Pursuant to notice of December 10, 2019, moved:

That the Senate call upon the Government of Canada to impose sanctions against Chinese and/or Hong Kong officials, pursuant to the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law), in light of the violation of human rights, of the principles of fundamental justice and of the rule of law in relation to the ongoing protests in Hong Kong and to the systematic persecution of minority Muslims in China.

He said: Honourable senators, the motion that Senator Ngo and I have put before you is one that is at the core of who we are as Canadians and embodies the most essential values dear to our citizenry: democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law.

We say proudly that we are a nation that defends these fundamental values at home and abroad. Throughout our history, we have proven it with blood spilt and countless Canadian lives lost in conflicts and battles around the world, including both world wars and in Afghanistan as well as with various peacekeeping missions around the world. We have defended our values through diplomacy, leading the fight against the brutality of apartheid in South Africa. Canada has never backed down in the face of tyranny, and we most certainly should not start now. We appear to be dangerously close to doing so where China is concerned.

Quite bluntly, Canada and the People’s Republic of China have a very serious clash of values. The PRC is a dictatorship possessing a complete disregard for fundamental freedom, democracy and, certainly, the rule of law. They are amongst the world’s worst violators of human rights.

I had initially hoped to speak to this motion on Tuesday, as it was Human Rights Day around the world, as many of you, being very ardent and vocal supporters of human rights, already know. Human Rights Day is observed around the world every year on December 10 in recognition of the United Nations’ adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. So even though it’s a couple of days late, my remarks today are in honour of all victims of human rights abuses around the world, including mainland China and Hong Kong.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has reported that it had received credible information that some 1 million ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang region are being interned in camps on the mainland. The allegations suggest that the Uighurs have been targeted as enemies of the Chinese state based solely on their ethno-religious identity.

Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada, has said:

 . . . what is underway is a sinister program of incarceration on a massive scale that the world has hardly seen anywhere in decades.

As disturbing as such actions are on their own, they are particularly disquieting as a larger pattern. The regime is not only engaging in a program of mass incarceration and Orwellian-like surveillance when it comes to minority Muslims, but it is also brutally cracking down on pro-democracy dissidents in Hong Kong.

What started six months ago, as a protest against a proposed extradition agreement between Hong Kong and China that many feared would undermine Hong Kong’s autonomy, judicial independence and civil liberties have turned into a broader fight for full democracy and accountability for police action against protesters. The situation in Hong Kong has become untenable for the people who are standing for freedom and suffrage.

While the principle of One Country, Two Systems was the cornerstone of the PRC/Hong Kong structure following British rule, Hong Kong officials appear to be appointees working vociferously in concert with the Chinese regime to force through the PRC’s aspirations for one China rather than the vocal aspirations of the people of Hong Kong.

Clashes between police and protesters have become increasingly violent. In the face of this, Chinese President Xi Jinping has warned against an independent Hong Kong, saying that any attempt to divide China would end in “bodies smashed and bones ground to powder.”

If that and the internment and forced re-education of a religious minority doesn’t warrant the intervention of a country that claims to promote freedom and human rights, colleagues, I don’t know what does.

It should outrage all of us at our core as Canadians. And quite frankly, coupled with China’s increased aggressiveness internationally and increased militarization, it should also worry us from a national security standpoint.

Canada and Canadians have been victimized on a multitude of levels by the PRC, including spying, illegal detainment and theft of intellectual property, and we have nobody but ourselves, colleagues, to blame. We have allowed China to infiltrate every aspect of our lives, whether it’s direct involvement by the Chinese government or through proxies like Huawei. China is now involved in Canada’s agriculture sector, energy sector and tech sector. We have slowly and uncomfortably become extremely reliant on China, just as they intended.

Let me just say this: This didn’t happen overnight or even over the last four years. There have been five successive Canadian governments dating back to the 1970s that, in our zealous pursuit of expanding our trade and commercial interests, became complacent to the egregious human rights abuses and disregard for the rule of law in China.

We have been turning a blind eye for too long and putting our thirst for dollars over our basic values of decency and justice. Shame on us, but, colleagues, it must stop.

That’s why I think this motion is so important. I believe it’s time we as a country strike a different tone and approach with the government of China, and on many fronts. This motion is just, I believe, a beginning.

Our current approach to China appears to be one of appeasement. In the face of their unlawful detainment of two of our citizens and threats of execution of two other Canadians, we have continued with investments in the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, as well as continued ministerial and parliamentary missions to China.

Last year, we even had the Government of Canada’s departments hosting fancy lobster dinners in China. If you all recall, I asked the government leader repeatedly about that in this chamber.

Then there are the public statements that have been made by senior cabinet ministers, past and present, that seem to reward and further encourage China’s boorish behaviour towards our nation.

Former Minister John McCallum was forced to resign as Canada’s ambassador to China after his comments regarding the ongoing extradition case of Huawei executive Madam Meng Wanzhou. Former Prime Minister Chrétien suggested that Canada should just drop the extradition case against Meng Wanzhou, and former Minister John Manley suggested we should have tipped China off about the impending arrest, colleagues.

This is a former prime minister and a former Minister of Foreign Affairs. Is that the way a country founded on the rule of law and democracy behaves?

I will give credit to Canada’s then-Global Affairs Minister, the Honourable Chrystia Freeland, who, in response to former Prime Minister Chrétien’s appalling suggestion, had this to say to The Globe and Mail:

We need to be very thoughtful and very mindful of precedents that our actions and our decisions set. And I think when we reflect on it, it would be clear to all of us that it would be a very dangerous precedent indeed for Canada to alter its behaviour when it comes to honouring an extradition treaty in response to external pressure. . . . When we think about the implications of setting such a precedent, we could easily find ourselves in a situation where, by acting in a single specific case, we could actually make all Canadians around the world less safe. That is a responsibility I take very seriously.

And Minister Freeland was absolutely right. Sadly, we don’t see enough of that in our current approach when it comes to China. We should be seeing a lot more of that.

Minister Freeland’s successor as Global Affairs Minister, the newly appointed François-Philippe Champagne, outlined his perspective in 2017 when he stated:

China [stands] out as [a] beacon of stability, predictability, a rule-based system, a very inclusive society.

Excuse me, colleagues. When has China ever been any of these things, particularly inclusive?

Also recently, former Minister Manley again weighed in on Canada’s detainment of Meng Wanzhou, suggesting that Canada do a prisoner swap in return for Canadians arbitrarily and unlawfully detained in China, as if somehow these two Canadians actually did anything to justify their detention. They did not.

And it isn’t just Liberals who are making comments that are completely abhorrent. Just this past weekend in an interview with Mercedes Stephenson, Alykhan Velshi, a former senior Conservative staffer who is now a VP with Huawei’s Canadian operations, said that Huawei Canada respects Canadian law, and made it sound like all things are equal in this matter and that it’s all just a misunderstanding between us that needs to be worked out amongst friends.

That’s the issue I take with our current approach to China, colleagues. We are behaving as if we have done something for which we should apologize. We have absolutely nothing to apologize for except for our continued appeasement of China in the face of their increasingly confrontational and adversarial actions both domestically and internationally.

The time for appeasement is over. It is now time for Canada to stand up and be counted in the fight for the protection of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It is not enough to say we stand for these values if we are going to stand idly by when we are being grossly infringed on by a tyrannical regime just because we don’t want to upset them.

We don’t seem to mind upsetting our greatest friends and allies like the United States or Israel. What are they doing wrong? Not behaving like brutes? Should they threaten us or maybe imprison and illegally detain Canadians in order to somehow get us to treat them a little bit nicer?

Even now, Canada’s new ambassador to China, here in his new post for mere weeks, has threatened us not once but twice already, most recently about this very motion.

Last Thursday in Montreal, in my hometown, Ambassador Cong Peiwu had this to say about the prospect of this chamber adopting our motion:

We firmly oppose this kind of behaviour. And I think it’d cause serious damage to our bilateral relations . . . we’ll make very firm countermeasures to this. It is not in the interest of the Canada side. So we do hope that we stop this kind of dangerous activity.

Imagine that, colleagues: an ambassador of a foreign country threatening our Parliament over applying a law that was duly passed in accordance with our parliamentary democracy. That may work in China, but that’s not how we do things in Canada.

That threat illustrates perfectly why we need to adopt this motion and invoke Magnitsky sanctions as soon as possible. There comes a time in every schoolyard where you can no longer be a bystander. There comes a time in every schoolyard when you must stand up to the bully who is bullying you. That time, colleagues, I believe is now for Canada. We have applied Magnitsky sanctions against officials from other countries, including Russia, Venezuela, Myanmar and others. I see no reason not to apply them against China.

Like you, I’ve heard the arguments that doing so or taking any steps against China that even closely resemble steps taken by the U.S. may be seen as merely taking the side of the U.S. in its trade war with China. Forget how insulting that is, implying that we are not a sovereign nation, capable of acting of our own accord, but it shows a complete disregard and whitewashing of real human rights abuses taking place in Hong Kong and mainland China. Either we are defenders of democracy, human rights and the rule of law or we are not. That’s the question. I put to each and every one of you in this chamber; ask yourselves: Are you a defender of those values that are so fundamental to our freedom, our country and who we are?

We as parliamentarians have a job to do in holding our government to account, and it extends beyond domestic policy and governance. We also have a responsibility to hold government to account in our actions internationally, to ensure those actions reflect who we are as a people.

I’ll ask you again: Are we a nation that defends democracy, human rights and the rule of law, or are we not?

Despite the threat from the ambassador, the danger here is not in adopting this motion. The real danger is that the more we appease China, the more emboldened they become. It is time for a change in tone and approach. As Canada’s former ambassador to China, Guy Saint-Jacques, stated recently, “The only language China understands is one of firmness.” That is a sentiment echoed by another former ambassador to China, David Mulroney. He was responding to a social media post from the Mayor of Winnipeg, following a meeting with the new ambassador for China. In it, Mayor Bowman said he was pleased with the visit and called it “a productive discussion about our Sister City Chengdu, trade, and Winnipeg’s goal of becoming a leader in the protection and promotion of human rights.” I would argue that, unfortunately, they are not off to a very good start.

However, former Ambassador Mulroney said it best in his response:

Statements like this play into the PRC’s agenda of obfuscation, and actually undermine efforts to protect human rights. They reflect the false assumption that diplomacy cannot cope with plain speaking and hard truths.

Mr. Mulroney has also been quoted as describing some of the policies of the PRC as “the greatest threat to human freedom on the planet.” I couldn’t agree more, and we as a nation, along with our allies, need to start treating them as such. With that, I leave you with these words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.

Thank you, colleagues.