Your Honour, I would like to exercise my right of final reply on the main motion.

Honourable senators, I wish to inform all senators that if Senator Housakos speaks now, it will close debate on the main motion. Does any other senator wish to speak before Senator Housakos?

On debate, Senator Housakos.

Honourable senators, it is very late. I will be very succinct and very brief. I will not relitigate the discussions and the debates, even though a number of points have been brought up by Senator Boehm, Senator Woo and Senator Harder since the last time I spoke.

I will just simply say this: At the end of the day, this motion is not about compelling the government to do one thing or another. As we know, there’s the executive branch of government, which has its rights, privileges and obligations, and there’s the Parliament of Canada that speaks as the democratic voice on behalf of this country and on behalf of the values Canadians hold dearly.

There are senators who speak on behalf of Global Affairs Canada. There are senators who speak and advocate on consistent talking points that we hear from the Canada China Business Council. At the end of the day, we have to look at the facts before us. The facts before us are that currently in China we have a minority population of Uighur citizens who are being held in the most atrocious conditions. I will simply say that there are voices that have been unequivocal about this issue: former justice minister Irwin Cotler, former senator Roméo Dallaire — the strongest voice when it comes to human rights advocacy for this chamber and this Parliament — Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. It is undeniable. Even Senator Woo, Senator Boehm and Senator Harder have acknowledged the undeniable atrocities that are going on right now.

I implore you, colleagues, to understand that we don’t speak on behalf of the government, but we speak on behalf of this place. The people of Xinjiang and the Uighur people require solidarity, like our allies around the world have expressed that solidarity — the Senate of the United States, the House of Commons of the U.K., the Parliament of Australia — and we should follow suit as a strong democracy and stand up in support of that solidarity.

In the last few weeks, days and months, we’ve been coming to terms with our own atrocities in this country. But you know what great democracies do? They acknowledge them, recognize them, apologize for them, and they try to redress and address them — even though these are so terrible that we will never fully address or redress them. When you’re silent about equally atrocious things happening to fellow humanity right here and now — even though it’s thousands of kilometres away — when we are justifying it, we’re apologists for it or not taking strong enough action, then we as Canadians have learned nothing about our indiscretions and atrocities for which we so dearly claim to be taking responsibility.

I implore everyone to do the right thing and to speak up in solidarity with the Uighur people who are facing those atrocities as we speak today. Thank you, honourable senators.

Are honourable senators ready for the question?

It was moved by the Honourable Senator Housakos, seconded by the Honourable Senator McPhedran that in the opinion of the Senate, the People’s Republic of China — shall I dispense?

Do I hear a “no” to dispense?

I’ll ask one more time. May I dispense?

If you are opposed to the motion, please say no. Carried.

We’re having a vote on that.

All right. I’ll repeat the question since there was some confusion and chalk it up to this virtual sitting.

Are honourable senators ready for the question?