Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Honourable senators, I rise today to recognize World Refugee Day. This has never been a day for celebration, least of all this year, because this year marks a new threshold of misery, insecurity, heartbreak and displacement for millions of new people.

In Ukraine alone, over 7 million people have fled the brutal and ruthless invasion by Russia. In Afghanistan, we watched in horror as the Taliban returned, resulting in a mass exodus from the country.

All told, today there are over 100 million people who have been displaced. This is a new high. I know that sometimes numbers are meaningless because we hear so many numbers thrown at us, so let me try and put these numbers into some context for you. One hundred million people is more than the entire populations of the U.K., France or Italy, and more than twice the population of Canada. If you pulled together the world’s largest cities — New Delhi, Mexico City and Beijing — you would still not get to 100 million. By all accounts, this number is only going to climb because of climate change, climate migration and, sadly, more conflict.

I believe we need to come to grips with this new normal, yet tragic, way of life. Although I appreciate that Canada has worked hard to bring in Afghans and Ukrainians, we know that our response could be better, faster and more humane. We cannot be reinventing the wheel whenever a new crisis arrives, because there will always be a new crisis.

Canada needs to be better prepared, learn its lessons from the past as well as its successes — such as our response to Syrian refugees — and permanently realign the machinery of government at IRCC, Global Affairs Canada and other departments to create a rapid response mechanism which will make us more nimble, responsive and efficient. We owe it not just to the people who have lost their homes, but we also owe it to ourselves. Thank you.

Hon. Ratna Omidvar: Honourable senators, I rise to speak very briefly on 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. I was unable to lend my support to this bill at second reading, and therefore I am taking a bit of your time today to do so.

I will not repeat the essential features of the bill. You have heard them from the sponsor, Senator Harder, and from others.

In a nutshell, this bill aligns our aspirations in the sanctions regime with appropriate legislation in Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to ensure that individuals who are sanctioned for various reasons under either the Special Economic Measures Act or the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act are not inadvertently admitted into Canada.

The right hand must know what the left hand is doing, and this is what the bill seeks to ensure.

I think of this as a bit of a cleanup bill, but a bill that is nevertheless urgent in that we must make sure that we are clapping with both hands.

These amendments are essential. For one, the horrifying context in Ukraine — cities and communities decimated, thousands dead, brutal carnage which has been left behind by the invaders, mass graves, people with hands tied behind their back, torture, rape, et cetera.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has displaced close to 7 million people who have fled to Poland, Romania, Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia and also into Canada. Unfortunately, as this conflict sees no end, I fear that more will be displaced.

We also know that Russia is forcing tens of thousands of Ukrainians into camps in Russia. An estimated 200,000 children are among the people who have been removed from Ukraine into Russia. Russia has, in essence, kidnapped them.

This is all horrifying, but if there is one tiny sliver of a silver lining, then it is the alignment of like-minded nation states to come together on sanctioning Russians in different ways.

An example is, of course, the swift and severe sanctions that have been imposed on Russia at SWIFT, and others, too, have been implemented. I am pleased that the government, through this bill and through other proposed changes in the budget implementation act on the repurposing and confiscation of frozen assets, is now taking a more expansive measure to approach our sanction regimes. Both measures will further strengthen Canada’s commitment to holding foreign corrupt leaders, henchmen and entities to account for committing human rights abuses and grave breaches of peace and security.

No one sanction regime imposed by any one jurisdiction can be as effective as when we collaborate and coordinate our responses with other like-minded jurisdictions. But in the least, we need to ensure internal coordination and alignment.

As the sponsor has pointed out, the application of this bill is broader than simply that to Russia and Belarus. It will apply, and can apply, to other sanctioned individuals and entities from places like Iran, Myanmar, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and North Korea.

This bill makes sense in other ways as well. First of all, on the basic point, we don’t want sanctioned individuals coming to Canada. We don’t want their money and we do not want their presence, and Canada should in no way be a temporary or a permanent safe haven for them.

Second, it makes sense to align the Special Economic Measures Act with the Sergei Magnitsky Law. Magnitsky already has inadmissibility grounds for individuals that have committed grave human rights violations, torture and grand corruption. Having sanction regimes that are consistent from one to the other also makes good sense.

Finally, we know that sanctions applied by Canada and by others are having some effect. We know and we have read that there are a few Russian oligarchs who are already speaking out, and we need to tighten the noose every which way we can.

In conclusion, colleagues, for far too long corrupt, brutal and criminal foreign officials and entities have acted with impunity. The government needs more tools to hold brutal leaders to account, and Bill S-8 provides another way to do so. Calling them out is not enough. Sanctioning them is not enough. We must ensure that they never set foot in Canada because I think we all know that once you are in Canada it is extremely difficult to remove an individual.

I will borrow a line from Senator Woo’s speech on Bill S-6 when he urged us to send that bill to the other house. I will urge you to do the same by adding a yellow sticky note and marking it, “super urgent.” Thank you, honourable senators.