Hon. Marilou McPhedran: Senator Housakos, may I commend you on both your determination and your dedication to addressing what is happening to the Uighurs in China.

My question relates to technical human rights terms — “genocide” and “crimes against humanity.” When I discussed your bill with other parliamentarians, this question has arisen. I have a second question if time allows.

About a month after you tabled this bill, in this place, President Biden signed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, as you mentioned. There is no specific reference in that act to genocide per se. We know your position on naming what is happening to Uighurs in China. Could I ask you, please, to help us understand better the terminology that you’ve chosen to use in this particular bill?

Senator Housakos: Regarding the terminology of recognizing that what’s going on in Xinjiang right now is a genocide, I literally just stole that from experts, like Amnesty International and from Irwin Cotler of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre. When they have done their evaluation of all the evidence that’s before us, they will tell you that every single criterion recognizing this as genocide has been met in this particular instance.

My bill, of course, is not so much preoccupied by that reality as by the reality of forced labour camps that are used in the area right now. I think, at the end of the day, if we want to send a message that Canada will not tolerate this kind of egregious behaviour and using forced labour of men, women and children, for whatever the reasons may be, this is the best way to do it. I think there’s no ambiguity. It’s not flexible. It sends a clear message to the regime that, in their industrial capacity in Xinjiang, in their agriculture centres and everything they’re doing and producing and exporting, that we will not be complicit and a partner in encouraging the abuse of these people.

Senator McPhedran: In the act that President Biden signed into law in December, it specifically mentions coordination with Mexico and Canada to effectively implement Article 23.6 of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement to prohibit the importation of goods produced in whole or in part by forced or compulsory labour.

I wonder if you might comment on the nature of your bill in relation to the American bill in this regard.

Senator Housakos: This bill is very similar. Obviously, the bill we have on the books right now, which we passed only a couple of years ago, was in response to, of course, the Canada-United States-Mexico free trade agreement. It was done as a reflex, trying to be compliant with the agreement. But, again, was this done — implicitly, explicitly, I really don’t know — by our government, but that bill certainly doesn’t meet the objective of combating forced labour. The American bill is far more rigid, the one that was just passed, than what we currently have in the bill.

You will forgive my ignorance, but I don’t know what the Mexican position is in regard to this. It just became, to me, common sense: Why is the onus on CBSA agents to try to implement what currently is on the books, when it cannot be implemented? They, themselves, in all good faith, have expressed that view. I’ve had discussions with people from CBSA who tell me that they consider this bill really window dressing because the government knows that they can’t actually execute this in an effective fashion. The proof is in the pudding because, over the last year and a half while the law has been on the books, they have confiscated and stopped one container of what I suspect is a significant amount of imports that come in from that region.

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