- Member of Parliament
- Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council
Whip of the New Democratic Party
Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
- NDP
- Edmonton Strathcona
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $141,604.97
- Government Page
- Nov/8/23 3:27:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I believe if you seek it you will find unanimous consent from the House for the following motion: We need a ceasefire in Gaza and we also need all hostages returned.
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- Nov/2/23 2:50:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, more than 400 Canadians are trapped in Gaza, including Ahmed Alheluo of Edmonton, who is recovering from surgery and unable to transport himself. First, he was told by Canadian authorities to stay where he is, then to evacuate to Rafah, then to stay put again as Canadians may not be allowed to cross into Egypt. While the government ignores calls for a ceasefire, Ahmed is struggling to survive, and today we have learned that not a single Canadian is on the evacuation list.
Why is Canada not advocating for the lives of Canadians in Gaza, and when will the Liberals call for a ceasefire?
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- Oct/24/23 6:46:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have one very short question and then one that is a bit longer. The first question is this: What on earth is the difference between a humanitarian pause and a ceasefire? Stop dropping bombs on kids. That is the same thing. Why can the government not use the word “ceasefire”? Why can the government not say what so many people in our country have been urging it to say: “ceasefire”? We need a ceasefire now, and if it needs to call it a humanitarian pause, it is going to have to explain why that is different from a ceasefire.
For years, New Democrats have asked Canada to end arms sales to Israel while the occupation continues. For years, we have been asking it to condemn illegal settlements, to call for an end to settler attacks, to ban trade of products from illegal settlements and to end the blockade of Gaza, and still the Liberals have remained silent.
Once again, call for a ceasefire. The children of Palestine need the Liberals to stand up now.
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- Oct/24/23 6:38:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, since October 7, Israelis have not been able to mourn their dead in peace. Every day we are learning more about the sickening and horrifying brutality of Hamas and the Hamas terrorist attacks. We mourn the loss of so many bright lights, including so many people who were working for peace. We want to see the hostages come home now.
Only a few miles away from where Hamas committed these terrorist attacks, Israeli military bombs are now raining down on homes in Gaza. More than 2,000 children in Gaza have been killed in the past two weeks. Families have been eradicated. Half of Gaza's homes have been destroyed.
A few days ago, 18 people were killed in an Israeli military air strike on a Greek Orthodox church, where 200 vulnerable people had sought shelter. Bombs fall next to schools and hospitals. Children are experiencing mass trauma. Surgeries are performed with no anaesthetic and with vinegar from the corner store. Humanitarian aid is desperately needed. Palestinians are not able to mourn their dead either because the bombs keep falling.
My city of Edmonton is grieving. In my community of Edmonton, I know of at least eight families who have, together, lost over 100 people, 100 family members in the siege of Gaza. We need a ceasefire now.
Dehumanization of the enemy is a terrible feature of wars and genocides. It is already evident in this war, with Hamas militants spitting on and torturing their victims. It is disgusting. It is horrifying. The Israeli defence minister is using words such as “human animals”. The Israeli president has said that the “entire nation” of Gazans is responsible for Hamas.
There is a straight line between dehumanization and the hate crimes we are seeing around the world. We know that hate crimes against Jewish Canadians have massively increased since October 7. It is heartbreaking to see what is happening in the world. The National Council of Canadian Muslims says that reports of hate crimes against Muslims have increased by 1,000%.
I am deeply concerned by the silencing of Jewish and Palestinian people, particularly of women and of women's voices across Canada, in the media, on social platforms and in public discourse. This is a a time for us who are not Palestinian and who not Jewish to listen and to learn. We need a ceasefire.
Our call for a ceasefire does not mean we do not want the end of Hamas. Of course we do. However, the people of Gaza are not Hamas. The children of Gaza are not Hamas. Palestinians are not Hamas. They deserve, as all people do, to live, to thrive, to be free and to be safe. They do not deserve this.
These bombings will not make Israelis safe either. Collective punishment does not make anyone safer.
Canada must do better. We must recognize the broader context of this war and the ongoing occupation in which we have so much work to do. Before this war, Gazans were severely restricted in their movement by Israel.
Israel still occupies the West Bank, where illegal settlements are being built. As rockets have fallen on towns in Israel, settlers have attacked Palestinian residents of the West Bank. The occupation has enormous costs, most importantly in lives, but also in long-term security. I urge the government, now, to finally call for a ceasefire.
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- Oct/20/23 11:49:29 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canada has supported international justice efforts in response to the wars in Ukraine and Syria, but has refused to support international court investigations in Israel and Palestine. The parties in this conflict and the victims of this conflict need to know that violations of international law will be prosecuted. This includes terror attacks and collective punishment. International law applies to everyone. There are no exceptions.
Why will Canada not support independent court investigations into violations of international law by all parties to the war in Israel and Palestine?
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- Oct/16/23 2:34:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are profoundly alarmed by what we are witnessing in Gaza.
The UN has said that nearly half of Gaza's people have been forced to flee from their homes and that morgues are overflowing. This is a humanitarian crisis of extreme proportions.
It took almost a week for the minister to start paying attention to the impact of this war on Palestinians, even though thousands of people have been killed. Israelis and Palestinians have the right to live in peace.
Why will the Liberal government not stand up for international law and call for a ceasefire?
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- Feb/9/23 6:18:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, putting more people on the sanctions list if there is no enforcement of the sanctions is simply meaningless political theatre. The government should be ashamed of its actions on the sanctions regime.
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- Feb/9/23 6:11:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to stand today and address this place. I am here because I have tried multiple times, through multiple channels, to get information about the sanction regime that is being imposed by the Canadian government. I have asked questions through Order Paper questions. I have asked questions during question period, and I have raised it during debate, and yet it is impossible, as a parliamentarian, to get clear answers from the government on what is being done to ensure that our sanction regime is effective.
The reason this is so important is that the sanction regime is in fact the cornerstone of some of our foreign policy. We look at what is happening in Ukraine. We look at the illegal invasion by Russia of Ukraine and the horrific things being done by Vladimir Putin and his thugs within the Russian Federation. One of the tools we have, which could be one of the best tools we have, is the ability to sanction those oligarchs and make them pay for what they are doing to the people of Ukraine. We use sanctions in multiple countries. We are using sanctions in Haiti. We are sanctioning people in Iran. Though not nearly enough, we are sanctioning people responsible for the Tamil genocide.
However, the sanction regime is only as good as the enforcement, and right now that enforcement is not transparent. It is nothing that we can get any information on. It does not appear to be working at all. We have no idea why certain people are added to the list, when they are added to the list and what has been seized of their assets. It is extremely frustrating, for all of us in the House, not to be able to get these answers from the current government.
We have seen the Minister of Foreign Affairs stand up. The minister, frankly, hands out sanctions like she is Oprah Winfrey: “You get a sanction. You get a sanction.” All those people, those 1,600 people, should be on the sanction list. However, how fast do members think someone who is sanctioned is going to realize the sanctions do not matter if the Government of Canada is not enforcing those sanctions?
Let me tell a bit of a story. When I asked about the sanction regime and what was being seized, I was told that the government could point to only one asset that it had seized in six months in response to Putin's invasion: one asset, that of Roman Abramovich, of $120 million. That is it. Sixteen hundred people are on the sanction list, and the government has seized $120 million. That is a lot of money to me and that is a lot of money to members, but it is not a lot of money to Russian oligarchs. That is an embarrassingly small amount of money for Russian oligarchs.
How fast does the government think they are going to realize that the sanction regime is not strong in Canada? How fast does it think our allies are going to look at us and ask what is the point if we are not enforcing the sanctions? If the government is not putting the tools in place to enforce them, what is the point?
In 2017, the foreign affairs committee put forward recommendations on a sanction regime. The government has had ample time to implement those recommendations. It has not done so. I would love some information on why that is the case. I have been calling for a renewed study, five years later, of the sanction regime. I would like to see the foreign affairs committee study that, but at the moment that is not happening. I am going to need some answers.
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- Feb/8/23 2:16:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to take an opportunity to thank Canada's international development sector for its fantastic work, particularly its efforts to build a better world for women and girls.
As we know, women and girls are particularly vulnerable to humanitarian crises, climate change and conflict, and while Canadian organizations continue to play a vital role around the world, the federal government has not lived up to its obligations.
Canada must be ambitious. The government must commit to strategic, predictable and significant increases in funding and remove barriers that prevent Canadian organizations from doing their vitally important work, barriers such as what we are seeing in Afghanistan, where we have no carve-out for humanitarian organizations.
Finally, Canada needs to ensure that we have a strong public foreign policy, a feminist foreign policy that puts women and girls at the forefront of all of Canada's foreign policy decisions. Canadians are doing their part. It is time for the Canadian government to its.
I wish members a happy International Development Week.
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- Jan/31/23 2:51:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the people of Ukraine, Iran, Haiti and Myanmar deserve our support. The government constantly pats itself on the back for adding individuals to the sanctions list, but yesterday we learned that the government had only seized one asset in six months. The Liberals claim sanctions are a key piece of our foreign response, but there is no enforcement, there is no investigation and there is almost no seizing of assets.
When will the Liberals stop the political theatre and start getting serious on our sanctions regime?
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- Dec/13/22 11:04:10 a.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Madam Speaker, before I start today I would also like to express my deep condolences to the friends and family members of our colleague, Jim Carr. As members can see, I sit very close to where the member sat. I know he was a strong parliamentarian, and I thank his family for sharing him with us. I am very happy we were able to pass his private member's bill before he passed.
I would also like to express my condolences to those who worked quite closely with Mr. Carr in this place. I know many members, both of his own caucus and from all parties, were very close colleagues of his, and I give my sympathies to them as well.
Today we are speaking about Tibet and the challenges the Tibetan people are facing. I welcome every opportunity to speak about human rights, to speak about the rights of people around the world and to speak about the rights that are being denied to the people of Tibet. It is vitally important that as parliamentarians in Canada we are constantly aware of the human rights abuses that are taking place around the world and that we use whatever power and voice we have to raise those human rights abuses.
I was a member of the foreign affairs committee that did this recent study on Tibet and the Sino-Tibet dialogue, and I heard testimony from numerous people who told us about the challenges the Tibetan people are facing, so I am very happy to be able to stand and to speak about the need for continued dialogue and the need for Canada to continue to support the Tibetan people.
We are seeing the Chinese Communist party perpetrating human rights abuses among a number of different groups and a number of different people. There are definitely parallels, when we see the suppression of rights of the Tibetan people, with regard to the Uighur people. There are definitely parallels when we see how the Chinese government is shutting down dissidents and silencing dissidents within its population.
Therefore, of course the opportunity to speak to this is very important, and I know others before me have said this, but I want to also acknowledge that December 10 was international Human Rights Day. It is a day to acknowledge the importance of protecting human rights and a day to recognize those who defend human rights at risk to their own safety.
I am going to give a few examples of people who have done that. In the Philippines, Cristina Palabay has suffered serious threats from her government after she testified before our parliamentary committee, the international human rights subcommittee. The government is threatening her; her life is at risk; there are risks to her of being red-tagged by the Philippine government.
In Iran, the IRGC is executing protesters and arresting artists, human rights defenders and all those protesting for freedom. Semiramis Babaei is one of those artists. I know her cousin, a Canadian citizen, is deeply concerned about her safety.
In China, Huseyin Celil, a Uighur activist, has been illegally incarcerated for 16 years. For 16 years his wife and children have not heard from him and have not known how he is. Even now, Dong Guangping, who spoke against the Chinese government, is missing, and his family, his wife and daughter who live in Canada, have no idea of his whereabouts.
In Russia, we have Vladimir Kara-Murza, who has been imprisoned because he spoke out against Putin's brutal attack on Ukraine.
This is just a handful of individuals who have risked and continue to risk their lives for democracy, for human rights and for justice in their countries, and if my standing in this place and saying their names can protect them, help them, amplify their calls for justice and ensure human rights are protected around the world, then today and every day, every one of us must say their names: Cristina Palabay, Huseyin Celil, Dong Guangping, Vladimir Kara-Murza.
However, as we come together today to talk about the challenges that human rights defenders face, as we come together to talk about the challenges that the Tibetan people face, I want to raise some concerns I have about the process by which this came forward.
I have concerns that there are individuals within this place who are using tools to bring forward debate not because the debate is something that is pressing at the moment, but rather to stop the actual work of this place. I am concerned about it because we are seeing the exact same thing happening in the foreign affairs committee.
The foreign affairs committee did this important work to look at what is happening in Tibet, to examine the need for further Sino-Tibetan dialogue and to continue that dialogue, and to have Canada have a voice to press the Chinese government to act in a more ethical, more important manner. However, that same committee can no longer work. We are being prevented from doing very important work, and I will give members some examples of that.
Right now, we have yet to release a report on what is happening in Ukraine with the illegal invasion by Russia of Ukraine and the attacks on its people, on civilians, the horrendous violence that is being perpetrated against the Ukrainian people, the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation, an ally of Canada, that is being done by the Russian Federation. We have not released a study on that to Parliament. We have not tabled the findings of our study, because we have not been able to get that through the foreign affairs committee.
We have a study on Pakistan. Everybody in this House should be deeply concerned about the response to the horrendous and horrific flooding in Pakistan. We should be tabling a report on the study we did on the flooding in Pakistan, on the way our development dollars are spent and the way the government is using development dollars to help people around the world. We cannot do that, because our foreign affairs committee is not able to get that work done.
I am deeply concerned about what is happening in Iran. As I mentioned in my statement, we are hearing horrendous stories of protesters being executed. People who are simply standing up for their human rights, simply asking for the right to live in their country, for the right to democracy, for the right to justice, are being executed in their countries right now. As a foreign affairs committee, we have an obligation to be examining what is happening in Iran and recommending actions for our government to take. That is vital work for the foreign affairs committee to be doing.
I, in fact, brought forward a study that I think is extremely important for the work that we do as a country, on looking at our sanctions regime. Yesterday, I spoke to Bill S-8 about the sanctions regime, about how our sanctions regime is not as effective, not as strong and not as capable as it should be. I brought a study forward at the foreign affairs committee, and we were meant to study it during the fall session, but of course that also did not happen.
Finally, I would also point out that since the spring, since April, the foreign affairs committee has attempted to look at the reproductive rights of women in every corner of the world. This, for me, is probably one of the most important issues we face. This is something that implicates almost every single human being, certainly 50% of the world. We know tens of thousands of women die each year because they do not have access to reproductive health care.
We know that what we are seeing south of us in the United States is very problematic. In fact, the Supreme Court of the United States of America has made a decision to take away the rights of women. That has implications that ripple around the world. As the foreign affairs committee, we have an obligation to examine what those impacts are.
We have an obligation to bring forward any recommendations that will help women around the world access their right to bodily autonomy and health care, but we are unable to do that right now, to be honest, because of one member of the foreign affairs committee. I will not even say it is the party, because I have worked very well with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and I have worked extremely well with the member for Chatham-Kent—Leamington. However, there is one member within our committee of 11 who has completely destroyed the ability of the foreign affairs committee to do any meaningful work.
I want us to think about that for a minute. I want us to contemplate the fact that the rules of this place allow it. They allow one member to take over a committee and impose his will on that committee. However, is that democracy? Is that something in which our constituents, those of Edmonton Strathcona, or in other ridings in Alberta or around the country, would like to see their members engage? Do they want us to work collaboratively to find solutions, to find ways for us to go forward, or do they want to listen to somebody speak for hours and hours on nonsense? These are some of the questions I have for my constituents.
Speaking of my constituents, today I was supposed to have a very important meeting with the Alberta Federation of Labour. Of course, we all have very busy lives. We have our time in the House, but we also have other obligations that we undertake. One of the most-important issues for me right now is helping Albertan workers transition to a future economy, so I meet as often as I can with the Alberta Federation of Labour. I know it is at the forefront, representing the needs and rights of workers with respect to transitioning to a future-facing economy. However, I am not at that meeting today because I am in the House, again, because the Conservatives are trying to prevent the House from doing the work we had determined we would do. I have concerns about that as well.
One of the things that most bothers when I look at this is that, as a parliamentarian, I am not part of the government; I am part of the opposition. The opposition has an obligation to hold the government to account, to watch what it does, to evaluate that, to suggest changes and to call it out when we do not agree with the actions it has taken. When a member of the Conservative Party filibusters the work we are trying to do, it means that nobody is keeping an eye on the government's actions. We are not doing our job as parliamentarians to hold the government accountable.
I know that my colleagues within the Liberal Party, within the government, do not always necessarily welcome our advice, but I think they recognize the value of having a democracy where we work together on building consensus and making laws and regulations stronger. I think we all know that is the best way for us to work together.
This is all to say that I have deep concerns about why I am now giving a speech in the House on something that is interfering with some of the business of the day, which we thought we would be engaging in today.
However, I do not want to, in any way, take away from the fact that the foreign affairs committee did a study on what was happening in Tibet, and it is a very important study. I was very happy to take part in that. I was very happy to table that study to the House of Commons and have the House and the government respond to it. I was very happy to see that Tibet was included in the Indo-Pacific strategy and that the government brought forward that strategy. However, my worries on the rationale for the debate at this time still stands.
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- Dec/12/22 1:31:26 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Mr. Speaker, it is always a great honour to stand in this place to speak on behalf of the residents and constituents of Edmonton Strathcona. I am particularly delighted to stand today to speak about our sanctions regime and the work that needs to be done to strengthen it and ensure it is as adequate and as strong as it can be.
We know that sanctions are one of the tools we have to hold governments and individuals around the world to the rule of law, to human rights, to democracy and to fairness and justice for their citizens. For a very long time, many members in this place have worked very hard and well together to try to increase the effectiveness of our sanctions regime and the ability of sanctions to do what we hope they will do, which is to change the course of governments and individuals, to change their behaviour and punish them for the harms they have caused without harming and punishing innocent people and citizens.
The act we are debating today is Bill S-8. This act would amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, to make consequential amendments to other acts and to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations.
The proposed legislation amends the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, or the IRPA, and it provides Canada with much-needed abilities to better link government sanctions with authorities related to immigration enforcement. I think we can all agree that this means that not only will foreign nationals sanctioned due to the invasion of Ukraine be inadmissible to Canada, but it will also stop all previously sanctioned individuals from places like Iran, Myanmar or Burma, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe among others.
I and the NDP are very supportive of the bill, but we need to consider, and most of my comments today will be on this, that this is a small piece of what needs to be done to strengthen Canada's sanctions regime.
The bill would not fix some of the things for which we have been calling for some time; for example, the absence of parliamentary oversight. We have very little parliamentary oversight of our sanctions regime, and I will speak to that a bit later.
This would also not fix the enforcement in areas that are not immigration related, for example, the seizure of assets. Again, I will speak to this in more depth later on, but I would raise again in the House that to date about $121 million has been seized from Russian oligarchs as part of our sanctions regime to force Russia to stop its illegal war in Ukraine. While that $121 million is an awful lot to me and probably an awful lot to most of us in this room and in the country, it is not an awful lot for Russian oligarchs.
The bill would also not fix the challenge that we as parliamentarians have with clarity. We still do not have a good system in this place that explains why the government chooses to add some people to the list to be sanctioned, how those decisions are made and how the timing of those decisions is determined. We know we work with our allies and other countries. That is very important for sanctions to be effective. However, as parliamentarians, we need to have more clarity on how those decisions are made.
As we go forward in looking at strengthening the sanctions regime, there are people in the House who have been doing very important work on this. I have to call out my colleague from the Conservative Party, the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, for his excellent work on the Magnitsky sanctions. The Deputy Prime Minister also did great work on ensuring the Magnitsky act was put in place. Of course, as some people have mentioned before, and my colleague from the Bloc mentioned just previously, the challenge is that putting a law in place does not actually matter if we do not enforce it or if we do not ensure it is adequately applied.
A perfect example of this is that with the Magnitsky sanctions, we are supposed to do a five-year review. Five years is 2022. There is some review being done in the Senate, but we have not done any review within the foreign affairs committee or within this Parliament. For me, that is the challenge we have.
I spoke briefly about the need to strengthen our sanctions regime. For years, the NDP has been pushing for a stronger sanctions regime. We are happy to see some of the important changes that this bill would bring forward, but there are things we have been asking for for years, including in the 2017 foreign affairs committee study on Canada's sanctions regime. Many of the recommendations from that study have not been implemented. We look forward to the government moving somewhat faster than it has to date to make sure those are implemented, especially considering that right now what we are seeing in Ukraine is a vital need for sanctions to be a key piece of our response to the Ukrainian war.
Another example of why our sanctions regime has not been as effective as it could be is the waiver. We saw the government in the summer, in the middle of July, put a waiver in place that would cancel some of the important sanctions we put in place against Russia. I am not going to stand here and pretend that would not have been a very difficult decision for the government to make. Our German allies and Ukrainian allies were asking for different things, and that is a very difficult situation to be in. While I did not agree with the decision that was made by the government, I do accept it was a difficult decision to make.
That said, first of all, the pipeline the waiver was supporting was a piece of equipment returned to Germany to be returned to Russia, and Russia did not pick it up. The second thing is that the pipeline it was meant to be used on has now been blown up. There is no reason whatsoever for us to still have this waiver in place and still have this lessening of our sanctions against Russia, yet we still do.
The Government of Canada has still not cancelled the waiver, which is appalling. It is something it should be doing immediately. I know the foreign affairs committee will be recommending that, if we can get out of the filibuster that has been put in place by some of our colleagues in the Conservative Party.
The other piece of our sanctions regime that I want to know about is how we can double-check it to see that what is happening is adequate and being done properly. I have talked a bit about sanctions oversight, and we know that after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, sanctions were put in place. However, we also know that those sanctions trickled out after months and months. We learned that many oligarchs had the opportunity to move their assets from Canada so they would not have those assets seized. That is a missed opportunity since those assets were supposed to help rebuild Ukraine and help with the rebuilding initiatives.
We also know that the government has failed to provide the clarity on sanctions that we have hoped for. For example, I have asked about this multiple times in the House and through Order Paper questions to get more information and details on who is being sanctioned, what is being sanctioned, what has been seized, how it is being seized and what processes are being used. However, I have never been able to get an adequate answer from the government.
In fact, one of the Order Paper questions was returned to me with a response that said the government was not 100% sure that it would be able to give me accurate information, so it provided me with no information at all. That is an interesting tactic. I would love to see somebody try to say in a high school or university course that since they are not sure they are giving all the information, they will give none at all. That is something we have problems with. We still do not have that level of clarity.
I have another concern. When the government introduced the last budget implementation act, there was a change to the way that sanctions were dealt with. In the past, there was parliamentary oversight because the government needed to record the use of the sanctions regime or the sanctions act and needed to report it to Parliament. It needed to be tabled with Parliament.
In the Budget Implementation Act, that requirement was removed. Therefore, it is now no longer the government's obligation to tell Parliament what those sanctions are or what has been seized. We could find out if we took the government to court and used a judicial remedy, but we cannot find out just through parliamentary processes.
This is taking away the right of all parliamentarians to have that transparency and to have that understanding of how our sanctions are being chosen, how they are being enforced and if they are working. A sanction is not that useful if it is not being enforced. A sanction is not that important if countries or individuals understand that it will not be enforced in Canada.
There is an interesting thing I found out as I was doing some digging around sanctions. If we want to find out what goods are coming into Canada from Russia, we can look at Russian shipping records. We cannot find that out by looking at Canadian shipping records.
It is very interesting to me that there is transparency that can be found in the U.S., the U.K., the EU and Russia, but we cannot find it here.
That is another challenge I have with our sanction regime. As I said at the beginning, this particular bill would help with some aspects of our sanction regime. I am very happy to support this legislation. I am very happy to see that it would be fixing some of those holes around our sanction regime. However, this seems very much, to me, like tinkering around the edges.
We have heard from the Senate. One of the key quotations from the Senate hearings on Bill S-8, from Canada's foremost expert on sanctions policy, Andrea Charron, was this:
While there is nothing wrong with highlighting in the Immigration and Refugee Act that inadmissibility due to sanctions is possible, this repeats a pattern whereby Canada tinkers on the margins of legislation without addressing core policy and process issues. If we are to continue to sanction autonomously with allies, we need to fix fundamental issues of policy and [fundamental issues of] process.
I believe that we have many things we still need to do. We need to have a comprehensive review of Canada's sanction regime. The NDP has proposed a study at the foreign affairs committee on Canada's sanction regime. That study was meant to have taken place during this fall's session. We are very hopeful that it will take place very quickly once the winter session begins. I urge my colleagues in the Conservative Party to stop filibustering our committee so that we can get on with the very important work of foreign affairs.
We can ensure that our sanctions are being more effectively applied. We can bring forward legislation that would align with the recommendations in the 2017 foreign affairs committee report that called for greater transparency. It called for a review of our sanctions regime and called for a parliamentary body of all parties that would assist in identifying which names and which individuals should be on the Magnitsky list and should be sanctioned by the Government of Canada.
One of our biggest problems, and I have said this many times, is that if we cannot fix our sanction regime, our sanction regime very quickly becomes not as effective and not as useful as we need it to be.
I think that members of the House have brought up circumstances where that is the case. We know that, for example, in Ukraine, sanctions are one of the key tools we have to hold Russia to account for its illegal invasion in Ukraine. It is one of the key levers that Canada can pull to force the Russian Federation to rethink this horrific and illegal attack on civilians.
It is also one of the things that we can use when other human rights abuses are raised around the world. We are seeing horrific attacks on protesters in Iran. Just this morning, I woke up to another horrific example of a protester being executed because he was fighting for his freedom. We know that there are many Iranians who are in grave danger right now. If this sanction regime can be fixed and can help the people in Iran even a little bit, it has to be done.
I am interested in looking at sanctioning a whole range of characters around the world who we know have been responsible for atrocious human rights abuses, such as what we see in Yemen and from members of Saudi Arabia. We need to be ensuring that, as a country, we are standing up for human rights, using the tools we have at our disposal for those efforts.
I also want to point out that the sanctions regime is a tool we also have to use for our feminist international assistance policy and for the feminist foreign policy that we certainly hope the government tables in Parliament very soon. We know that a huge percentage of the people who are identified by the Magnitsky sanctions and the other SEMA sanction measures are perpetrating human rights abuses that are disproportionately impacting women and girls around the world. We know that sexual violence and gender-based violence have been used as a tool to silence journalists and human rights defenders around the world. We know that rape has been used. This violence does not align with a country like Canada, which has a feminist foreign policy and a feminist international assistance policy, and we need to be looking at our foreign responses through that lens.
I would like to end my comments with this. As I was travelling here from Edmonton yesterday, I took some time to read some of the speeches from the Nobel Peace Prize winners, and I want to read a quote to the House. It is by Oleksandra Matviichuk from the Center for Civil Liberties, the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner. She spoke to me about the need for sanctions and why it was so important that we work with our allies to make our sanctions regime stronger.
She stated:
Peace, progress and human rights are inextricably linked. A state that kills journalists, imprisons activists, or disperses peaceful demonstrations poses a threat not only to its citizens. Such a state poses a threat to the entire region and peace in the world as a whole. Therefore, the world must adequately respond to systemic violations. In political decision-making, human rights must be as important as economic benefits or security. This approach {must} be applied in foreign policy...
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- Nov/18/22 12:06:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, over the past few weeks, the Liberal government has met several times with its Indian counterparts, but we have seen no statements from the government calling out the ongoing persecution of minorities in India, including Sikhs, Muslims, women and other minority groups. The Indian government must respect the human rights of all Indian citizens, and Canada must call it out when those rights are denied.
At a time when the Indo-Pacific region is becoming more important than ever, why is Canada remaining silent on the horrendous human rights abuses taking place in India?
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- Oct/26/22 6:46:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank all of my colleagues who are standing in the House tonight defending the Uighur people. I agree with many of my colleagues when they say this is an issue that is beyond partisan politics. This is not an issue that we should be bickering about. This is an issue that all parliamentarians must come together for.
I was elected in 2019 and the very first committee I was put on was the international human rights subcommittee. I was put on that committee, I believe, because I have done work in international human rights for most of my career. One of the very first studies we undertook within that committee was to look at what was happening to the Uighur people, to the people in Xinjiang. It was very difficult testimony. I have said that in this House before. It was among the most difficult things I have heard, the stories of torture, of rape, of forced sterilization; of surveillance. The horrific testimony that we heard from people who had escaped was almost impossible to hear.
I have mentioned in this place before that for me, my job was to bear witness. My job was to hear that testimony. I did not have to endure what we have asked the Uighur people to endure. I was elected in 2019, so I am a relatively new parliamentarian, but I have to say that it has been three years. I have been a member for three years and I have not seen the action that we need to see to protect the Uighur people. We have not seen action by the government that would make me think it is taking this genocide seriously, that it is acting with the urgency that is required.
There are many people in this place right now that have loved ones who are still in concentration camps, that they may not know where they are, that they know have been tortured, that they know have had to endure horrific experiences. To those people, as a parliamentarian in Canada, I have to say I am sorry. I am sorry that we have let them down, that we have not done everything we can to stop the genocide that we all have agreed is happening to their people. I am sorry that we have not been strong enough, that we have not done what we needed to do.
We did declare this a genocide. This Parliament did say that this is a genocide and we do have obligations when we recognize that; every one of us. We all look at the horrific genocides that have happened in history. We said never again; never will we put the lives of people at risk this way; never will we turn a blind eye to the death of a people, and yet for three years we have been doing that. For longer than three years we have been doing that.
I am extremely proud to support the motion that has been brought forward by my colleague from Pierrefonds—Dollard. I am very happy that I have been able to work with him at the international human rights subcommittee. I am very happy that I have been able to work with members from all parties on this important work.
I am extremely proud of my colleague for the work that he has done and what he has brought forward. Of course I am concerned about the fact that when we have votes in the House, cabinet does not participate. Of course I am concerned that this is a motion. We know that a motion is not binding. We know that a motion is not legislation. It is not protecting Uighurs the way we need to. I understand this may be what he felt he was able to achieve at this point with the government, but it is not enough. It is not near enough. This does not go far enough to protect the people. As parliamentarians, as people who believe in human rights, as people who believe in human dignity, it does not go as far as we need it to go.
I will say that in terms of the immigration issues that this motion brings forward, bringing 10,000 people to Canada who are fleeing violence, of course I support that. I do not understand and never will understand why every single persecuted group in the world is not given the unlimited number that certain persecuted groups in the world are given.
I will never understand why it is unlimited Ukrainians, and I am a hundred per cent in support of unlimited Ukrainians coming to Canada to flee persecution from the Russian war in their country. However, I do not understand why it is not unlimited people coming from other countries as well. I do not understand how we can put that value in place, how we can say that for some it is unlimited and for some we have a 10,000 limit. I do not understand it.
The other piece that we really need to talk about here tonight is that this motion calls for allowing 10,000 Uighurs fleeing violence to come to Canada, but we are not doing enough to make sure that the Uighurs in concentration camps, the Uighurs in China, can actually come to Canada. They are being held in concentration camps and tortured in China, and many of them are unable to get to safety.
As a member of the international community, we also have a very big obligation to be doing what we can to ensure that the government in China is being held to account. Canada used to be a diplomatic powerhouse. We are not a giant powerhouse. We are not a massive economy or whatnot. However, we used to be seen as a convenor, a clear diplomat, a leader in terms of diplomacy. We used to have an ability to bring countries together, to bring groups forward to work together and to bring action.
Unfortunately, I do not feel like Canada has the ability to do that anymore. I feel like we have undermined our ability to do that, that we have in fact put trade at the top of all our relationships to the detriment of our relationships with regard to diplomacy, to the detriment of our relationships with development. We do not have relationships anymore that we can use to push things forward.
A perfect example for me is that the human rights council was going to have a debate on the Uighur genocide. They really did need to get the votes from countries around the world to participate. China has a massive power, and it used that massive power to cajole, bully, force and make other countries vote on its side. It used all these different tricks and tools. As a country, we do not have the ability to push back on that any longer. That is a mistake. That is a place we have failed to be able to protect the Uighur people.
I would like to see us invest in diplomacy. I would like to see us invest in building those relationships so we can bring our allies and other democracies together, and so that as a common voice we are standing up for the Uighur people. As a common voice we have more ability to put pressure on the Chinese government to ensure that it is stopping the genocide against the Uighur people.
The support from multilateral institutions is key to making sure those institutions have unfettered access. That is a key thing that Canada can do to make sure we are able to report adequately on what is happening in China and invest in support for human rights activists.
The incredible human rights activists who are part of the Uighur population, who are standing up for Uighurs around the world, have raised their voices for years to get support, and Canada could play an important role in protecting them while they fight for their people, while they fight for the people in their communities.
Finally, I have to say that as a Parliament, as a government, as a country, we must all stand and be very unified in condemning what is happening in China against the Uighur people. That includes our cabinet. That includes the government. That includes every member of the House of Commons. We need to stand together, condemn what is happening there and raise our voices to say, “No, we are not putting trade ahead of human lives. No, we are not going to say that money is more important than people. Not this time. Not anymore.”
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- Oct/18/22 11:23:07 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have the great honour of splitting my time today with the member for Vancouver East.
Today we have a concurrence debate, and we are talking about Ukraine, we are talking about Russia and we are talking about what more Canada can do to support the people of Ukraine and support the brave people in Russia who are valiantly trying to hold the line on the principles of democracy, the principles of human rights and the principles of international law in their country, which has very clearly been taken over by Vladimir Putin, who is of course not interested in any of those things.
I want to start by telling members a bit about what I did last night. Last night, I had the great honour of joining my leader, the member for Burnaby South, in meeting with three remarkable individuals. One of those individuals was Irwin Cotler, who I know everybody in this House is well acquainted with. Another was Mr. Bill Browder, who many will know as the architect of the Magnitsky sanctions. He is a really remarkable human being who has done so much to protect those who have been illegally detained around the world.
We also heard from Ms. Kara-Murza. Ms. Kara-Murza is the wife of detained political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza. She spoke of the pain she felt. She spoke of the challenges that she, her family and her three sons face. She spoke of her husband. One of the things she said to me was that he is a man of integrity and a man of brutal honesty and that his ethics are so strong. She made a little joke that it is not always easy to live with people like that, people who are so clear in their stance and their ethics.
Ms. Kara-Murza told us about how hard it has been since he was imprisoned in Russia in April. This is a man who has been poisoned twice by the Russian Federation. It has attempted to murder him twice. He has undergone two assassination attempts while imprisoned in a Russian prison since April, because he condemned the illegal war and illegal genocidal invasion in Ukraine.
I want to say his name in this place. One of the things that Ms. Kara-Murza, Professor Irwin Cotler and Mr. Bill Browder said to us is that we need to say his name because that protects him and makes it harder for the Russian Federation to murder him. I will take a moment in this House to say that name, and I hope everybody hears as I say it: Vladimir Kara-Murza.
This is somebody who is fighting for democracy in this world. He has taken on risks. He has taken on incredible pain and suffering for himself and for his family as a fight for democracy. I do not know if any one of us in this room would be brave enough or strong enough to do what Vladimir Kara-Murza has done. I certainly hope we would be. We need to take a moment to honour him and honour what he has done for democracy, for the Russian people, for human rights and for the rule of law.
While the motion deals a lot with protecting Russians, I think we can all agree that what is at the heart of this is the war in Ukraine. Similar to Vladimir Kara-Murza, Ukrainians are not just fighting for themselves. They are not just fighting for their own country. They are fighting for all of us.
In the Journal of Democracy, David J. Kramer wrote, “The best hope for democracy in Russia—and all of Eurasia—is for the international community to support Ukraine in its efforts to defeat Vladimir Putin.” He went on: “Putin's fear of a successful, vibrant, democratic Ukraine on Russia's border is the real reason for the invasion. Nothing scares Putin more than for Ukraine to become a successful alternative model to the rotten, authoritarian system he oversees in Russia.”
Mr. Putin's war is a proxy war. The real goal is not territory; the real goal is hegemony. It should be obvious to everyone now that Putin is waging war to stop democracy from advancing, and he threatens not only Ukraine, but all of Europe and all of us in the West as well. It is important to remember, and I think sometimes Canadians forget this, that Russia is, in fact, our neighbour. Of course, we live on a globe. I do not mean to trigger any of the flat-earthers out there, but Russia is our neighbour.
We know Putin's war on democracy did not start with Ukraine and we know it will not end with Ukraine. Ukraine is one piece in this puzzle. We should not forget that Putin's first tactic has been to try to destabilize democracies across the world through disinformation to weaken our democratic institutions and systems first. His cyber-attacks and disinformation campaigns in the U.S. are now coming to light. He has tried to attack Canada's elections, just as he did the U.S. election, and he continues to use these tactics in Europe and elsewhere. It is very important that all of us in Canada think about this.
Last week, I met with progressive parliamentarians from around the world. I met with an MP, who has her home seven kilometres from the Russian border. While we often feel insulated in Canada and feel that this is not attacking us right now, the reality for that Finnish progressive member of Parliament is very different, and it is important that we keep that all in our minds.
It is also important to recognize that we are not just talking about a war between armies. Putin's strategy has been, and continues to be, to attack civilians. His atrocious war crimes are on civilian targets, like theatres, hospitals and playgrounds.
I know I have brought this up in the House before. I carry with me a piece of the shrapnel that a Ukrainian member of Parliament gave me, so I can remember what rips through the communities in Ukraine. This is not army to army. This is ripping through the community in which that MP and her eight year old. She travels around the world to ensure there is support for Ukraine. She has an app on her phone that tells her when that shrapnel is ripping through her community. When that happens, she phones to find out if her eight year old is all right. This is important for us to consider.
It is important that everybody in the House and in our country stay firm in our support for Ukraine. That is not the case right now. I brought this up in the House yesterday, and I spoke to the media about this yesterday as well. Danielle Smith, the Conservative premier in my province, has said that Ukraine does not deserve to win this war, that it should bow down and that it should stop being supported. I have a big problem with that: I have not heard the leader of the official opposition condemn those comments. The Conservative premier is making these horrific and horrible comments, and I have not heard a single Conservative member condemn them. It would be very welcoming to hear that.
I want to talk about the one thing that came up previously, and that is nuclear war. Unbelievably, a member of the Conservative Party just suggested that we should not be against nuclear war, that we, as a world, should not be against nuclear weapons. I, as a New Democrat, will always be against nuclear weapons, because when we do not prohibit nuclear weapons, the western world can be held over a barrel by any madman or genocidal maniac at any time. Very clearly, nuclear weapons need to be prohibited. I will stand by—
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- Oct/17/22 3:06:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for eight months, Ukrainians have heroically defended their country against Putin's genocidal invasion, yet the government's response has been slow and ineffective. The sanctions regime is a mess, with no enforcement and no accountability. The humanitarian aid and the supplies for Ukraine that the government has promised have not been delivered. Even Ukrainian MPs have said Canada's response is “just unexplainable”. Now the Conservative premier, Danielle Smith, says that Ukraine should submit.
Ukraine needs and deserves our support. When will the government finally act to support Ukrainians?
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- Oct/4/22 3:14:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, right now, heroic women and men are risking their lives fighting for their rights and freedoms, demanding justice for Mahsa “Gina” Amini and for the victims of flight PS752. The government must use the Magnitsky act to punish every guilty member of the murderous IRGC. The violence and intimidation in Canada must stop, and Canada must support bids for justice at the ICAO and the ICC.
It has been a thousand days. We need justice, we need action and we need it now. When will the government stop with the half-symbolic measures and support the Iranian people?
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- Sep/26/22 2:48:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, 23 million Afghans are dealing with drought, food shortages and the breakdown of health services. Canadian humanitarian organizations face criminal prosecution if they even try to help because of the government's restrictive interpretation of the Criminal Code. We have been asking the government to fix this for over a year and the minister has done nothing. This inaction is shocking. Canadians want to help Afghans in need.
Will the government promise to offer a workable solution for Canadian organizations before winter sets in and Afghans begin to starve?
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- Jun/14/22 3:13:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the new UN report on the occupied Palestinian territory in Israel has alarming findings: increased discrimination, ongoing human rights abuses and a deepening asymmetrical conflict. Israel clearly has no intention of ending the illegal occupation.
This UN report adds to the list of reputable reports that the government is ignoring. Human rights are human rights everywhere in the world. The cycle of violence will continue as long as the government stays silent. Why will the government not even consider this United Nations report and revisit its policy towards Palestine and Israel?
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Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to stand today to share my thoughts on this very important piece of legislation. I would like to begin by thanking the member for Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle for bringing it forward. This legislation should have come forward much sooner. The fact that we have it now is a testament to the work the member has done and a testament to her appreciation for, and efforts on behalf of, women in Canada.
I would also like to take this opportunity to express my support for this piece of legislation. The New Democrats have always looked for ways to do more to support women, protect women and children from violence and intimate partner violence and support necessary reforms to the judicial system. The New Democrats will continue to advocate for more action and investment from the Liberal government to continue to eliminate gender-based violence. As the foreign affairs critic for the New Democratic Party, I will of course be pushing for additional funding, additional support and additional action to support women and girls outside of the country as well.
This bill is an important step forward. It is an important step that needed to be taken. It includes judicial reform and allows for better support for victims to protect them. I think all of us in this place need to think about how it must feel to live in coercive situations, to live in abusive situations and to live in that fear and trauma. It is very, very important that as parliamentarians and lawmakers we consider this in the work we do.
There can be no greater job for parliamentarians than to protect the lives of children and women in this country. I know that intimate partner violence is not solely done to women, but it is predominantly done to women. I think we can all agree that violence against women in this country is a crisis. It is a national crisis.
Prior to COVID-19, globally, one in three women experienced some sort of intimate partner violence. We know that intimate partner violence occurs in low-income households and that there is a higher incidence of it in indigenous homes. We know that COVID-19 has resulted in a surge in gender-based violence. During the first six months of 2021, 92 women and girls were killed in Canada. In recognition of this upsurge in violence, the Standing Committee on the Status of Women has recently undertaken a study on IPV.
I want to give members a little sense of the situation in Alberta as well. In Alberta, one in three Albertans will experience domestic violence in their lifetime, and the overwhelming majority of these victims are female. In Calgary, the Calgary-based Sagesse Domestic Violence Prevention Society had to expand its services, with demand increasing by more than 100% between 2019 and 2021. In fact, as Andrea Silverstone, the CEO of Sagesse, said:
After every natural disaster that we’ve seen in Alberta, whether it was the flood or the fires, the rates of domestic violence went up and they never went down again.
The effects of COVID on domestic violence and the rise in the numbers is going to continue for two to five years or even longer because there are issues of employment and economic stress that is also a contributing factor that we know is still ongoing and probably going to get worse before it gets better.
The number of victims of domestic violence was up 13.5% from 2019 to 2020, according to information provided by the Edmonton Police Service, and that is in Canada, but the increase that was caused during COVID is echoed around the world. We know that the impacts of COVID will be felt disproportionately by women and girls around the world.
I brought up earlier today that I am very proud of the fact that our country is one of the first countries to have a feminist international assistance policy. I am very proud that I was able to contribute to the building of that policy before I was a member of this place. I am looking forward to the day when the government tables and brings forward the feminist foreign policy. I think it is important, when we look at supporting women and and girls around the world, that this is not a development issue but a diplomacy issue, a defence issue, and an issue where I cannot think of a single ministry within this government that does not need to have a feminist lens applied to it.
Some of the ways that we can do more to protect women and girls in Canada and around the world is to do things like have predictable and targeted funding made available to ensure that those resources are in place. A key thing we can do to protect women and girls in Canada is to look at those 231 calls for action from the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls report.
We have seen the commission bring forward this road map for us. We have seen the commission outline exactly what needs to be done, and we could be doing those things right now. It would be additional support that we could do. However, that is not what the bill talks about. It talks about putting pieces in place that will provide that additional level of security for women who are experiencing violence from their intimate partners.
I think that everyone in the House agrees that this is an excellent step to take. We are all looking forward to bringing this to committee, to having the bill go forward and made into law. We can see by the unanimous consent that we saw earlier today that it is important for all of us.
Some of the things we also need to consider as we look at the bill before us and future bills to improve supports for women and girls are things like low-barrier housing, low-barrier shelters, so that more women can have shelter, find relief and be safe with their children against intimate partner violence.
We can ensure that there are better supports for the training of judges. The bill is an excellent step for training of judges, but we have seen it around this country where judges do not understand intimate partner violence, they do not understand coercion and they do not know how to deal with that when it comes in front of them.
We have a case in southern Alberta right now, in Lethbridge. This is an example of where a mother has not seen her child for over a year. They have been separated. The father, who was awarded custody, has not followed the law that was outlined and has not provided shared custody to the mother. This is despite the fact that he has been charged with seven pending offences, including possession of a weapon, death threats, criminal harassment and stalking. This is a situation where the Queen's Bench justice does not seem to feel that this man is a risk, and I think this education for judges is vitally important.
I will conclude by once again thanking the member for bringing this piece of legislation forward. I was touched by her intervention earlier today, and I fully support what she has done to bring this forward. The NDP will be supporting this legislation. I also want to express my sympathy to all those for whom this bill did not come soon enough.
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