Canada-China Relations Committee on May 31st, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you, Mr. Lightbound.

Ms. Normandin, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Ladies, once again, thank you very much for your answers.

In your opinion, which of the following two scenarios best describes reality?

People of Tibetan or Uyghur origin living in Canada can be left alone, have a nice life and not worry about anything if they don't say anything against the Chinese Communist Party.

Everyone is under surveillance, which can increase and intensify. For example, the closer national get to a place of power and become prominent, regardless of whether they talk about the Chinese Communist Party, the more surveillance increases, and they may be subject to harassment and threats.

Which of the two scenarios applies most?

[Rukiye Turdush]

I understand those two scenarios, but applicable to where?

I'm sorry. I didn't get your question.

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

For example, are Tibetan or Uyghur nationals who are in Canada and who say nothing against the Communist Party left alone?

[Rukiye Turdush]

Yes.

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

Or is everyone being watched, and the closer people get to places of power—

[Rukiye Turdush]

Everyone is subject to surveillance. It's not as if I am the only one under surveillance because I am a human rights activist. All of the Uighurs are under surveillance. Maybe ASPI or the Australian...have reported.... They may have stolen something from China. Actually, there is a list of 10,000 names. Of these 10,000 names on the list, there are the names of more than 7,000 Uighurs, including many Canadian Uighurs. Of those Canadian Uighurs, most of them are not activists. They were scared of China. They have family members. They were very quiet, but they were still under surveillance. They didn't do anything.

This March, Reuters wrote that Facebook told them that Chinese hackers were stealing the information of no fewer than 500 Uighur activists on Facebook. We don't have 500 Uighur activists on Facebook. There are a few of them, but most of them are not activists, though they are still under surveillance and the Chinese government is stealing their information.

[Chemi Lhamo]

I would just like to quickly add—number two, for sure. In order to survive or thrive in the society, you're being targeted, so even if you're silent, you're still going to be affected when you start to become more successful in life.

Madam MP, if I were to say, “You can't bring your Québécois identity to the table,” that's not fair, but that's happening to us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you. Pardon me.

We'll now go to Mr. Harris, for two and a half minutes, please.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to ask both of you this question. I'll let Mrs. Turdish go first because I didn't get to her last time.

You both have been persistent, open and brave. You've been commended for that, and you're doing what needs to be done. Can I ask you whether or not you feel any more heartened by the activities of the last year or two, the exposure of some of these questions, the work that this committee is doing to bring the matter to the forefront, the attempts to convince the government to make things...and perhaps a report that we might be able to make to urge changes? Do you feel heartened by that at all?

I'll let you answer first, Mrs. Turdish, then Ms. Lhamo.

[Rukiye Turdush]

I did not, but I feel very [Technical difficulty—Editor] that our government going very slow in response to these acts, and not fast. China has a huge influence, and China goes very fast, but our government.... I don't know. Maybe it's the gathering of information. They don't have enough information or evidence maybe. I don't know if that's why it's very slow, but I'm still happy.

[Chemi Lhamo]

I want to echo those sentiments.

Yes, it's heartening. However, at what cost is it? Today, if there is another student who goes through the violence I had to go through, are they still going to be just given another walkie-talkie and be expected to stay safe? The reason I'm speaking out and becoming a bigger target—perhaps I will never be able to go back home if I want to, for speaking out—is in the hope that someone else will not have to go through this. No other Canadian should ever have to go through that.

[Rukiye Turdush]

Because our government response is slower, is our action going to be heartening? That's what I want I wanted to say.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

I'll leave this as a comment because I only have a few seconds left in my intervention.

I guess the responsibility then is for us on this committee, and for the Government of Canada, to respond to these circumstances in the best way we can, and hope that we can improve things so that both of you, people in your circumstances and all of your people don't have to go through this, and we can hopefully affect some change.

[Rukiye Turdush]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Harris.

We'll now go on to Mr. Williamson, for five minutes.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ms. Lhamo, there are a couple of things you said that I'm really curious about. You said you had photos with student IDs of those making death threats against you. Is that correct? Was there no follow up from the police or any national oversight police body in this country?

You're nodding, but can you just say something on the record? I want to get that because that is astounding.

We had the RCMP commissioner here some weeks ago, and the best she could say was that more needs to be done. You're saying that you had actual students' on-campus IDs with these statements and that nothing was done. Is that correct?

[Chemi Lhamo]

I could give you more concrete results if any of the reports or investigations done by various levels of security were actually given to me or if I had access to them. To this day, I don't have any piece of paper that shows them. However, friends have sent me screenshots of folks liking those comments of death threats on my social media posts that are probably still up and to this day publicly available, where they actually have their student IDs on their social media pages—so yes, in short.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

All right.

There was something else that Mr. Harris said, and you didn't quite have time to follow up. It was his question regarding why the university president or some senior administrative official didn't do anything. Your comment was “international”—I didn't know if you were going to say “international students”. Are you suggesting that this is the almighty renminbi, or what?

What was your comment? Could you maybe finish your answer to Mr. Harris's question?

[Chemi Lhamo]

Thank you. I appreciate the time.

To Mr. Harris, there were some investigations. However, what is the purpose of investigations if there is no impact?

International students have a huge say in how the academic institutions perform. I could go on about a national education strategy and what the government should do for post-secondary education, but this is not my space. However, you can see that international students are now becoming cash cows, instead of our actually providing a free and good education for our young leaders who will be leaders of tomorrow and today.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Right.

You both raised some interesting solutions.

One I'd like to address, though, is that it seems to me that the CCP has managed to effectively use our institutions and our democratic freedoms against students in this country. When you have a coordinated campaign like that, is one solution not for the Canadian government to begin to say no to more Chinese embassy officials coming to this country who, even if they are nabbed by the police, in many cases can't be charged or can claim diplomatic immunity?

What's the solution here? Is it to have fewer embassy officials who are able to coordinate students in this manner and then have officials focus more on the affairs of state? What are your thoughts on that?

That's to both of you please, and maybe keep your comments to about 40 to 45 seconds each.

[Chemi Lhamo]

It's as simple as reciprocity.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I take it that's affirmative, yes?

[Rukiye Turdush]

I agree.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Ms. Turdush, I believe I read that after your harassment...did your university sanction or did they close the Chinese student association?

Is that correct? Can you talk about why that happened and how that went down?