I was raring to go, and finally he could hold me back no longer. Two weeks ago, I came to Ottawa and met with about three dozen members of Parliament from all the different parties to see whether we were still onside, whether there was still the same amount of support, and I would say that the support has only become stronger. Not a single person I met with didn't support the idea of a Canadian Magnitsky act.
I also had meetings with members of the government, and I didn't get the same passionate response as I got from members of Parliament. Nobody said no, but nobody said yes. What I would hope for is that the new government would take this Magnitsky act and put it into place.
Mechanically, there's a way to do that. There's current sanctions legislation that's already in place, SEMA, the Special Economic Measures Act, which currently doesn't have the ability to sanction human rights abusers. The proposal we had in the previous version, before the end of the last government, was to make a Magnitsky amendment to the SEMA that would target the human rights abusers and allow them to name names of the human rights abusers and to impose visa sanctions and asset freezes.
That's what I'm here today to ask for. I'm asking your committee to support a call on the government specifically to amend the SEMA legislation and to call for a Magnitsky amendment. That would effectively close the loop we started so many years ago and would allow this country to sanction the people who killed Sergei Magnitsky, the people who killed Boris Nemtsov, the people who poisoned Vladimir Kara-Murza, the people who illegally took Nadiya Savchenko hostage, and many others.
It's a cost-free policy. It doesn't cost anything. It would put Canada in a strong moral leadership position, and it's something that was promised to us and should be done.
Thank you very much.