44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 10, 2023 10:00AM
- Feb/10/23 10:21:34 a.m.
- Watch
- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, on this particular piece of legislation, the member will find there are many Conservatives who are in agreement that aligning our sanctions regime with our inadmissibility criteria is a very good idea. It would make sure that we keep people out who have been found to be part of regimes that are violating people's human rights or that do not have the best interests of Canada in mind.
The member also mentioned that we have the strongest sanctions in the world. That is actually a laughable thing to say. On the question of the Russian Federation, the Republic of Poland, for example, has completely banned the import of Russian coal into the country. It has found a wide range of individuals inadmissible just simply for the promotion of the Russian Federation's positions and its symbols. It took months for the government to take Russia Today off the airwaves in Canada and off the public requirements to have it on our airwaves. It is still available online. That was more of a commentary on the member's speech.
When I do rise to speak on this, members will find there is agreement. We do not have the strongest sanctions in the world. The Republic of Poland proves it.
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- Feb/10/23 10:22:46 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, I appreciate what the member said. I do not necessarily agree with his conclusion.
Let us look at it from the perspective of what the government brought forward. There are financial sanctions banning certain products. There are some things still flowing through Russia. Fertilizer is something that Conservatives argue that we should not even put an extra tariff on. In the end, the sanctions take many different forms.
With this legislation, we would ensure that a very powerful message would be sent about who could come to Canada. The message, very simply, would be that if someone is part of the regime causing hardship and human rights violations, we do not want them in Canada. I see that as a—
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- Feb/10/23 10:23:54 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, I am quite shocked that the member could speak for 20 minutes about how effective the sanctions regime when he knows very well that we have 1,600 people on our sanctions regime. We have no transparency and have no enforcement. We have seized $121 million over six months. The entire Russian Federation could be put on the sanctions list, but if they are not going to enforce the them they do not matter.
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- Feb/10/23 10:24:21 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, part of it is ensuring we have the appropriate tools in place. That is one of the nice things about the legislation. That would be one of the tools on the tool belt that will enable us to enforce the sanctions. We are enabling Canada border control and immigration to be able to deal with some of the sanctions.
The member is wrong to try to give the impression that there is no enforcement. There is enforcement that is in place. There is a real impact. To say that there is nothing is just not true. Canada continues to work with our allied countries. The sanctions that are being put in place, not only by Canada but also by like-minded countries around the world, are having a real, tangible impact on Russia.
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- Feb/10/23 10:25:19 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, under the Special Economic Measures Act, Canada sanctioned over 1,200 individuals from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus due to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. In support of women's rights in Iran, I think Canada has imposed sanctions on over 215 individuals and entities in Iran.
Can the government confirm that under the present legislation, Bill S-8, that the members of the sanctioned entities can also be found inadmissible? Secondly, if the sanctioned individuals are already in Canada, can they be removed under this legislation?
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- Feb/10/23 10:26:57 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, my colleague from Edmonton Strathcona raises a good point that the government is woefully lacking an enforcement regime for some of the measures that are undertaken with regard to sanctions. This bill, Bill S-8, would put in place a framework to be able to reject permanent residence, citizenship or refugee applications on the basis of those who are on a sanctions list.
I am wondering if my colleague opposite can confirm that no persons on a sanctions list have applied for any of these forms of immigration to Canada or have made safe passage to Canada already.
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- Feb/10/23 10:27:38 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, we believe there are individuals in Canada that this legislation, if and when passed, would have an impact on. If someone has gone online to start the process of an application to come to Canada for a nephew, a niece or whoever it may be, it is hard to give a conclusive answer to what the member is proposing.
The legislation, in principle, would have a very positive impact in ensuring that we could prevent people on the sanctions list from being able to come into Canada. I have confidence, arguably, probably more confidence than the Conservative Party does, in our civil service, and believe that it understands the sanctions list and will not let people slip through.
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- Feb/10/23 10:28:46 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, my colleague opposite, if I understood correctly, just confirmed that there are individuals or extended family members in Canada who perhaps might be on the sanctions regime. How many people does that apply to? How many people who are sanctioned by Canada, that sanctions would apply to, have been allowed into Canada by the government through our current immigration policies?
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- Feb/10/23 10:29:11 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, I have no idea how many Stephen Harper let in. The member is trying to turn this into a political issue by asking if there could be people in Canada. Could the member say she can guarantee there are no sanctioned people that Stephen Harper ever let in? From my perspective, it is a ridiculous question.
With the legislation we are passing, ultimately, there could be individuals or their family members who are sanctioned, but who came to Canada two years ago before the sanctions were put in place. I suspect there might even be people who Stephen Harper and the former Conservative government let in.
This does not have to be as political as the member is trying to make it. We would be making a very strong statement to the world by bringing forward this legislation, and I hope that the Conservative Party would want to pass it.
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- Feb/10/23 10:30:47 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, I am very reluctant to start providing comments on individuals on whom I do not have the full story.
I do not support any terrorist or anyone who threatens the sort of violence that the member referred to. I do not believe that any member of the Liberal caucus or the House of Commons who supports any type of terrorist being in Canada. That is why we have a system through CSIS, through Canada border control and the many other agencies that are well staffed by professional civil servants to protect Canadian society.
This legislation is about protecting Canadian society and about ensuring we have sanctions against regimes like Russia and Iran because of the barbaric things they are doing.
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- Feb/10/23 10:31:41 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, I am going to share my time with the member for Calgary Nose Hill. I know members often forget to indicate this and it causes a bit of consternation at the table, so I wanted to mention that off the top.
Just so my constituents know what the debate is about, we are talking about Bill S-8, which would amend paragraph 35.1(1)(a) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which is affectionately known by many of us as IRPA, because it is just easier to use the acronym, as with everything in government.
This bill would basically change the grounds for inadmissibility to Canada under IRPA to match with our sanctions list. Part of the debate over the last 18 months has been the government having to catch up over time and sanction new people in order to match sanctions to people we do not want to let in as we list new organizations, new people and new events that happen all over the world.
Many of us were gripped by the protests taking place by women standing up for their rights in Iran after the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman whose hometown was Saqqez, if I'm pronouncing it correctly. I am sure my Kurdish friends will correct me by email very soon. She was visiting Tehran, and she was picked up by the morality police. I am sure they noticed on her identity papers that she was not from Tehran and quickly figured out she was Kurdish. They beat her in custody, and she died a few days later. This sparked mass protests in Iran.
Then the government decided to start sanctioning individual bits and pieces of the regime in order to show it was on the side of the protesters. Many Iranians in Canada were asking why the government was still letting in members of the regime; people who have profited from the regime; people who are close to the regime, such as wives or girlfriends; or people close to the regime coming here to study.
I was getting videos and pictures of people landing at the Toronto Pearson Airport who were known members of the regime. Of course I would always tell them, “We don't know what you know, and you should inform the RCMP”. When they would go to the RCMP, they would usually be told the individuals or organizations were not sanctioned and that they had not been found inadmissible to Canada.
This bill would partially close that hole, which many of us and the worried members of our communities have called for in the past. We also know that if we do not enforce the sanctions or inadmissibility grounds, then it does not matter how many people we put on the list. We need a government that has the will to act and actually impose the sanctions on individuals and enforce them through information gathering and information sharing in order to identify these people in Canada.
I will draw the attention of the House to one specific person, and this is one I hear about quite often when I go to Iranian protests and rallies in Canada. Morteza Talaei is a former police chief of Tehran. He was the police chief when Zahra Kazemi, an Iranian Canadian and Montrealer, was arrested. She was beaten and died in custody.
The fact that we do not enforce our sanctions is one of the next debates we will have after this. When this piece of legislation hopefully makes it to committee and beyond and actually passes into law, then government can find the time to enforce it. Not only can the government devote resources to it, but it can also give political direction to the CBSA to detain and deport these people.
I had an Order Paper question given back to me just a few months ago that indicated the government was only following through on half its deportation orders for people who had already been found inadmissible to Canada. It is a shocking number that has gone way down since the pandemic, and that is a very worrying sign to me.
I want to cover what is happening in Iran, speak a little about the People's Republic of China and then cover the Russian Federation and its war of aggression on Ukraine. Those are the three major countries many of us think of when we think of our sanctions regime and the people we would like to be found inadmissible to Canada.
On Iran, I have been a big supporter of the protests. There are individual case files that have come to my constituency office that I have tried to advocate for, both directly with the Minister of Immigration and in working with members from both sides of the House.
I want to mention that I have politically sponsored Mohammad Amin Akhlaghi, who was sentenced to death by the regime simply for the act of peacefully protesting. I also sponsored Amir Mohammad Jafari, who was arrested at school when he was 17 years old. He was taken to prison, tortured and then sentenced to 25 years in jail, followed by exile after his prison sentence was complete. This was for the crime of corruption on earth, which is a broad claim made against many individuals in Iran.
Many of these individuals' family members have contacted me. It is just a broad-based accusation. They can do anything they want. This is through IRGC-controlled courts and a justice system where there is no justice.
Many organizations have been sanctioned. We have sanctioned different bits of the regime. However, in many cases, the fact that we are politically sponsoring them ensures their protection. It shows the Iranian regime that we are looking at individual cases. I track them every few days. I ask my staff, and I look them up to make sure that nothing has happened to them.
The government needs to be doing more. The little bit that we found in Bill S-8 is not, I think, quite enough just yet. The government needs to be defining some people as inadmissible and following up on cases like those of Morteza Talaei and other Iranian nationals who have come to Canada on different visas, who may have overstayed here and who are still here. They should have their visas reviewed as well. I am hoping that this legislation will look after that.
On the issue of the enforcement of sanctions, we had a New Democratic member stand up to correct the record when a member from one of the Winnipeg ridings was speaking on behalf of the government. However, our own shadow minister for international trade had an Order Paper question come back demonstrating that over the last however many years, at our border, the Canadian government has actually stopped zero dollars' worth of merchandise coming from the Xinjiang province in the People's Republic of China because of the use of slave labour.
In comparison, America has actually stopped billions of dollars of merchandise at its border. It is not as though our markets are all that different. We buy many goods. Many companies are buying goods, such as T-shirts, socks and a lot of goods made of cotton.
In Xinjiang, cotton happens to be one of the major products that is made with slave labour. Companies have to ensure that they have an ethical supply chain, but it is incumbent upon the government to ensure that the CBSA is directed to catch these products at the border. It is impossible that it is at zero dollars.
The fact that we received that answer to an Order Paper question proves that the government is not doing enough. I am hoping that after Bill S-8 gets a fulsome debate here, in committee, at third reading and at the report stage, members will get the satisfaction of knowing that the government is actually going to follow through and enforce it.
Lastly, on the Russian Federation, as I rose before to mention, we do not have the strongest sanctions in the world. Again, we have piecemeal sanctions of different bits of the regime.
I have a Yiddish proverb, and it will come at the very end.
We have sanctioned different parts of the Russian regime. In Bill S-8, there are references to the justice for Sergei Magnitsky act. It is a piece of legislation that I worked on at the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs when we were debating it at the time.
For those who do not know, Sergei Magnitsky was Bill Browder's lawyer in Russia. He uncovered a $200-million-plus case of tax fraud being committed.
He was a fervent lawyer trying to get to the truth. For his trouble, he was arrested by the Russian regime. He was kept in confinement. He was beaten, tortured and murdered for the simple act of following up on tax law and making sure that the Russian taxpayer was getting their due.
The highly corrupt regime run by President Putin and oligarchs in Russia cannot be trusted. They have now moved to a hot war. The started the war in 2014 but moved to a hot war last year. The piecemeal approach of sanctioning different parts of the regime has not worked. There are many European countries that have much stronger sanctions than we do.
I gave the example of the Republic of Poland before. It has banned not only all coal imports but also the spread of Russian propaganda. It has prevented Russia Today from broadcasting and done many other things.
Many eastern European countries have a much longer history of trying to resist what many of them will call their centuries-long oppressor. This is why many of them joined NATO after the Warsaw Pact fell apart.
I have a Yiddish proverb, because I made myself a note to mention this: “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.” Yiddish is wonderful because it always tries to say something in a positive way but actually means something kind of insulting.
In this particular case, months from now, we will be moving on to other government legislation. I am convinced that the government caucus will be accusing the Conservatives of holding up pieces of legislation because we want to debate things and bring forward issues and individual cases that we think are worth listening to in this chamber. We will be told that legislation needs to be rushed because it needs to be passed.
I will think back to this moment when we debated Bill S-8, when we were debating legislation that many of us agreed with.
It is the government House leader's job to schedule Government Orders and to make sure that the priorities of the government are passed. I note that this legislation started in the Senate instead of the House; so much for a House of sober second thought when we are the ones looking at government legislation from the Senate.
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- Feb/10/23 10:43:52 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, can my colleague expand on why the enforcement piece is so important in a bill like this and how this bill is lacking that? In his speech, he also outlined many instances where the government has enforcement tools at its disposal right now but seems to be very reluctant to use them, particularly when it comes to sanctions.
What could the government be doing within its existing purview to ensure that those Canada has placed sanctions on, even some of the weak ones that we already have, are actually subject to some of the punishments that would be associated with the same?
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- Feb/10/23 10:46:47 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, for my constituents, I will say that we are debating a bill that proposes to establish a legal framework for persons to be declared inadmissible or deported from Canada under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act due to their person, country of origin or organization being subject to sanctions.
I want to pick up on my colleague's theme of the enforcement of sanctions. I think what the government is trying to do with this bill is make sure that no cases slip through the cracks, even though there are already a lot of mechanisms that exist in Canadian law to ensure that such persons would not have access to Canada. To pick up on the theme of enforcement, and my colleague from Calgary Shepard just outlined some of the issues with the enforcement of sanctions, the government deputy House leader also said that there may be people in Canada who are subject to sanctions the government has not yet moved to act on, which is troubling. The government has had eight years to deal with these sorts of instances, and it has not. However, the theme of slipping through the cracks is much broader than just this bill when it comes to the immigration system.
To give an example of how I do not feel this bill adequately addresses enforcement mechanisms, I would like to draw my colleague's attention to an article that was published just moments ago in the Globe and Mail, which states that a member of the other place issued 640 documents to Afghan nationals, and I have seen one instance of these, which apparently said that individuals had been granted a visa to enter Canada. This was done through questioning over the last several days. The current Minister of Immigration said this was done without the authorization of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. What the IRCC said was that this senator did not have the authority, as no one does in this place, to issue visas.
Yesterday, at the immigration committee, I outlined an instance of the family of one of my constituents receiving this letter, which frankly fooled me for nearly a year. They thought they had received a visa or permission to enter Canada, but even after a year of trying to deal with virtually every department in the Government of Canada, we could never get confirmation as to what documentation the government was or was not using. As the story is unfolding today, we are now seeing, in an affidavit put forward yesterday in a related court case by the affected person from the other place, as well a consultant named Laura Robinson, that there were apparently 640 instances of these letters being issued.
What is worse is I know that the IRCC, GAC and other agencies were aware of at least the case I was dealing with, and as far as we can tell there was no action taken during this time. However, today, the affidavit that person put forward with respect to the case also states that this was done at the behest of the chief of staff of the defence minister at the time, whose name I believe is George Young, so that person actually sent these documents to the person from the other place and said to go ahead and use them. These documents say that they have been granted a visa and, at least in the instance I saw, bear a very authentic-looking Government of Canada seal. This is not just an email, but a document with a government seal that purports to grant somebody entry into Canada.
The Globe and Mail article states that, in her affidavit, the senator said she regularly e-mailed the former minister of foreign affairs, the former minister of defence and the former immigration minister, who is now the Minister of Public Safety, as well as their senior staff. The names they gave were Mike Jones and Olga Radchenko.
The issue I have with this is not that we should not be bringing Afghan nationals to Canada, particularly ones such as those in the family of my constituent, who Canada had a duty and obligation to protect. We should have been doing a lot more. The issue I have is that the government called a federal election and, according to this affidavit, allowed a workaround process, which none of us in this place had access to, but it appears it was essentially said that people who were not duly authorized by IRCC had the ability to issue these letters.
There is a reason our immigration process is arm's length and separate from political mechanisms. It is so that we can ensure that the equity of the process is unimpeachable, and that when we are making hard decisions on who comes into this country, particularly in times of crisis, we can assure our constituents that this was done under just and legal circumstances, because that is how we ensure that the public has trust and faith in the institution of the government.
This has enormous implications, and not just for the sanctity of the government's process on immigration. Again, the government is introducing legislation, I think, because it failed to use existing enforcement mechanisms. However, the case we are seeing today also put lives at risk.
The family of my constituent believed that the letters they received, which they thought were coming from a government official, would allow them access to Canada. They came out of hiding and exposed themselves to try to get to the airport. Then, because they were in possession of these letters, my office tried to help them for nearly a year. We understood that they had been approved, so why could they not come to Canada? They were not able to apply for another program, and because they applied late, the government said, “Sorry, there's no room here.”
Now I have to wonder about any other programs that the government put forward to bring Afghan nationals here. Now that there is a civil suit and all sorts of stuff happening, I wonder how they were selecting those persons. Are those persons going to be part of the lawsuit, which it is trying to make go away?
It brings me no joy to raise these matters in the House, but the bottom line is that the government has exposed itself to this type of questioning, because it refused, apparently over the course of a year, and I do not know what happened here, to use basic enforcement mechanisms to see if the documentation that was being presented was authentic. If the government did not have a process to evacuate persons in Afghanistan, it should not have called a federal election. That is just the reality.
I was the vice-chair of the immigration committee for four years. I know my way around the immigration file. However, these documents that came through my office fooled me. Why did they fool me? It was because the government was completely opaque, completely non-transparent, on the process by which it was using to address this situation.
I get that it was chaotic, but part of the duty and onus of the government is to see these things coming, and many colleagues in the House were talking about it for months. We knew this was coming. The government knew that this was a risk, and instead of putting due process in place, it looks like it did a panic workaround, and I think it used a well-intentioned person. The Liberals knew about and should have shut this down to put something in place that was proper, or it should not have called an election. The result of this is a lack of compassion that undermines the integrity of our immigration system and puts people such as those in my constituent's family at risk.
The government needs to do everything possible to find out what happened here and hold persons who are are responsible for this to account. Otherwise, the bill that is in front of us today, or any other mechanism, is always going to have questions attached to it, such as this: Is having a fake visa issued by a member of Parliament or a senator the best way to get to Canada?
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- Feb/10/23 12:26:43 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, we are here today to talk about Bill S-8.
For the benefit of my constituents who may be interested in following this, this is an act that started its life in the other place last spring, a month or so before Parliament rose for the summer. We are talking about Bill S-8, an act to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, to make consequential amendments to other acts and to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations. Last year the senators recognized a gap in the law when it comes to the imposition of sanctions against other countries, organizations or individuals for breaches of international peace and security, as well as human rights violations.
The senators fast-tracked this legislation. It is not contentious; I believe that it has support from all parties in this House. However, unfortunately, it has been parked in the House of Commons since early fall; here we are finally, in February, debating it. What was the delay? What is the holdup? This needs to be done.
Bill S-8 was introduced around the time of Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, an unjustified and unjust war, as well as a blatant violation of international law. The timing of this legislation is not coincidental. It is in response to the illegal invasion by Russia of our friends in Ukraine. The legislation is long overdue.
What does it do? Canada, on the advice of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, can and does impose sanctions against certain states or individuals. This is pursuant to two Canadian laws: the Special Economic Measures Act and the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, better known as the Magnitsky law.
Under the Special Economic Measures Act, Canada can impose sanctions for grave breaches of international peace, gross and systemic human rights violations, or actions of corruption. Under the Magnitsky law, Canada can impose sanctions on foreign nationals responsible for, or complicit in, extrajudicial killings, torture or gross human rights violations.
I think some background on the Magnitsky act would be useful. There was an American investor by the name of Bill Browder who worked and invested in Russia's economy after the end of the Cold War and after Russia opened up its economy to the world. Mr. Browder made a lot of money, and this drew the attention of the Russian government, particularly President Vladimir Putin. Mr. Browder's Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, also drew the attention and the ire of the Russian authorities. Eventually, Mr. Magnitsky died in a Russian prison, clearly the victim of an extrajudicial killing, torture and a gross violation of human rights, to pick up on the language of the Magnitsky law.
Mr. Browder escaped Russia, and he used his influence to convince first the United States and then other countries, including Canada, to adopt what has become known as Magnitsky's law. This law, different of course and unique in each country, gives the government of said country the right and ability to impose financial sanctions against foreign nationals responsible for or complicit in such horrific actions. That is what the Magnitsky act does.
We had Mr. Browder appear before this Parliament's Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development on February 10, 2022. One should note the timing. This was exactly two weeks before Putin's Russia invaded Ukraine. We did not know that was going to happen, although there was every indication that Putin would invade Ukraine. He had done it before, in 2014, shortly after Russia hosted the Winter Olympics in nearby Sochi. At that time, Putin waved goodbye to the world and then ordered his tanks into the Crimean Peninsula. Sadly, the world looked the other way.
Seven years later, in 2022, Putin was again flexing his muscles. Again, he was hoping and expecting that the world would be looking the other way. That was the context when Mr. Browder was giving his testimony in front of the committee.
Here is a sample quote from his testimony:
As we look forward to what to do about this situation, my prescription is to make a list of the 50 biggest oligarchs who look after Putin's money. There's no mystery as to who these people are...and we hit these people with Magnitsky sanctions.
We start with five before any invasion to show Putin we're serious. We then tell him that he has 10 days to pull back from the border or we hit him with another five. If he invades, we go after the rest of the 40. I believe this would stop Putin in his tracks and he wouldn't invade Ukraine.
Three months later, on May 17, 2022, Mr. Browder appeared before another committee, the public safety committee, as part of its Russia study. Again, members can note the timing. This meeting was taking place a few months after Putin invaded Ukraine. At that meeting, this question, or challenge, was put to Mr. Browder: “Clearly, sir, something went wrong. Either the [Canadian] government didn't take your advice or you underestimated Putin's propensity for recklessness.”
This was part of Mr. Browder's answer:
[Putin] had looked at our conduct, and when I say “our”, I mean Canada, the United States, the EU and the U.K. He looked at our conduct after the invasion of Georgia—nothing; after the illegal annexation of Crimea—effectively nothing; after MH17 was shot down—nothing; and, after the Salisbury poisonings—nothing. He was of the opinion that we weren't going to do anything if he invaded Ukraine.
Historians will debate whether we and our allies acted soon enough, used our sanctioning tools aggressively enough or did everything in our power to convince Putin to back off. Maybe we could have done more, and with the benefit of hindsight we probably could have done more and should have done more, but I want to be clear that it is not as if we are doing nothing.
After the illegal annexation of the Crimean peninsula in 2014, Canada, using the existing Special Economic Measures Act, imposed sanctions against more than 1,000 individuals and 241 entities linked to ongoing violations of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. Our Magnitsky Law, parenthetically, came into force some time later, in 2017.
Could we have done more to help our Ukrainian friends? Probably, but today we are doing the right thing. It is a small thing, but it is the right thing. With Bill S-8, we are amending three other acts and expanding certain regulations, all pertaining to how we deal with refugees, and in particular refugees who, when they present themselves at our border, are discovered to be subject to sanctions under one or another of our sanction laws.
The Minister of Public Safety put it this way: “Banning close associates and key supporters of Putin's regime, including those responsible for this unprovoked aggression from entering our country is one of the many ways in which we're holding Russia accountable for its crimes.” We can argue about the veracity of the statement that Canada acted in “many ways” to hold Russia accountable. That is a debate for another day.
I would wrap it up with the following comment. I and all members of Parliament, I believe, have been banned from entering Russia. After this bill, Bill S-8, passes, Mr. Putin and his oligarchs would be banned from entering Canada, as if they would ever risk being arrested and tried for war crimes.
This is important legislation. It is non-controversial. It has the support of the Conservative Party. We have always been in support of the decisive use of our Magnitsky act to sanction international criminals. It needs to be passed soon, and it needs to receive royal assent to close the gap.
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- Feb/10/23 12:40:43 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, the member brought up in his intervention how we would treat people who are returning from overseas who have potentially committed serious war crimes or crimes against humanity, so I wonder if he can elaborate on this matter.
We have individuals who either fought for, fought with or are sympathizers of ISIS, such as Daesh, a proto-state across the Syrian-Iraqi border, which committed many war crimes and crimes against humanity. We now have families who are returning from a specific camp, which is not too far from Al-Hol, and there are about 70,000 POWs and families being held there. These Canadians are being returned to Canada and being charged with offences by the RCMP for travelling overseas to join a terrorist organization and for membership in a terrorist organization.
Beyond that, it is very difficult for the Canadian government to prove crimes that were conducted overseas because the collection of evidence may not be ideal, the witnesses might be dead or we just may not know who they are, so I wonder if the member can elaborate on that, because that is part of the sanctions regime as well.
Some of these individuals should be sanctioned, and others are not being sanctioned because we do not know they are members of these organizations. This is where the difficulty lies. We can only make someone inadmissible if we know what they are being made inadmissible for, and part of this legislation will need a lot of intelligence-gathering.
I am just putting a lot of ideas on the table for the member to add to the discussion.
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- Feb/10/23 12:43:32 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, I will continue on a different track. Within Bill S-8 there are provisions for persons to be able to challenge being put on a sanctions list, but they are not allowed to appeal being found inadmissible to Canada if they happen to be on a sanctions list.
During the debate on the sanctions for the victims and the Sergei Magnitsky act, there was a provision put in to ensure that a person who was to be listed would have the right to redress and could actually challenge the fact that they had been put on the list.
In this piece of legislation, one of the provisions specifically says that one cannot appeal the fact that one has been found inadmissible, because the idea is that the process has already taken place in the sanctions regime. I wonder if the member would comment on how there would be no right of appeal if one is found inadmissible to Canada under IRPA, which would be expanded to all those who find themselves on one of the sanctions lists that Canada keeps, and that they would need to seek redress for sanctions but not for inadmissibility.
Does he see this as a problem or as an opportunity to expedite the deportation of individuals who find themselves in Canada unlawfully?
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