Human Rights Tribunal Could Compel Government to Repatriate Canadians

12 Jul

L-R: Matthew Behrens, Sally Lane and Nicholas Pope

The Canadian Human Rights Commission has agreed to hear a series of complaints made by Canadian children and men who have been arbitrarily detained in Northeast Syria for between 6 and 8 years under conditions the United Nations has called akin to torture.

The crux of the complaints centers on Global Affairs Canada and Public Safety Canada’s use of a Trudeau cabinet-approved 2021 "Government of Canada Policy Framework to Evaluate the Provision of Extraordinary Assistance: Consular Cases in North-Eastern Syria" that determines whether the detainees can even be considered for repatriation, despite their Kurdish jailers having repeatedly called on Canada to come and take its citizens home. Since 2020, 32 Canadian women and children have been repatriated from arbitrary detention in eight separate returns courtesy of private actors, court action, and U.S. military assistance.

According to Ottawa lawyer Nicholas Pope, who launched the complaints, "These cases present clear illustrations of discrimination based on age, sex, and family status. For example, the Framework gives less favorable treatment to Canadian children whose mothers were not born in Canada. Canada has insisted that the remaining detained Canadian children (of three non-Canadian mothers) be forcibly separated from their mothers and become orphans in Canada in order to receive repatriation services. In doing so, the government is making the exercise of the childrens' equality rights contingent upon forfeiting another fundamental right: the right not to be separated from their parents."