David Sweet

[Committees of the House, May 25th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, first off, the Canada-China committee needs to be meeting for all of the reasons I articulated in my speech. It is profoundly necessary.

I am not really concerned about any heckling. My faith is secure in Jesus Christ, and I am quite confident in that.

[Committees of the House, May 25th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, all the member has to do is check the record for what I have said in regard to Israelis and Palestinians and the continuing conflict by the Palestinian regimes that subjugate their people. The corruption of Palestinian Authority has been proven over and over again. Hamas is a recognized terrorist organization.

We hope that individual Palestinians of good will who want freedom will one day see their freedom observed. Of course, we continually defend the rights of Israelis to safety and security and their own democracy in Israel.

[Committees of the House, May 25th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, I think the hon. member in his eloquence really juxtaposes the profound difference between the two parties and how we should deal with the Chinese Communist Party. We are not dealing with panda bears here. We are dealing with human lives. We are dealing with lives who have been persecuted all over China themselves.

Now we are dealing with lives on the brink in Hong Kong where the Chinese regime is now turning over an agreement that it promised to abide by some decades ago and is taking over, as it does does on its own soil, as a ham-fisted communist regime that wants to take away the freedom and democracy that Hong Kongers have enjoyed. Frankly, the Canadian Forces, back in the 1940s, paid with their own blood for that freedom, human rights and democracy in Hong Kong.

I am never going retract any statement in regard to speaking directly to the issue. I think for too long we have soft-peddled the CCP. They have weaponized their trade with us. The member was talking about trade agreements. Too often they have tried to punish us by saying no to our pork and saying no to our canola whenever we do not appease them. Enough is enough. It is time to have a whole new adult conversation about how we deal with this Chinese regime.

[Committees of the House, May 25th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, Chinese people are kind and gentle people with a deep respect for family, tradition, faith and caring for the elderly. These are among the many fine qualities of their character, but they are an oppressed people, oppressed by the Chinese People's Party's communist regime in Beijing.

I make this important distinction up front. While I will be speaking today about the many alarming human rights violations committed by the Chinese Communist Party, this should never ever be mistaken for criticism of Chinese people and the many hard-working Canadians of Chinese ethnicity in my home town and across the country. It is the regime they suffer under.

Canadians have become keenly aware and increasingly concerned by the actions of the Chinese communist regime. Today, it is probably the issue I hear most from my constituents. That is why the House voted in December to strike a Special Committee on Canada-China Relations on a motion from my colleague, the hon. member for Durham. This committee has done good work. I would like to acknowledge the work of members of all parties toward the report of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations.

I want to draw the House's attention to the abysmal human rights record of the Chinese communist regime by touching on five examples. Each could be a speech unto its own. However, these five examples underscore the long, consistent and deliberate pattern of the CCP in flouting any acceptable international standards of human rights. Simply put, the Chinese Communist Party, particularly under Xi Xi Jinping, is a ruthless, totalitarian regime that tightly controls its people and inflicts brutal oppression on its ethnic and religious minorities.

First is the Uighur Muslim minority in China. While reports of numbers vary from 1.5 to 3 million who have been detained in re-education camps by the CCP, that is one out of every 10 Uighurs in China. The accounts of life in the camps range from brainwashing to forced labour to inhumane cruelty. The very notion of concentration camps in our day should be reprehensible. How can the world turn a blind eye? During the recent coronavirus outbreak in China, the Chinese Communist Party kept the Uighurs locked up, risking certain wide spread virus outbreaks and death in the very camps. Do we even have the full story on this yet?

Maybe the longest persecution of an ethnic and religious minority by the CCP are Tibetans. I have spoken on this in this chamber and at the subcommittee on international human rights for as long as I have been elected. Again, Tibetans have a long, proud history, one that the CCP regime does not recognize and has done its best to crush. They are an impediment to the regime's goals. As a result, the CCP brutally cracks down on any behaviour that it believes promotes Tibetan culture. So brutal are its measures, that Tibetans are self-immolating in protest of the regime. It is reported that since 2009, 128 men and 28 women have set themselves on fire to protest this regime.

What have we become, that we do not shout from the rooftops and take sanctioning measures against the perpetrators of these heinous human rights violations that are so abhorrent, people will set themselves on fire?

Christians are another favourite target of the officially-atheist Communist Party. Why? Because any organized group of people is a threat to the iron grip the CCP has and wants to maintain over its citizenry. Under Xi Xi Jinping, that grip has grown even tighter. Churches are being closed, pastors are being jailed at an alarming rate and there are ever-increasing random arrests and questioning by state police.

A fourth human rights abuse is the plight of the practitioners of Falun Gong, a peaceful ancient spiritual practice. Those who practice Falun Gong in China face harsh persecution at the hands of the CCP and its police forces. If arbitrary arrests, forced labour and torture were not enough, we have had witness testimony at the subcommittee on international human rights of organ harvesting. Our former distinguished colleagues, the Hon. David Kilgour, as well as well-know human rights lawyer, David Matas, have given compelling evidence repeatedly on this practice by the CCP. Let us think about that: detaining Falun Gong, imprisoning them arbitrarily, torturing them to death and then harvesting their organs for sale.

The fifth point I would like to make is about the CCP's treatment of its own people. Even the Han Chinese, the majority of the Chinese people, live under a totalitarian regime that tightly controls everything: the Internet, the content of their conversations, the education system, everything. There is no freedom of the press. There is no freedom of religion. There is no consistent rule of law. All that is needed to be arrested is trumped up charges. The police answer only to the Chinese Communist Party apparatus.

Since Tiananmen Square in 1989, political prisoners have been detained or have disappeared at an alarming rate. Xi Jinping has extended the crackdown on dissidents and has targeted lawyers, journalists, bloggers and women's and minority advocates, from house arrest to jail time, to those who are detained and then never heard of again.

Even in plain sight, the Chinese Communist Party regime in Beijing cares little for its own people. I was struck by a heart-wrenching story of a father whose disabled son died of starvation while he was in quarantine over the coronavirus. It is but one example of that heartless regime.

In addition to these five examples of flagrant human rights abuses by the Chinese Communist Party, we have recent and direct cause for concern as Canadians. As has been noted, two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, have been held in Chinese prisons for more than a year with the lights turned on 24-7. Moreover, the CCP has consistently weaponized its trade with Canada and other countries, consistently bullied countries in its own hemisphere and manipulated others like the DRC and Burma. It is no wonder that more and more I am hearing from Canadians who are fed up with how Canada is being treated by the CCP. They have every right to be outraged.

All that I have talked about for the last number of minutes brings me to this point. The Chinese Communist Party has a long history of persecution and cracking down on dissent. That is why the developments in Hong Kong, really since the one country, two systems agreement was signed but now at a boiling point this week, have to be of major concern to us. My colleague, the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, has already spoken eloquently about this. While the world has been preoccupied by COVID-19, China has been cracking down on Hong Kong, hoping no one will notice. On Friday, the National Congress of the Communist Party of China unilaterally instituted a national security law on Hong Kong. In response, thousands upon thousands of Hong Kongers took to the streets this week in a protest amid COVID-19. Under the watchful eye of the police, they risked everything. We are witnessing the end of the one country, two systems agreement. We are witnessing the end of Hong Kong.

The response from the Liberal government has been acquiescence and naiveté. Canada must do more than just hope for dialogue; we have a duty to the 300,000 Canadians in Hong Kong. We have a duty to the 554 fallen Canadians whose blood was spilled in defence of Hong Kong against the Japanese army in December 1941. They fought against overwhelming odds. There are 283 Canadians from that battle who remain in the Sai Wan War Cemetery. We have a duty to them. We are a leading democracy in the world. We stand up for human rights, democracy and freedom. What have we become? How can Canada just stand by? On behalf of 300,000 Canadians, out of respect for the Canadian blood that has been spilled in Hong Kong, and for all those who believe in human rights and freedom, having not forgotten how the CCP, under Xi Jinping, has treated Uighurs, Tibetans, minority Christians, practitioners of Falun Gong and self-respecting democracies around the world, we must act now.

I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: “the First Report of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, presented on March 11, 2020, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations with instruction

(a) to amend the same so as to make recommendations reflecting a broader assessment of the evolving situation facing pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong; and

(b) to meet within one week of the adoption of this order in order to consider this matter, provided that, if the House stands adjourned at the time the committee meets and certain standing committees have been empowered to meet by video or teleconference during that adjournment period, the shared and relevant provisions applying to those standing committees shall also apply to the committee and during the same timeframe, the committee may continue to meet for the same from time to time.”

[Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, May 25th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, because of the Prime Minister's flawed policies, wives, husbands and children of Canadians are being denied entry to Canada and are turned back at the border. These families have been separated for two months now while the Liberals refuse to fix their mistake. What is worse, the Liberal member for Spadina—Fort York is telling people to contact their MP to try to find a way to get an exemption. Here is a better idea. Why do they not change the directive and fix the problem?

Bad Liberal policy is causing undue hardship. When will these mothers, fathers and children finally be reunited with their families?

[Criminal Code, February 27th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, I do not often take the chance to speak for my colleagues on this side of the House, but I will right now with regard to the strategy the government is taking on this important issue of medical assistance in dying.

In 2015, in the last election, the Liberals made a commitment that they would invest $3 billion in palliative care to make sure that palliative care across the country was as available as medical assistance in dying. To date, they have not fulfilled that commitment.

The problem we have with modifying the medical assistance in dying legislation is that those who would like to have palliative and hospice care, to feel loved all the way through to the end of their life with the assistance of medicines that would relieve their pain, do not have the capability to experience that. They should have equal rights to those who want medical assistance in dying.

Why have the Liberals not delivered on their promise and why will they not commit to that today?

[Public Safety, February 25th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, last evening. at the peak of rush hour in the GTHA, another blockade was set up on the tracks near York Boulevard in Hamilton.

These illegal protestors are disrupting the GO train service to Hamilton and Niagara, and it continues today. This adds to the already unbearable gridlock that my constituents face daily.

Meanwhile, the elected representatives of the Wet'suwet'en people support the projects these protestors are actually opposing.

When will the Prime Minister act and end these illegal blockades?

[Business of Supply, February 20th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, if the member talks about self-determination and empowerment in this chamber, which I believe is an example of that, 50% plus one means that a bill passes and a decision is made by the House. The Wet'suwet'en people, through 85% of a vote, determined that they wanted to have this pipeline. Now the lack of action by the government is disempowering those very people.

What does the member think about the action of his government in regard to self-determination and empowerment and is it actually doing that job or quite the contrary?

[Petitions, February 19th, 2020]

Madam Speaker, it is my honour to present a petition signed by 1,281 Canadians.

After 14-year-old Devan Selvey's murder in Hamilton, Ontario, that was the result of continuous and unaddressed bullying, and since 1977 both the number and rate of youth aged 12 to 17 years accused of homicide has risen 41%, the petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to immediately and thoroughly review the Youth Criminal Justice Act and make the appropriate amendments to stem the tide of increasing violence.

[Foreign Affairs, February 4th, 2020]

Mr. Speaker, the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement continues its campaign against Israel on Canadian campuses in Canadian cities. In my own backyard, when it first came about, some from the BDS movement called for sanctions against Jewish professors at McMaster University in Hamilton.

Given the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in Canada, North America and the world, could the Liberal government clarify whether it considers BDS to be anti-Semitic?