russia’s threats against Canada, as we near passage of the Magnitsky bill? (Named after a Moscow whistleblower, it would allow sanctions on foreign human rights violators. The House passed it on Wednesday and sent it on to the Senate.)
A: This is not directed against Russia. It’s not directed against any country or government. It’s directed against the human rights violators who operate within a culture of corruption and criminality and impunity. This is intended, effectively, to combat that impunity, hold them accountable, ensure that Canada cannot become a place where they can travel to, launder their proceeds, send their kids to school, et cetera.
In other words, when Russia says “you’re interfering with our sovereignty,” no. We’re not interfering with your sovereignty at all. We’re protecting our sovereignty.
Q: How can Canada convince other countries it should have a seat on the United Nations Security Council?
A: We’re living at a point now where we have a resurgent global authoritarianism, dramatized by what is happening in Iran and North Korea and Russia. We have an illiberal populism which we’re seeing in Hungary and Poland and Eastern Europe. We’re seeing also pockets of right-wing extremism even in Western democracies.
The main threat is the decline of democratic leadership, a kind of democratic recession. We believe that Canada can be a leader in the democratic renewal. Being on the UN Security Council would help give expression to that leadership.
And we demonstrate our leadership by the adoption of things such as global justice for Sergei Magnitsky legislation. We demonstrate our leadership by adopting as we did very recently sanctions against the human rights violators in Venezuela. We demonstrate our leadership by our voting with regard to the UN Human Rights Council, and seeing that violators are held accountable and are not rewarded with a seat.
Q: Should Canada be pursuing a potential free trade
agreement with China despite its human rights record?
A: There’s no inherent contradiction between trade and human rights. The contradiction is when you pursue trade at the expense of human rights. So I’m in support of enhancing our commercial relationship with China. I’m in support of enhancing our relationships with China.
Q : What do you make of the international response to the situation in Myanmar?
A: Unfortunately, we tend to intervene after the fact, when it’s too late. An example is we held hearings for the foreign affairs committee, subcommittee on human rights, when I was vice-chair in 2014, on the Rohingya. We tried to sound the alarm at the time. Regrettably, we held a press conference on it and nobody came. Now, as we meet, there’s a situation where half a million have been forcibly displaced and have to flee to Bangladesh or their villages were torched or people were raped.
Q: Who are the political prisoners you’re telling the Canadian government to fight for?
A: Raif Badawi has now concluded five years of imprisonment in Saudi Arabia (for “insulting” Islam online), which makes him eligible for clemency. He should never have been convicted and imprisoned in the first place. And there is a particular Canadian connection, because his wife and three children are here as refugees in Quebec. There’s a real hero in Iran, the Ayatollah Boroujerdi. As we meet, he’s in his 11th year of imprisonment. An incredible spokesperson and advocate in Iran for freedom of religion, for the separation of religion and state, advocating for minority rights, advocating on behalf of the Baha’i. He’s now under house arrest. Leopoldo Lopez, the leader of the democratic opposition in Venezuela who was in prison and now under house arrest.
And Wang Bingzhang, the terrible case of a Chinese dissident, a doctor, who came to Canada in 1979, got a PhD at McGill University in 1982 then said, ‘you know what, I’d like to be a doctor but it’s more important to try to bring democracy to China.’ So he set up the overseas China democracy movement. Fast-forward to 2002. He’s making a visit to Vietnam, he’s abducted from Vietnam by Chinese, he’s brought back to China. In a show trial of a few hours, he’s convicted of both the crimes of terrorism and treason. This interview was edited for length and clarity.