AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 2016/17

to address past failures to properly investigate
cases. In November, the UN CEDAW
Committee called on Canada to ensure that
the National Inquiry would investigate the role
of policing.
In November, prosecutors in the Province
of Quebec laid charges in only two of 37
complaints brought mostly by Indigenous
women alleging abuse by police. The
Independent Observer appointed to oversee
the cases raised concerns about systemic
racism. In December the Quebec
government announced a public inquiry into
the treatment of Indigenous Peoples by
provincial bodies.
COUNTER-TERROR AND SECURITY
In February, legislation was introduced to
reverse 2014 Citizenship Act reforms allowing
for dual nationals convicted of terrorism and
other offences to be stripped of Canadian
citizenship.
In February, the government withdrew an
appeal against the 2015 bail decision
releasing Omar Khadr – a Canadian citizen
held at the US detention centre in
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, for 10 years
beginning when he was 15 years old and
transferred to a Canadian prison in 2012.
In November, the Federal Court ruled that
the Canadian Security and Intelligence
Service practice of indefinitely retaining
metadata from phone and email logs
was unlawful.
Mediation broke off in the cases of
Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and
Muayyed Nureddin who were seeking redress
on the basis of a 2008 judicial inquiry report
documenting the role of Canadian officials
in their overseas arrest, imprisonment
and torture.
JUSTICE SYSTEM
Concerns mounted about extensive use of
solitary confinement after the case of Adam
Capay, an Indigenous man held in pre-trial
solitary confinement in Ontario for over four
years, became public in October.
In November, the Quebec government
launched a public inquiry into surveillance of
journalists by police.
REFUGEES AND ASYLUM-SEEKERS
Throughout the year, 38,700 Syrian refugees
were resettled to Canada through government
and private sponsorship.
In April, the Interim Federal Health
Program for refugees and refugee claimants
was fully restored, reversing cuts imposed
in 2012.
In August, the Minister of Public Safety
announced increased funding for
immigration detention facilities.
CORPORATE ACCOUNTABILITY
In June, the British Columbia government
allowed full operations to resume at the
Mount Polley mine, despite an ongoing
criminal investigation into the 2014 collapse
of the mine’s tailings pond and the fact that
approval of the company’s long-term water
treatment plan was pending. In November, a
private prosecution was launched against the
provincial government and the Mount Polley
Mining Corporation for violations of the
Fisheries Act.
In May, the fifth annual report assessing
the human rights impact of the Canada-
Colombia Free Trade Agreement was
released. It again failed to evaluate human
rights concerns linked to extractive projects’
effects on Indigenous Peoples and others.
The government failed to adopt measures
to fulfil a 2015 election promise to establish a
human rights Ombudsperson for the
extractive sector. Canada was urged to take
that step by the UN Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) in March
and by the CEDAW Committee in November.
Three Canadian companies faced civil
lawsuits over alleged human rights abuses
associated with overseas projects. A case
dealing with HudBay Minerals’ Guatemalan
mine was proceeding in Ontario. In October,
a British Columbia court ruled that a case
involving Nevsun Resources’ Eritrean mine
could proceed. In November, an appeal was
heard in British Columbia as to whether a
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