Foreign Affairs Committee on June 1st, 2023

[Alexandre Lévêque]

It's anything that would affect our national security or, for example, critical supply chains.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Have there been others that have been granted?

[Alexandre Lévêque]

Yes.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Can you list any specifics?

[Alexandre Lévêque]

For commercial confidentiality reasons, we're not at liberty to share those, but I can say that whenever critical Canadian interests are concerned, we take that into consideration, and we have granted other permits, yes.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

We are together with our western allies, our NATO allies, in coordinating our sanctions. Has that led to other countries outside of that alliance also joining our western sanctions? Can you comment on that effectiveness?

[Alexandre Lévêque]

Yes, indeed. I named the usual suspects, if you will, with whom we really coordinate very closely, and that's the U.S., the European Union and the U.K. Very few countries have autonomous sanctions regimes. Japan, I believe, has one. Australia and New Zealand are smaller players, but we coordinate with them as well. Then there's the exchange of information, even with countries that don't have autonomous sanctions regimes, through the G7, the NATO allies and the Five Eyes. There's a lot of exchange of information there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

Next we go to Ms. Vandenbeld.

You have four minutes.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for being here today and informing us about how this is functioning right now.

I noticed, Mr. Lévêque, that you mentioned that here are 1,900 Russian and Belarusian officials who have been sanctioned. Could you tell us what this situation would be for Iranian officials?

[Alexandre Lévêque]

I do have these numbers, if you will just give me a second.

I believe that, for Iran, we have a total of 156 individuals and 192 entities listed under our autonomous sanctions.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much. I know that's of great concern to Canadians.

What about Haiti? What is the current situation for Haiti?

[Alexandre Lévêque]

The number of individuals to this day who have been sanctioned in Haiti is 19.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

These would be what are known as oligarchs, the ones who are behind the gangs.

[Alexandre Lévêque]

That's correct. It's a mix of individuals involved in business, what the equivalent of oligarchs would be in Haiti, as well as former politicians who were seen to be influential and who could have made a difference for the better, but instead chose to maintain chaos, destruction and terror.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Could you tell us how Canada's sanctions regime—including SEMA and the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, the Magnitsky act—compares to those of some of our like-minded allies, the U.S., the U.K., Australia and maybe some others?

[Alexandre Lévêque]

Our sanctions regimes have a lot in common, but every legislation is slightly different. We have unique triggers. I spoke about our four triggers before. Other countries will have slightly different ones. Other countries will have different thresholds of acceptability and for what constitutes a sufficient evidentiary package.

Every time we put through an order in council that proposes a new regulation to list the sanctioned individuals, we challenge ourselves. We are challenged by the Department of Justice to make sure that we are not doing so irresponsibly but with enough evidence, which is always from open sources. Some other countries are prepared to accept classified information to documents they are listing.

There are a lot of similarities, but there are very different mechanisms and very different delays, depending on which country you're talking about. In the case of the European Union, they have to agree to everything 27 times before they go forward, which slows them down significantly.

[Anita Vandenbeld, Liberal, Ottawa West—Nepean, ON]

I'll share the rest of my time with Mr. Zuberi.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you for being here today.

To pick up on the first question of Ms. Vandenbeld, you talked about Russia and Iran.

For China, with respect to what's happening to Tibetans, Hong Kongers and Uyghurs, I'm wondering about the number of sanctions and whether they affect those specific categories.

[Alexandre Lévêque]

By memory, I want to say it's four individuals and one entity.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

That's for the Uyghurs. For Tibet, are there any?

[Alexandre Lévêque]

I am not sure. We're going to have to come back to you with that. I don't want to mislead you.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We now go for two minutes to Mr. Bergeron.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

I will be brief, because time is short.

I will give you a chance to finish your answer about Mr. Abramovich and maybe take stock of the effects of sanctions imposed on people involved in corruption and violence, as well as weapons and drug trafficking in Haiti. According to information from the RCMP, it looks like nothing was frozen there.

Can you enlighten us about that?

[Alexandre Lévêque]

Your previous question sought to determine why only one asset was seized. It's simply because of the problem of access to information. Indeed, oligarchs are very good at hiding their assets. They don't put together lists of what they own here under their own name. It's one of the most significant barriers in terms of access to information.