Foreign Affairs Committee on May 28th, 2026

[Kate McInnes]

Mr. Kolga might be the better person to speak to this.

[Marcus Kolga]

I can't necessarily speak to the screening process, but I can speak to the effectiveness in terms of enforcement of our sanctions regime. We have not been very effective. To date, there have been only three cases of sanction violations that have been prosecuted. There are many other cases.

One glaring example is the Tenet Media case. This is a case of a group of North American online influencers—including three Canadians—that was funded by the Russian state media platform RT. Two employees of RT used $10 million U.S. to set up this media platform. The Department of Justice indictment that was brought against these two RT employees includes evidence that money was funnelled from RT, a sanctioned entity on our sanctions list. Money was funnelled to the Canadian personal accounts of two Canadians. If that's the case, that would indicate to me a clear violation of our sanctions laws. When these cases do come to light—as they were brought to light by the Department of Justice—they need to be investigated. They need to be prosecuted.

If we're not enforcing our sanctions regime, then they lose teeth and ultimately their deterrence effects. Enforcement is key. Canada has to do a much better job of enforcing our sanctions.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

On the same note, many diaspora communities, not just a single one—in this specific case, the Ukrainian community—are subject to interference, especially by Russian propaganda. We hope that this bill will curb the foreign interference using Canada's mainstream and ethnic media channels.

Knowing what this bill will include, how much will this assist or help to curb the interference and those influences? Basically, it's all kinds of harassment and other human rights violations against these given communities. I'm just giving an example of the Ukrainian community, but every other community can be subject to those kinds of violations. How can this bill help?

I will give this question to Mr. Kara-Murza.

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

One of the most important aspects of the bill is that it contains a specific definition of what transnational repression is, because it's a multi-faceted phenomenon. It works in many different ways, from harassment and disinformation to actual physical attacks, as you know well. Frankly, it is high time that Canada puts a very firm red line that this is not something that will be acceptable going forward, and there will be real consequences against people, dictatorships or regimes in foreign countries if they engage in this kind of behaviour. There will be real accountability for this behaviour. Yes, I think this bill goes a very long way towards doing that.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

If there's a message—and I'm not putting anybody on the spot here—to us as parliamentarians and to any Canadian government in place, what would you say we need to do to make sure that we show some seriousness about how to deal with interference?

We are very vulnerable. We are open. We're a multicultural society. We have to deal with many threats from every agent out there: Russia, Iran, China and many other countries. The influence against certain communities is almost a daily story that we hear about. If there's a message to tell us, what would that be?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Could we have a very quick response, please?

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

It's very important to differentiate between cultures and nations on the one side and the regimes on the other, because the regimes always like to claim that they represent those nations, which they have no claim to, for obvious reasons. It's not about curtailing broadcasting in the Russian language or in Farsi or whatever, because that's what they will try to pretend: that this is an attack on the language and culture.

No, it's very important to draw the line clearly: Cultures, languages and the diversity of this country—the beauty and richness of this country—will always be welcome, but for those malicious attempts by these regimes to hide behind the cultures and languages to enact channels of propaganda and misinformation, those will be prevented in the most effective and strictest way possible.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you.

We go next to MP Mona Fortier.

You have five minutes.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier—Gloucester, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for joining us today. This committee has been engaged in a very rigorous study for some time now, and we are very grateful to the witnesses for their participation.

We've been discussing a number of issues for nearly two hours now. For my part, I'll ask a question that's more open-ended. You may have an opportunity to bring up points that haven't been raised yet.

Do you think we should include certain limitations in this bill?

Do you see any gaps that we haven't discussed yet that you could share with us?

I will give all the witnesses an opportunity to answer the questions. I will give each of you about a minute to share your comments.

I'll start with Mr. Kolga, who is joining us by video conference.

[Marcus Kolga]

Thank you very much for the question.

No, I don't think there are any limitations that I'd place on this legislation, but I may suggest adding a private member's bill that was introduced in the Senate, Bill S-214, by Senator Donna Dasko. It is also an amendment to our sanctions legislation.

It essentially allows cabinet to make a decision in terms of asset seizure. It would complement the time limit that has been introduced in the current bill, Bill C-219, in compressing the times of applying that seizure. This is something that the committee could look at. Bill S-214 just passed third reading in the Senate. It may be a good idea to consider adding it.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier—Gloucester, ON]

Mr. Browder is next.

[Sir William Browder]

The one thing I would say is that we've talked a lot over the course of the last two hours about enforcement. My experience in Canada—and for that matter, the United Kingdom and other places—is that the people who are tasked with enforcing these laws don't have resources to do the enforcement.

It's not a very expensive process to review sanctions and designation files and to make decisions. I suspect that.... I was talking a lot about how all these people come and make proposals for sanctions and never hear anything back from the government. Some of that may be political—that the government doesn't want to talk about certain issues—and some of it may be incompetence. There are not enough people looking at these files. They just sit somewhere in a dusty room.

There has been a lot of discussion over the years about how much money is available to the foreign affairs department to do this, but there need to be some quite explicit discussions and allocations of funding. We're not talking about huge amounts of money. We're talking about a few million dollars. That would make a big difference in terms of enforcement.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier—Gloucester, ON]

Thank you very much.

Next is Madame McInnes.

[Kate McInnes]

I identified a number of limitations and gaps in my written submission, as well as my initial spiel. If there's anything that you take away from what my addition here has been, it's that transnational repression is basically proxy-mediated here in Canada, as well as very often abroad.

The people who can tell you about those proxies and about the structures are people in Canada themselves and the victims themselves. Chinese students at universities or those who visit Persian or Rwandan cultural centres who experience transnational repression need to be here and sharing their views with you. There need to be channels for them to do so.

Thank you very much for your question.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier—Gloucester, ON]

Thank you.

What are your thoughts on this, Mr. Kara‑Murza?

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

I think it would be important to add one thing to this bill. We have already heard arguments regarding the term “prisoner of conscience” or “political prisoner”. It has been proposed to replace it with “human rights defender”. I think it's very important to retain the concept of “prisoner”, as human rights defenders are not necessarily always in prison, and political prisoners or prisoners of conscience are not necessarily always human rights defenders, as Mr. Browder has already said.

In my opinion, there is a way to avoid a situation where people would say that this is an arbitrary term, where they would wonder what it means because there would be different definitions to describe what a political prisoner or a prisoner of conscience is. I had found this information before you asked your question, Mrs. Fortier.

Mr. Chair, I don't know if this is allowed under the committee's rules, but, if possible, I would like to ask you to add to the record of this committee the resolutions that were adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. I'm talking about resolution 1900, which was adopted in 2012. It is published in English and French on the website of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

[Mona Fortier, Liberal, Ottawa—Vanier—Gloucester, ON]

If you have the document with you, you can just send it to the committee so that we can include it in our study.

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

Okay, that's perfect.

I found this information on the website. It's the resolution that provides the definition of political prisoner. I'll read paragraph 3:

The Assembly reaffirms its support for these criteria, summed up as follows: “A person deprived of his or her personal liberty is to be regarded as a 'political prisoner': a. if the detention has been imposed in violation of one of the fundamental guarantees set out in the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols (ECHR), in particular freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and information, freedom of assembly and association; b. if the detention has been imposed…

I won't take up any more time, but you can find this text on the website.

In my opinion, it would be very important to define what a prisoner of conscience is and what a political prisoner is.

Since Canada already has observer status with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, I think you can work from this definition. I know that human rights organizations in Russia, such as Memorial, have been working for many years now based on this definition of a political prisoner adopted by the Council of Europe.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ahmed Hussen]

Thank you very much.

Finally, we'll go to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe for two and a half minutes.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In fact, the Bloc Québécois always has less speaking time than the other parties.

Ms. McInnes, I didn't have time to ask you any questions, precisely because I have less speaking time.

Regarding the aspect where parliamentarians could be responsible for imposing sanctions rather than the government, do you not see that as a step forward if Canada were to adopt such a mechanism?

[Kate McInnes]

I'm sorry. Can you repeat your question?

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

The bill allows parliamentary committees to adopt motions that would sanction entities or individuals.

Wouldn't the implementation of such a mechanism be a step forward for Canada?

[Kate McInnes]

Certainly it would, if there was some form of oversight to it. That's spoken as a true criminal defence lawyer, I know.

I hope there would be some level of oversight to ensure that the correct decisions are being made.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you for your answer.

Mr. Kara‑Murza, my dear friend, I will let you have the last word. We have about a minute and a half left. If there is anything that hasn't been said, or if there is a way to convince people of the merits of this bill, I give you the opportunity to speak.

[Vladimir Kara-Murza]

Thank you for this opportunity, once again.

I wanted to conclude this meeting by saying that this is not just a formal process; these are not just resolutions, meetings or words. The words contained in this bill have a real and very significant impact on people's lives, especially on the lives of people who are imprisoned for political or religious reasons.

As I said at the beginning of this meeting, I personally support all the main provisions of this bill, but nothing is as important to me as the need for a public report from the Government of Canada regarding prisoners of conscience and political prisoners.

In response to the question Ms. Fortier asked, I would like to reiterate that I think it would be important to provide a definition of what a political prisoner is and what a prisoner of conscience is. Resolution 1900, adopted in 2012 by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, could serve as a basis. That work has already been done.

In closing, I would like to say that it is very important for every member of this committee to remember that what is happening here today will have a very real and significant impact on the lives of many people around the world. In many cases, this is about being able to save lives, and there is nothing more important than that.