44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 24, 2022 11:00AM
- Oct/24/22 3:32:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I move that the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration, presented to the House on Friday, April 29, be concurred in.
I appreciate the opportunity to open debate, a debate that I understand will be, by unanimous consent, continuing this evening, on the sixth report, which deals with the ongoing injustices facing Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims and the work that we need to do as a House in response to it.
I am grateful for the work of the immigration committee. This is a unanimous report that highlights many important issues, and I want to start the debate by reading points from the report into the record and then discussing them.
The report states:
In light of the fact that Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in China face an ongoing genocide, and in light of the fact that those in third countries are at continuing risk of detention and deportation back to China, where they face serious risk of arbitrary detention, torture, and other atrocities, the committee calls on the government to:
a) extend existing special immigration measures to Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, including the expansion of biometrics collection capabilities in third countries and the issuance of Temporary Resident Permits and single journey travel documents to those without a passport;
b) allow displaced Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in third countries, who face risk of detention and deportation back to China, to seek refuge in Canada;
c) waive the UNHCR refugee determination;
d) and the government provide a comprehensive response by letter to the committee within 30 days.
This motion follows an important step taken by the House about a year and a half ago when the House voted to recognize the Uighur genocide. It was a unanimous vote of all who voted in this place. As members will recall, cabinet abstained and still has not declared its position, but the vote that will take place on this motion, because it is a vote to agree with this report, will provide cabinet and the government with another opportunity to declare their position with respect to the Uighur genocide.
I reflect as well on the fact that much of this conversation was started in the House with the recognition of the genocide motion, but there has been much more discussion in the international community and evidence that has come out since. Just recently, there was the report of Michelle Bachelet. There were significant efforts to influence that report and there were significant limitations with respect to the work she was able to do, but, nonetheless, very damning conclusions came out of that report.
Various analyses have shown forced sterilization, systemic sexual violence targeting Uighur women, people being taken away and put in concentration camps, clear violations of the UN definition as it pertains to genocide and states that are party to that have an obligation to recognize and respond in those cases. This report recognizes and reaffirms that.
The focus of this report is on other measures that the House and the government need to take in response to these events. I want to focus on the ones in this report, as well as other additional measures that can and should be taken.
Following that recognition, even while the government has still not declared its position, other members of Parliament have been trying to put forward constructive initiatives that respond to the question of what Canada can do to advance the issue of justice and human rights for Uighurs. There have been a number of different areas where proposals have been put forward in the House.
This report speaks on additional immigration measures that have been put forward, and I know that later this week we will be having the first hour of debate on Motion No. 62. I should have made note of my colleague's constituency name before, but my colleague from somewhere in Montreal is proposing that and we will be debating that for the first hour on Wednesday. We are seeing a number of different initiatives on the immigration front.
We recognize the reality that Uighurs in China obviously often struggle to get to safety, but, increasingly, the efforts of the Government of China to have influence beyond its borders are creating greater and greater challenges, escalating pressures on refugees who have fled, maybe thought they were in a safe place and are now facing intimidation and persecution that is being pushed on the countries where they are resident as a result of pressure from the Government of China.
As it relates to third countries, it is worth mentioning the case of Huseyin Celil, who is a Canadian citizen detained in China. This was a case where he did not travel to China. Mr. Celil was in Uzbekistan, but was taken from Uzbekistan and sent back to China, where he has been detained for over a decade and a half. Underlining that is the fact that we need to recognize how CCP pressure on third countries can lead to people being sent back and facing human rights violations in the process.
Canada can be a place of safety for these folks in the Uighur diaspora who have left China but who are still facing the risks of potential persecution and repatriation in the countries where they are.
That is why Canada should be looking at strengthening special immigration measures. Our view on this side of the House is that we need to recognize the important role played by private sponsoring organizations and a strategy for responding to persecution and supporting victims of human rights abuses should involve collaboration between governments and private sponsoring entities.
We need to recognize that there may not be resources within those private sponsoring entities to cover all of the needs that exist, and there could be vehicles for joint sponsorship. There could even be cases, perhaps, where the government provides the funding but organizations on the ground here in Canada play a specific role in welcoming newcomers.
All of the data suggests that those who are privately sponsored have a greater level of success once they are here in Canada, so we should look for opportunities in the process to engage private sponsors, such as mosques, churches, synagogues, faith groups, community groups and civil society, to help people acclimatize to coming to Canada. We recognize that this is not just a question of state policy, but the process of welcoming refugees is a collective effort that all Canadians can be involved in. I think, in many cases, people from different backgrounds and different experiences want to be involved, and they certainly get a lot out of it.
I want, as well, to discuss some of the other measures that we need to be taking about, coming out of where we were a year and a half ago.
I have sponsored a private member's bill in this place that comes from the other place, from Senator Ataullahjan. Bill S-223 is a bill that would combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking. The bill would make it a criminal offence for a person to go abroad and receive an organ taken without consent. This is a private member's bill that would have Canada doing what it can to combat this horrific practice of forced organ harvesting and trafficking.
I do want to note that, unfortunately, the progress of Bill S-223 has been stalled. It has been sitting before the foreign affairs committee for months and months. We have not been able to get it adopted and sent back to the House. In fact, I was not originally scheduled to be here in the House right now. I was scheduled to be testifying before the foreign affairs committee, but at the last minute, the meeting scheduled to conduct hearings on Bill S-223 was cancelled by the Chair. That has further delayed the process of bringing this bill forward.
The bill to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking is pertinent now because we are hearing more about Uighurs being victims of this practice, but it is something that has been going on for decades. In particular, the Falun Gong community has highlighted the abuse of forced organ harvesting and trafficking and how it impacts their community.
It has actually been 15 years that parliamentarians have been working on a bill to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking. Borys Wrzesnewskyj was first to bring one forward. Irwin Cotler also had a bill.
Since I was elected in 2015, I have been working on this with Senator Ataullahjan through the last three Parliaments. This bill has passed the Senate three times, twice in its current form. It has passed the House once in its current form. It has been studied multiple times by Senate committees and by a House committee, so I think it is time that we finally get it done, if we are able to end the logjam around it at the foreign affairs committee. It should not be about any one individual. This is a bill that will save lives if it is passed. I hope we are able to get it done.
A lot of work, as well, has been done on this issue of forced labour. There are significant concerns about how Uighurs are victims of forced labour and, in general, how Canada's laws to combat forced labour are totally inadequate. There is much more work that needs to be done. Another bill before the foreign affairs committee, also with an unclear timeline around it, is Bill S-211, a bill from a colleague on the government side. It has broad support in the House, and Conservatives supported fast-tracking it at second reading, but it is, again, not moving forward at the moment.
We need to move forward with these bills that are currently before the foreign affairs committee. Bill S-223 and Bill S-211 are two excellent bills. One is on organ harvesting, and the other is aimed at addressing an issue of forced labour.
Bill S-211 would create a reporting mechanism. It is an important step forward, but the other thing we need to do is recognize that in the Uighur region, for example, there is a very significant, very large issue of forced labour. I support measures, such as the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in the United States, a bipartisan piece of legislation, that would recognize the particular issues in that region, and perhaps in other regions, where there are really significant and coordinated state-pushed efforts to have forced labour. We need to specifically designate those regions.
We need to look at, for instance, Bill S-204, a bill put forward by Senator Housakos that is not in the House yet. It is still in the other place. That bill would impose a ban on the import of any goods coming out of Xinjiang or East Turkistan, the region where Uighurs are in the majority. The goal of this is to recognize the reality that so much of what is produced and exported in that region is tainted by slave labour. We need to have an approach that recognizes the particular risks in this region and targets that region as well. That is another issue that we need to move on legislatively and there may be other measures we can consider that involve the designation of specific regions. This would target the specific regions in the world where we know there is a very high level of forced labour and a high risk that goods coming out of there will have involve slave labour.
There are many mainstream brands that people will be familiar with, that they may use products from, that import products from that part of the world. It is very concerning. The government announced a new policy on combatting these imports, but, in fact, there was only one shipment that was ever stopped and it was subsequently released. Therefore, we are clearly lacking in this area, and there is much more work that needs to be done.
In terms of some of the legislative proposals that are coming forward, I want to also recognize Bill C-281, a bill that had its first hour of debate recently and has its second hour of debate coming up soon. It is from my colleague in Northumberland—Peterborough South.
Bill C-281 is the international human rights act. It contains a number of measures that would push forward Canada's response on international human rights, including requiring the minister of foreign affairs to table an annual report regarding the government's work on international human rights, include listing, as part of that report, prisoners of conscience, which is of particular concern.
It would also create a mechanism by which individuals could be nominated for sanctions under the Magnitsky act and a parliamentary committee could pass a motion suggesting that someone be sanctioned under the Magnitsky act. If that motion were to pass, the minister would be obliged to provide some kind of a response. This parliamentary trigger mechanism for Magnitsky sanctions has been adopted in other countries. It is very important because a Magnitsky sanctions tool, though a powerful tool, still leaves the discretion entirely in the hands of the government.
There have been many countries around the world where there are serious human rights abuses, and the government has actually failed to sanction anybody from that country. There has been very limited use of Magnitsky sanctions in response to the Uighur genocide. That is why I support this proposal from my colleague to have a parliamentary trigger mechanism, so that a parliamentary committee could, if not compel the government to sanction someone, at least compel the government to provide some kind of a response with respect to why they are or are not considering moving forward with a sanction.
These are some of the measures that we have moved on, from the act of recognition by Parliament a year and a half ago to now, trying to propose concrete, constructive measures that would see Canada play a greater and greater role in combatting this ongoing injustice. We have talked, of course, about the immigration measures that are called for in this report as well as immigration measures that have been put forward in other initiatives that we have seen. We have talked about the issues of forced organ harvesting and trafficking and the legislation that has been put forward on that.
We have talked about different kinds of trade measures, such as those contained in Bill S-211 from Senator Miville-Dechêne, as well as Bill S-204 from Senator Housakos. Bill S-211, which is the general reporting mechanism requiring companies to be involved in reporting on these issues, also has the designation of particular regions of concern and the issues that come out of those. Then there are the other measures in the International Human Rights Act from my colleague, in Bill C-281.
As such, we have seen many different legislative initiatives. I guess one thing to acknowledge that they all have in common is that they are all private members' initiatives, so we are seeing a flurry of activity from individual members, many from our side, many from the Senate and some from other parties as well. However, we have not really seen any government legislation that is aimed at closing the gap, and I think members understand the processes of this House and the long and arduous journey every private member's bill has to make. I have seen it myself in the work I have done on the organ harvesting and trafficking issue. I work on a piece of legislation, and every time it is actually voted on it is unanimous, yet there are so many steps it has to go through, little amendments here and there, that it ends up not getting done.
We are in the third Parliament in which I have worked on this bill, and it has been attempted in two previous Parliaments as well, so there is this long journey private members' bills have to go on, and the risks are the same for other good private members' bills that are responding to urgent and present human rights concerns. That is why the government should take a look at some of these initiatives and maybe consider putting forward proposals that advance them through government legislation.
There is so much more that needs to be done on this issue of forced labour, like even getting it out of government procurement, never mind addressing the import of products of forced labour that come into the private sector. We are relying on private members' legislation to do that job, and we should support these private members' bills, but the government should be willing to lead on this and provide really comprehensive solutions.
One of the areas the government can particularly lead in combatting the injustice facing Uighurs is in working more closely with our allies on combatting the importation of products made from forced labour. There is obviously a lot of tracing and data work that is required in terms of blocking out products made from forced labour from coming into Canada, and this is why we can benefit from sharing information with our allies. If we have consistent laws and are sharing information around forced labour, then we can be more effective working in collaboration.
In fact, we have already started down this road by recognizing as part of our trade deal with the United States and Mexico an obligation around combatting forced labour, but Canada needs to now live up to that obligation. We can share information. We can adjust our policies to really strengthen the work that is required to prevent products from forced labour from coming into this country.
In conclusion, I want to recognize the incredible work that has been done by the Uighur community in particular, but more broadly by other communities, like the Muslim community in general and many other communities that are coming alongside as allies in support of justice and human rights, who have been advocating on these various points related to the injustices the Uighurs have faced.
The information has very clearly been exposed, despite the best efforts of certain actors to suppress it. It is now widely known: the existence of a campaign to put people in concentration camps, forced sterilization and systemic sexual violence. The subcommittee on international human rights two years ago heard brutal testimony from survivors about what had happened, and I reflected at the time on this quote from William Wilberforce, who said, “[Y]ou may choose to look the other way but you can never again say you did not know.”
Members of Parliament answered that call; the subcommittee on international human rights was unanimous and the House was unanimous, but the cabinet has still been silent and unclear, so this motion would provide the cabinet with an opportunity to vote again on the question, since this motion would reaffirm a recognition of the genocide.
It would also go further. We are not waiting for the cabinet; we are pushing forward with measures that are required in terms of pushing for additional immigration measures, and I have talked about the need to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking, the need to bring in new trade measures and the important additional measures in Bill C-281.
I hope members will support this concurrence and the other measures that are urgently required to stand with our Uighur brothers and sisters, who face so much injustice in China as well as threats even after they have fled.
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- Oct/24/22 7:17:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sure he will not mind.
It goes without saying that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of all measures seeking to protect Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in China by resettling them in Canada. We are prepared to go even further. As a result of the member's discussions with some Uighur groups, we think the motion needs to be improved. We need to increase the number of refugees the committee has asked the government to approve, through this motion, from 10,000 to 15,000.
As I said earlier, without mentioning his absence, the member for Lac-Saint-Jean made a point of talking to all the members of our political party about what is happening to Uighurs in Xinjiang.
I would remind the House that it was the Bloc Québécois that drew attention to the Chinese genocide by trying to amend a motion moved in February 2021 in an effort to force the government to demand that the Olympic Games be moved from China. Unfortunately, we were unsuccessful in that endeavour, and the government settled for a diplomatic boycott, which had no effect.
The member for Lac-Saint-Jean moved the amendment and the motion in 2021 to clearly demonstrate that China was trying to use the Olympic Games as propaganda. Unfortunately, the government did not denounce the situation as firmly as we would have liked.
I also want to highlight the participation of the member for Lac‑Saint‑Jean in a meeting in Prague with the Uighurs at a time when the member's motion on the possibility of moving the Olympic Games was recognized. I know that the member for Lac‑Saint‑Jean will be in Belgium next month, once again to support the Uighurs.
Now that I am done praising the member, let us move on to other matters.
I believe that the government is demonstrating a lack of courage on the issue of the Uighurs. It is rather ironic to see that Motion No. 62 was moved by the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard even though that Liberal member is part of the very government that hesitated to acknowledge the Uighur genocide. I remind members that the Prime Minister and ministers did not want to recognize the genocide. They did not speak up.
Something rather unfortunate happened earlier. I really like the member for Winnipeg North, but I get the impression that he was being excessively partisan when he pointed out what he felt were the Conservatives' misguided intentions by making this debate about an issue as vital as the situation of the Uighurs. What the member for Winnipeg North is doing is engaging in partisanship.
We could accuse him of the same thing, since his government preferred to resort to subterfuge because it did not want to offend China. I was texting with the member for Lac‑Saint‑Jean earlier and he was telling me that some Uighur people are listening to the debate we are having right now and they are very disappointed with the government's response.
If we do not want to play partisan games, then we cannot use something like a genocide to say that this issue is not important and can be put off until later. I really like the member for Winnipeg North, but that was completely unacceptable to me, and I think that is the message that the Uighurs want us to pass on to the government today.
In my opinion, lack of recognition is a big problem for the Uighurs. I recently read La leçon de Rosalinde, a book written by Mustapha Fahmi, a former university colleague and Shakespearean expert. A Shakespearean expert is always interesting. He gave a definition of recognition that I want to share with you.
I will quote Mr. Fahmi, as follows: Recognizing a person or a community does not mean recognizing their existence, let alone tolerating them. Recognition is a complete and unmasked presence before the problems of others. In other words, to recognize someone is, above all, to recognize their pain and suffering.
I want to focus on this quote from Mr. Fahmi. I like the bit about recognition being a complete and unmasked presence. I get the impression that the government was not unmasked in dealing with the Uighurs. Why did that mask not come off? It was because the government never allowed the executive, the ministers and the Prime Minister to offer this recognition to the Uighurs. It wanted to score political points with China, for strategic and economic purposes.
In my opinion, recognizing someone cannot involve this subterfuge of lying low to avoid strategic or economic setbacks. That holds especially true with this situation the Uighurs find themselves in. I say that because I was able to meet with some Uighur activists through the member for Lac-Saint-Jean. The recognition I would like to offer today is to those activists, especially to Mehmet Tohti.
Mr. Tohti is a Uighur Canadian activist who has campaigned for the rights of Uighurs for over a decade. Born in the ancient city of Kashgar in northwestern China, Mr. Tohti studied biology at Kashgar University, then went on to teach the subject. When Mr. Tohti was 26, with conditions worsening for Uighurs, he was forced to leave China for Turkey, eventually making his way to Canada. He served as co-founder and vice-president of the World Uyghur Congress and is now the executive director of the Ottawa-based Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project. We met him on on numerous occasions, and he helped us understand what is happening to the Uighurs.
He pushed, he lobbied, he spared no effort to ensure that an overwhelming majority of members of the House of Commons voted in favour of the motion recognizing China's genocide against the Uighur minority. Unfortunately, the executive branch turned a deaf ear. He is under constant threat, but he continues to pressure the government and Canadian businesses to boycott goods made by Uighur slaves. I encourage my colleagues to meet him. They can look forward to very interesting discussions.
I am also thinking about Mr. Dolkun Isa, a physician who founded a student union in 1985. In 1988, after some demonstrations, he was kicked out of university. He has fully experienced the discrimination against the Uighurs. He was arrested in Beijing and was forced to flee to Turkey before seeking asylum in Germany in 1996. He was in Ottawa a few months ago and we had a chance to talk to him. He is wanted by China. In 1997, Interpol issued a red notice against him based on false accusations. It was later retracted in 2018.
I am also thinking about Mr. Kayum Masimov, who lives in Quebec. He is a Montrealer of Uighur origin who is also advocating for the rights of Uighurs. He talked to us about certain mining companies that apparently have their headquarters in Montreal and who use Uighur labour in the form of slavery. He talked to us about that. He often works as a Uighur interpreter at meetings of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. He is married to a Quebec woman and is very well established in Quebec. He has first-hand experience of what Uighurs are going through and he deserves this recognition.
I am saying that this recognition is important. If we want to do something for Mr. Tohti and Mr. Masimov, the best thing we can do is to quickly adopt Motion No. 62 without playing partisan politics and support the proposal made by our colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
This is a good example of working together. The member for Lac‑Saint‑Jean, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan and the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard did this great work together in committee.
What was the result?
The first request that is being made is to recognize that the Uighurs and other Muslim minorities from China emigrated in order to flee the Chinese government's repression and intimidation to force them to come back to China.
As members know, the House recognized the genocide in February 2021. There is therefore no doubt in the minds of most people, except perhaps the executive of the Liberal Party, that many Muslims are fleeing China to escape the brutal repression that extends well beyond China's borders.
A recent example of such repression is the police stations that China opened. There are three in Canada and about 50 around the world. China opened these illegal police stations without any kind of bilateral agreement in order to harass the diaspora and refugees to try to force them back to China, usually by threatening reprisal against their families if they do not. The people I was talking about earlier have experienced these types of threats.
China claims that these stations merely provide administrative services for Chinese nationals abroad, for example to renew a driver's licence. However, when abroad, that would be a consular activity, not a police activity. The Chinese government's subterfuge is clear. China also claims that it plans on repatriating Chinese nationals accused of corruption, but several documented cases of opponents being abducted prove that China aims to crack down on dissidents abroad.
The committee's second request is to recognize that many third countries are under pressure from China to repatriate Chinese dissidents and Muslims to China. In several neighbouring countries, such as Mongolia, which has no access to the sea and is 100% dependent on China and Russia for its exports and to maintain its economy, Uighur minorities are very vulnerable, as these countries sometimes bear the brunt of Chinese government pressure.
Many activists have been arrested in these third countries, including activists from Vietnam, Thailand and Uzbekistan. There is also the case of Uighur Canadian Huseyin Celil, who was arrested in Uzbekistan and sent to China, where he was sentenced to life in prison. As China does not recognize dual citizenship, he was not given access to consular information.
A 2019 Radio-Canada article painted a very clear picture of how China harasses Uighur nationals in Quebec using Chinese diplomatic services, which are often covers for sophisticated spying operations. We know that. It is public knowledge.
Canada is not immune to this pressure. In 2020, the House of Commons passed a motion calling on the federal government to adopt a plan to counter foreign interference, but once again, nothing was done.
The third request is that Canada take in 10,000 Chinese Uighur and Muslim refugees over a two-year period, beginning in 2024. Much like the member for Lac-Saint-Jean, I have to wonder why the limit is 10,000 refugees. Why not 20,000? It is a rather arbitrary number. The member for Lac-Saint-Jean committed to advancing the idea that we should take in 15,000 Uighur refugees. Uighur advocacy groups are clearly saying that 10,000 is not enough and more should be taken in, hence the idea of increasing it to 15,000.
I would point out that Canada already has programs for Afghans and for Ukrainians, so I do not see why it would not have the same kind of program for Uighurs. Some organizations have criticized Ottawa's favouritism for some nationals over others. For instance, Yemen is suffering terribly from armed conflict, but Ottawa has no specific program for the Yemeni people and is even selling arms to Saudi Arabia. Ironically, that country was lambasted in a UN report for its abuses in Yemen.
What we are really denouncing is the double standard, which is clearly the result of political decisions rather than humanitarian ones. I think this is where the problem lies, and perhaps why the member for Winnipeg North was annoyed earlier. Instead of showing some compassion, which is what the situation called for this evening, the member for Winnipeg North chose to indulge in political discussions.
The fact remains that Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims are being surveilled by China, which is not necessarily the case for Yemeni refugees in other countries.
Finally, the motion calls on the government to “table in the House, within 120 sitting days following the adoption of this motion, a report on how the refugee resettlement plan will be implemented”. As the Liberal government tends to ignore House of Commons motions, the Bloc Québécois believes it is necessary to require the government to table a report. We think the government must respond quickly to avoid the matter being put off indefinitely. That is what we find in the motion.
This evening as I was thinking about the Uighurs, I thought back to a book entitled De la dignité humaine, or on human dignity. It was written by my philosophy professor at Laval University, Thomas De Koninck, the wisest person I know. I think the worst thing we can do to a person is take away their dignity. Dr. De Koninck writes that every human being, whoever they may be, has their own inalienable dignity, in the unequivocal sense that Kant gave to this term: something that has no price and no equivalent, with no relative value, but rather an absolute value. The idea behind human dignity is that the individual has absolute value.
What we are hearing about the treatment of the Uighurs clearly shows that rather than having absolute value they are considered as objects. I can quickly talk about concentration camps. The Chinese Communist Party has set up concentration camps where the communists have held approximately two million Uighurs at one time or another. The number of cases has sharply increased over the years. These camps indoctrinate Muslims, who do not have the right to practice their religion or even speak their language. They are forced to eat pork. They must constantly praise the Chinese Communist Party and President Xi Jinping. Some witnesses have spoken about organ harvesting. Many women have been raped in these camps and have reported the sexual, psychological and physical abuse they experienced. Many women underwent forced sterilization. Children are separated from their families. Many children were taken away from their families and placed in orphanages or state-run schools. That includes children whose parents are in concentration camps as well as children whose family unit is intact. There is talk of slavery. Many Uighurs are taken from their homes or concentration camps and forcibly sent to factories located mainly outside Xinjiang, which further reduces the Muslim population. There is mass surveillance. China has the most advanced surveillance system in the world, particularly in Xinjiang. Cameras are installed practically everywhere, and new facial recognition technologies make it possible to identify Uighurs. Finally, the Chinese Communist Party spares no effort to poison the lives of the Uighurs to the extent that we can call it unbridled violence.
I would like to close by saying that what I have seen tonight from the member for Winnipeg North reflects how the House has dealt with the Uighur file for over two years now. The member for Winnipeg North came to say that now is not the time to debate this and that there are other priorities. This is similar to what his political party did when it came time to recognize the genocide, but the Liberals preferred to focus on Canada's economic and strategic interests in China, and that is unacceptable.
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- Oct/24/22 7:37:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think that the best thing we can do is listen to the Uighurs themselves.
I think that what is proposed in this motion, namely to welcome 10,000 Uighurs over two years does not have the unanimous support of Uighurs themselves. They do not think that is enough. The best thing we can do is listen to them and shape our policies around their needs. We do not need more proof. A genocide has occurred in Xinjiang. That has been proven and we recognized that genocide here.
Now we need to take action, and what I have seen here tonight are not people who are prepared to take action, but rather people who want to use the situation of the Uighurs like any other issue to advance their political agendas. I will repeat what I said. I find that unacceptable.
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- Oct/24/22 8:12:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Pierrefonds—Dollard.
Today is Diwali. I want to first of all wish my wife and two boys, who are celebrating tonight in Toronto, a happy Diwali. Diwali is the festival of light. It is the triumph of light over darkness. When we talk about light over darkness, I think that is actually an apt metaphor for what we are talking about today. We are talking about shedding light on a global situation that has thus far not garnered enough international attention from western governments, literally across the board.
I am speaking about the debate we are having this evening about the deplorable human rights situation of Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in East Turkestan. I use that term quite deliberately, because part of the propaganda exercised by the People's Republic of China is to refer to this area as Xinjiang or the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, but for the folks who live there and have made it their home for many years, it is known as East Turkestan.
The situation is outright deplorable. We have heard commentary in this vein thus far in tonight's debate. It is an outright attack on religion under the auspices of rooting out extremism. We have heard reference to the subcommittee on international human rights, and I want to go to a report that was done not one Parliament, but two Parliaments ago by that subcommittee. It was rendered on December 19, 2018, by the subcommittee on international human rights. I am going to read part of a section of the report that talked about what was taking place. This was four years ago, and we know that the situation has only worsened since.
In section A, paragraph 3, the report reads:
While prohibitions on outward displays of religion had formerly applied only to public sector workers and to students, “now, an entire religion is criminalized.” Witnesses described prohibitions on a wide array of religious practices or expressions of Islam through anti-terror legislation. This includes a prohibition on facial hair and religious clothing. Individuals with names bearing religious significance have been forced to change their names. Qurans, religious literature and prayer mats kept at home are confiscated. Keeping Islamic dietary practices is prohibited. Halal signs are now illegal, and restaurants must stay open during Ramadan. It is also prohibited to teach Islam to children. Individuals have been detained for praying five times a day and for circulating religious text among family. Most mosques have been demolished; the Muslim call to prayer is no longer heard. Effectively, outward displays of faith among Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other Turkic Muslims in the XUAR have effectively stopped.
I read that out in its entirety because it carries a lot of impact in terms of helping members of this House to understand and in terms of helping Canadians watching these parliamentary proceedings to understand exactly what is transpiring. Again, this report was rendered at the end of December 2018.
We understand this attack on Muslims in the People's Republic as part of a broader sweep of attacks. I am sure that if they have not come up yet, they are going to come up in the context of tonight's debate: attacks on Hong Kong democracy protesters, attacks on people who dare to practise Falun Gong and are members of Falun Gong, attacks on Tibetan Buddhists, of whom I represent several thousand in my riding of Parkdale—High Park, whose linguistic, religious and cultural traditions are being repressed and actively attacked. That has been the status quo since 1959.
The repression of Tibetan religious practices dates back over 60 years. The repression, in its acute form, of Uighur Muslims dates over the last 20 years, also outlined in that subcommittee report.
What is interesting is that it also spills over, so we are not talking just about an internal domestic situation within the People's Republic of China. There is pressure exercised on nations that are largely dependent economically on China to deport Uighurs back to the PRC, so they can effectively undergo persecution under the guise of re-education. There is targeting of Uighurs here in Canada, Uighurs like Mehmet Tohti, whose name has been mentioned before, who dare to speak up or to try to reach out and contact their loved ones, who have effectively disappeared into camps in China.
There is the targeting of others here, such as Tibetans, some of whom are my constituents. One of them, whom I want to mention by name, has decided not to be silenced and not to let attacks or surveillance or harassment or bullying diminish her voice. In fact, that woman, even today, is running for municipal office in the city of Toronto.
Her name is Chemi Lhamo. She is a former intern who served in my office. She is a very proud Tibetan Canadian and a very strong advocate. I salute her for having the courage to not be silenced but to continue to advocate for the causes she believes in and for seeking public office this very evening through a city council seat in Parkdale—High Park.
The human rights violations also raise grave concerns because they harken back to a different time. What am I speaking about here? I am speaking about the massive detention camps that we have learned about through human rights accounts, through parliamentary studies and through the debates that are entering this chamber this very evening. These detention camps are occurring as we speak in the People's Republic of China, housing, by some accounts, hundreds of thousands of Uighurs. By other accounts, over a million Uighurs are being housed in these detention camps.
People have used the term “concentration camps”. That harkens back to only one thing for every one of us in this chamber. That harkens back to World War II Europe and the devastation and horrific human rights abuses that were wrought by the Third Reich at that time, yet that is what we are talking about in 2022 on this planet in a country in Asia in the People's Republic of China.
What is taking place in these camps? Again, I am going to go back to this report. I am in chapter C, paragraph 17. It talks about these camps, political re-education camps. A witness named Mr. Byler described sessions where detainees were forced to publicly denounce their past crimes such as studying the Quran, learning Arabic or travelling abroad. Those who did not fully comply faced harsh punishment, including psychological measures designed to break the detainees, including the targeting of their families, their masculinity or forcing them to eat pork.
I want members to digest that. I apologize for the pun, but it is the idea of openly violating a person's religious traditions in the name of re-educating someone out of their Islamic practices, in violation of strict religious dietary laws. The punishments include beatings, stress positions and isolation. This is what is transpiring right now. This is what we are speaking about.
In these final few minutes, I want to talk about the reproductive rights of people in East Turkestan. We have heard about forced sterilization. Forced sterilization and, indeed, forced abortions were cited by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in a report that is dated this year, August 22, 2022. What they talk about is forced sterilization.
We have heard about the definition of genocide. I am going to cite it now. I do this having been a UN war crimes prosecutor on the Rwandan genocide. I think it is important to turn back to how genocide is defined. A genocide is defined in the UN convention under article II as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group” and then it lists five different indicia. The fourth is “Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”.
There is only one way to characterize a forced sterilization or a forced abortion. The rates of population growth among Uighurs in East Turkestan are one-sixth of what they are in the rest of the People's Republic of China. We know what is going on. If that can be proven as evidence and successfully prosecuted, that amounts to genocide. That is why this debate is important. That is why what this motion calls for is important.
Let me finish on this motion because it calls for understanding the pressure that Uighurs in third countries are facing in terms of their fear of deportation and making sure that Canadian immigration measures are supple and flexible enough to accept these individuals. I say this quite emotionally. We heard the member opposite talk about those who have faced safe haven or received safe haven in this country. I include myself among those persons. Fifty years ago, I came here as a Ugandan Asian refugee at the age of 10 months, fleeing the persecution of a guy named Idi Amin Dada, who decided that there was no place for Asians in Uganda at that time. If Canada did not open its doors then, I would not be standing here today.
Canada has a moral duty and an obligation to ensure we continue that humanitarian tradition. Doing so through immigration measures, such as those being proposed today, is one way we can do exactly that and show the world that the persecution being faced by Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in the People's Republic is unjust and cannot be countenanced. To go back to the metaphor of light over darkness, that is the light that we need to shine today.
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- Oct/24/22 8:51:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, like my colleague, I do worry about genocides happening around the world in many different locations, including in Xinjiang with the Uighur people. There is a need for us to say, and mean, “never again”.
We were able to vote on the motion to declare the Uighur genocide years ago. The Subcommittee on International Human Rights declared it a genocide years ago, yet the government has still taken very little action to both condemn and stop the genocide, as well as to help the Uighur people come to Canada to escape persecution.
Can he talk about why it has taken so long?
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- Oct/24/22 9:09:16 p.m.
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Oh boy, do I ever, Mr. Speaker. I think I would need a whole other speech just to address that.
What I would point out is that there is currently a bill in front of the foreign affairs committee, Bill S-211, that deals with supply chain reporting. It deals with big companies that operate in the west or in Canada. In particular, they would have to do a report on the impacts of their companies on human trafficking and forced labour. That is for sure a bill I would like to get passed.
The other thing is what the Americans are doing. They are identifying the province of Xinjiang as a place where forced labour is a problem, so for any products that are coming out of that area, there is a reverse onus and companies must prove that forced labour is not being used in their products. That is another initiative that I could get behind, and I look forward to the government moving on that.
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