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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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