44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 21, 2023 10:00AM
- Mar/21/23 11:02:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, previously the member for Dufferin—Caledon brought up the fact that an answer from the government to a written question, Question No. 1112, signed off by a parliamentary secretary, indicated that since 2016, CBSA has not actually seized any goods coming into Canada that were made through slave labour or forced labour. I listened carefully to the speech given by the parliamentary secretary, who did, indeed, do his very best to defend the government's record, but it has been seven years and no goods have been seized at the border. One shipment was stopped, but then released.
Can the parliamentary secretary simply answer this question: When can we expect the government to actually direct the CBSA to seize goods made through forced labour, as the Americans are doing?
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- Mar/21/23 11:23:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Dufferin—Caledon did his job and looked into the matter. He submitted a written question to the government. Question No. 1112 asked whether the Canada Border Services Agency had intercepted any goods from the Xinjiang region of China that were made or produced using forced labour, and, if so, how many times since 2016.
The answer was zero. Because that answer came from the government, I would like the committee whose report we are debating in the House to look into that.
Since we know the answer is zero and no products have been intercepted at our borders since 2016, what more can we do, as opposition members, to force the government to direct the CBSA to do its job?
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- Mar/21/23 11:26:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, when we talk about results, we really mean what we expect from the CBSA and all government agencies. I hear the member talking about another ombudsperson, and it reminds me of what members on the government side are saying. They talk about statements, meetings, quotes on websites, updates to websites or meetings they have had in other countries about this, but they do not talk about results.
An Order Paper question was tabled in the House, as was an answer, which said that no goods produced using forced labour have been intercepted and sent back to Beijing in the People's Republic of China. The question is therefore whether the government takes this seriously. My question for the member is whether he would agree that, on this issue, what really matters are the results, the execution.
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- Mar/21/23 12:28:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do intend to split my time, but I just cannot quite notice the member I intend to split my time with, so when I get there and see the member, I will name his riding. It is possibly in the Wellington region.
I am glad to be joining this debate, because this is, for me, about the accountability of the government on the enforcement portion of passing legislation, regulations, rules and advisories that come from the work we do here, so it is about holding the government to account. Part of holding the government to account is doing the work the member for Dufferin—Caledon did. He believed the government was not doing enough to prevent goods made with forced labour from coming into our country, so we asked ourselves questions.
In this House, we have the option to ask an oral question during question period, or we can write a written question and then submit it to the government to respond to, and that is exactly what the member did. They are called Order Paper questions. They are written questions. One was Question No. 1112, which basically asked the government the very simple question of how many goods made with Uighur forced labour coming from the Xinjiang province were seized at the border since 2016 by the Canada Border Services Agency or the RCMP, and the answer was a big fat zero, nothing. The government had stopped one, but as the member before me from Peace River—Westlock commented on, it was then released.
In the same time, the United States government seized over 2,300 shipments of goods at the border, because that government was directed by the U.S. Congress to four specific areas that the Department of Homeland Security was told to watch for. It is on their website. Members can go on the website. In fact, the member for Dufferin—Caledon has repeatedly stated in the House that he has that list. I looked it up and I have the list, too. We would be happy to provide the government with the list, and then the Liberals could use it. This is great. This would be bipartisan co-operation. We are trying to help the government do its job. The Liberals could just come over to this side, and we would give them the list. There is even something called “electronic mail”. I do not know if members have heard of this. We could send them the email list and they could actually use it and adopt it.
The four areas the Department of Homeland Security said were of special concern were apparel, cotton, tomatoes and polysilicon. Based on those four categories or sectors they are especially concerned with, they have seized thousands of shipments of goods that were found to be using Xinjiang as the source region and Uighur forced labour.
Uighur forced labour has gone up in its use in the People's Republic of China since 2017. Those labour camps were established in 2017. There is a generalized acceptance that this is when that program started. The program was intentionally created by the Communist government in Beijing. It started early on. The level of repression has been going up since Xi Jinping was first elected in 2013. He is on his third term, and now likely his permanent term, as essentially a dictator in the People's Republic of China.
We can compare the timelines. The member for Dufferin—Caledon has done the investigative work a parliamentarian is supposed to do and has proven that the government has not been enforcing the rules or, if it has been enforcing them, it has been incredibly lax. It basically has not done anything.
Since then, we have had one government caucus member after another, and parliamentary secretaries, come out and give the best possible version of events. They really try incredibly hard. In the future, I hope never to be before a court, but if it ever comes to that, I would look to that side to find one of those members to defend me, because they really gave it the best possible face they could have. They talked about convening things, declarations, meetings they have had, advisories that were posted and attestations. People can click on the website and read the terms of reference about what they are not supposed to do, and they can click an attestation and move on. Actually, I was speaking to the member for Dufferin—Caledon, and based on attestations, the government's own officials say that nobody has been found guilty of breaking them and there has been no follow-up on this attestation.
This reminds me of a Yiddish proverb. It is a great one. I was looking for this one. It is from a book called Kvetch, so it took me a while to look it up and find it in there: “A drowning man will reach even for the point of a sword.” In this case, it proves the point we are making on this side of the House, that the Liberals have done nothing, if all they can point to is advisories, websites, web pages, an ombudsman, and attestations, which have not done much of anything.
We have a written question in the House with a response that says we have zero goods from this particular region, a region that is so egregious with its known violations of the human rights of the Uighur people that the United Nations has written successive reports on it. We have had rapporteurs go there, actual rapporteurs doing work on the ground and trying to ferret out what has been going on. It was Bachelet in this case. We have had repeat congressional hearings. We have had hearings in the different parliamentary committees of this House and in the United Kingdom as well. We know what is going on. We have heard the stories of the Uighur people.
I went online to see the People's Republic of China's response to the United Nations report. They said everything is okay and there is full employment in the Xinjiang province. They said everything is good and all laws are being respected. They especially drew attention to something on page 109 of their response, if anyone wants to read it, which says that the religious rights of the Uighurs are being respected. There are so many mosques outside of the Xinjiang region they can go to. There are nice pictures of very happy workers. I am sure all of them knew what was going to happen here.
I notice that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills is getting ready to speak after me and add to my contributions. I will share my time with him.
That is the point. The government has reached for the sword and it is pointing to what we are pointing to, but it only has pretty words. It only has attestations and declarations, websites and web pages, while we have its own words showing the proof of its work, that it has done nothing since 2016. No goods have been stopped at the border and actually seized. As we said, one shipment was stopped but eventually released. The Americans have proof that they have actually obtained results, and we want results.
This reminds me of our sanctions regime. Equally, there have been members of the public who have come to testify before the Canada—People's Republic of China special committee of the House, and they have basically said that enforcement is lacking on the sanctions regime we have. I profess that I believe this is part of the sanctions regime we have against regimes of the world that do things we disagree with, where we find profound violations of people's human rights.
This House has found that the People's Republic of China is committing genocide against Turkic Uighurs in the Xinjiang province. The House has said that. In fact, the government was so inspired by its own principles that it abstained on that motion. It sent in a minister at the time, who has now resigned from this House, to say that they are abstaining as a government. As a cabinet, they are choosing to abstain on the matter. That is deeply embarrassing for them, and it should be embarrassing for them. It is embarrassing for all of us that they would do that.
We have passed a motion since then calling on the government to expedite this and ensure that another 10,000 Turkic Uighurs would be brought to Canada as refugees and that we would identify who they are. This is an incredibly important part of ensuring that we have accountability in the House. When the Liberals are not doing their jobs, they need to be raked over the coals for it.
If the Minister of International Trade has the time to hand out a sweetheart $25,000 contract to a friend, she has the time to expect that her cabinet, the rest of her colleagues and she herself are all doing the job that they were sent here to do. She was named to cabinet. She should be doing her job. We have proof that she is not. She is failing on the job to deliver the results that are needed. It has been seven years since 2016.
I just heard a member say that it is the pandemic. We blame the pandemic. When world trade was collapsing and fewer goods were being shipped, it is not as if the CBSA officers stopped doing their work. They were still on the job. It is not as if goods were being stopped all over the world at borders; we still had many goods coming into the country.
I see, Mr. Speaker, that you are giving me the signal. I almost wish I had not shared my time with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. I could have used the extra 10 minutes to lambaste the government for its failure.
We owe it to the people in Xinjiang province to ensure that we have a regime in place that stops goods at the border and seizes the goods made with their labour. The Americans have done it. Other western governments have done it. We have the results showing that by the government's own accounting, it has not done it. It is a shame.
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- Mar/21/23 12:39:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is actually quite simple to answer. I would turn to the member for Dufferin—Caledon and ask him for the electronic list that the Department of Homeland Security has of companies sourcing forced labour goods and trying to ship them in, and I would give it to the CBSA. It is pretty simple.
Also, the particular treaty the member is referring to is not secret; it is a public document that was approved by the House.
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- Mar/21/23 12:40:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure which book the member is referring to. I kind of missed that part. I did catch the word “inquiry”, though, and I notice that we are still waiting to hear how the New Democrats intend to vote on our motion to call the Prime Minister's chief of staff to testify before a committee of the House.
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- Mar/21/23 12:41:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. He named some of the crimes that we see happening against the Turkic Uighur people in the Xinjiang province, which have really ramped up since 2017, the start of these formal labour camps that the regime in Beijing keeps referring to as “vocational schools”, typically. That is kind of the nomenclature it uses. As someone of Polish heritage, I am pretty used to this from Communist regimes. They give everything weird names. “Potemkin village” comes to mind as well. This is consistently done by regimes like this.
We should be aligned in this case with our partners in the USMCA, who have done a much better job, especially the Americans, in enforcing the rules. If we are going to take this to heart, we have to enforce the sanction regimes passed by the House.
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- Mar/21/23 12:43:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member. As I said, this reminds me of the Yiddish proverb: “A drowning man will reach even for the point of a sword”.
With respect to this file, the government talks about consultations, commissions, websites and attestations. That is not good enough. What we need are results from the CBSA, to ensure that goods imported into our country are not made with forced labour.
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- Mar/21/23 1:04:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this petition comes from constituents of mine, who are calling on the government to prioritize Hazaras coming into Canada as part of the target of 40,000 Afghani refugees.
The petitioners draw the attention of the House to the fact that over 28,000 Afghans have been brought to Canada as refugees. They also remind the House that for the past 130 years, the Hazara ethnic group has faced genocide and systemic ethnic cleansing in Afghanistan; that since the fall of Kabul in August 2021, Hazaras have once again been targeted by the Taliban regime, as they are also a minority religious community; that the Taliban regime is responsible for the massacre and genocide of Hazaras; and that Taliban gunmen have directly been involved in executing Hazaras and forcing them to leave their homeland.
Again, the petitioners remind the Government of Canada that, as part of its international obligations, it has an obligation to also ensure that the Hazaras form a sizable portion of the 40,000 Afghans who are being brought to Canada as refugees.
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