OTTAWA — An international watchdog is criticizing Canada in a new report over what it says are serious foreign and domestic human rights policy challenges.
The annual report by New York-based Human Rights Watch says that while the Trudeau government has made efforts to advance rights issues during its first six years in power, it has failed to address indigenous inequality, address climate change and oversee Canadian mining operations. abroad and help Canadians trapped in Syria.
The report notes the country’s ongoing efforts towards reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, but documents the challenges that remain, including the aftermath of the discovery last year of dozens of unmarked graves of children forced to attend former residential schools.
“Wide-reaching abuses against indigenous peoples persist across Canada and significant challenges remain in undoing decades of structural and systemic discrimination,” says the report released Thursday.
It says inadequate access to clean water remains a major health threat that continues to impede the advancement of indigenous rights in Canada, “one of the most water-rich countries in the world.”
The report also says Canada is one of the G7’s top emitters of greenhouse gases and says it is the world’s top financier of fossil fuel producers.
“Canada is contributing to the climate crisis that is increasingly affecting human rights around the world,” the report says.
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“The failure of the world’s governments to address climate change is already increasingly affecting Canada’s marginalized populations. Warmer temperatures and increasingly unpredictable weather are reducing the availability of traditional food sources for the First Nations. nations and increasing the difficulty and danger associated with gathering food from the land.”
The report’s critique of Canada’s record on climate change offers an international perspective that contrasts with the views of some foreign governments, including Britain, which has publicly praised Canada. Britain said it saw Canada as a valuable ally in the fight to cut greenhouse gas emissions as it prepared to host the United Nations climate change conference in Scotland late last year.
By highlighting Canada’s shortcomings in dealing with current challenges of indigenous reconciliation, the report provides new ammunition for critics, especially China, whenever the government speaks out against human rights abuses in other countries.
The international watchdog is criticizing Canada in a new report over what it says are serious domestic and foreign policy challenges on human rights.
The Chinese government often throws Canada’s historical mistreatment of indigenous peoples in the face whenever it faces criticism for abuses of ethnic Muslim Uyghurs in China’s Xinjiang province.
Global Affairs Canada said it was not in a position to comment on the report on Thursday due to the breadth of issues it covered.
Farida Deif, Canadian director of Human Rights Watch, said the Trudeau government has made some progress since it came to power in 2015, but some abuses have worsened while progress has stalled in other areas.
“On the home front, there are still far-reaching abuses against indigenous peoples and immigrant detainees,” he said.
“While internationally, this administration has persistently failed to hold Canadian mining companies accountable for abuses abroad or take any meaningful steps to repatriate dozens of Canadians illegally detained in life-threatening conditions in northeast Syria for their crimes. alleged links to the Islamic State.”
The report says the ombudsman’s office created in 2018 to oversee the international operations of Canadian mining companies in nearly 100 countries lacks the authority to independently investigate their conduct or hold them accountable.
And he repeats criticism of the government for not repatriating Canadian citizens trapped in Kurdish-controlled refugee camps in Syria who have been linked to Islamic militant groups. While Canada has managed to repatriate one orphaned four-year-old girl, it has left four dozen others, many of them women and children, to languish there, she says.
The report also criticizes the government for not doing more to ease intellectual property rules that would allow more equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in poorer countries.
“Prime Minister Trudeau has recognized the need for negotiations at the World Trade Organization to resolve intellectual property issues restricting the supply of COVID-19 health products globally, but Canada has not supported India and South Africa’s proposal. of an exemption from certain provisions. He says.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on January 13, 2022.
Reference-www.nationalobserver.com