Canada has submitted a human rights report without human rights

I got this from Amnesty International:

Canada has submitted its 2013 human rights report on the Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement:
... What's missing? Human rights! 

	"We want to live in peace on our lands"
	Read Amnesty's Public Statement Canada-Colombia Free Trade: Another Human Rights Report without human rights

Dear Tracy,
Thank you for responding to our appeal to contact your MP about the crisis facing Indigenous Peoples in Colombia.
On June 14, the Canadian government quietly submitted its 2013 report on human rights impacts of its free trade agreement with Colombia.
Perhaps your pressure and mine helped to ensure that a report was prepared at all, given that last year the government claimed it lacked the data to do so.
But this year’s report* is a far cry from the scrutiny and accountability that is so urgently needed.
Once again, the Canadian government has deliberately chosen to remain silent about deadly human rights realities in Colombia.
There is no mention of threats and attacks against trade unionists, small farmers, Afro-descendent communities and others who stand up for their labour or land rights.
The report says nothing at all about violence-driven forced displacement of Indigenous peoples from areas of the country earmarked for resource extraction, putting the very survival of more than a third of Indigenous peoples in jeopardy.
Perhaps most telling of all, the report also says nothing about Canadian investment in Colombia’s resource boom - even though, as The Globe and Mail reports, “Canada-Colombia business, after all, is dominated by mining”.
These are glaring omissions with serious repercussions. As we said in a public statement sent to media: “It is imperative that Canadian companies moving in to Colombia do not contribute to or profit from human rights violations … In a context of ongoing serious human rights violations in Colombia, there is an inherent risk of companies and others getting caught up in and fueling these violations. This is the context that Canada is refusing to even acknowledge, much less assess.”

See Amnesty's Public Statement 
Leaders of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) have asked us to share how much they value the efforts of individuals like you to make visible the emergency they face and support their struggle for the survival of Indigenous peoples at risk in Colombia.

What you can do now

Given the Canadian government’s second empty human rights report on free trade in Colombia, it is imperative that we redouble our efforts for responsible assessment of the impact of Canadian commerce with Colombia, together with Canada’s support for the implementation of measures to protect Indigenous rights and survival in Colombia.

Messages to your MP help to build pressure.

If you have not done so already, please sign our petition and add a comment to strengthen the impact of your signature. If you have signed the petition, please encourage family members and friends to join you in signing on. Your help is so important to the success of this effort.
We also invite you to express your concern and your demand for action by writing it on a sign and sending us a photo of you holding the sign. We will display all the photo messages we collect on our website and deliver them to the Canadian government in early 2014.

To see the photo messages we have collected to date and find out more about how to support this action, click here.
Thank you for raising your voice in these important ways. Together we will make a difference!
Sincerely

Alex Neve
Secretary General, Amnesty International Canada

P.S. In the past year, more Indigenous leaders in Colombia were killed amidst efforts to defend the land of their people and their right to determine how it is used. Vulnerable Indigenous communities were bombed by the army, while others suffered violent incursions by guerrilla forces and by paramilitaries.  Several weeks ago, the home of a Wiwa Indigenous leader was attacked with grenades, endangering his wife and children. Indigenous organizations have reported that armed conflict and grave abuses took place precisely in territory that third parties want to exploit for its natural resources.

* Read Canada's report  (This is an external link to a Government of Canada website. If this link is changed, please contact us and we will re-direct you to a copy of the report.)