- 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: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $141,604.97
- Government Page
- Apr/15/24 5:21:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I look forward to participating in this debate this evening.
I want to just say very quickly that I do not think a concurrence debate is the appropriate place for this debate to be happening. As I mentioned earlier tonight, I moved, over a year ago, a motion at the foreign affairs committee to look at this exact issue. In fact, in just a number of weeks we will be undertaking that study within the foreign affairs committee to look at this in a fulsome way and have an opportunity to hear from experts, hear from witnesses and hear from Iranian Canadians who have been impacted in our communities across this country.
Today, I want to start by telling a bit of a story. When I was elected in 2019, we were all sworn in in November. We had very little time in December before the House rose. I went home for Christmas holidays, like all of my colleagues did. Then, on January 8, 2020, flight PS752 was shot out of the sky by the terrorist regime in Iran. There were 176 innocent people on that flight. Fifty-five of them were Canadian. We had 30 permanent residents. Many of those individuals were from Edmonton, and particularly from Edmonton Strathcona. The University of Alberta was deeply impacted. It was the first event as a parliamentarian that I needed to deal with. I cannot say how difficult it was and how much grief my community felt.
The difficulty I had while sitting in the university's biggest auditorium for the memorial service that we held for the victims from Edmonton made that probably one of the hardest days I have ever spent. I sat with members from all parties for that memorial. I cried with Liberal members and I cried with Conservative members because it was such a devastating day for our community and it continues to be. I gather with the Iranian Edmonton community every year to mark that terrible day and to remember the beautiful souls who we lost that day.
In addition, it has been one and a half years since the horrific killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Zhina Amini and since the start of the “women, life, freedom” uprising in Iran. Over the past year and a half, we have been witness to the immense bravery of Iranian women, who are fighting for their rights, for their human rights and for Iranians around the world who have raised their voices, and their allies who have marched with them in the streets and who have raised their voices for the people of Iran, so that Iranians do not have to live under the tyranny of the terrorist organization that is the IRGC.
We are very clear that this is something that Canada must and can do more for. We have condemned, as New Democrats, the brutality against the Iranian people, including the hundreds of unlawful killings and executions, the tens of thousands of arbitrary arrests, widespread torture, including rape of detainees, and attacks on women and girls who defy the discriminatory compulsory veiling laws. In fact, as a country with a feminist foreign policy, we must do everything we can. I have talked about that policy often. We have never seen it, but we have been told that it exists.
I was so pleased last spring. I had put my name forward to sponsor a political prisoner in Iran. One of my dear friends from Edmonton, Mohammed, came to me. He asked if I would be willing to sponsor this Iranian prisoner, Armita Abbasi, a young, beautiful, vibrant woman who was in detention and had been tortured simply because she was trying to stand up for her own rights. I was delighted to be able to sponsor her. Imagine how happy I was when she was released from prison, when she was given back her freedom and was able to escape from the terrorists, the IRGC.
We need to make changes to the Canadian foreign policy. I will admit that it should have happened years ago and it is appalling that it has taken so long for the government to take action, particularly after PS752 and after the “women, life, freedom” movement began.
I will say we cannot make foreign policy based on concurrence debates. We need to do the work. That is part of what we do as parliamentarians. We need to look at this issue. We need to bring experts in. We need to examine it. We need to make sure we are making the right decision, because the worst thing we could do is make innocent people be punished by their own government, the IRGC, and then punished again if we are not careful in how we make sure those conscripted people are protected.
We, of course, want to see the IRGC, especially its leadership, declared as terrorists. We have been calling for it for some time, but we need to do the work. We need to do foreign policy carefully and thoughtfully, and make sure that no innocent people are caught up in the terrible things that have been done by the IRGC. There needs to be a robust commitment from the Canadian government to act on this, but it needs to be done thoughtfully and it needs to be done with the urgency this requires.
In remembrance of Mahsa Zhina Amini, of the countless innocent lives that have been taken and of those in prison, New Democrats express our profound solidarity and support for the Iranian people. I think we can all say that the events of the last several weeks have highlighted that we are at a dangerous moment in time in the Middle East. Certainly, we must impose stronger sanctions on the IRGC and Iranian regime. We must end Iran's support for terrorism in the region.
Time and time again, I have stood in this place and said that Hamas is a terrorist organization. That is very clear. Hansard is extraordinarily clear on this. Just like I have said, time and time again, that Canada has an obligation to adhere to international law. We also have an obligation as Canadians, and people expect us as Canadians, to do what we can to de-escalate war and to protect civilians and children. That is what people in our communities want from us. That is what our foreign policy should be doing.
What we are seeing in the Middle East right now is horrifying. There are more than 13,000 children who have lost their lives. We have to continue to call for a ceasefire. We have to continue to put pressure on all actors in the region, including Israel, to de-escalate tensions at a time when civilians are the ones paying the price. Let us be clear: The escalation of tensions in the Middle East will do nothing but cause increased pain for those who are most vulnerable right now.
Again, I would urge the government to come to the foreign affairs committee and the opposition parties to come to the foreign affairs committee. Let us sit down and do this important work. It has been over a year since my motion calling for the examination of Canada's, the Canadian government's, refusal for the listing of the IRGC as a terrorist entity; of the connections between people or assets in Canada and the IRGC; and of paths forward to support Iranian human rights activists, artists, journalists and other political refugees. The motion asked that the committee invite the Minister of Foreign Affairs to testify, as well as additional witnesses submitted by members of the committee, and that the committee report its findings back to the House.
This is important work. Canada has an important role to play. Historically, we have been able to play that role and we have been missing in action. Iranian Canadians expect this from us. Iranian people around the world expect this from us. There is more that we can do. This is not the opportunity for that, but we will look at this in the foreign affairs committee and we will expect our government to act.
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- Apr/15/24 4:55:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one thing my colleague spoke about was the use of concurrence debates to do this important work, and it is very important work that we undertake. In just a few weeks, in fact, the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development will be looking at Iran, will be studying this and will be bringing forward the minister to talk about how we can do this in a way that protects those who are conscripted. That is where we should be having this debate. That is a meaningful way that we can ensure Canada is doing what needs to be done to make sure that Iran, the IRGC, who are very clearly terrorists, has its leadership punished, yet those who might be innocent are not. I wonder if she could comment on that.
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- Oct/16/23 11:22:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her intervention in the House today. I am sorry, but I am not going to speak in French. It is a very late night and the topic is very difficult for me.
One of the things that I have been thinking about is that today we have been talking about how Hamas needs to be defeated. I know that the member is on the defence committee. We have babies in incubators in Gaza. We have doctors who refuse to leave those babies because, obviously, the children are trapped there, and they know they may die.
The people who are most able likely to leave the territory are in fact members of Hamas, the very terrorists we should be trying to target. The people least able to leave Gaza right now are the elderly, the infirm, the children, the babies and people in the hospital. I am struggling to understand why anyone in this place thinks that bombing Gaza right now would not cause more harm to those people than to the terrorists.
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