SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

James Bezan

  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman
  • Manitoba
  • Voting Attendance: 68%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $140,796.07

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 167 - Mar/9/23
Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, CPC)
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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Context: House Hansard - 92 - Jun/20/22
Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, CPC)
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-296, An Act to amend the Criminal Code (increasing parole ineligibility). He said: Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for Lakeland for seconding this private member's bill. This is the third Parliament that I have introduced this legislation in, and I hope to see it make it through all stages this time. I have been lucky to get it to committee and through committee in the past. This bill, called the respecting families of murdered and brutalized persons act, would amend the Criminal Code and empower our courts so that they would have the judicial discretion to increase parole ineligibility when sentencing those criminals, the most depraved individuals in our society, who commit three crimes on one victim: kidnapping, sexual assault and murder. Those individuals, the Clifford Olsons and Paul Bernardos of the world, never, ever receive parole, but they use parole, and Clifford Olson was a perfect case of this, to revictimize and traumatize the families by going into gruesome details of how they murdered children. We want to save those families from having to live through that. This bill aims to limit victims' families from having to go through these unnecessary and traumatic Parole Board hearings and hearing more about how their children and loved ones were killed. When I thought of this bill back in 2013, it was because of cases that came out at that time. We can all remember Tori Stafford and Noelle Paquette, and how they were brutally killed. Unfortunately, they were innocent bystanders who were captured, sexually assaulted and murdered by the perpetrators. These perpetrators are psychopaths who will never see the light of day, and that is why we need to bring forward legislation to give the courts the ability to extend parole ineligibility. This bill is not about mandatory minimums. I also want to thank Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu. Senator Boisvenu is going to sponsor a similar bill in the Senate, and he has always championed this cause. Last week was the 20th anniversary of a similar grotesque murder that happened to his own daughter.
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