moved for leave to introduce Bill C-219, An Act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law), the Special Economic Measures Act and the Broadcasting Act.
Mr. Speaker, it is indeed an honour to table this bill. I want to thank the member for Northumberland—Clarke for seconding the bill. In the last Parliament, he introduced the international human rights act, Bill C-281.
Despite the long title just read, the bill has a short title, the Sergei Magnitsky international anti-corruption and human rights act. Sergei Magnitsky, to remind everybody in the House, was a Russian freedom fighter who stood up against corruption. He stood up against the dictator Vladimir Putin and tried to expose how kleptocrats were embezzling millions and millions of dollars from private investors. Magnitsky was tortured in prison and died of his injuries. He was murdered by those kleptocrats in 2009. The person he was working for, Bill Browder, is actually here in Ottawa today to help launch this private member's bill.
We have to remember that gross human rights violators always start off as corrupt officials who enrich themselves. This type of kleptocracy has to end. That is why we are encouraging the government, in the bill, to continue on, to establish with our allies the international anti-corruption court at The Hague.
In the bill, we would do a number of things to strengthen our sanctions regime. One is to require the Minister of Foreign Affairs to report to the House on an annual basis what steps the government is taking to fight and advance human rights internationally and to include the names and the status of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience across the world. We would also amend, as the Speaker mentioned, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, the Sergei Magnitsky Law, which I introduced in the chamber and which was passed in the House and the chamber with Senator Raynell Andreychuk at the time, back in 2018.
As well, Bill C-219 would change SEMA to define transnational repression and sanction foreign nationals who do it right here in Canada against Canadian citizens and permanent residents. We would immediately ban immediate family members of those who are put on the sanctions list from travel in Canada. We would make sure that the government must table in Parliament, every time it adds somebody to the sanctions list, who they are and what foreign nationals and entities they are. We would ask the RCMP and FINTRAC to report back to the minister on how they are going to enforce and regulate the sanctions regime and administrate that. We would allow parliamentary committees to actually make recommendations to the minister on who should be added to the sanctions list; the minister would have to report in 30 days on whether they will add them.
Finally, Bill C-219 would amend the Broadcasting Act to revoke licences for broadcasting companies and media companies from around the world that are from regimes that either the House or the Senate has recognized as committing genocide, or that have been already sanctioned by the government through the economic sanctions regime that we have, to ensure that they are not using our broadcast airwaves.
We would also change the name of SEMA to the “Sergei Magnitsky global sanctions act”. This would make sure that when we are sanctioning in Parliament or by the government, we are consistent with our allies and that whenever we stand up for human rights, it is synonymous with Sergei Magnitsky. With the passing of the legislation, I would look forward to working with all colleagues to prevent Canada from being a safe haven for gross human rights violators and corrupt foreign officials.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)
