Interparliamentary Activities and Reports

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA)’s Ad Hoc Committee on Migration met to continue its discussion on the situation facing migrants on Lesbos and other Aegean islands. The group heard from OSCE PA Vice-President Margareta Cederfelt (MP, Sweden), Acting Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Migration, from Mr. Dimitrios Markopoulos (MP, Greece), Member of the Committee and from Ms. Sofia Voultepsi (MP, Greece), Deputy Minister of Migration and Asylum in charge of Integration. The group discussed Covid-19 mitigation measures and roll-out of vaccination programmes for the asylum-seeking population of the Aegean Islands and heard about the status of the Reception and Identification Centres (RICs) The Honourable Hedy Fry, P.C., M.P., head of the Canadian Delegation to the OSCE PA and Special Representative on Gender Issues, participated as a member of the committee. She questioned the panelists about the protections provided to asylum seekers in Greece, particularly in the realm of maternal health, access to education, and pediatric care.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) hosted an online event for the 25th Anniversary of The Hague Recommendations regarding the Education Rights of National Minorities. The event was organized under the auspices of the High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM), who has been working on conflict prevention with regard to tensions involving national minority issues for 25 years. The event aimed, in part, to shed light on the principles of the Hague Recommendations and reflect on the application of these recommendations with a view to discussing ways to improve their operationalization. It also highlighted good practices in multilingual education and to explore ways to actively engage with youth as the main target group. The Honourable Patricia Bovey, Senator, represented the Canadian Delegation to the OSCE PA. She outlined Canada’s policy commitments to Indigenous and francophone education and spoke about the trauma which the residential school system inflicted on generations of Indigenous peoples.

This inter-parliamentary dialogue provided a space for parliamentarians and parliamentary staff to exchange with subject matter experts and among themselves on strategies for parliaments to inclusively drive climate action and ensure that short and long-term climate plans are developed with an intersectional lens, to promote a just transition and lead to decent and clean work for all.

On June 3, 2021, the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) and the International Parliamentary Network for Education cohosted a virtual round table discussion for members of parliament from across the Commonwealth. The objective of the event was to emphasize the importance of financing education both at home and abroad.

The round table was held as part of the lead up to the Global Education Summit: Financing GPE [Global Partnership for Education] 2021–2025, which will be cohosted by the governments of Kenya and the United Kingdom in July 2021. The Global Education Summit will seek to raise at least US $5 billion for the GPE.

The round table was attended by Canadian parliamentarians, including several members of the Canadian Branch of the CPA:

Yasmin Ratansi, M.P.

Honourable Brent Cotter, Senator

Ziad Aboultaif, M.P.

Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, M.P.

Robert Kitchen, M.P.

Mike Lake, M.P.

The roundtable discussion was initiated by the Honourable Julia Gillard, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education and former Prime Minister of Australia; the Right Honourable Gordon Brown, United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for Education and former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; the Honourable David Moinina Sengeh, Minister of Education of Sierra Leone; and Shradha Koirala, GPE Youth Leader from Nepal.

The speakers primarily focussed their remarks on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to education across the globe, the importance of education in meeting the UN development goals and the role parliamentarians have in supporting governments and growing both development assistance and national spending on education.

Meeting of the Parliamentary Affairs Committee (PAC) – May 31, 2021 The parliamentary delegation of the Canadian Branch of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie (APF) that participated in the meeting of the Parliamentary Affairs Committee (the Committee) of the APF by videoconference on 31 May 2021 was composed of Chris d’Entremont, MP and Joël Godin, MP, Chair of the Commission. Three draft reports were reviewed during the meeting. Mr. d’Entremont presented the second version of the Canadian Branch of the APF’s report on parliaments in francophone nations and the pandemic. This version of the report included the addition of a section that reiterates the crucial role that parliaments play in emergencies and additional questionnaire responses from APF branches. Mr. d’Entremont and Mr. Godin both asked the branches that had not yet responded to the questionnaire to do so. The Committee also addressed various topics, including the issue of digital technology and fake news, and the impact of fake news on parliamentarians’ work. It also discussed the subjects of its next reports and the APF’s future Avis on the Summit of heads of state of the Francophonie. The Committee was also informed of the cooperation activities undertaken so far in 2021 and reviewed the APF’s draft conventions with outside institutions.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA), in the context of the Call for Action - Helsinki +50 process, initiated a meeting with young parliamentary leaders so they could discuss and share their insights, expectations, and recommendations regarding the ability of the younger generation to contribute to tackling regional and global challenges, as well as their thoughts on how they could be better involved in decision and policy-making processes. The Canadian Delegation to the OSCE PA was represented by the Honourable Lucie Moncion, Senator, and by Mr. Ziad Aboultaif, M.P., and Ms. Ya’ara Saks, M.P.. The Honourable Bardish Chaggar, Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth, delivered opening remarks and noted how important the contribution of youth is in the development of responsive and inclusive policy-making.