Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank Madam Sahota for introducing this motion.
Let me just say that the sanctions put on me and others in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe have a twofold effect: they prevent us from travelling to China and they prevent Chinese institutions and citizens from doing business with the individuals sanctioned.
I have no business in China, I have no assets in China and I have no plans to travel to China. My wife and I decided some two years ago that we would not be travelling to China for the foreseeable future, ever since they decided to detain Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor on December 10, 2018, and subsequently when Beijing's authorities decided to crack down on Hong Kong with the introduction of a draconian extradition treaty.
In practical terms, these sanctions will have no impact on me, but they are an attempt to silence us.
They're an attempt to stop us from speaking up on the violations of international law—in the form of the 1948 Genocide Convention—that China is perpetrating in its genocide against the Uighur Muslim minority in Xinjiang province. They're an attempt to silence us in speaking up on the violations of an international treaty, the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, which guarantees Hong Kong's autonomy for 50 years under the one country, two systems doctrine.
I'll finish by saying this. We cannot, as Canadian parliamentarians, allow that to happen. We cannot allow these sanctions to silence us.
What that means for me is that I think we should remain focused not on the sanctions but on why we were sanctioned, which includes the human rights abuses taking place against the Uighurs in Xinjiang. We should be focused on the violations of an international treaty in Hong Kong; the continued persecution of the Tibetan people; the detention of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor; the fact that Mr. Schellenberg has been arbitrarily put on death row; and, the ongoing two-decade detention of Mr. Hussein Jalil, whose family lives in Burlington, Ontario, and whose children have never known their father.
We need to remain focused on these issues.
I appreciate the fact that Madam Sahota has introduced the motion. I will be supporting it, but I really strongly believe that this committee and the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations should remain focused on those issues and not worry about the sanctions that have been placed on officials here and abroad. Let's remain focused on the issues at hand and continue to speak up publicly on these issues to give voice to the voiceless.
Thank you, Madam Sahota, for introducing the motion.