The motion reads:
That the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development strongly condemn the unacceptable sanctions imposed by the People's Republic of China against one of the Committee's Vice-Chairs, the Member of Parliament for Wellington—Halton Hills and the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights which represent an affront to Canada's democracy and parliamentary system.
The reason the four members filed this motion and wanted to meet in a special meeting today is that, on Saturday, we all found out that China had imposed these sanctions against Mr. Chong and our subcommittee. Obviously, I'm sure most members around this—and all parliamentarians—were very outraged to see that these sanctions were arbitrarily imposed against a Canadian parliamentarian. These sanctions are nothing more than retaliatory measures taken that I feel are unacceptable and unjustified. I'm sure that we'll hear from other members, as well, as to their feelings on it.
We see it as an attack on democracy, on transparency, on freedom of expression, and we think there should be a united and clear stance taken by parliamentarians and especially by this committee, first and foremost, to condemn this action by China.
As we've heard from our foreign affairs minister and from other parliamentarians, as well, over the last few days, Canada is going to continue to defend our democracy and the partnerships that we have around the world that are working in unison with us to defend democracy and the democratic rights and freedoms—and especially human rights—of people in China and around the world.
That's why I want to move this motion and why I feel that it's timely that we do it today and that we have a vote on this as soon as possible. I think that we need to send that message out. That's all I'll say for now, and I'll hand it over to the next speaker.