Foreign Affairs Committee on March 30th, 2023

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

It's not the question of privilege you raised.

Anyway, I'm done. Thank you.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

The issue of privilege is that this committee should not have happened in any way whatsoever. In the time that I personally could physically walk from the House of Commons, vote and get to this committee meeting, this meeting should not have started.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you, Mr. Zuberi.

Given the limited time we have available for questions from the witnesses, we will proceed with questions.

I should advise all the members that, regrettably, Mr. Turp had to leave us due to a previous engagement, so he's no longer connected.

We can now proceed with questions for the two witnesses who remain, who are Mr. Therchin from the Canada Tibet Committee and Ms. Katherine Leung from Hong Kong Watch.

The first question goes to MP Lawrence.

You have four minutes.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much.

Chair, I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Genuis.

I'll be asking a couple of questions of you, Mr. Therchin. Thank you very much for your testimony. It was very moving and powerful. I can certainly say for myself, and I'm sure for many in the room, that we stand with Tibet.

With respect to the first two parts of Bill C-281, the first area is prisoners of conscience. Just in general, maybe not getting into the specifics of the legislation, do you believe that by shining more light on some of the atrocities that are happening and the prisoners of conscience being held by the regime in Beijing could be helpful to prisoners of conscience who are human rights defenders from Tibet?

[Sherap Therchin]

Thank you for the question.

The reason I chose to talk about this particular topic of arbitrary detention, torture and killing is that I find that this particular topic connects many other human rights violations, and Tibet issues are very complex, very multi-layered.

We have a lack of religious freedom. There are protests related to a lack of opportunity to practice and promote the Tibetan language. There are Tibetan nomads being displaced. There are Tibetan children being forced into boarding schools.

What connects all of this is that any Tibetans found protesting, raising their voices against any of these human rights violations are put immediately, without any formal charges, into prison. The trouble, the trauma and the torture that they go through have created an environment of fear among Tibetans in Tibet that deters many other Tibetans from participating in similar protests in the future.

A good example is the 2008 Beijing Olympics. We saw protests across Tibet, and the purge of those who participated in the 2008 Beijing Olympics continues today. Hence, it's not surprising that we didn't see much protest in last year's Winter Olympics that happened in Beijing.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'll hand the rest of my time over to Mr. Genuis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you to our excellent witnesses today. You have my apologies for the time. There are things beyond our control.

Ms. Leung, you alluded to the fact that foreign state-controlled media is a form of foreign interference. I wonder if you can develop that idea a little bit and explain your thoughts on that.

[Katherine Leung]

Thank you, Mr. Genuis.

It has been spoken about explicitly by Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang that overseas Chinese are a tool that they wish to use in exerting Chinese influence abroad. The way that this becomes interference instead of simple influence is that these overseas Chinese populations are fed misinformation, disinformation and propaganda directly through CGTN on Canadian airwaves.

I should note that it is primarily Chinese diaspora populations that are consuming this information. Therefore, they are the tools that are used by the United Front Work Department, if they take it as truth, to spread disinformation to people who don't watch CGTN.

It is also important to note that it has been stated in the United Front Work Department's mandate that they explicitly will guide the Chinese populations abroad. That is one of their objectives.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We next go to MP Zuberi.

MP Zuberi, you have four minutes.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here and share that I have a lot of empathy and awareness for your causes. I thank you for being here in person and remotely today to testify.

I would also like to note that the subcommittee of this committee, the foreign affairs committee, is looking at a study relating to residential schools in Tibet. I'd ask you to look out for that in terms of the testimony that we're having there and what the committee will do from that study.

I'd like to learn more about the situation in Tibet and to hear about what the views are with respect to how Tibetans are treated. Is it the case that, in all situations, the cases of those who are receiving repression from the state should always be put in public, or sometimes do we need to advocate in private for them?

That's directed towards Mr. Therchin.

Go ahead, please.

[Sherap Therchin]

It would always help to make the challenges faced by Tibetans public because one of the challenges we deal with concerning Tibet is the lack of information coming out of Tibet. Tibet remains one of the most inaccessible regions in the entire world.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, Tibetans risk their lives passing their information to their families in exile so that it will reach the outside world, so that we can talk about it in platforms like this. It would certainly help to talk about the issues publicly.

I also want to add that the Dharmshala-based think tank, the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy has a database of over 2,000 Tibetans being detained in Tibet. Many of them serve prison sentences from 10 to 15 years for charges as frivolous, I find, as passing information or talking to their family members in exile, or sending money, as in the case of a 36-year-old mother, to her family members who are in exile. There's nothing political about the activities, yet they are detained, tortured and, in some cases, killed in prison or after release from prison.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Picking up on the point of getting information out of Tibet, outside of this legislation, can you talk about other items you think might be helpful in order to get more information out of Tibet—related to this specific legislation or otherwise?

[Sherap Therchin]

Absolutely.

In addition to visits to Tibet, which happened in 2020, I believe, with Ambassador Dominic Barton, I hope that something like the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act, which was passed in the U.S. about two years ago, could really help here in Canada. The principle of reciprocity could be applied.

We had Chinese-appointed delegates from the so-called Tibet Autonomous Region testifying before this very committee in 2018, yet we don't get the same opportunity for our Canadian parliamentarians to go independently, without any restriction, to any parts of the.... Unrestricted and independent access to Tibet, whether by Canadian government officials, Canadian parliamentarians or Canadian media, would certainly help gather more information about what's happening there.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Therchin.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We will now go to Ms. Normandin.

You have four minutes, please.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank both of our witnesses for being with us.

Ms. Leung, we have heard comments to the effect that, if the committee made recommendations to the Minister of Foreign Affairs regarding the use of the Magnitsky Act, that may make our intentions known to the people affected, who may withdraw their assets from the country. On the other hand, there is also the risk that we wouldn't be able to impose sanctions in cooperation with other countries. I would like to hear your views on that.

I would also like to know whether you think that risk is offset by the fact that sanctions may be used more under the Magnitsky Act if that came from the committee's recommendations.

[Katherine Leung]

Thank you for the question.

I believe there's always a risk of foreign officials wanting to move their assets, but we do know right now that foreign officials from China and Hong Kong store their assets overseas because of the likelihood that Xi Jinping will do another corruption crackdown. Many officials in Hong Kong in particular have foreign assets that are usually under the name of a family member so that they won't be traced when there is a corruption crackdown. It is for historical reasons that they do this, because of Hong Kong's previous colonial history.

That said, it is important that we do publish the list of the names of individuals we should sanction in Canada, because it is the leverage that Canada has over human rights violators in Hong Kong and China. Like Russian oligarchs, they like to store their wealth abroad because of the unstable economy in their country. As western countries, this is the leverage we have to hold them to account. I believe that in itself counterbalances the risk of their moving assets.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

I would like to know what our two witnesses think about having a list that publishes the names of prisoners of conscience.

Would it be a good idea to add an explanation to the names on that list as to why these people are prisoners of conscience? Could this be used as an educational tool for the public?

[Sherap Therchin]

Thank you.

It would certainly help. For us, the goal is to share information about prisoners of conscience. As I mentioned earlier, there are official records of over 2,000 Tibetan political prisoners. There are details about why they were detained, what the charges were in cases where there were charges, what the prison sentences were and details about, as Jigme Gyatso testified, the torture they went through.

I hope that would be helpful to the committee members. I'm happy to submit those reports.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Ms. Leung, do you have anything to add?

[Katherine Leung]

If I may add to that, I do believe it is a good idea to publish the rationale behind it. In Hong Kong especially, many political prisoners have been charged under what may seem to be legitimate charges in countries with the rule of law. For example, a lot of protesters were charged with possession of a dangerous weapon, when they were only carrying, for example, an umbrella or a flashlight. These are widely known cases in Hong Kong, and there are many of them.

I think it would be good for there to be a rationale because, to the unassuming person, it might seem like they actually did something that constitutes a crime, when really it's a political charge.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We now go to Ms. McPherson for four minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of the witnesses for being here today and sharing your testimony with us. I think it's so important for us to hear this. I also sit on the international human rights subcommittee, so I have heard some testimony regarding the residential schools in Tibet. Thank you for being here.

I'm going to ask the same questions. I'm going to ask two questions and then I'll give you some time to respond, if that's all right.

With regard to Bill C-281, the New Democratic Party is bringing forward a number of different amendments. One amendment we'd like to see is with regard to a human rights strategy. Canada does not have a human rights strategy that we could use as a baseline for the annual report. We're pushing for having that baseline, so that the government could show what they've achieved using that as the baseline.

I'd like some information from you on whether or not you would agree that a human rights strategy would be useful in this legislation.

The other piece I'd like to ask you about very quickly.... In this legislation, we have a definition of a “prisoner of conscience”. Now, Alex Neve, who was the secretary general of Amnesty International, joined us at our last meeting. He suggested that, instead of it being a “prisoner of conscience”, we should have a definition that refers to individuals who are detained or experiencing other treatment in contravention of international human rights standards.

Would you agree that it would be useful to have that within this legislation? Perhaps you can expand on that.

Perhaps I'll start with you, Mr. Therchin.

[Sherap Therchin]

It would certainly be helpful, and I agree on the amendment of a human rights strategy in Bill C-281.

I'm not very familiar with the technicalities, but I would certainly defer to Alex Neve, whom I have known for many years as a very well-respected human rights defender and supporter of all the victims of Chinese oppression, whether it's Tibetans, Uyghurs or Hong Kongers.

In this case, I would agree with what Alex Neve has recommended.