On July 7 and 8, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) reviewed Canada’s compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights for the first time since 2006. Two weeks later, on July 23, the UNHRC released its findings in a report, raising far more concerns and recommendations than positive legislative and institutional steps in the Harper government’s federal policies in the last decade.
Such matters of concern included the inadequateness of the federal government’s response to the prevailing issue of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls; the excessive use of force and arrests by police during the student protests in Quebec in 2012 and the G20 protests in 2010; and the possibility of human rights abuses through information-sharing under Bill C-51, the controversial Anti-terrorism Act, amongst other concerns.
CKUT’s Emma Noradounkian sat down with the Voices-Voix Coalition co-ordinator, Tim McSorley, to discuss how his Coalition was involved in this review and why he believes that it received a “failing grade.” The interview was conducted prior to July 23, the date of the release of the UNHRC’s report.
