Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Katherine Leung, and I am the policy adviser for Hong Kong Watch in Canada.
Hong Kong Watch supports the heart of Bill C-281, which would make it easier for parliamentarians to recommend foreign officials who should be included on a sanctions list, including those guilty of the ongoing human rights crackdown in Hong Kong. As committee members will no doubt be aware, many of these Hong Kong officials have links to Canada, including owning property, having family members with foreign passports and having been educated here. The bill would also rightly increase the government's powers to ban state propaganda outfits operating in Canada, like CGTN, which spread disinformation and seek to interfere in our public debates. Such a ban would bring Canada in line with like-minded partners like the U.K., which banned CGTN in February 2021.
This specific amendment to the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act is a welcome provision. As I am sure members are aware, Hong Kong has over 1,000 political prisoners at this time, and this number is only growing. We note that there are several political prisoners who previously held Canadian citizenship or who have family links to Canada. The Hong Kong authorities have jailed so many political prisoners in the last several years that overcrowding in prisons is a growing problem. The authorities are running out of space to put the activists, journalists and trade unionists they have incarcerated.
Hong Kong has one of the largest populations of political prisoners in the world, with over 10,000 politically related arrests since 2019. We urge Global Affairs to consider better tools to track and identify those prisoners of conscience who have links to Canada. We believe that this new provision will allow NGOs, like Hong Kong Watch, to be better equipped to advocate for the release of people whose only crime is to fight for the betterment of their country.
With regard to the provision for the Sergei Magnitsky Law, we should be proud to be one of the first countries in the world to adopt a Magnitsky sanctions regime, which allows us to target and hold to account individual human rights violators. It is, therefore, sad to note that not a single entity or individual from China has currently been sanctioned by Canada under the Magnitsky law. As members will be aware, Canada has sanctioned just four individuals and one entity in China for human rights violations in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region under the Special Economic Measures Act. We have no shortage of reasons to sanction Chinese and Hong Kong officials. In fact, parliamentarians have repeatedly, in the form of letters and committee reports, called on the government to do so.
Sanctions are a tool for Canada to hold human rights violators accountable. Tools only work when they are used. From what we have seen, there is an inconsistency in the government's approach. It has introduced a Magnitsky sanctions regime that it claims is world leading, yet it refuses to use it, instead relying on SEMA. The sole purpose of the Magnitsky law is to protect human rights on a global scale, whereas SEMA exists as an economic sanctions scheme and is not intended to be used solely against human rights violations.
The proposal of this bill to create a mechanism by which the Minister of Foreign Affairs is required to respond to recommendations made by a parliamentary committee is a welcome step forward. This will not only serve as a way to incentivize the government to utilize this tool for its intended purpose but will also provide transparency on the reasons behind such decisions. After all, sanctions do not sit in a vacuum away from wider policy-making. They are political in nature and have a significant impact on the bilateral relations between countries. The decision and reasoning to not sanction an individual human rights violator is as important as the rationale for doing so. This provision of the bill will help inform the public, civil society groups and NGOs on the wider thinking when it comes to the government's sanctions policy and its commitments to uphold human rights.
Turning to the amendment to the Broadcasting Act, I believe Canadians would find it reasonable that regimes that are committing genocide or ongoing human rights violations should not be given a platform on Canadian airwaves. The distribution of state propaganda from countries that grossly violate human rights is not in the public interest. For example, CGTN is under the control of the central propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party. It is a tool of propaganda, disinformation and the violation of human rights. In 2019, CGTN aired a forced-confession video of Hong Kong activist Simon Cheng that was recorded under duress and which he was coerced into filming as a condition for his release. CGTN has also broadcast blatant disinformation, denying the Uyghur genocide, mischaracterizing the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement as riots rather than peaceful protests, and claiming that COVID-19 originated in the U.S. in contradiction to scientific evidence.
An important point to raise is this: Who is on the receiving end of this propaganda? In Canada, it is largely Chinese immigrant communities that are consuming this. To allow CGTN to continue operating on public, state-owned Canadian airwaves is to allow Beijing's propaganda to misinform, propagandize and have direct influence on Chinese-speaking Canadians.
In closing, I will say that we are supportive of Bill C-281 as a way to increase the government's accountability and transparency in Canada's role in upholding human rights internationally.
Thank you.