Federal Election and Human Rights - Update

As scheduled, the Human Rights Agenda was released at a national press conference in Ottawa on March 31 involving AI’s global Secretary General, Salil Shetty; AI Canada (English-speaking branch)’s Secretary General, Alex Neve; and AI Canada (French-Speaking)’s Director General, Béatrice Vaugrante.  It received a significant amount of coverage, most of it very positive.  Here’s a sample of the media coverage:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/amnesty-international-says-canada-no-longer-leads-on-human-rights/article1966494/
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20110401/amnesty-harper-record-110401/
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/967935--international-human-rights-canada-s-role-dwindling
http://www.theprovince.com/news/Canada+turned+back+human+rights/4551123/story.html

More than two weeks before the launch, AI Canada sent questions to the five federal party leaders seeking details on what steps they would take to strengthen Canada’s domestic and global human rights. We asked the leaders for their responses before March 31 so we could share them along with the Agenda.

We received responses from the Green, Liberal, New Democratic and Bloc Québécois parties. There was no reply from the Conservative Party by that date despite repeated follow-up on our part; nor has there been a reply since then.  At that time of the release, we expressed disappointment that the Conservative Party had not responded. We continue to hope that a response will be forthcoming.

We encourage you to read the party responses to our questions, as well as our analysis of the responses at http://www.amnesty.ca/blog_post2.php?id=2667. We hope you'll find this information helpful as you engage candidates on these important human rights concerns. We also encourage you to press Conservative Party candidates to respond to the questions laid out in Amnesty International’s March 14 letter to Stephen Harper. 

What Amnesty International means to me SCY.mov