Foreign Affairs Committee on May 28th, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 36 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.

Pursuant to the order of reference of the House of Commons from Tuesday, February 24, 2026, the committee is meeting on Bill C-219, an act to amend the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Act, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act (Sergei Magnitsky Law), the Special Economic Measures Act and the Broadcasting Act.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses.

Appearing as an individual, we have Marcus Kolga, director of DisinfoWatch. He is joining us by video conference. From Hermitage Capital Management Ltd., we have Sir William Browder, who is the head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign. He is also joining us by video conference. We have Kate McInnes from Arendt Chambers, International Human Rights and Justice. From the Free Russia Foundation, we have Vladimir Kara‑Murza, vice-president.

Up to five minutes will be given for opening remarks, after which we will proceed to rounds of questions

I now invite Sir Browder to make an opening statement of no more than five minutes.

Sir Browder, go ahead.

[Sir William Browder, Head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, Hermitage Capital Management Ltd.]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.

My name is Bill Browder. I'm the head of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign.

I'd like to begin with the name of this bill, because names matter enormously in this work. Bill C-219—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Mr. Browder, I apologize for interrupting. Give us just a second. There's some technical issue we have to resolve.

Go ahead. Please resume.

[Sir William Browder]

Bill C-219 would rename Canada's Special Economic Measures Act the Sergei Magnitsky global sanctions act. This is not a cosmetic change; it is a statement of moral purpose.

Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian tax lawyer who uncovered a $230-million fraud carried out by Russian government officials. Rather than being thanked, he was arrested, imprisoned without trial, denied medical care and beaten to death in a Moscow detention centre. He was 37 years old. He died in 2009.

When his name is embedded in law, it tells the world—every abuser, every corrupt official and every torturer—exactly what these sanctions are for and exactly whom they are named after. That clarity has a power.

Here is a striking fact that underscores exactly why renaming matters. Canada's Magnitsky act, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, was used basically once—in 2018—in its entire existence to sanction Russian officials responsible for Sergei Magnitsky's murder. Every subsequent human rights sanction that Canada has imposed—roughly 1,000—has been made under SEMA, which was updated and broadened as a direct consequence of the Magnitsky act.

In other words, the law that carries Sergei's name has been used once, while the law that doesn't carry his name has been used 1,000 times to do exactly what the Magnitsky act was intended to do. If these sanctions exist to hold human rights abusers accountable—and they do—then it's only logical and only just that they carry the name of the man whose murder inspired them.

This is not only a moral argument but also a practical one. When Canada and its allies seek to coordinate and harmonize Magnitsky sanctions, as they increasingly do, having Canada's equivalent law operating under a completely different name creates real confusion. Diplomats, parliamentarians and civil society organizations working across jurisdictions must be able to identify, compare and align their sanctions regimes quickly and clearly. When every other country calls it a Magnitsky act and Canada does not, that alignment becomes harder than it needs to be.

Bill C-219 would correct both the injustice and the anomaly. I can think of no better illustration of that power than the man sitting in the hearing today—Vladimir Kara-Murza. He played a key role in the passage of 35 Magnitsky acts around the world. He was one of the earliest and most courageous advocates for the entire global movement. He survived two assassination attempts by poisoning with military-grade chemical agents and kept going. When Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Vladimir publicly condemned it and was arrested. He was sentenced to 25 years in a remote Siberian penal colony on fabricated charges of treason.

Canada was the first country in the world to impose Magnitsky sanctions on his persecutors, in November 2022, while he was still behind bars. That was Canada's Magnitsky act working exactly as it was designed—not waiting for a conviction in some distant court, but acting swiftly and decisively to impose a cost on the individuals responsible for an outrage.

On August 1, 2024, Vladimir was released as part of a larger prisoner exchange with Russia—the largest prisoner exchange with Russia since the Cold War. Canada's Parliament also granted him honorary citizenship. He is alive and free, in part, because of the pressure the Magnitsky sanctions created. There is proof of concept sitting in this room.

Now, Bill C-219 would make Canada's law significantly stronger. Let me briefly outline the most important upgrades. It would extend sanctions to cover transnational repression—authoritarian regimes reaching into democratic countries to silence dissidents. Russia, China and others do this constantly. I'm personally a victim of this. Canada's law must be able to respond to it.

The new law would extend consequences to immediate family members of sanctioned individuals. Right now, a sanctioned oligarch's wife and children can live freely in Canada, attending university and owning property. That loophole guts the deterrent effect of sanctions. This bill would close it.

This new bill would create parliamentary accountability, requiring the minister to respond when a committee recommends sanctions and requiring orders to be tabled in Parliament. This matters because the greatest weakness in every Magnitsky regime is the gap between recommendation and action. Governments receive lists of sanctionable individuals and simply do not act. Accountability to Parliament is the remedy, and it establishes mandatory annual human rights reporting by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, ensuring that Canada's commitment to prisoners of conscience is documented, tracked and publicly visible.

I spent 15 years working with parliaments on these laws. The countries with the strongest Magnitsky regimes are the ones whose laws have real teeth—where abusers know their assets can be frozen, their visas denied and their family members held accountable. Vladimir Kara-Murza is proof that these laws save lives. Bill C-219 would make Canada's law one of the strongest in the world and I urge the committee to pass it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much for your statement.

I now invite Mr. Kolga to give an opening statement of up to five minutes.

[Marcus Kolga, Director, DisinfoWatch, As an Individual]

Mr. Chairman and honourable members, thank you for the invitation and privilege to appear before you today.

I'm joining you to express my support for Bill C-219. I had the great honour of working with my fellow witnesses today, Sir Bill Browder and Vladimir Kara-Murza, to lead the Canadian civil society campaign for the original Canadian Magnitsky law, which was also introduced as a private member's bill by James Bezan. That law was designed to ensure that Canada would not become a safe haven for corrupt officials or human rights abusers—or a place for their assets. Ironically, that work and my ongoing advocacy for human rights and democratic values have contributed to my inclusion on both the Russian and Chinese sanctions lists.

Bill C-219 strengthens the core purpose of Canada's sanctions legislation. It addresses four important gaps. It recognizes transnational repression as sanctionable conduct. It automatically prevents the direct family members of sanctioned perpetrators from using Canada as a refuge for wealth and privilege. It improves parliamentary oversight, and it closes a vulnerability in Canada's broadcasting system.

I'm going to focus on two of those amendments.

The first is the recognition of transnational repression. Public Safety Canada identifies transnational repression as a form of foreign interference that can include harassment, threats, surveillance, hacking and intimidation. These tactics are designed to intimidate and silence targeted Canadians and prevent them from participating freely in democratic life.

Transnational repression is happening in Canada. I refer you to reports I co-authored on transnational repression that have been submitted to the clerk, including one written for the Hogue commission.

Canadians and people living in Canada are being targeted by authoritarian regimes because they advocate for democratic freedom. They defend human rights. They expose corruption. They organize within their communities. For that, they are monitored, threatened, harassed, smeared and endangered. Those targeted include activists, journalists, minority communities and diaspora groups, including Uyghur, Tibetan, Hong Kong, Iranian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Russian communities in Canada. Bill C-219 gives Canada a direct tool to respond. Sanctions allow Canada to impose consequences on those who direct, finance, enable or benefit from transnational repression, even when they cannot immediately be prosecuted in a Canadian court.

The second important amendment is to the Broadcasting Act. Canada's information environment is vulnerable to foreign authoritarian influence. State-controlled broadcasters operate as components of authoritarian information warfare and are deployed to whitewash and deny gross human rights abuses, genocide or repression, and to intimidate and discredit critics. Bill C-219 does not censor Canadian viewpoints. It does not restrict legitimate journalism. It addresses broadcasters and licensees that are subject to control and influence by regimes that have been identified as having committed genocide or have been placed on Canada's sanctions list. This clearly applies to entities such as Russia's RT and Iran's PressTV. It should also apply to Chinese state-controlled broadcasters, such as CGTN and CCTV.

Chinese state media has faced international scrutiny for broadcasting forced confessions and denying CCP-directed genocide and mass human rights abuses against Uyghur and Tibetan minorities. In 2021, the United Kingdom's broadcasting regulator, Ofcom, revoked CGTN's licence after concluding that its ownership and editorial structure were incompatible with U.K. broadcasting rules. We must not allow Canada's public airwaves to be exploited by foreign authoritarian governments that normalize repression, whitewash atrocities or obscure the crimes of authoritarian regimes. Bill C-219 helps close that gap.

Finally, this bill honours the spirit of Sergei Magnitsky. Sergei exposed significant corruption at the heart of the Putin regime nearly 20 years ago, and he paid for it with his life. He was the canary in the coal mine. Tragically, too many western governments failed to recognize what his persecution and death revealed about the gross criminal nature of the Putin regime. Canada's Magnitsky law was built on a simple principle: Corrupt officials and human rights abusers should not enjoy impunity while their victims suffer.

Bill C-219 updates this principle and recognizes that repression no longer stops at borders. It recognizes that authoritarian regimes use family members, proxies, assets, media platforms and information operations to extend their reach. It sends a clear message to perpetrators that Canada will not be used as a safe haven, a platform or a laundromat for authoritarian abuse.

Members of all parties have already expressed support for Bill C-219, including NDP MP Heather McPherson, Liberal MP Yvan Baker and Bloc MP Mario Simard. I urge the committee to approve it and return it to the House for quick passage and implementation.

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much.

We'll go next to Mr. Kara-Murza for your opening statement.

[Vladimir Kara-Murza, Vice-President, Free Russia Foundation]

Thank you so much, Chair Hussen, Vice-Chairs Chong and Brunelle-Duceppe and members of the committee, for convening this important hearing and for the opportunity to testify before you.

The morning after I received my 25-year prison sentence in April 2023, my cellmate switched on the television to watch the news, and I heard that the ambassadors from Canada, Great Britain and the United States were being summoned to be reprimanded by the Russian foreign ministry for crude interference in Russia's internal affairs, an activity incompatible with diplomatic status.

Russian state propaganda never tells the real story, so they did not explain what the activity actually was, but given the timing, it was not difficult to guess. A few days later, I learned that the ambassadors, Alison LeClaire, Deborah Bronnert and Lynne Tracy had held an impromptu press conference on the steps of the Moscow City Court to denounce my sentence as unlawful and to demand my immediate release.

A few months earlier, Canada had become the first country in the world to sanction the Russian officials responsible for my imprisonment. A few months later, this Parliament voted to grant me the incredible privilege of becoming an honorary Canadian citizen.

I want to take this opportunity to thank members of both Houses of the Canadian Parliament, first and foremost, Tom Kmiec, James Bezan, Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Senator Pierre Dalphond and Senator Ratna Omidvar for their solidarity and for not letting the world forget.

As I testify before you today, thousands of political prisoners remain behind bars in Russia. These are people who committed no crime, who broke no law and who are only “guilty” of having the conscience and the courage to stand up to a murderous dictator and a brutal war. I believe that the free world has a moral obligation to stand with them.

Of all the provisions of Bill C‑219, which I strongly support, the most important but also the most personal for me is the requirement to publicly report on the status of prisoners of conscience and on the Canadian government's efforts to secure their release. If passed, this measure will send a powerful message of support to all those imprisoned around the world for their political and religious beliefs, and will set a historic precedent by supporting prisoners of conscience not only with words but also with concrete actions.

I strongly support all the main provisions of Bill C-219. I support renaming the Special Economic Measures Act as the Sergei Magnitsky global sanctions act, because this worldwide movement for accountability originated from the quest for justice for Sergei Magnitsky and because his name has long become synonymous with accountability for human rights abuse. I support adding transnational repression to the list of sanctionable offences, because dictatorships engage in this egregious practice to intimidate and silence their critics all over the world, including here in Canada.

I support extending visa bans to immediate family members of those sanctioned, because violators too often hide behind relatives to avoid accountability. I strongly support the provision to empower committees of this Parliament to initiate individual sanctions against human rights abusers, because, in my experience, parliamentarians have always been at the forefront of the global fight for accountability.

Going back to John Peters Humphrey, an original drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Canada has a long and proud history of leadership when it comes to human rights and human dignity. In 2017, Canada became the second country in the world to pass the Magnitsky human rights sanction law and the first to pass it unanimously. By adopting the amendments proposed in Bill C-219, the Canadian Parliament would send a strong message that human rights remain at the heart of this country's policy and that abusers and crooks will never be welcome.

By adopting the amendments proposed in Bill C‑219, the Parliament of Canada will send a very strong message: Human rights remain at the heart of this country's policies, and abusers and crooks will never be welcome there.

I thank you very much for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much for your statement.

We go next to Kate McInnes for your opening statement of up to five minutes.

[Kate McInnes, Principal, Arendt Chambers—International Human Rights and Justice]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

That's a hard act to follow, but I'll give it a shot.

I appear today on behalf of Alex Prezanti of Artemis Chambers in London and myself to address our submission.

We focus on the two changes that Bill C-219 will make to the Magnitsky law as it pertains to transnational repression. The first is the inclusion of a definition of transnational repression, and the second is a new sanctionable ground targeting those who commit it.

Canada has already shown great leadership in using its existing Magnitsky powers to respond to transnational repression in its most visible forms; the sanctions imposed following the murder of Jamal Kashoggi are the clearest example. What Bill C-219 must now do is ensure that these powers extend to the less obvious, but far more prevalent and more insidious, cases, by which I mean the proxy networks, community infiltrators and criminal intermediaries who carry out the vast majority of transnational repression campaigns in Canada today.

As drafted, both provisions contain gaps that will materially limit what the minister is able to do. I hope that our amendments can help ensure this bill is fit for purpose.

On the definition, there are at least three gaps. The current draft defines transnational repression as “tactics used by a foreign state”, which excludes the proxies who carry out many of these campaigns. It fails to capture the full spectrum of tactics used to perpetrate transnational repression, including things like digital repression and abuse of Interpol mechanisms. Lastly, the current draft limits the purpose of transnational repression to silencing dissent, which excludes identity-based targeting.

Our recommended language is found within the written submission, but what I see as the more technical problem and where I want to spend the bulk of my time is the attribution standard in the sanctionable ground found at proposed paragraph 4(2)(e).

To sanction someone under the new provision, the bill will require that they act as “an agent of or on behalf of a foreign state”, meaning there will have to be a provable formal relationship between that person and the government directing them. This ignores the reality that proxy operations are the dominant model of transnational repression today. These operations are specifically designed to sever or obscure the evidentiary trail that the current drafting will require.

The standard in the current draft is therefore too high; it also creates an odd inconsistency with existing legislation. Canada's foreign interference act, which governs criminal prosecution of analogous conduct, uses the much broader test of “acting at the direction of, for the benefit of or in association with a foreign” state. This means that the bill, as drafted, actually sets a higher attribution standard for sanctioning a transnational repression perpetrator than Canada already sets for convicting someone of such conduct as an indictable offence. That cannot be Parliament's intent. I note that the U.S. global Magnitsky order and the EU's equivalent regulations are broader than this.

Our proposed fix is straightforward. Per the language proposed in our submission, a person could be designated if they, first, acted at the express or implied direction of a foreign state; second, acted in association with a foreign state or its agents; or third—and most importantly—acted in a way that knowingly advances a foreign state's transnational repression. That third limb is critical because it would catch the perpetrator of transnational repression who knows what they're doing but who has no formal government relationship. The knowledge requirement operates as a proportionality check and a kind of safeguard, with the effect of excluding small fish who don't know what ends their conduct is serving. Because sanctions law requires only reasonable grounds of belief, rather than proof beyond a reasonable doubt, we believe this is a realistic standard calibrated to what the evidence can actually show.

I want to spend the remaining couple of seconds I imagine I have by reminding the committee that the victims of transnational repression are watching this process. They want to know that Canada can respond when a foreign state reaches into their lives, not just through official channels but through the proxies, community infiltrators and criminal intermediaries who are the primary conduits of transnational repression today. Bill C-219 is the right response to a real and documented threat. The amendments we propose do not expand its ambition, but they do ensure it can deliver on the ambition it already has.

Thank you very much. I welcome your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much for your statement.

I will now open the floor to questions from members, beginning with MP James Bezan.

You have six minutes.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To all our witnesses, thank you for your advocacy and for the work you have done on this file, memorializing the name of Sergei Magnitsky and making it synonymous with standing up for human rights, standing against corruption and standing against kleptocracy. Each of you has been a champion on that front. I'm so glad that all of you are here speaking in support of Bill C-219.

We talk often about how Canada can be used as a safe haven. The sanctions regimes have always targeted individuals and entities, but there's always the importance around immediate family members. There are definitely some who would like to see that definition be very tight, referring only to spouses, partners and immediate family members who are dependants, rather than being broader and including siblings and children who are non-dependants. However, those family members are often used to shelter illicit wealth gained through corruption and then moved into Canada and other regions.

I want to get feedback from each one of you on what you feel is the right definition around “immediate family members”.

Vladimir, kick us off, please.

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

Thank you so much, James. That's a really important question. It goes right to the heart of this issue.

I would say this: Let's look at what the other side is doing—the crooks, the abusers, the bad guys. Let's see what avenues they use to try to hide from and evade the sanctions. Three examples that spring to my mind are from Russia. Senior Putin regime officials, or Kremlin-connected oligarchs, in the last few years—especially since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022—have tried to evade sanctions by hiding behind their family members. They were not necessarily immediate and not necessarily dependants, to answer your question. Sergei Lavrov, Putin's foreign minister; Dmitry Peskov, Putin's press secretary; and Alisher Usmanov, one of the top Kremlin oligarchs all hid behind not dependants but siblings, adult non-dependent children, spouses and so on.

The best way to go after these loopholes is to first see what they are. How are these people evading? How are these people hiding? After that, we can go and close those gaps. I believe this is exactly what your bill is doing.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Kate.

[Kate McInnes]

I think I'm going to have a different opinion from many of the speakers today. I will preface this by saying that I work as a criminal defence lawyer in Vancouver in addition to my international human rights law practice.

The Magnitsky law's preamble equally emphasizes the rule of law and human rights. The rule of law is not just ensuring equality before the law. It's making sure that when we dole out punishments, they're going only to the people who deserve it. I think the provision as drafted runs the risk of a collective punishment or guilt by association argument, particularly with respect to the exemption.

The exemption, as I understand it, is where the minister “has reasonable grounds to believe” that the family member received no “material or financial benefit”. I see that as a safeguard, but it's essentially structured as an opt-out rather than a principled legal threshold. To improve this section, I think you could require the minister to have some positive grounds that these family members did receive some sort of material benefit. As currently drafted, the onus runs the opposite way. It makes these family members prove their innocence rather than have the minister demonstrate the basis for this restriction.

This isn't just my opinion. I think the current drafting would be quite difficult to justify under Canadian law and under our international human rights obligations as well.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Okay. I would question this on the basis that these aren't Canadian citizens for whom the rule of law under Canadian law would apply; these are people who are using us as a safe haven. It should be their onus.

I'll ask Marcus and Bill to comment.

[Sir William Browder]

Let me step in.

I have spent the last 17 years going after the people who killed Sergei Magnitsky and after the people who committed other similar types of human rights abuses and getting them added to Magnitsky acts in different countries. I've seen first-hand how it works.

What I've seen very clearly is that the sanctioned individuals, when they have some glimpse that they're going to be sanctioned, will then move money into the names of family members. It's not an unusual thing. It's almost a regular thing.

One of the reasons we're having this discussion right now and why, James, you put this together is that we've had nine years to look at what happened since the passage of the Magnitsky act, at what works and what doesn't work. I can say, with 100% certainty, that the bad guys look for ways out of their dilemma.

Most of the people who are sanctioned have a lot of money, and they move the money into the names of individuals. We saw this on many occasions with Sergei Magnitsky's killers when the Magnitsky act was first put in place, and we've seen this after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It's not an unusual thing. It's almost a pervasive thing for these people to move assets into the names of their family members, and those family members should not be then excused from this type of thing. As you've written in the law, there is a provision if somebody has not done this, but I would say that, in 99% of the cases, that's what happens.

This is an absolutely excellent proposal and, for what it's worth, it makes it much less profitable to be a human rights abuser or a kleptocrat if you know that your family members are going to get taken down with you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much.

We go next to MP Rob Oliphant.

You have six minutes.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for coming forward today.

I want to focus on one particular aspect, and that is the publishing of names of human rights defenders, or prisoners of conscience, as they may be called. Before I get there, I want to put on record that the rule of law is the rule of law, and that we don't need to ever advance our country away from the rule of law to advance goodness. It's a bedrock, and I think that as we consider this bill, we will need to be very careful that we never veer away from the rule of law just because the bad guys do. We don't want to become the bad guys.

Thank you, Ms. McInnes, for your comments.

I want to focus a bit on publishing.

Mr. Kara-Murza, thank you for everything. Thank you for your testimony here, and not only here and now, but at other points, as well as for your persistence and your courage. I want to have you tell us a little about the story of your release and the processes. There are public processes, but I assume that there were private processes as well, which you may or may not feel comfortable disclosing. If you put together the key protagonists—Russia and the United States—and then you add in six allies of the United States into discussions that were highly sensitive, this eventually involved 16 prisoners being released and a number of countries releasing prisoners...to gain release.

Can you tell us a bit about that process? I know that in your understanding, with the publication and the public nature of you and your cause, you feel helped. How did it help and how could it have hindered?

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

When the security officers woke me up in my prison cell in Omsk on the night of July 28, 2024, and told me I had 10 minutes to wake up, get dressed and get ready, I was certain they were going to lead me to a nearby forest and execute me. Instead, they took me to the airport, flew me to Moscow and took me to the Lefortovo FSB prison, where, after several days—we all still had absolutely no idea what was happening—we were taken down into the prison courtyard, put on the bus, driven to the airport, put on a plane and thrown out of the country, sent to Ankara, where the exchange was physically implemented on August 1, 2024.

This is to say that I had absolutely no idea that any of this was even happening. Up until late July 2024, I was certain I was going to die in that Siberian prison. This exchange was a miracle; that is still the only way I can describe it. If you're interested in the intricacies of the process of how this was organized, the two best people to talk about this would be my wife, Evgenia, who spearheaded this campaign, and my good friend, Sir William Browder, who is with us at this hearing today. They are really the leaders of this whole process, both in public and in private. Bill would be able to answer your question much better.

I would say with absolute certainty that the only way our exchange became possible is that, over the two and a half years of my imprisonment, you and your colleagues here made sure that our names were not forgotten. You held hearings. You passed resolutions. You put our names out there into the public domain. Nobody's going to exchange a prisoner if nobody knows that the prisoner exists. I think, as Bill will confirm, the way these lists were essentially drafted.... Also, there were eight countries involved in that exchange. As Bill mentioned, it was the largest east-west prisoner exchange since the time of the Cold War. There were 24 people in total, and there were 16 people on our side, freed from Russia. Eight of them were foreigners, and eight of them, including myself, were Russian political prisoners. The eight people Putin got from the other side were his spies, hackers, murderers and so on.

I believe that the most powerful message that western democracies sent with this exchange was to make sure that it included not only their own citizens, not only the Germans and the Americans.... You know, governments have a legal obligation to advocate for their own citizens. They did not have a legal obligation to advocate for me, for Ilya Yashin or for Oleg Orlov. To me, the insistence of western democracies that the exchange include us, Russian prisoners of conscience, was the most powerful statement imaginable. It was a statement, first of all, of solidarity and support on the part of the free world with all those Russian citizens who were imprisoned for standing up against Putin's dictatorship and against the war in Ukraine.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I would agree that, in your case, it worked. The case of Mr. Navalny, who had horrendous treatment and no doubt died at the hands of the Putin regime, had as much or more public attention, including an Academy Award-winning documentary about his life, and it didn't work. In fact, one could argue that perhaps it was counterproductive.

Why are you insisting, as this legislation is, that the publication of a name of every dissident would be helpful in every case, when you could be dealing with complex cases in which multiple countries are engaged in negotiations that may be productive, as they were in yours, or may not be productive, as in the case of Mr. Navalny? I could name hundreds of other people in whose cases this may not be productive. Do you have a sense of the difference in the cases, of whether nuance could be important, and of whether doing individual and particular cases should be at the discretion of the minister—not just on privacy...?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

We are out of time, unfortunately, so we'll have to come back to that.

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

Will there be a second round?

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

It'll come back.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Next is Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe for six minutes.