Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for arranging this hearing and inviting me to testify.
Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement kicked off in June 2019, and the world has witnessed how the Chinese communist regime has been continuing its cruel crackdown on the city's long-cherished freedom and rights.
In November 2019, I came to Ottawa, after the tragic sieges of the universities and the landslide victory in the district council election, for a cross-party discussion, chaired by MP Garnett Genuis, to give a briefing on Hong Kong's situation. The remarkable election results gave the people of Hong Kong a glimpse of hope, but unfortunately the situation deteriorated very rapidly after that.
The imposition of the national security law in July 2020, cancellation of our legislative council election, disqualification of democratic lawmakers, suppression of freedom of expression and also attacks on judiciary independence all amount to the picture of Beijing's very brutal dismantling of Hong Kong's core values. We've seen a grave breach of the promises made in the Sino-British Joint Declaration.
The national security legislation criminalizes—