Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses. I'm so glad that we're finally here and that we're finally having these hearings on Hong Kong. I wish we had started these hearings on Hong Kong months ago. We didn't have the support of the government to do that back in May, but this powerful testimony that we're getting, better late than never, will hopefully be a huge wake-up call to all of us here, to parliamentarians, to the government and to all Canadians. We're hearing from witnesses who have a great understanding of Hong Kong, who love Hong Kong, but who first and foremost are proud Canadians and are talking about threats to their rights, their freedom and their sense of security here in Canada.
What I get from your testimony is that we're seeing in Hong Kong an attack on fundamental human rights, an attack on international law and a violation of China's commitments, but also really this unprecedented effort to formally seek extraterritorial jurisdiction over speech. The Chinese government now presumes that they can hold people accountable and they can prosecute people who are Canadian citizens for what they say in Canada. That should be a huge concern for all of us. Thank you for bringing that testimony.
I want to zero in on some action items. One of the witnesses said that the committee should table a report with some specific recommendations dealing with the issue of Hong Kong. I would like to get feedback from other witnesses on proceeding with that. When we see the events in Hong Kong, people hear “concern”, “grave concern”, etc. and they just get sick of hearing “concern”. They want to hear action items.
We have some good, specific action items, really four things that seemed to be similar across the witnesses: Magnitsky sanctions, which I think everybody mentioned; tough new legislation dealing with foreign interference, preventing Chinese state interference here in Canada; new pathways around immigration; and then proposals around diplomacy.
I guess I will just put my questions together and maybe we can hear from all of the witnesses on them.
Should we proceed with a report as a committee to put these issues on the parliamentary agenda? On the issue of sanctions, should we sanction Carrie Lam? Is that something Canada should follow up on? On the issue of foreign interference, it seems obvious to me, in a way, that we should have a zero tolerance policy for diplomats involved in foreign interference here in Canada. If you're intimidating Canadians and you're a diplomat, you should be sent home. We should end university co-operation with hostile foreign armies. It's crazy to me that we would have co-operation between the People's Liberation Army and our universities.
Those seem like clear, simple steps that the Canadian government could take right away. I would love to hear feedback from all of the witnesses on those points.