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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 118

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 26, 2022 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 118 - Oct/26/22
Ms. Rachel Bendayan (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance, Lib.)
  • Oct/26/22 6:56:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is with an immense sense of responsibility that I rise in the House to speak to a motion that I am sponsoring as the seconder. I would like to take my colleagues back to 2009. Many things were happening in 2009. The world was still in the grips of the great financial crisis, Barack Obama had just been elected and the people of Iran were holding massive protests against the Islamic regime. Some things change while others do not. I want to take my colleagues to the city of Urumqi, capital of the Uighur autonomous region of Xinjiang, also known as East Turkestan. On July 5, 2009, a peaceful protest turned violent after the police used force to subdue the protesters. The riots lasted several weeks. These events were the impetus for the Chinese government to launch a broad campaign of expulsions, detention and torture against its Uighur citizens under the guise of combatting terrorism. Since then, the repression has intensified considerably. The Chinese government has imprisoned millions of Uighurs, most of them over the past five years. We have seen terrifying images of internment camps built for the sole purpose of suppressing the identity of the Uighur people. The so-called “Xinjiang papers”, published in 2019 by The New York Times, detailed China's policies of surveillance and control of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. Those who are not imprisoned find themselves under ever more intense surveillance. Forced labour and forced sterilizations are two of the main tools used to oppress the local population and erase their identity. In keeping with its modus operandi of using coercive diplomacy, the Chinese government is exerting immense pressure on countries around the world to turn a blind eye to these grave violations in Xinjiang, and I am sorry to say that it is paying off. Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Council refused to open a debate on China's human rights violations in the region. Seventeen countries were on the right side of history, while 19 countries gave in to Chinese blackmail. This comes a few months after China put considerable pressure on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to bury a report on China's human rights abuses. Although it was announced in September 2021 that the report was being finalized, it was only released on August 31, 2022, in the final minutes of the commissioner's tenure. It is widely speculated that the final report was watered down under pressure from China. In a rules-based system, the United Nations should be a place where light is shone on these issues, and I find myself wondering how the international community or Canadians can trust the United Nations when, just last year, Iran was elected to the United Nations top legislative body on women's rights. There are no words. Canada does value the international rules-based order, but Canada also has a long history of standing for what is right, even when it is uncomfortable or difficult. On this issue, there is no grey area. I am certainly heartened by the cross-partisan agreement on this issue. In February of last year, as we have said in the House, we recognized China's actions in Xinjiang as genocide. Just yesterday, the House once again voted unanimously to recognize this genocide and call for more action to protect Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in third countries who find themselves exposed to the risk of deportation back to China.
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Context: House Hansard - 118 - Oct/26/22
Ms. Rachel Bendayan (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance, Lib.)
  • Oct/26/22 7:04:52 p.m.
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The motion before us today, brought by my colleague and friend, the hon. member for Pierrefonds—Dollard, which I proudly seconded this evening, builds on this action by calling for the admission into Canada of 10,000 Uighur and Turkic Muslims in need of protection. This is about standing for what is right. It is also about sending a clear message to China and all authoritarian regimes around the world that Canada will not be intimidated, that Canada will continue to stand for its values no matter the consequences. As long as China continues to violate the human rights of its people, as long as it continues to threaten Taiwan, to repress Hong Kong, as long as it continues to intimidate and harass people not only in its country, but also here on Canadian soil, and as long as it continues to empower regimes like Russia and Iran, we here in this House must continue to call China out and work with our allies to respond effectively. With the time that I have remaining, I would like to speak on a more personal level to the reasons why I feel so strongly about this motion and about speaking up. As a young Jewish teenager in Montreal in the 1990s, I had the privilege of meeting many Holocaust survivors. I remember those conversations vividly. On one occasion, a woman addressed a group of us to recount her harrowing experience in concentration camps. There are pieces of her story that I hear to this day when I close my eyes at night, such as how she would keep little crusts of bread in the folds of her ragged clothes so that at night when there was a child crying she could give the child something. At the end of her presentation, I remember asking her very innocently what I could do, me, a 15-year-old girl who was deeply touched by her story. She looked at me and said, “It is up to you and your generation to make sure that this never happens again.” On another occasion, I remember walking up on stage to meet a Holocaust survivor. He had just told his story. I do not have the strength to recount it here, but I remember feeling that I had to go up to him to get closer to him and touch his hand to see that he was made of the same flesh and bones as I was. I had to know that he was real. Again, the only thing I could think of at the time to say to this Holocaust survivor was to ask him what I could do. He looked at me with a piercing glance and said, “I need to know that you will speak up. I need to know before I die that my suffering was not in vain. I need to know that “never again” means something to you.” I looked at him and gave him, and many Holocaust survivors, my commitment that I would stand up and ensure that “never again” would mean something, and I do so today in this House.
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