Thank you.

I am here today on behalf of Action Canada for Sexual Health and Rights. We have participated in all of Canada's universal periodic reviews, and I have also worked with more than 100 civil society organizations in more than 50 countries to support their engagement in the UPR process.

I will focus my remarks today on the importance of civil society participation in these processes.

At the outset, I would like to emphasize that human rights are not just a set of ideals to which countries should aspire. Human rights are legal obligations of states that have ratified international human rights treaties. Compliance with these legal obligations is reviewed through a variety of mechanisms, including the UPR, which are essential for civil society to be able to elevate neglected and stigmatized issues of concern.

We participate in the UPR because it is an accessible and powerful mechanism for connecting the international human rights framework to the realities of people's lives. It is uniquely designed to be a collaborative and ongoing process that emphasizes building the capacity of rights holders to claim their rights and of duty bearers to meet their obligations.

In other countries, this looks like assigning a federal ministry to be accountable for follow-up and implementation of UN human rights recommendations, providing multiple entry points for civil society to engage directly with decision-makers throughout the process, and publishing mid-term reports on implementation progress among many other examples.

In Canada, the UPR does not look like this. Civil society and rights holders are treated as passive recipients of technocratic information that is devoid of actual dialogue on the issues being considered. While different government human rights tables have been established, their program of work and outcomes—if any—are not publicly available and there is no framework in which to operationalize the recommendations.

Civil society organizations are invited to attend portions of these meetings to give their opinions on which of the hundreds of recommendations should be implemented and how—often within 90 minutes or less—and then a box is ticked. This is not meaningful participation. It doesn't help the government in the task before it, and it certainly doesn't help the people who are directly impacted by human rights violations.

All of us are here today because we believe in human rights. We want Canada to be the champion of human rights that it purports to be on the global stage. We are ready to roll up our sleeves to do this important work. We are asking all levels of government to do the same.

We urgently need a national framework for human rights implementation that recognizes the critical role of civil society. There is no time to waste.

Thank you.