44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 5, 2023 11:00AM
moved that Bill C-281, An Act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law), the Broadcasting Act and the Prohibiting Cluster Munitions Act, be read the third time and passed.
He said: Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour and privilege to rise in this House on behalf of the people of Northumberland—Peterborough South. Today, it is a particular honour because I rise with respect to my private member's bill, Bill C-281, on human rights.
Just to give a little context before I jump into the substance of this legislation, I want to say that we are extremely blessed to live in the greatest country in the world, a country where we can be assured of the rule of law and where people can disagree without there being any physical violence. In the last three weeks of Parliament, I imagine we will hear some rancorous debate, which I am sure the Speaker will do a great job presiding over, along with some arguments and other things that may not be as pretty as they could be. However, they will be a lot better than the alternative, which, of course, would be violence.
In too many countries around the world, people have been resorting to violence. There are many countries where people will spend the night awake, waiting to see what their government might attempt to do to them. People who are just standing up for who they are, what they believe in and how they choose to worship stay up nights in living, shaking fear of an authoritarian regime or some goon or thug coming in to threaten them, simply because of the way they live. Worse yet, they may be arrested, put in jail or tortured. Right now, many are sitting around and rotting in horrible conditions, suffering through torture and unthinkable, unbelievable pain at the hands of governments around the world. Therefore, it gives me great pride today to discuss my private member's bill, which seeks to at least move the ball a little bit forward towards more humane conditions while advocating for human rights around the world.
Bill C-281 has four primary sections, or clauses. The first section deals with prisoners of conscience. Prisoners of conscience are people around the world who are being detained, sitting in prisons right now, simply because of their beliefs or thoughts. They are fighting for virtuous causes like liberty, freedom of religion or freedom of expression. They are in incredible pain and suffering. Anything that Canadians and the Canadian government can do to alleviate or reduce their suffering is something that I think we should do as quickly as we can.
My private member's bill seeks to give the Canadian people and Parliament oversight of the government's advocacy for these individuals, these important people around the world. Specifically, it puts on to the government a reporting regime that forces it to report what actions it is taking to help prisoners of conscience around the world. It would have to report how many prisoners of conscience the government's Department of Foreign Affairs is aware of and what it is doing to aid their cause; it would also have to determine whether it has been deemed helpful by the families of these victims to publish their names.
I have had the great privilege of talking to some of the family members in Canada whose loved ones are in prisons around the world; there is one in particular who is in Venezuela. They want the name of their loved one, their brother in this case, to be published, because it would add gravitas. They would be able to point to a government report to say, “Yes, the Canadian government agrees with me. My loved one, my spouse, my sister or my child is being held not because they have done a crime but because they believed in the cause of freedom, democracy or religious freedom.” The report will go on to say what the Canadian government is doing.
I will not cast aspersions in this House, because I do not think that would be parliamentary. However, I think it is fair to say that many observers out there have written about the fact that the cause of human rights has sometimes been forgotten when carrying out international diplomacy or economic trade. However, human rights should be something we stand on. Human rights should be something that demands transparency and accountability.
This private member's bill would get us there with respect to accountability and transparency. It would have the government tell us why it has not been taking action with respect to prisoners of conscience or individuals who believe that they are prisoners of conscience. There will be various groups of individuals and organizations that will look at this report and ask why a certain individual is not included or why there are only 10 prisoners of conscience in Venezuela, when surely there are many more than that. It would give family members and organizations the ability to push the government to help with care and advocacy and, hopefully, the release of their loved ones. As I said, these are some of the most honourable individuals I can imagine; they are people who have given their lives to the cause of liberty, democracy and freedom. As Canadians, we need to do everything we can to support them.
The next clause is with respect to the Magnitsky sanctions, which are, of course, named after Sergei Magnitsky. Magnitsky was a brilliant tax lawyer in Russia and one of the strongest fighters against Vladimir Putin's incredibly corrupt and devious regime. He stood up to Putin. Unfortunately, he ended up in a prison in Russia. A true warrior for the cause of integrity and honour, Magnitsky wound up passing away in that prison while fighting for what was right, for integrity and honour. The president of Russia, then and now, let him die there from a treatable medical condition that he would not allow him to get treatment for.
Magnitsky's friend and business colleague, Bill Browder, then went around the world trying to get Magnitsky sanctions in place. In my estimation, Magnitsky sanctions are incredibly powerful devices. They seek to put individual sanctions on some of the worst human rights violators in the world. Too often, in the past, human rights violators have gotten up in the morning, tortured victims, then hopped on their jets to attend cocktail parties in some of the most advanced economies around the world, hobnobbing with the world's elites. These are the lowest of the low; they deserve to be sanctioned and not to be given access to our country.
These Magnitsky sanctions are incredibly important tools in our tool box, and when the Magnitsky act was passed, there was a flurry of sanctions put in place for some human rights violators. We started towards the path of holding them accountable. It was a great step, I might add. However, in recent years, it has slowed down to an almost imperceptible trickle of people who have been named under the Magnitsky act. This is challenging.
What is being asked for in the second clause of my private member's bill is to look at giving Parliament oversight. We would not be taking away the power of imposing Magnitsky sanctions, although many legislative bodies around the world have done so. We are simply looking for the government to report back if the Senate, the House or a committee thereof says a person is terrible and is torturing people in Venezuela, Russia or Beijing. It then needs to find out why the government is not sanctioning that individual. All it would require is a very simple report, but it would add transparency and accountability to the government when it does not sanction a terrible human rights violator, when it is letting an individual get up in the morning and torture innocents, then, in the afternoon, fly their private jet to Toronto, B.C. or wherever to hobnob with some of our elites. It is a very reasonable bill in that it does not seek to go too far. It simply looks to hold the worst human rights violators in this world accountable.
The next section is with respect to the Broadcasting Act. During Vladimir Putin's illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, we saw that a foreign power can use Canadian airwaves to broadcast its propaganda. Fortunately, the CRTC did the right thing in pulling Russia's licence today, stopping it from broadcasting Vladimir Putin's hatred across Canadian airwaves. Unfortunately, there was no process in place, so the CRTC had to hodgepodge one together. This bill would give the CRTC a process to use when a genocidal state is using Canadian airwaves to broadcast its hatred.
We obviously do not want to restrict freedom of speech or freedom of expression unduly, so this would be a very limited prohibition in that it would need to be a genocidal state utilizing Canadian airwaves. The CRTC could then prevent it from broadcasting on Canadian airwaves. It is an oversight that this does not exist. The idea of a genocidal state broadcasting its hatred, propaganda and promotion of genocide on our airwaves is completely and utterly unacceptable. I am very proud of the proposed Broadcasting Act amendment.
The final amendment is about the prohibiting of cluster munitions. These are all great provisions, and they are all important to me, but this one is of particular importance and relevance to me. I have been to demining fields. We are talking about cluster munitions, but it is a similar concept in demining fields around the world. It is incredibly sad what cluster munitions and mines do to civilian populations. They primarily kill innocent civilians, and in many cases, children. Once the cluster munitions or mines are put down, they can take years or even decades to remove, making otherwise fertile farmland and areas where there could be schools and businesses completely useless for years and decades to come.
Even sadder is the fact that, often, these unexploded ordnances last for years and decades. The ones that are not found are the saddest of all; many children have lost their lives simply by walking somewhere. The really scary, sad and disturbing part is that cluster munitions are bomblets, or bombs of bombs. Imagine one bomb with thousands of little bombs inside that land all over. They are completely indiscriminate, which makes them particularly horrible and terrifying.
They land everywhere, and no one has a map or a marking of where these bomblets went because they are often dropped from thousands of feet up. The wind could take these things in a myriad of different directions. Therefore, mapping them out is nearly impossible. Even if countries that drop them wanted to remove them, it is very difficult to do so and requires a demining process.
The disturbing part is that these bomblets often look like shiny little toys. There have been many reports of small children going out to a play yard or a field and seeing these shiny toys; obviously, the worst happens. These tools are not even valuable when it comes to war. Because they are indiscriminate and not targetable, their value to an army is extremely limited. They are really just weapons of terror, weapons that are completely indiscriminate; because of that, they are particularly dangerous to civilians and children.
As part of this private member's process, I have had the ability to travel a bit in the country and meet with people in communities from all over who settled here in Canada, because they believe, as I do, that Canada is the greatest country on earth. They have told me their stories. They have told me about their suffering. More than once, in either one-on-one or group meetings, I have been brought to tears by their stories.
These individuals are people who have given up their lives, sacrificed their lives, for important things like making sure little girls have the opportunity to go to school; that children, regardless of where they live in the world, have the opportunity to seek an education and improve their lives; that people have the ability to vote for their leadership and not simply be told; that people enjoy freedom and have the right of personal self-determination; and that people have the right of liberty and are able to decide who they want to be, how they want to be and whom they want to love. These people need our help, and this is hopefully at least a small step in that direction, a step in re-establishing Canada as a human rights champion around the world, as it should be.
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Madam Speaker, as members know, we supported that amendment and continue to support that.
My father, who was a businessman, used to say to me when I was young, “Son, what gets measured gets improved.” If we cannot measure something, it is very difficult to see whether we are improving or not. We simply do not know. I thought the NDP's amendment was a great one and that it would give us the ability to measure how we are performing on the various human rights issues and to see whether we are getting better. As my father used to say, what gets measured gets better.
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Madam Speaker, I thank your father for fighting for the cause of freedom. We would not be where we are in this country, and around the world in many of the liberal democracies we now enjoy, without the great service and sacrifice of people like your father, so thank you for that.
The idea for this legislation is that Canada would now put its stamp or seal behind those human rights advocates like your father and say that we, as a Canadian government, support them and are behind them, and that their family members can say, “Yes, the Canadian government says that my loved one is on the right side of history.”
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Madam Speaker, what I would say to that is that this legislation actually proposes a framework for human rights reporting and with respect to prisoners of conscience. The more we can raise the awareness of the Canadian public, and I know that all of Canada is in favour of human rights, the more we can get that case to build. I might say that the NDP amendment would have been helpful with that as well.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to start by thanking all of the individuals who played such important roles in getting this legislation before the House today, up for a final vote and, hopefully, off to the Senate.
I will start with thanking the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. He worked very closely with me in drafting and putting this legislation together. I would like to also thank all of the non-government agencies and the families of victims who I had the opportunity to talk to, along with all the groups from various communities across the country and the world that have come together to signal their support. I would also like to thank Bill Browder for his support.
I have many thanks for the contributions from the members of the different parties who helped out, including the Bloc Québécois, the NDP and the Liberal Party. There were some substantial amendments made at committee. There was significant debate and long discussions. I am proud to say that I think we finished in a very good place.
There were a number of concerns. I do not think any one of our parties got exactly what we wanted out of the amendment process, but perhaps that is a signal that we got what we should get, with one exception. I thought the NDP amendment for a plan of strategy for human rights was excellent. I was sad to see it ruled out of order by the Chair.
As I said, this legislation has four critical parts that I believe would help the cause of human rights in Canada and around the world. The first of these respects prisoners of conscience, those heroes around the world who are fighting for important rights, such as for young girls to have the ability to pursue an education; for people to have the ability to live in a country free of government tyranny; and for people to pursue democracy, freedom and liberty and live their lives as they see fit without potentially fearing imprisonment or worse. The part on prisoners of conscience is critical.
The second critical part is having parliamentary oversight of Magnitsky sanctions. This is important. I am hopeful that this piece of legislation will not only allow Parliament to make its reports, but also encourage the government, maybe even future Conservative governments, to take the steps they need to make sure Magnitsky sanctions are put in place against some of the worst offenders. As I have said numerous times, it just seems shameful to me that, in this day and age, we allow violators of human rights to torture their victims in the morning and then take their private jets to fly around the world to hobnob with the world's elite in the afternoon.
Third, with respect to the Broadcasting Act, I think this is an amendment that only makes sense. Genocidal states should not be allowed to use Canadian airwaves to tout their propaganda. Just to add to that, we have seen what foreign interference can mean for our democracy and the challenges that can impose. Canadians should have a full, free and open ability to understand and give consent. We should also make sure that genocidal states are not broadcasting their hatred on Canadian airwaves. That seems to be only common sense.
Finally, with respect to cluster munitions, of course these are horrible, terrible things. Canada has had a leading role, going all the way back to the Harper government, in outlawing and making them illegal. This will reduce the ability of Canadian companies to finance the construction and manufacture of cluster munitions.
I am proud to be the sponsor of this bill and proud to be the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South.
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- Jun/5/23 2:41:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, food costs are up. Inflation is up. Mortgage payments are up. Rental payments are up. Faith in the Prime Minister is down.
When will the Prime Minister end these inflationary deficits, scrap the tax and bring back the common sense of the common people?
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- Jun/5/23 5:14:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I request a recorded division.
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Mr. Speaker, I have two petitions to present today.
One is in support of Bill C-257, which seeks to include political rights within human rights. As members know, unfortunately many Canadians are discriminated against because of their political beliefs. This legislation seeks to protect their political rights and the freedom of expression associated with them.
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- Jun/5/23 6:01:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the second petition is from a group of petitioners who are against the expansion of MAID to include infanticide. They believe that the lives of children are sacred and that MAID should not be extended to infants.
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