Thank you very much.
I'm pleased to join you this evening. I will do my presentation in English, but afterwards I will be able to speak both languages.
Dear esteemed members of Parliament, thank you for the invitation to give testimony to the Special Committee on Canada-China relations. I lead the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University. I applaud the committee for studying issues related to the national security dimension of the Canada-China relationship, including cyber-enabled influence operations, espionage, cybersecurity, foreign interference and harassment. I think many democracies around the world are dealing with this right now and no one quite has an answer.
The rise of authoritarian China poses an existential threat to Canada's values and interests, including the respect for human rights, the rule of law and the future of democracy. That can't be said enough. In March 2019, my institute hosted Dolkun Isa, leader of the World Uyghur Congress. The Chinese consul general contacted me by email the day before the event, seeking to urgently discuss the event. I ignored his email only to find out that the next day the Chinese consulate in Montreal had put pressure on the mayor of Montreal to have our event cancelled. Thankfully, no one succumbed to this foreign interference. I had follow-up with Canadian officials, Global Affairs Canada and CSIS, and the event was covered by the U.S. State Department in its annual reports on human rights in China.
That incident that happened to me and my colleagues follows other examples in Canada and around the world where the Chinese government has purposefully attempted to curtail academic freedom, while simultaneously stomping upon our fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of opinion, and privacy, to name just a few of those human rights.
Since 2019, Canadians have seen two of our citizens locked up for over 900 days, a deadly pandemic killing over three million people across the planet, disinformation campaigns targeting democracies in an attempt to foster mistrust in our own democratic institutions in the media, as well as to sow distrust about western-developed COVID-19 vaccines. We've also seen economic warfare against our ally, Australia, for having the audacity to call for international investigation into the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We have seen similar blowback and retribution against Canadian politicians and U.S. and European officials, for labelling abuses against Uighurs as genocide. We see a very aggressive China that we haven't seen four or five years ago. These actions by China—I don't mean the people, but the CCP—reveal that the government there is a hostile actor with far-reaching implications for Canada and our allies.
While this committee is tasked with the immense challenge of what Canada should do about China, let me offer a few insights. China is trying to win the global competition to be a tech leader and is exporting these technologies across the planet, as well as to Canada. It is imperative that a more robust response be taken to limit the export of Canadian technologies to China and for us to work with our democratic allies to counter digital authoritarianism. We must not allow Huawei to establish Canada's 5G network. Both the Czech Republic and the Netherlands are examples that we cannot ignore of where privacy cannot be guaranteed.
I'd like to talk about genocide and surveillance. All Chinese companies that have been found to have assisted Beijing in the surveillance and persecution of the Uighur Muslim minority should not be allowed into the Canadian market or to provide financing and co-operate with Canadian universities. Tencent, Hikvision Huawei and iFlytek are all documented as having offered their services to Beijing's genocide and are complicit in these crimes. This past weekend, the Globe and Mail reported that iFlyTek is funding projects at Queen's University and York University. This is unacceptable. The same concept should be applied to the Canada pension plan contributions that are being invested in companies involved in Uighur genocide. This is not a good look for us.
Last but not least, Facebook recently announced that it had taken down a coordinated cyber harassment campaign targeting Uighurs living in numerous western countries, including Canada. We must develop operational capabilities to protect Canadian citizens from surveillance and online harassment and to expose who is behind these actions.
Thank you for having me today.