Pursuant to notice of September 30, 2020, moved:

That the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights be authorized to examine and report on the ongoing persecution and unlawful detention of Uighur Muslims in mainland China, when and if the committee is formed; and

That the committee submit its final report no later than February 28, 2021.

He said: Honourable senators, the matter which I propose that our Human Rights Committee examine is, in many respects, unprecedented in our time. I believe the unprecedented character of what we are facing in China is reflected in the fact that senators from all sides of the aisle have sought to draw attention to this issue.

I have certainly spoken on this issue, but so have other senators including Senator Ngo, Senator Frum, Senator McPhedran, Senator Dalphond and others.

Last month, the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights concluded that China’s persecution of its Muslim minorities constitutes a clear violation of human rights that has as its objective the eradication of the Uighur culture and religion. The subcommittee also concluded that this program of persecution, forced sterilization, forced labour and state surveillance meets the definition of genocide as set out in the 1948 Genocide Convention.

I believe it’s important to reflect on the definition of genocide as outlined in the 1948 convention.

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

a. Killing members of the group;

b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The 1948 convention is focused on acts designed to physically destroy a particular group. Since the convention was formulated in the aftermath of the Holocaust in Europe, there is no doubt as to the context in which the convention was drafted.

We should find extremely disturbing any conclusion by any legislative body that genocide, within the meaning of the 1948 convention, is taking place in 2020. However, the conclusion reached by the House of Commons subcommittee is not unique.

Just last month, the United States Senate introduced a bipartisan resolution to hold China accountable for genocide against ethnic Uighurs, ethnic Kazakhs and members of other Muslim minority groups.

The Uyghur Human Rights Project, Genocide Watch, the European Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and other groups and individuals have also recently called on the UN Human Rights Council to investigate China’s campaign on Turkic Muslim minorities which, in their view, amount to acts of genocide.

All members of this chamber and all Canadians should find this frightening. I think we must all try to appreciate the full scope of what is happening in the region that China calls Xinjiang, but which in actual terms is really Chinese-occupied East Turkestan.

A recent investigative report published in The Guardian newspaper found that satellite images reveal at least 380 detention camps. The report noted that these 380 equate to one detention facility for every 37,000 people of non‑Han nationality in this region. One of these detention facilities is more than 300 acres in size.

All told, it is believed that between 1 to 3 million people, or about 30% of the Uighur population, are detained in these camps. It is further reported that tens of thousands of former detainees have subsequently been sent to forced labour programs.

A report by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found that thousands of these forced labourers have been working for companies owned by BMW, Nike and Huawei, among others.

This system, where as many as 30% of all ethnic Uighurs are detained for the slightest infraction, is said to have terrorized the entire population into silence. They’re living in fear. As reported by the BBC, the region is now covered by what is termed a pervasive network of surveillance, including police checkpoints and cameras that scan everything from licence plates to individuals’ faces, their expressions and the discussions amongst these citizens. Cameras are even said to have been located and monitoring individuals in their own apartments and homes.

This Orwellian level of surveillance has been complemented by a reported campaign of forced sterilization, colleagues. Documents obtained by the House of Commons subcommittee noted that about 80% of all IUD placements in China took place in this region. Birthrates in the region are reported to have fallen by close to 24% over the last year. This sterilization campaign has been accompanied by settlement policies that have sought to swamp the local Uighur population with large numbers of Han Chinese, who have been encouraged to settle in the region in order to become the majority.

Many foreign countries have not only been coerced into silence, they have been pressured to cooperate with Chinese authorities, and you would be surprised which ones. Not only Canada and others. It was recently reported that a number of countries, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other states have arrested exile Uighurs and deported them to China, pursuant to demands made by Beijing. It seems that the green American dollar is very powerful in the hands of the Chinese communist regime. Turkey has been accused of deporting Turkic minority people and putting them in the hands of Chinese authorities. We should be under no illusions that the Chinese regime seeks to intimidate this Parliament into silence as well.

When the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights issued its report last month, the Chinese ambassador to Canada said that the measure would be met with “strong reaction.” I have argued this form of intimidation — which has become all too common a tactic from this ambassador — must not go unanswered by the Canadian government. It is no secret that our government has been most reluctant to openly criticize the Chinese government. This has been the case from the day Justin Trudeau became prime minister. He described China as the country in the world, and I quote, he “admired the most” because of its — and I quote again — “basic dictatorship.” One would hope he has grown up and has evolved to some extent since he uttered those words. However, all I can say is that, despite my repeated questions, I still do not know whether the Chinese ambassador has ever been called in to answer for the threats he made against parliamentarians.

I do know that even for his recent threats against the 300,000 Canadians living in Hong Kong, he was called in by Global Affairs, but not by the Prime Minister, not by the Deputy Prime Minister and not even by our Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was not even met by the deputy minister. My understanding is that the ambassador who threatened Canadians was supposedly admonished by an associate deputy minister. That’s laughable, colleagues. Do we really think any ambassador, let alone this particular one, would take that seriously?

In part, I understand why the government has been so fearful. China is not only a superpower, it is also a lawless state. That is to say, it is a state without the rule of law. This means that the regime has been entirely willing to simply grab people off the streets, whether Chinese or foreigners, and hold them hostage until their demands are met. This has been clearly demonstrated in China’s arbitrary detention of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. They have been in detention for a long time, honourable senators. What China has done with respect to these two innocent Canadians, it has done one million times over in relation to the Uighur population of its own country.

Similar policies designed to crush dissent are also evident in Hong Kong. Honourable senators, what is happening inside China is ominous, and it is matched by the equally ominous behaviour of the Chinese state externally, not only towards Canada but also in the threats it has made towards India, towards the countries that border the South China Sea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, and I can go on and on. It’s clearly evident that, externally, China is an aggressive and fearless power. Internally, it is a totalitarian state in which the destruction of an entire people is acceptable to serve the ends of the state.

It is precisely because of what is happening inside and outside of China that we as parliamentarians must stand up and be counted. Honourable senators, I believe that we have an obligation to pick up where the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights has left off. I believe that an appropriate place to begin would be for the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights to call in government ministers and other witnesses to understand how the government plans to respond to the report issued by the House of Commons subcommittee. It’s time that this Parliament called in the Chinese ambassador and has him explain a few things to the Canadian people.

Since our approach will be most effective if we approach this multilaterally, it would be useful for our committee to examine how other like-minded governments’ parliaments are responding to this issue. I would argue that we must seek to work in tandem with other national legislatures and governments to ensure that our actions are effective. Lastly, I believe that it would also be appropriate for the committee to consider how we can begin to insulate our society, our people and our economy from Chinese attempts of conversion, intimidation and retaliation. If we are going to be effective in standing up to the attempts of intimidation made by a superpower, it can no longer be business as usual with this regime.

Honourable senators, I believe this matter clearly falls within the mandate of our Human Rights Committee, whose mandate it is to “deal with issues relating to human rights generally as may be referred to it by the Senate.” This is clearly a question of human rights. I submit there is no greater human rights challenge in the world right now than what is facing the Uighur Muslim population in China.

On that basis, I urge all of you senators to support this motion. This institution is part and parcel of our Parliament. We particularly have the privilege of being an appointed body, which gives us an opportunity by virtue, as I said, of our tenure in this place, to be less partisan and to take into consideration just the principles and the values that Canadians truly believe in.

Honourable senators, we have an opportunity right now to stand on the right side of history, to stand on principle, because in a few months or in a few years when the history books are written — and it’s natural, we have seen it in genocides time and again, people burying their heads in the sand, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes on purpose, and they pretend it’s not there because there are other elements that they take into consideration. But one day, when history is written and the facts come out, you will look in the mirror and you will ask yourselves what we could have done and what we didn’t do. Here is our opportunity as an institution to stand up for what I know Canadians find egregious. Because the Canadians I know, the people we represent — and we don’t represent the prime minister who appointed us here, regardless of who it was, we represent the fabric of this nation. What is going on right now to this minority group in China, all Canadians, if they knew about it — because we’re too busy with other things — if they knew what was going on there — and it is incumbent upon us to draw attention — they would find it abhorrent. They would expect their Parliament to take a stand. This is our opportunity, honourable senators.

Let’s have this rendezvous with history. Let’s be leaders like the Parliament of Canada has been in the past when we fought apartheid. Let us be leaders on so many fronts when the Canadian government, once upon a time in Parliament, took leads in places like Cypress as peacekeepers and peacemakers. Let’s take the leadership that we are incumbent; we have the power to do by the Constitution that summons us all here. Thank you.