Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 6th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Colleagues, I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 12 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, September 23, 2025, the committee is meeting to study the detention of Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong.

I would like to welcome our witnesses.

Sebastien Lai, the son of Jimmy Lai and leader of the Free Jimmy Lai campaign, joins us by video conference. We may be joined soon by Caoilfhionn Gallagher, lead international counsel to Jimmy Lai, by video conference. From the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, we have Brandon Silver, director of policy and projects. We also probably will be joined soon by Mr. Michael Kovrig, executive director of StrategicEffects. Finally, from the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, we have Jonathan Stivers, U.S. and Canada director.

Welcome. Up to five minutes will be given for opening remarks, after which we will proceed with rounds of questions from the members.

I now invite Mr. Sebastien Lai to make an opening statement of up to five minutes.

Please proceed.

[Sébastien Lai, Son of Jimmy Lai and Leader of the FreeJimmyLai Campaign , As an Individual]

Thank you very much for having me and for covering my father's story and struggle.

I would like to first thank Canada for recently joining the call for my father's release. Obviously, both Parliament and the Senate have passed unanimous consent motions calling for my father's release.

I would like to give a bit of an update since these calls were done. My father's trial is nearing its end. He has spent almost five years in prison at this point, in solitary confinement with natural light blocked off from his room, in a cell that is obviously not air conditioned. In the summer, it goes up to 30°C to 40°C. He will be 78 soon and has diabetes, so as you can imagine, we're incredibly worried about his life. In fact, recently he couldn't go to a trial because he had to be hooked up to a heart monitor because he was having heart issues.

Throughout the trial, I think we've all been very strengthened to learn that there's no evidence, essentially. The evidence that the prosecution has presented has been incredibly thin. In fact, they have inadvertently painted my father as this man who gave everything that he has to stand up for freedom and democracy and who, through 20 to 30 years of campaigning and journalism, has shone a light on the dark corners of Hong Kong. When push came to shove, in 2020, after the passing of the national security law, he decided to stay and defend his journalists. They have painted him as a man who advocated for democracy—but peacefully.

In fact, whenever he met with students, he would tell them to not be violent. He has always advocated for peace over all of these years. They have found this man who advocated for democracy under the joint declaration, so he never advocated for independence. He's incredibly moderate in a sense, but incredibly strong in his dedication to advocating for freedom and democracy.

In this case now, after five years, I think we have gotten to a situation where it's in everybody's best interest that he is freed. Obviously, that is the opinion of the Canadian government, the U.S. government, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the Italian government and the Australian government. It is also the opinion of the United Nations. This is such a clear-cut black and white case where his rights have been violated. He is being essentially tortured at this point for his courage. Unfortunately, because of his deteriorating health, it is now incredibly urgent.

I ask again that all of you here who have been so incredibly supportive keep shining a light on my father's story and keep your support going, because I think it is very much needed in this quite dark time.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much for your remarks.

I now invite Mr. Silver to make his opening remarks.

[Brandon Silver, Director of Policy and Projects, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights]

Honourable members, thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee.

I'd also like to convey Professor Cotler's warm regards to all of you. He would have been here testifying today if not for being on dialysis in the hospital. He's tuning in online and following closely, and he expresses his appreciation for your leadership in highlighting this case and in speaking out in Parliament for the release of Mr. Lai.

Indeed, as we meet today, human rights hero Jimmy Lai is languishing in torturous prison conditions in Hong Kong at 77 years of age, suffering from diabetes. He has been in prison for 1,772 days. His crime...? Supporting journalism.

As a British citizen with a twin sister and nieces and nephews in Canada, Mr. Lai could have easily fled. Instead, he stayed to lead the struggle for democracy, for human rights, for the rule of law and for media freedom in Hong Kong, and to be a lightning rod to protect all those who were fighting for the same things and campaigning for freedom. In so doing, he has become perhaps the most prominent and emblematic of political prisoner cases in the world, exemplifying the struggle for our shared values.

As Canada embarks on a strategic dialogue and reset with China, we must ensure that these fundamental norms, these shared values that Jimmy Lai has put not only his livelihood but his very life on the line to defend, find expression in our conversations with China. The foundational principles of Canadian democracy and of this very Parliament should be asserted in these conversations. Parliament should press for Jimmy Lai's release publicly, prominently and persistently until we see him free.

Indeed, Parliament adopted a unanimous consent motion calling for his release in December 2023. In February 2024, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights held a dedicated hearing on the case, and a month thereafter, in March 2024, published a statement calling for Jimmy Lai's release and urging the Canadian government to exercise all deliberate efforts with all deliberate speed to help secure his release.

Next week is the perfect opportunity for Canada to do so.

As chair of the G7, our last major initiative is hosting a G7 foreign ministers meeting in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Mr. Lai helped develop this region and employs over 1,500 Canadians there. It is where his family resides. His sister, nieces and nephews are all in Niagara-on-the-Lake. It would be particularly appropriate for the G7 foreign ministers to use this occasion to speak out on his behalf. Each of these governments has already been on the record individually, and now is an opportunity to do so collectively, which Canada can spearhead as chair. It would be an urgent and life-saving action.

As we await the verdict in Mr. Lai's case, it is a particularly propitious moment to plead for his urgent humanitarian release. It is also crucial for Canada's interests.

A part of the charges against Mr. Lai is for engaging with all of you as Canadian parliamentarians. His case represents the criminalization of engaging with Parliament. That is part of the charges against him.

Canada is also a founding member of the United Nations. In China's response to UN special rapporteur interventions asking if engaging with the UN is a criminal act under the national security law, page 56 of China's response said it depended on the context. Therefore, engaging with Canadian parliamentarians is criminalized under the national security law, and engaging with the United Nations is criminalized under the national security law.

Mr. Lai's case is emblematic not only of the struggle for rule of law, democracy and human rights in Hong Kong, but also of the transnational threats the overly broad, draconian and extraterritorial national security law represents. That is an acute risk for the 300,000 Canadians in Hong Kong and the over half a million Canadians of Hong Kong origin in Canada. After the sense of impunity surrounding the persecution and prosecution of Mr. Lai, bounties were issued against Canadians on Canadian soil, which demonstrates the risks of silence in the face of these human rights violations.

Other Kafkaesque allegations against Mr. Lai have included, as a newspaper owner, discussing the news with his journalists, discussing politics with politicians and discussing human rights with human rights organizations.

It is particularly evident that while Mr. Lai's freedom depends on us, our freedoms depend on what we do for Mr. Lai.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you for your remarks.

We will go next to Mr. Stivers.

You have up to five minutes.

[Jonathan N. Stivers, U.S. and Canada Director, The Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation]

Good afternoon, Chair and honourable members of the committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you for this important study.

My name is Jonathan Stivers. I'm the U.S. and Canada director at the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong—the CFHK—Foundation. My organization is dedicated to defending freedom and human rights in Hong Kong. We work to strengthen the international response to intensifying repression there.

My background is in U.S.-China policy. I've served at high levels in the U.S. Congress and the administration, including as the democratic staff director at the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party and, before that, as a Senate-confirmed appointee for President Obama. For 15 years, I served as a senior adviser for former speaker Nancy Pelosi, working on China issues.

In the U.S., the cause of freedom in Hong Kong and Jimmy Lai is bipartisan. It's been strongly bipartisan over the years. It's gratifying to see that Canada is displaying the same example on such an important topic.

In the five years since the imposition of the draconian national security law, Hong Kong has experienced a dramatic transformation, from one of Asia's most open societies to a city where free expression is criminalized, civil society has been dismantled, and pro-democracy leaders, journalists and students face harassment and persecution.

Since 2019, nearly 2,000 political prisoners have been detained, many of whom remain imprisoned under conditions that violate international human rights standards. The prosecution of pro-democracy figures, including Jimmy Lai and Joshua Wong, illustrates the systematic weaponization of the judicial system as a tool for political control.

Instead of restoring freedom and releasing political prisoners, Hong Kong officials are conducting a global messaging campaign to mask the deepening repression that has driven businesses, professionals and capital away from Hong Kong and to other destinations. Simply put, if you have political prisoners, you cannot also be a trusted global financial centre.

While the topic of this hearing is the case of Jimmy Lai, the issue of which he is a victim is China's control and the systematic repression of the Hong Kong people. That has serious implications for the international community and, in particular, for the Canadian government. There is growing awareness and concern that Hong Kong has now emerged as the global hub for sanctions evasion and export control violations, and that it is supporting Russia, Iran and North Korea.

Last week, the CFHK Foundation, along with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, published this groundbreaking new report entitled “Backdoor to the Battlefield: How Hong Kong Funnels Canadian Technology into Russia’s War Machine”. Authored by my colleague Samuel Bickett, the report details how Canada's world-class electronics and aerospace sectors are being exploited to support Russia's war machine through a sprawling network of Hong Kong-based shell companies. The report draws upon battlefield forensics, Hong Kong public records and Russian customs data to show where Canadian parts surface, who moves them and why Canada's sanctions and enforcement architecture has failed to keep up.

We provide evidence in this report that Canadian technology has repeatedly surfaced in Russian weapons recovered on the Ukrainian battlefield, with supply chains running through Hong Kong. In response to our report, foreign minister Anita Anand said that the government is examining these findings. She warned Canadian companies that those evading federal sanctions would be punished. We appreciate that response. There's no doubt that Canadian companies need to better track their shipments, but I want to underscore that stronger enforcement actions from the government are essential.

We know that neither Americans nor Canadians want to unknowingly be complicit with Russia's war in Ukraine. We offer the following policy recommendations.

First, partner with the U.S. and the U.K. to exert calibrated and sustained diplomatic pressure to secure the release of Jimmy Lai and other Hong Kong political prisoners. Coordinated action among allies multiplies diplomatic weight and mitigates retaliation while also reducing the risk that measures will be dismissed or sidelined by the Chinese government.

Second, impose targeted Magnitsky sanctions on officials involved in human rights abuses in Hong Kong. To date, the U.S. has imposed targeted sanctions on 48 Chinese and Hong Kong officials. It is long past time for the Canadian government to exercise its own unique moral authority and to hold Hong Kong officials accountable.

Third, close the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office, the HKETO, in Toronto. The “one country, two systems” framework has ended. The Hong Kong government no longer deserves its own de facto embassy in Canada. The HKETOs are working hard to promote Beijing's narratives and propaganda, to counter-lobby against human rights legislation and to court government officials as well as business leaders and others.

In addition, the Hong Kong government has taken the brazen and unprecedented step of issuing cash bounties on activists in Canada. Foreign governments, much less city governments, should not be allowed to take such actions in the U.S. or in Canada without consequences or, at minimum, without losing their privileges.

Last, designate Hong Kong as a high-risk jurisdiction for money laundering. Impose secondary sanctions on Hong Kong companies and individuals who are providing support for Russia's war on Ukraine.

Canada has long stood as a principled defender of human rights and democracy, and has shown extraordinary solidarity with Hong Kongers seeking safety and freedom. That legacy should continue. It's something that I think Canada should be very proud of and that the United States, frankly, has to do better on.

Through these recommendations, Canada can send a clear message that repression will not be met with silence.

Thank you for your attention and your commitment to human rights. I look forward to your questions and further discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much.

I want to welcome Mr. Michael Kovrig to the committee.

I will now give you the opportunity to make opening remarks of up to five minutes, please.

[Michael Kovrig, Executive Director, StrategicEffects (GNSE)]

Thank you very much. It's an honour to be able to appear before this committee. I greatly appreciate the opportunity.

Today, like the past 1,913 days, Jimmy Lai is confined alone in a prison cell in Hong Kong. I understand what that's like. The confinement itself is raw suffering. The isolation and loneliness grind on you, mind, body and soul. Jimmy Lai is taking all of that suffering to defend the freedom of speech and freedom of the press that Canadians hold so dear. As Solzhenitsyn said, “To stand up for truth is nothing. For truth, you must sit in jail.”

For truth, Jimmy has sat in jail long enough. Frankly, one day would have been too long, given his innocence. His unjust ordeal should never have happened in the first place. We should do all we can to bring it to an end.

Following his meeting with Prime Minister Mark Carney, General Secretary Xi Jinping stated that the two countries should uphold international fairness and justice. Let’s call upon President Xi to honour his own words and free Jimmy Lai from unfair and unjust incarceration.

Let me offer a few specific ideas. First, the advocacy and pressure must be massive, repetitive, intense and persistent to be effective. Flood the system. Integrate Jimmy Lai's detention into all aspects of relations with China if you want him to be free. Call for his release through both bilateral and multilateral meetings. Every contact a parliamentarian has with a representative of the governments of China or Hong Kong, or the Chinese Communist Party, or with influential business leaders is an opportunity.

Do parliamentarians have constituents with connections in Hong Kong and China? There are senior business executives in your ridings, perhaps, who deal with China on a regular basis. Offer them letters from you about Jimmy and a set of talking points to use. Ask them to deliver those letters to any Chinese government representatives they meet. Look for any contact points into that system, from the top right down to the working level. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and the Canada Border Services Agency may perhaps have some underused access to Beijing and Hong Kong officials and politicians. When those officials apply for visas or need to clear customs to enter Canada, is that not perhaps an opportunity to also give them a letter that urges them to release Jimmy Lai?

Second, offer incentives and impose costs. For the Communist Party and the Hong Kong government that reports to it, releasing Mr. Lai looks like a politically risky move. We need to think like the politicians, frankly, making those decisions, but in their context, with strategic empathy. As long as it costs nothing to keep Jimmy Lai in prison and it could be costly for them or risky to release him, they're not going to free him. We have to flip that cost-benefit analysis.

Perhaps make a list of everything the CCP wants from Canada and our allies and partners. Think about ways to condition progress on things they want on matters like ending Jimmy Lai's imprisonment and the imprisonment of other dissidents and detainees in both Hong Kong and the mainland. Create new quid pro quos. Perhaps sanctions or restrictions on certain officials or Chinese prisoners held abroad could be tightened or, alternatively, as a positive incentive, for example, relaxed in exchange for clemency for Mr. Lai.

Chinese officials want us to have what they consider a correct perception of China. Well, Jimmy Lai's imprisonment darkens those perceptions. They are currently on a charm offensive in which they want to persuade the world that China is a responsible pillar of a multipolar order that wants to work with the Government of Canada. Make it clear that their diplomacy would be much more charming, and their reputations would be burnished, if they released Jimmy Lai and other detainees like him. Make it clear that it would be easier to justify new trade and investment deals with China if Chinese counterparts demonstrated more benevolence, magnanimity and reasonableness.

Third, consider a few specific points of pressure, angles of advocacy and incremental steps.

The Chinese Communist Party is ruthlessly transactional. They will be asking what can be offered in exchange, such as a Chinese prisoner currently held in a western country.

Hong Kong depends on trade and conferences. Boycotts can hurt, and encouraging more of them can be an inducement for more favourable behaviour.

Jimmy's health is failing. The CCP likely doesn't want him dying in custody. That would be a political embarrassment potentially. For an elderly prisoner with medical concerns, a compassionate release on health grounds is an entirely plausible justification for release. This could be done in a face-saving, low-risk way.

It could also be a pretext for incremental improvement—more communication with family and friends for prisoners like Jimmy, better access to books or a move to better conditions in detention and then perhaps house arrest. It doesn't have to be all in one at once.

Perhaps Jimmy's Catholic faith could also be the basis for rallying religious organizations and congregations. From Latin America to the Pacific Islands to the Vatican, countries with significant numbers of Christians could also be enlisted to the cause, as are others who can have sympathy with a figure like Jimmy.

For collective leverage it will also, as my colleagues have said, be essential to work in tandem with the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union as force multipliers, and also with as many other like-minded countries as possible. Do whatever you can to persuade President Donald Trump and other influential leaders to champion Jimmy's freedom and persistently fight for it.

Above all, the party fears appearing weak. We need to convince them that a truly confident, legitimate government has no need to fear critics or lock up dissidents, so work to persuade Beijing and Hong Kong that keeping Jimmy Lai in jail is not a sign of strength; it's an embarrassing admission of weakness. Freeing Jimmy would actually be a gesture of power and magnanimity.

In closing, by identifying pressure points and combining relentless advocacy, incentives and costs, it may finally be possible to change Hong Kong's calculus and finally free Jimmy Lai.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much.

Colleagues, I have to suspend for a minute or two so that the team can test the connection of our last witness, who hasn't spoken yet, Caoilfhionn Gallagher, the lead international counsel to Jimmy Lai, who is appearing by video conference.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Colleagues, we'll resume our meeting.

Now we will hear from Caoilfhionn Gallagher, lead international counsel for Jimmy Lai, who will be joining us by video conference.

You have up to five minutes for your opening remarks.

[Caoilfhionn Gallagher, Lead International Counsel to Jimmy Lai, As an Individual]

Thank you very much. My apologies to the committee for the technical issues. I've been trying to get in for the last 40 minutes. My apologies to everyone for the disruption.

It does mean that I haven't heard the opening remarks from others, I'm afraid, so I also apologize for any duplication in the circumstances. If there are any issues I don't cover, I'm of course very happy to cover them in writing.

My name is Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC. I'm the international counsel for Jimmy Lai. It's a privilege to act for Mr. Lai, along with our Canadian counsels, Irwin Cotler and Brandon Silver, and of course to act for Sebastien Lai, his brave son who you're hearing from today.

Many thanks to the standing committee for inviting me to give testimony and my apologies for the technical difficulties, which have bedevilled the start of this.

I assume that my colleagues have already told you how Mr. Lai is a journalist, publisher, businessman and a prisoner of conscience, and how, for his public interest journalism, his defence of press freedom and democratic values, and his courage in speaking truth to power, Jimmy Lai has now been imprisoned in solitary confinement in Hong Kong for almost half a decade—since December 2020. He's faced a barrage of spurious prosecutions. He's been subjected to a long, protracted, unfair trial on charges of sedition and alleged violation of the draconian national security law. His case is emblematic of the crackdown on human rights, media freedom and democracy in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong, of course, was, until relatively recently, a beacon in the region. It was a bastion of the free press and a place with a flourishing civil society and adherence to international standards. The rule of law was intact and businesses and foreign investment benefited from that stable and certain environment.

Hong Kong's descent into a very different place has been speedy and precipitous. It has plummeted down the press freedom rankings, tumbling from 18th in the world two decades ago to now languishing at the very bottom of the international tables at around 140 out of 180. It's nestled in with Kazakhstan and Rwanda, and beaten by places like Guatemala and Congo.

That's not only bad for press freedom and human rights; it's bad for business. It threatens the city's status as a global financial centre. I say that right at the outset because it is clear that this is one of the key places where there is real leverage going forward in terms of securing Jimmy Lai's release and indeed saving his life.

I was privileged to catch the end of what Michael Kovrig was saying. I appreciate that he was touching on very similar points.

Mr. Lai, of course, over the years has trod on very powerful toes and the authorities have long hated him for it. He was targeted in multiple ways and it's only in the last five years that the most powerful weapon of all has been used against him—the law. During that time, Apple Daily itself was forced to close, following the freezing of its assets under the NSL. The printing presses have long since stopped. It's important to make clear that this was state-sponsored theft of a very successful business.

He has, since that time, faced a barrage of spurious prosecutions. At the moment, the key place we're focused on is the national security law and sedition trial, which is limping to a close.

Since he was arrested under the national security law in August 2020, he's served four sentences of imprisonment already. He's currently serving a fifth. He has been the victim of what one of my other clients, Maria Ressa, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, would call “lawfare”.

Critically, it's not just us, as the witnesses today, that you need to believe when we talk about his detention being unlawful and wrong. It's also the view of the United Nations working group on arbitrary detention, which found last year that the actions against Mr. Lai are intended to prevent him from exercising his right to freedom of expression and are deliberately designed to try to silence him. The working group, in a very robust finding, found that he shouldn't have spent a single day in prison and that he's faced multiple violations of his fair trial and due process rights, such as to render his imprisonment on all previous cases arbitrary. It's their very firm view that he should not have spent a single day in custody, let alone half a decade.

It is a very strong ruling. I've worked in this field for about 25 years and it's a particularly robust, strong ruling from the UN working group. That is why we now have multiple states around the world—and I'm grateful to see Canada joining their numbers—calling for Jimmy Lai to be immediately released.

Just very recently, we had Italy joining that international call, along with Canada, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. Twenty-four countries have condemned the process that he has gone through and, of course, many others have called for his immediate and unconditional release, including five UN special rapporteurs, Roman Catholic leaders and civil society groups, including some of those represented today.

His trial under the NSL for sedition is limping to a close, and that in essence is a trial for conspiracy to commit journalism and conspiracy to raise human rights issues in rooms like this and with people like you—parliamentarians around the world. If convicted, Mr. Lai faces life imprisonment, which, in reality, given his age, means a death sentence. Given the near 100% conviction rate under the NSL, Mr. Lai's profile and the wording we hear repeatedly from Chinese embassies around the world when Sebastien speaks out, we expect the worst.

Most urgently of all, in these opening remarks I wanted to highlight the humanitarian issues, because time is running out. I'm particularly concerned that, given the delay tactics we've seen in the NSL trial so far, we may see more foot-dragging and further delay until the conviction and sentence, so it's imperative we act now.

I'm having this conversation with you just days before foreign ministers meet in the Niagara area for the G7 and just weeks before the G20, both of which are real opportunities to land a key message with the Chinese authorities that it's actually in China's interest to now release this man before he dies in prison. It's not only the right thing to do as a matter of principle; it's also the right thing to do from a pragmatic perspective for China.

In relation to the humanitarian issues, I want to introduce the committee to some research that our international legal team has recently undertaken, which has formed the basis for a new appeal that we filed with the United Nations.

That new research involved our going through every single publicly available detail on prisoners who have died whilst in custody or immediately after their release from custody or their transfer to hospital. I'm afraid that what we found in that research, which looked back at 14 years of statistics, was deeply troubling.

We reviewed the deaths of prisoners in Hong Kong for the 11-year period from 2014 to 2025. They're deeply disturbing because they indicate that a significant number of deaths of older prisoners and diabetic prisoners have occurred in circumstances where it's apparent there was a failure to identify the person's deteriorating health condition in prison and a failure to transfer them to hospital in time for life-saving treatment.

During that period, we found that the vast majority of prisoners who died of apparent natural causes linked to their diabetes or their age were transferred to hospital fewer than three days before their deaths—within the last 72 hours of their lives. It's particularly chilling to note that 12 prisoners who died during that period very closely matched Jimmy Lai's profile: older male diabetic prisoners. The most recent death of a diabetic prisoner was just on June 28, 2025—a man aged 74, and he could very easily have been Jimmy Lai.

This is exceptionally urgent. We ask you to do all you can to support Jimmy Lai.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much for your opening remarks.

We will now open the floor to questions, beginning with MP Kramp-Neuman.

You have six minutes.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much to all the witnesses who are here this afternoon.

The experiences of the witnesses here and their families are absolutely horrific and raw and, unfortunately, not unique. I think it's critically important to start off by suggesting that we differentiate between the Government of China and the nation and its people. The Chinese government has shown time and time again that it does not respect or care about Canadian nationals if it believes their interests are not aligned with its own, regardless of how trivial that misalignment may be.

Do any of you believe we should be normalizing relations with the regime in Beijing before securing human rights guarantees from its government? Is this even possible?

[Jonathan N. Stivers]

I can take a shot at that.

I know Canada has just announced a new strategic partnership with China, which is not that dissimilar to what the United States is doing also.

I don't know exactly what the parameters of this would be. Engagement and discussion between the Canadian and Chinese governments are absolutely essential. The key factor is that you don't want the Canadian government or the U.S. government to give away anything unless they're getting something in return. I think Michael explained that very well in his testimony. It's very transactional.

The question is this: How much do you elevate human rights issues, and what is the commitment for the western countries—the U.K., the United States and Canada? How high is Jimmy Lai and how high are human rights issues on the list of things that are important?

I think we would all argue that this should be higher on the list and that the people of Canada and the people of the United States and the people of the United Kingdom would all say this is very high on their list of priorities.

[Shelby Kramp-Neuman, Conservative, Hastings—Lennox and Addington—Tyendinaga, ON]

Thank you.

With everything going on in the world right now, Canadians are in a tough spot, including policy-makers sitting around this very table. I think we can be ambivalent or forgetful about the very real threat that Beijing poses to our democratic institutions.

Can any of you speak to the importance of remaining vigilant about the existential threat that non-allied states like China pose to Canada? Further, with regard to your remarks about the strategic partnership that the government is speaking about, could this potential diplomatic and economic appeasement hurt Canada in the long run?

[Michael Kovrig]

Let me briefly speak first to a point in your previous question on normalization.

I don't think I would choose to use that term, because in a sense you cannot normalize a relationship with a government that does not behave normally, particularly in the sense of respecting norms in the international sense. I would suggest rather that a framework should be an effort to stabilize relationships and recalibrate and re-establish channels of dialogue, in particular in personal relationships and interactions at the most senior levels all the way through.

That does not in any way constitute an endorsement of any policy, but simply a restoration of diplomacy with an effort to ensure particularly that those channels remain open on the Chinese side, so that whether it's for an issue like the one we're discussing today or for any other bilateral irritant or dispute or major crisis, there is a means to at least try to resolve it at the levels where one can actually get a hearing with the decision-makers, the power-holders in China, to articulate Canadian perspectives and concerns.

To your second question, I think it is imperative that we take a long and more strategic view of the relationship with China in the broader geopolitical context and that we be particularly mindful of the risks. I think it's particularly important for politicians, for members of Parliament and for the government to ensure that Canadian citizens understand the potential costs and risks of any sort of deeper engagement.

I understand perfectly well that whether it's a corporate CEO or a politician, there is constant pressure to deliver immediate results and returns, but it's important to balance that with a long-term perspective on managing a relationship that isn't going to go away but is going to be very complex, so that short-term transactional wins are not taken at the expense of longer-term consequences. Whether we're trying to deliver the removal of a bilateral irritant on trade or other economic options in terms of investment, for example, we need to be looking at the wider, longer-term national interests of Canadians and carefully weighing what the implications will be for national security and for the security of our population, but always going back to the basic framework that even if we may be trying to remove a particular irritant or problem or human rights case, we never forget that the fundamental problem is not somehow a lack of trust or a lack of communication. It is that the Chinese Communist Party has a global agenda that is fundamentally adversarial and harmful in many respects—not all, but in many respects—to the national interests of Canada and the interests of Canadians and those of most like-minded states and citizens of open societies.

We need to make every decision understanding that framework, not from the perspective of containing China or doing any harm to Chinese citizens or to the nation of China, but rather to protect ourselves from the either deliberately harmful actions or the negative externalities that are caused by China's own state security system or internal political economy dynamics. Our role is to protect ourselves.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much.

We'll go next to MP Vandenbeld. You have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for very compelling testimony, all of you.

Particularly, Mr. Silver, you used a term. You said that Jimmy Lai is a human rights hero. I think we would all concur with that.

Particularly to Sebastien Lai online, through you to your father, I think we all call for his immediate release, but we also recognize his incredible courage in standing up for media freedom and human rights.

I would like to start my questions with Ms. Gallagher, because I know that you've used an interesting term. You talked about “lawfare”, the weaponizing of the law to go after media freedom and human rights defenders, as something that's happening not just in Hong Kong but around the world, where those who oppose media freedom are actually learning from one another and in fact training one another in how to do this.

You see it, for instance, in the Philippines with Maria Ressa, who was accused of tax evasion. In Hong Kong, of course, it's the national security law. There are fraud laws and defamation laws that use the laws and legal system of a country to undermine the very rule of law that they are intended to uphold.

I would like to start with Ms. Gallagher, but I can see that some of the others on the panel would like to weigh in as well.

Ms. Gallagher, go ahead.

[Caoilfhionn Gallagher]

Thank you so much for your question. It's exactly right.

This is a real trend we're now seeing. I represent many publishers and journalists around the world who are targeted in a deliberate attempt to silence them and to stop them speaking truth to power. Increasingly what I'm seeing is the use of laws that are not just traditional legal weapons used against journalists, like, for example, defamation laws, but a much wider range of laws are being deployed.

Quite often, what we see are deliberate attempts to smear the journalist or the publisher, like Jimmy Lai, for example, being accused of being a fraudster, in essence; José Rubén Zamora, the publisher of elPeriódico in Guatemala similarly being accused of money laundering; and Maria Ressa, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, being accused of being a tax evader.

These are all tactics we now see, and that's quite deliberate, because what it's designed to do is undermine the messenger and make the audience lose trust in the publisher, the journalist or their newspaper or broadcast organization. As a result, it undermines the message, so that's a real tactic we're seeing.

I'm speaking to you just a couple of days after I spent some time with one of my other clients, Paul Caruana Galizia, whose mother, of course, was assassinated eight years ago in Malta for being a journalist. That was in October 2017. At the time of her death, she was facing 48 different lawsuits—a legal whack-a-mole where she was facing multiple different cases. The Caruana Galizias are very clear that there is a direct link between what their mother experienced and the kinds of tactics we're seeing in Hong Kong against Jimmy Lai, including the barrage of spurious lawsuits and having to fight a war on multiple legal fronts. The most serious one of all, of course, is the NSL and sedition trial he faces now because of the very grave sentence that would potentially come from it and that we think is likely to come from it, which, in reality, would condemn this man to death.

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

You mentioned all of these tactics in different countries. Is that a coincidence, or is there an actual deliberate attempt to share these practices—what works and what doesn't work—between countries that intend to undermine media freedom?

[Caoilfhionn Gallagher]

My view is that we see these pages being taken from the authoritarian playbook and being used in different countries. It's not coincidence; it's a deliberate strategy.

I see tactics that have worked well, for example, in the sense that they have silenced journalists in Iran—transnational repression that been used by Iran—and have spread and are being used by China, for example. What we see is that dictators and authoritarians are learning from each other, and they are getting very creative in the tools they use to try to silence journalists and publishers like Jimmy Lai. We need to get creative too and learn from each other.

It's why I'm so grateful that you're having this hearing today and you're hearing from this very wide range of witnesses on this critical topic about this human rights hero.

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

Canada's been leading on the Media Freedom Coalition, and this could be a forum where we could also mobilize globally to ensure that we're countering those tactics.

I would first put this to you, Mr. Stivers, if you wanted to add to any of those questions, and then the others, if there's time.

[Jonathan N. Stivers]

I can't say it any better than Ms. Gallagher, but it's not rule of law; it's rule by law. It's authoritarians using law, or so-called national security law, which has nothing to do with national security. I don't like even calling it that. It's rule by law being used to advance authoritarian priorities.

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

Brandon...?

[Brandon Silver]

To your point about the Media Freedom Coalition, under Canada's leadership, in both 2023 and 2024 the Media Freedom Coalition issued statements on the deteriorating press freedom situation in Hong Kong, particularly urging the release of Mr. Lai.

Expanding upon Caoilfhionn's very compelling and comprehensive interventions as to the authoritarian playbook on lawfare and attacking press freedom and the need for a commensurate response from the community of democracies to uphold our shared values, there is no better moment to do so than next week via the G7. It's a collective of rule-of-law nations that are fighting in common cause, and there is a rare convergence in this fractious diplomatic sphere globally where the case of Jimmy Lai is a point of unity in this Parliament across party lines and amongst our allies in the G7. We can use that opportunity to push back on these authoritarians.