Evidence of meeting #41 for Canada-China Relations in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was democracy.
A video is available from Parliament.
7:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
Thank you, Ms. Tethong. Your two and a half minutes are up.
We'll go to Ms. McPherson for our last two and a half minutes.
7:55 p.m.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
What you were just talking about, Ms. Tethong, resonates with me so much.
On supporting movements, your reference to the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict is wonderful. Thank you for acknowledging the amazing work they do.
I'll finish with a very simple question. I know all three of you have spoken about the potential for sanctions to play an important role. I've been quite critical about the way the government has enforced our sanctions.
I'd like to ask each one of you if there are individuals who are not yet sanctioned by Canada who should be sanctioned. Do you have any suggestions for us with regard to the sanctions regime?
I'll start with you, Mr. Mehdi.
7:55 p.m.
Program Officer, Alternatives
I cannot talk about the sanctions on individuals. I can only say that in India, we are talking about the backsliding of democracy in the Indo-Pacific region.
India, to begin with, has a very robust and excellent constitution that was adopted in 1950. However, since 2014 and the coming into power of this regime, there has been a very serious backsliding in democratic institutions. I think we need to address this and stop this backsliding.
If you watch the elections going on in India these days, you se there is a very open announcement of a fight between democracy and dictatorship, so I think this is the issue for India today. The government, which is a majority government today—let's hope it's not in the next elections after June—should be called out for the abuse of human rights and should be questioned on international platforms.
May 6th, 2024 / 8 p.m.
Acting China Director, Human Rights Watch
Unfortunately, I don't have a ready list for you, though there are lists of other Hong Kong groups. For example, I have spoken about the importance of sanctioning Hong Kong officials. The list runs really long, but I would say the timing.... I would like to see.... It's a bit late for article 23, but it's still timely.
When sentences are handed down to the pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai and the 47 pro-democracy ex-legislators have their sentences handed down, I want to see that kind of response with sanctions, at least.
Thank you.
8 p.m.
Director, Tibet Action Institute
Yes, accountability is everything, and I think in Tibet it should be in particular for the party secretaries, and also, in the case of the boarding schools, the intellectual architects of the policy that seeks to openly, blatantly, forcibly assimilate Tibetan children, Uyghur children and southern Mongolians. I think all of these people should be held accountable.
Right now is the moment is to use sanctions and to deepen our use of them as a tool, because if you think of the decisions inside the Communist Party and the way that breaks down across all of China and Tibet and East Turkestan or Xinjiang, you realize that lot of Chinese leaders right now in the system are wondering where their future lies and how it's all going to shake out in the end if we want to put pressure on Xi Jinping for these terrible policies, for the ethnonationalism and all of that.
Of course, we want to try to pressure him to stop these policies, but at least now we can be signalling to all of those people that they don't want to be involved in this and ask them if in the future this is who they want to be aligned with. I mean, there has to be a cost for them now and in the future, and I think sanctions are one of the only tools we have to really make that clear.
The U.S. has imposed visa sanctions on Chinese leaders involved in the colonial boarding school system in Tibet, and I think Canada could also and should also think about engaging in this way. The party secretaries are the very obvious people, because they are in charge of the CCP policy as it is implemented in all of Tibet, though they've carved it up into the Tibet Autonomous Region and other so-called autonomous regions, and then there are the intellectual architects. We are actually working to try to make a clear picture of who is responsible.
8 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
We've come to the end of the testimony from our witnesses, and I'd like to thank all three of you.
Actually, starting with you, Ms. Tethong, you mentioned that one of your colleagues had written a book about democracy, and I'm wondering if you could email our clerk with the details of that book. It sounds quite fascinating. Thank you for being with us.
8 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
Ms. Wang, it was good to have you on, as well as you, Mr. Mehdi.
We'll let our witnesses go about whatever the rest of their day looks like.
We will pause for a few minutes while we go in camera and take care of some committee business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]