44th Parl. 1st Sess.
March 21, 2023 10:00AM
- Mar/21/23 12:41:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there is an advisory that has been put out by the Government of Canada that says, “The Government of Canada is deeply concerned by reports and documentary evidence of repression of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities by Chinese authorities”.
The U.S. version says, “The People’s Republic of China (PRC) government continues to carry out genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and members of other ethnic and religious minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (Xinjiang), China. The PRC’s crimes against humanity include imprisonment, torture, rape, forced sterilization, and persecution”.
I wonder if the member could comment on why the Government of Canada's approach to this, including not seizing any goods, is seemingly so at odds with our number one ally and trading partner.
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- Mar/21/23 12:44:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government can introduce all the legislation it wants and Parliament can adopt all the legislation the government presents. The government can introduce all the regulation it wants and it can sign all the treaties it wants. However, if it does not operationalize that legislation, does not operationalize those regulations and does not put into effect those treaties, it is all for nought. What is going on with Xinjiang is a good example of this.
Clearly, a genocide is taking place in Xinjiang. As members know, Canada is obligated under the genocide convention to prevent genocide. Article 1 of that convention says, “The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.”
One of the elements of a genocide is “[i]mposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said the birth rate in Xinjiang plummeted by 50%, one half, between 2017 and 2019. In two short years, 24 months, the birth rate went from 16 births per 1,000 people to eight births per 1,000 people. Clearly, one element of the genocide is taking place.
Two other elements of genocide under the convention are “[c]ausing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and, second, “[d]eliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. There is evidence that both of these elements are also in place in the massive detention camps the PRC has set up in Xinjiang. There is evidence based on satellite imagery, survivor testimony, investigative journalism, leaked documents, smuggled videos and so many other pieces of evidence, documenting hundreds of detention camps built by the PRC in Xinjiang province.
It is estimated that more than two million Uighur Muslims have been detained in these camps. Some experts have called these camps the greatest detention of a group of people since the Second World War. PRC authorities first denied the very existence of these camps, but when presented with high-resolution satellite evidence, they recanted and explained them away as simply educational camps.
Documents obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists have highlighted what is going on in these camps, including torture and forced labour. There is evidence that Uighurs are being forced to pick cotton and produce tomatoes that the PRC is exporting around the world, which is just like what happened during another genocide. During the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933, millions of Ukrainian peasants were forced to produce grain that Stalin then exported to the rest of the world, leaving them with nothing, not even seed grain for the next year's planting and harvest. As a result, over three million Ukrainians starved to death. Therefore, clearly, a genocide is taking place in Xinjiang. Parliament recognized that a genocide was taking place in early 2021 by adopting a resolution in the House.
It is now time for the government to uphold the international rules-based order. It is now up to the government to uphold two treaties to which this country is a party. It needs to uphold, first, the 1948 genocide convention by preventing genocide from continuing, by preventing the importation of products like tomatoes and cotton that have been produced using forced Uighur labour. Another treaty that the government should be upholding, if it is serious about upholding the international rules-based order, is our obligation under the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. Article 23.6 of the agreement requires Canada to ban imports produced by forced or slave labour. The agreement says, “Accordingly, each Party shall prohibit the importation of goods into its territory from other sources produced in whole or in part by forced or compulsory labor, including forced or compulsory child labor.”
Subsequent to the signing of the USMCA several years ago, Canada and the United States adopted legislation to implement the elements of the CUSMA treaty that ban imports that have been produced using forced or slave labour. Parliament amended the Customs Tariff Act in July 2020 to bring Canada's laws into conformity with CUSMA, and the government published regulations stemming from those changes to the Customs Tariff Act that came into effect that same month, July 2020, some two and a half, almost three, years ago. A year later, the United States also changed its laws to bring them into conformity with the CUSMA treaty, but here is where the similarities end.
While the similarity between Canada and the United States is that both of us have implemented laws bringing CUSMA into effect, and both are party to the genocide convention, it ends there. Since these laws have come into force, the United States has stopped thousands of cargo container shipments from entering the United States from Xinjiang, but Canada has not stopped a single shipment from entering this country. In fact, the government temporarily halted one shipment from coming into Canada and subsequently released it. I believe that was in the province of Quebec.
No shipment has been blocked, interdicted and prevented from entering Canada, despite the fact that, south of the border, the U.S. government is upholding the rules-based international order and has prevented the importation of thousands of cargo containers containing things such as tomatoes, cotton and solar panels that have been produced using a labour force of millions of Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang province. Despite the U.S. interdicting thousands of shipments, the U.S. government has admitted that this is not good enough. In fact, it has plans to hire over 300 new positions at the border to continue to interdict even more products coming into its country from Xinjiang. It has plans to implement new computer systems and new training, and to conduct outreach to importers to prevent further shipments from arriving on American shores.
However, in Canada, nothing has happened, despite the fact the law came into effect almost three years ago. One shipment was temporarily blocked and then admitted into Canada. Meanwhile, thousands of cargo container shipments have been blocked from Xinjiang by the U.S. government because it is upholding its treaty obligations, its laws, the regulations it has published and the rules-based international order, which the current government says it supports. However, as the CBC, The Globe and Mail, and so many other investigative journalists have reported, tomatoes and cotton produced in Xinjiang, likely with forced labour, have continued to flood Canadian supermarket shelves and retail shops. The government turns a blind eye despite the fact it has these treaty obligations under CUSMA, it has these laws in place, and there are regulations that have been gazetted.
Let me conclude by saying this. The government can introduce all the regulations it wants, Parliament can pass all the laws it wants and the government can sign all the treaties it wants, but none of this has any effect unless the Government of Canada and its agencies operationalizes these laws and regulations, upholds these treaties and starts putting the work in place to actually block shipments from Xinjiang from coming into Canada.
That is why I will support the motion in front of the House. If the government is truly going to uphold our international reputation and the rules-based international order that it says it so deeply believes in, then that starts with doing exactly what we are calling for in this motion: to start blocking cargo container shipments at the Port of Vancouver and other Canadian ports that contain tomatoes and cotton from Xinjiang that have been produced using forced and slave labour.
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