- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman
- Manitoba
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,796.07
- Government Page
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-324, An Act to amend the Special Economic Measures Act.
He said: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Calgary Rocky Ridge for seconding this bill.
The bill that I am bringing forward is about changing the name of the Special Economic Measures Act to the Sergei Magnitsky global sanctions act. As many in the House know, in 2015, Senator Raynell Andreychuk, as well as myself, had introduced, in the Senate and in the House, the Sergei Magnitsky law to sanction gross human rights violators and corrupt foreign officials.
Since it was passed in the House in 2017, it has only been used on 70 individuals. The first name on the list is the President of Venezuela, President Maduro. It is about making sure that we go after those who are creating the greatest crimes against their own citizens and enriching themselves through that process.
What we need to do is make sure that the Liberal government is always naming people who have committed human rights violations and who are destabilizing peace and security in the world by using the name Sergei Magnitsky. This is about the standardization of our nomenclature of our Canadian sanctions regime.
We have to remember that Sergei Magnitsky, who was a Russian lawyer and accountant, fought against corruption in Russia. He was arrested, falsely accused, tortured and killed while in detention and while he was defending Bill Browder. A lot of us know Bill Browder. He was a business person in Russia at the time and has been living in London, England, since then. He wrote a number of books, two of which are Red Notice and Freezing Order. I encourage everyone to read those books to understand how corrupt the Russian regime is under Vladimir Putin.
The Special Economic Measures Act has been used roughly 1,300 times against Russian individuals and entities. The majority of the people we are sanctioning now, because of the war in Ukraine and crimes committed against humanity, are Russian kleptocrats and Vladimir Putin himself. Therefore, let us make sure that we are consistent with our allies when we use sanctions and we say that we are using the Sergei Magnitsky sanctions to honour the legacy of Sergei Magnitsky. Let us make sure that his name is synonymous with standing up for human rights, for the rule of law, for democracy and for standing against corruption.
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- Dec/12/22 12:34:47 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-8
Mr. Speaker, what is it going to take to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization? The IRGC shot down PS752, which was done intentionally as a terrorist act. It funds Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations throughout the world. It continues to commit all sorts of atrocities against its own civilians in Iran. Now it is participating in a defence co-operation agreement with Russia in the war in Ukraine by having kamikaze drones flown into civilian infrastructure to make winter long, cold and hard for Ukrainians.
Why will the government not wake up and finally list the IRGC as a terrorist organization, as Parliament called for unanimously in 2018?
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Madam Speaker, it is indeed an honour to rise today to speak to Bill S-223, an act to amend the Criminal Code and the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to stop the trafficking in human organs. I want to thank Senator Salma Ataullahjan, who brought this bill forward in the Senate, where it passed all three readings. It is now being considered here in the House of Commons, sponsored by my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.
This bill would amend the Criminal Code to create some indictable offences for those who are engaged in illegal organ harvesting. It would also allow the Minister of Immigration and Citizenship to intercede. If it is believed that someone is in Canada as a permanent resident or here as a foreign national, they can be deemed inadmissible to Canada if they have participated, in one way or another, in the harvesting of human organs.
I have been advocating for this for quite some time. We brought forward the Sergei Magnitsky law, which passed this place unanimously in 2018. The government has failed to use it since that time, other than for the first tranche of people who were sanctioned. It was to make sure that those individuals who are committing gross human rights violations around the world were held to account and that they were not allowed to use Canada as a safe haven.
We know there has been a systematic organ harvesting program going on in China, led by the Communist regime in Beijing. They have used it on political dissidents and ethnic and religious minorities, like the Falun Gong practitioners, like the Uighurs, like Christians and others. They have gone out after them, arrested them and then forcibly removed their organs to profit from them.
We talk about gross human rights violations. It is disgusting that someone would actually take people who are being persecuted because they are a minority group or someone who does not agree with the regime in Beijing, or other countries for that matter, and arrest them, detain them and then literally rip them apart and market their organs around the world.
Bill S-223 would make sure that those individuals, if they ever came to Canada, would face our criminal justice system. They would not just be facing sanctions and be banned from Canada or have their assets frozen here in Canada, but they would face criminal prosecution here in Canada.
Let us consider someone who needed an organ transplant and knowingly used an organ that was harvested in this manner from a political dissident, from a Falun Gong practitioner or Uighurs. Right now, the Uighurs are being persecuted to the highest level. Essentially a genocide is being carried out by the Communist regime in Beijing against the Uighurs. If somebody wanted to buy one of these organs, they could be facing criminal prosecution here in Canada.
We know that this market exists. Estimates suggest that illegal organ trafficking generates $1 billion to $2 billion Canadian every year. That is sourced from 12,000 illegal transplants, predominantly coming from mainland China. That is 12,000 transplants a year. We have to put an end to this.
I had the privilege of working with the Falun Dafa Association here in Canada. It represents Falun Gong practitioners. Many of them have fled mainland China to make sure they had the ability here in Canada to have the things that we take for granted, such as freedom of association, freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. All of that is denied by the Communist regime in China.
They put together some great research over the years. A former colleague has put together a rather large report with the assistance of David Matas. When I say a former colleague, I mean David Kilgour, who was a long-time MP here, who always championed human rights.
They had a list of over 150 individuals who were profiting from the sale of illegally obtained organs that were harvested from Falun Gong practitioners. Last spring, I presented a petition that called on the government to look at this. It said that in the last 21 years, Communist Party officials had orchestrated the torture and killing of a large number of people who practised Falun Gong and that it was being done on a mass scale so their vital organs could fuel the communist regime's organ transplant trade. There were 14 names to sanction under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, the Sergei Magnitsky Law, and the government responded but never sanctioned any of the individuals named.
In October 2021, I sent a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs congratulating her on her new appointment and asking her to take action on behalf of Falun Gong practitioners. I asked her to look at the entire list of individuals, which said who they were, what position they held in mainland China and what operations they were involved in with regard to persecuting and arresting Falun Gong practitioners, harvesting their organs and ultimately trading those organs around the world. I first sent the 150 names to her predecessor at the time and then to her. Again, we got a response but no action was taken.
I know the bill is getting support from all sides of the House and from every corner of the chamber, but we need to make sure we step up and sanction those individuals to ensure they are not coming to Canada. We can sanction them using the Sergei Magnitsky Law. They are hiding their wealth, taking advantage of our strong banking system, taking advantage of our fairly robust real estate market and capitalizing on the illicit gains they have been able to achieve because of this illegal trade in organs.
There are Canadians who need organ transplants. We have to encourage more and more people to donate organs in Canada so that we can extend the life of those who need transplants. That way, we can also deter this illicit trade in illegally harvested human organs and make sure it does not spread to other jurisdictions. We always like to concentrate on the communist regime in China, but we know this is happening in other places in the world. There are stories of African nations, and it is not just governments doing this, but gangs and the people out there in human trafficking who are resorting to this as a way to generate illicit revenues.
We need to continue to stand on the side of the individuals who cannot stand up for themselves. We have to make sure Canada continues to be a leader on the issue of human rights.
We need to make sure that those committing these crimes can be held to account. I know Bill S-223 would go a long way in ensuring that they would not be allowed to work in Canada and would be arrested if they did, and would not be allowed to travel to Canada or they would be arrested and face charges. We also need to make sure that those who know they are purchasing organs through this gross human rights violation of illegal organ harvesting face the full cost and full force of law here in Canada.
I again want to congratulate Senator Ataullahjan for bringing this bill forward. It is something she has been working on for a number of years. It has died on the Order Paper in the past, and this is our opportunity to make sure it comes into force as quickly as possible.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan's dissertation was well researched and well articulated.
We know that Falun Gong practitioners have been unfairly and unjustly targeted by the regime in Beijing for organ harvesting. They are denied freedom of religion, freedom of association and freedom expression, things that we take for granted here in Canada.
We know that our former colleague David Kilgour, as well as David Matas, wrote a large study and briefing document on those responsible for the organ harvesting of the Falun Dafa in China. They brought forward, along with Falun Gong practitioners here in Canada, over 20 names of those who have profited from the very gross, which I mean in every way possible, human rights violations of Falun Gong practitioners in China, who have had their organs harvested for being political dissidents. None of them have ever been sanctioned.
Can the member speak to whether this bill would allow us to make sure that nobody in Canada profits from or gains access to these illicit organs? Why we are not sanctioning the individuals who are responsible for this?
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Madam Speaker, I am proud to stand today to speak to Bill C-281, the international human rights act. I want to thank the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South for bringing forward this important piece of legislation, which would amend legislation I introduced in the House back in 2018, Bill S-226. My partner in crime in the Senate at that time was Senator Raynell Andreychuk, who worked very hard on that bill. She and I had had numerous meetings with the government, to the point where we had unanimous consent on the bill. The legislation we are debating today reintroduces some of the changes to the earlier iterations of Bill S-226.
We have to make sure everybody understands that we use Magnitsky sanctions to move in lockstep with our allies. When the parliamentary secretary says we want to have a coordinated response with our allies, our allies, whether it is the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States or Australia, are all using Magnitsky sanctions. Unfortunately, the government has not used Magnitsky sanctions since 2018.
All the sanctions that have been brought against some of the corrupt foreign officials and gross human rights violators we are seeing today in the war in Ukraine, and what Russia has been doing with its kleptocracy, have all been under the Special Economic Measures Act. We know that act does not have the same teeth or accountability built into it as the Magnitsky law itself. Having Parliament provide a mechanism to put names on a list to present to the government through the foreign affairs committees of either the Senate or the House would provide more accountability, as well as debate and discussion as to why certain names should be added to the list.
I have worked with numerous communities for years to try to get more of these gross human rights violators and corrupt foreign officials on the list. We have submitted names to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development and the Department of Justice, and none of those names have ended up on any sanctions list, either SEMA or the Magnitsky law. The Vietnamese community, the Cambodian community and Falun Gong practitioners have dozens of names of people proven to have committed gross human rights violations against citizens in those countries, yet the government sits idle.
Amending the Magnitsky act, as has been brought forward by my colleague from Northumberland—Peterborough South, would address that shortfall. It would allow communities and parliamentarians to come forward with names. Then, the ultimate accountability of the government would be to report back within 40 days as to why it is either taking action or not taking action. It would also file annual reports. The bigger goals are naming and shaming those committing gross human rights violations around the world.
We have to make sure we move forward with this legislation. I am glad we are getting to the point of probably having unanimous consent for sending this bill to committee, but I would say to my colleagues in the Liberal Party that, instead of trying to make a whole bunch of amendments to the bill at committee, they actually listen to the people who have suffered violations of their human rights because of corrupt foreign officials, the human rights violators who put their own ideology or wealth ahead of that of the citizens they are supposed to be serving.
We have to make sure we go back to using Magnitsky sanctions, just as our allies do, to ensure there is one declaration that these individuals have violated the human rights of their citizens, are corrupt, they are being held to account and cannot use Canada as a safe haven. I know the government has been apprehensive about using Magnitsky sanctions because it is required to report on financial institutions on a quarterly basis whether any of the names on the sanctions lists we have under Magnitsky are making use of our financial institutions to hide their wealth, or hiding their families here and taking advantage of our great universities. Those practices have to be monitored, and the best way to do that is through the amendments suggested in Bill C-281.
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- Jun/20/22 4:06:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to present a petition on behalf of 535 Canadians who are petitioning the House of Commons to remind us that we passed the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, the Sergei Magnitsky Law, which I sponsored in 2018 in this chamber. It has been 21 years since Falun Gong practitioners started to get targeted by the communist regime in Beijing, and unfortunately they have been subjected to organ harvesting. Through that organ harvesting enterprise, an illegal activity that is taking place in mainland China, we know that people have gotten rich off this through persecuting Falun Gong practitioners and selling their organs on the black market.
The petitioners are calling upon the Government of Canada to sanction the perpetrators by using the Sergei Magnitsky Law and other measures to ensure that they cannot come to Canada and that their assets are frozen. There are 14 individuals in the petition and the petitioners want them to be named and shamed, so I will do that now quickly: Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan, Liu Jing, Zhou Yongkang, Bo Xilai, Li Lanqing, Wu Guanzheng, Li Dongsheng, Qiang Wei, Huang Jiefu, Zheng Shusen, Wang Lijun, Zhang Chaoying, and Jia Chunwang.
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- Mar/2/22 2:44:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Vladimir Putin is causing and committing war crimes right across Ukraine, and Canada has yet to sanction some of his closest friends and advisors. Under parliamentary privilege, I am going to name a couple of them.
Russian oligarch and politician Konstantin Babkin, director of Buhler Industries in Manitoba, said in 2014 that Russia should not stop at Crimea, and last month, he supported Russia's current actions. Putin insider Roman Abramovich, owner of Evraz steel, which has operations in western Canada and is supplying steel to build Russian tanks.
When will the Prime Minister finally sanction Russian oligarchs for supporting Putin's war machine?
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- Feb/28/22 9:33:13 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I am splitting my time with the member for South Surrey—White Rock and I want to thank her for her leadership as our shadow minister for national defence on this file on Ukraine, along with the great work that has been done by my friend, the shadow minister for foreign affairs, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills.
I also want to thank the government for coming up with the sanctions and delivering the lethal weapons that we have been calling for and that Ukraine has desperately needed. There is another bunch of weapons that were announced today that are going to go to Ukraine, which will go a long way in helping them defend their homeland.
What we have been witnessing over the last five days I think all of us find surreal. It is heartbreaking for those of us who have friends and family still in Ukraine. It is hard to watch, as I am hearing tonight that Russia has gotten way more aggressive in dropping in thermobaric warheads. This is a step down from nuclear. This is a very catastrophic event that is happening tonight and one that should be classified as a war crime. I think all of us here are keeping the people of Ukraine in our thoughts and prayers as this is playing out before the world on TV. It is heartbreaking and it is something that is going to take a long time to get over.
At the same time, we have all been inspired by the leadership of the Government of Ukraine and what it has been able to do in mobilizing its citizens. We have been inspired by the bravery and courage of regular people picking up arms to defend their country and fight side by side with their soldiers who have been courageous in warding off the invading hordes coming across the border from Russia.
Because of that tenacity that Putin did not count on, he completely miscalculated going forward with this invasion of Ukraine. We have to keep in mind why Ukraine has been able to hold off one of the greatest military powers in the world. It is because, when we look at the Russian troops, they are fighting for a tyrannical dictator. If we look at the people of Ukraine, what are they fighting for? They are fighting for their country. They are fighting for their democracy. They are fighting to protect their freedom. They are fighting because they are trying to protect the European aspirations that they have had since the Maidan in 2014. Of course, they are fighting to protect Ukraine's culture and, most importantly, they are trying to protect their families. That is why we see men and women who have picked up arms. These are true patriots.
We have witnessed already Putin's revisionist history, his toxic rhetoric, and we all know from everything leading up to this that Putin is a pathological liar and we should never trust him. That is why diplomacy will never work with this man. We have to do everything we can to help Ukraine and everything we can to stop Putin's war machine.
There are three things that we have to do. We have to go ahead with breaking Russia's financial bank. That is why sanctions are important. That is why using SWIFT to target Russian banks is important. That is why we have to replace Russian energy and take away the ability for Russia to finance its war machine. We have to keep sending more and more support to Ukraine so they have that ability to fight back. The lethal weapons, anti-tank, anti-aircraft, anti-missile systems are what they need right now so that they can continue on with the fight, and more ammo. We do not want to see them run out of ammo in the street fights that are taking place today.
We need humanitarian aid. One of the things I have heard in the last little bit is that we can use improved first aid kits and send those over. We have them here in Canada, so we can send them to the front line. We have role 3 hospitals that I know the government purchased for the purpose of COVID. They are still sitting in their containers. Let us put them on the C-17s and get those role 3 hospitals over there to deal with the trauma that is happening. Of course, we have to continue on with isolating Russia on the world stage, suspending it from the G20, the OSCE and other international organizations.
The end of the Cold War gave us peace dividends, but the whole mirage of peace dividends has now been shattered. We have to do more and spend more on defence. We cannot do defence on the cheap anymore. We have to step up with our deterrents and our investments in NATO, in NORAD and in our Arctic sovereignty, because if do not, dictators, despots and tyrants will keep redrawing international borders through force. We cannot let that happen. We have to stand with Ukraine. They are the front line today.
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- Feb/28/22 7:41:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the leader of the NDP talked about Magnitsky sanctions. As a matter of fact, I worked very closely with Bill Browder when former senator Raynell Andreychuk, who was from the other place, and I brought forward legislation in 2017 to have the Magnitsky Act become legislation. Unfortunately, the federal government has not used Magnitsky sanctions since 2018.
For people to understand how the kleptocracy works in the Kremlin and Russia and how corrupt Vladimir Putin and his inner circle are, everyone needs to read Red Notice. Bill Browder wrote that book about Sergei Magnitsky, who his lawyer and accountant at the time, and who was trying to tell the truth of what was happening there. Sadly, of course, he was arrested, impugned and beaten. He then died from his injuries in prison.
We know we have a lot more work to do. I would ask the leader of the NDP to talk more about how the government should be using Magnitsky sanctions because it sends the message, in concert with our allies from around the world, that our country cannot be used as a safe haven for corrupt foreign officials, for those who steal from their own citizenry and commit gross human rights violations. We have never seen human rights violations for a long time at the level we are witnessing right now in Ukraine, and they are all being carried out by Vladimir Putin and his war machine.
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- Dec/7/21 8:26:53 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after the Minister of Foreign Affairs was appointed, I sent a letter asking her to review all the correspondence and names that were submitted by my colleagues and me about human rights abusers, including those who harvest organs from Falun Gong practitioners in China, those responsible in Iran for the downing of Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752, and those responsible for the human rights abuses we see from the regime in Tehran.
We also want to make sure that we are holding to account those who have been violating the human rights of innocent protesters who have been arrested as political prisoners in Hong Kong, and of the journalists and political prisoners who are being held right now in detention in Belarus. Why would she not use the Sergei Magnitsky Law to send a signal, in concert with the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States?
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- Dec/7/21 8:25:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was a member of Parliament back in 2018 when she voted in favour of the Magnitsky sanctions. It was good enough to pass then, but was she just virtue signalling to the diaspora communities here in Canada and in countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and to the people who we are standing up for human rights and democracy around the world? Was she just virtue-signalling to them at that point in time? Why is the minister not using Magnitsky sanctions against all those people who are abusing human rights around the world?
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- Dec/7/21 8:24:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will be directing all my questions to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In 2018, Parliament unanimously passed a bill that I brought forward on Magnitsky sanctions, holding gross human rights violators who are foreign officials to account. Unfortunately, the government has not used it since 2018. Last week, the parliament the European Union actually did a report and scolded the Government of Canada for failing to hold corrupt foreign officials to account.
When will the Minister of Foreign Affairs finally use the Magnitsky act to sanction those gross human rights violators?
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