Evidence of meeting #66 for Subcommittee on International Human Rights in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was transplant.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Unfortunately, Mr. Sweet, there isn't time for a follow-up question. I am embarrassed to have to inform the committee that I was relying on a clock that's actually not working. We actually have only six minutes per round. I apologize to everybody for that.
Mr. Marston, you're next.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Well, I suggest I should get seven and everybody else get six, but that's okay.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
First of all, gentlemen, you know that I've been on this committee before, in 2006, when I was elected. I want to state right now that I believe your conclusions. I don't mind saying that. I've said it before.
In 2006, when I arrived here—and the folks who said this to me can remain nameless—people from a number of parties said to watch out for the Falun Gong. In my opinion, they were saying that because this horrific set of events is hard for other humans to believe and to accept and to understand. The passion with which the Falun Gong members came to the Hill also made people take a step backwards. I don't think that was as helpful to us as it could have been.
This committee did a study on China that was quite critical of China, and it went the way of some of those reports. We won't get into that in detail. We've had trade agreements with a number of countries for which human rights have been pushed aside and parked inside agreements, which is very concerning to us. There is the new relationship between China and Nexen and the potential for that to open markets and to put more commercial pressure on governments to turn a blind eye to situations like this. I agree with you that with the UPR coming up, it's reasonable for this committee to recommend that this particular issue be raised with the Chinese. That's what this whole idea of a UN periodic review is all about.
I want to follow up a little further than Mr. Sweet went because I think in a way we'll be helping you by mentioning such things to you as the criticism that came out of your 2006 report. I will name a name or two that you might not have chosen to name.
Henry Wu was a human—
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Oh—Harry. My notes are written wrong.
Glen McGregor, a reporter, was another one who was fairly.... Then, of course, there were the congressional folks you were talking about.
The numbers were criticized. His methodology was criticized. They claim—and I stress, they claim—that there was a lack of evidence. We hear from you over and over that there's a stack of evidence that you've worked from, and I'm wondering, as I'm watching you here today, if my question is almost a little bit redundant, because part of my question was whether you are still satisfied with the conclusions that you reached in your report.
Are you satisfied that they've held up over time? You have not seen flaws yourself? Is there anything you would have changed in that report at all, and where do we go from here?
As an Individual
Thank you very much, Mr. Marston. You have been very supportive on this issue, and I'd like to congratulate you for that from the beginning.
You mentioned Harry Wu. I actually met Harry Wu in Washington in 2006 and I tried very hard to get him to come and meet a woman called Annie, who had this press conference. Annie said, “I won't meet with Mr. Wu, because Mr. Wu's called me a liar.” It was a long argument, but they wouldn't meet, and it's most unfortunate.
It's been in the Ottawa Citizen that Glen McGregor went to China as a guest of the Chinese Medical Association. Then he came back and said our report.... Do you remember the term he used? He said we need a very high bar.
How high is the ceiling? I don't think any bar would satisfy him.
February 5th, 2013 / 1:35 p.m.
As an Individual
Excellent, yes. Exactly.
Honestly, people have even stopped challenging us on these issues anymore as we go around the world. Everybody accepts what I think you've said, which is that it's happening.
David, do you want to add something?
Lawyer, International Human Rights, As an Individual
Our research didn't stop in 2006. We did a second report in 2007. We did a third report in book form, Bloody Harvest, in 2009. We've done a fourth version last year. As we travel, we meet new witnesses and we hear new evidence; everything is reinforcing, nothing is contradicting. We have a whole chapter here on what Harry Wu said, which you're welcome to read.
One of the principles we followed in doing our report is only relying on evidence that was independently verifiable, so if anybody actually wants to go through this themselves and come to their own conclusion on the material, they're free to do that and they can see everything that we saw. There are a number of people who actually have done that and produced corroborating reports, which we've produced—and some of them were quite long—in excerpt form in one of these chapters.
There's a transplant surgeon in England, Dr. Tom Treasure, who wrote a corroborating report. There's an academic at the University of Minnesota, Kirk Allison—
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
My intent wasn't to require you to go in depth on this, but to give you the opportunity to demonstrate to people the succession of things that you have done following the report, which you've already stated, and the different levels that you've done.
This is going to strike you as a strange question, but it's one that comes up. You've done a massive amount of work and a massive amount of travelling; how are you funded?
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
I believe in clarity and I believe in things on the table. It helps people understand.
As an Individual
We work entirely as volunteers. I don't think anybody has ever paid us a cent for this. When we go someplace.... I went to Korea a few months ago, and I think the practitioners in Korea, as individuals, put up whatever a fifth of a plane ticket to Korea was and also paid for my hotel, but they certainly didn't pay me anything. I offered to be billeted with one of the families.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
I understand that, but I wanted the opportunity for you to present that information, because there are always people who are looking for the rationale. When something is too hard to believe, they start assigning beliefs to it that aren't accurate, so I wanted to give you that opportunity to put it out there.
Lawyer, International Human Rights, As an Individual
Maybe I can follow up on that. I approached this issue as all of you did. When it first came to me, I didn't know what Falun Gong was or whether this was true or not and I slowly worked my way into it.
One of the things I realized is that the Chinese government, the Communist Party, calls Falun Gong an organization, but it's not. It's a set of exercises with a spiritual foundation that anybody can do. They can start at any time, stop at any time, not join anything, do it on their own. Falun Gong are a group of individuals who in some cases have formed together to create ad hoc organizations here and there, but these organizations do not include everybody who does the practice.
Every trip is financed differently. The typical financing is that somebody who invites me may be a Falun Gong practitioner, and that person pays, or he and his friends pay. There is no organization with a budget that's pouring out money. It doesn't exist.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
No. I anticipated that, but again, I wanted that on the table.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Scott Reid
Unfortunately, we're out of time for this round.
We'll go now to Ms. Grewal.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Kilgour and Mr. Matas, for your time and your presentation while giving your statements here today.
What can the Government of Canada do to encourage the adherence to human rights in China and judicial responsibility as well, specifically with regard to the overrepresentation of victims who are Falun Gong practitioners?
As an Individual
Thank you very much for raising that point. You've been very supportive from the beginning too, Mrs. Grewal, and I appreciate that very much.
Engaging Beijing on universal values is really what you're talking about, and how do we do that? To be quite candid with you, when Wen Jiabao left as premier, I had been very hopeful that Bo Xilai had been so discredited by so many people that it looked as if Wen Jiabao was going to get to appoint a majority of the standing committee. However, as you know, Jiang Zemin—the arch-villain, in my view—got to appoint. It looks as though he appointed five of the seven members of the standing committee, and that's very discouraging.
We saw what happened in Russia, where there was the long night before Mikhail Gorbachev became the general secretary. There are something like 150 demonstrations a year now across China, people protesting the fact that their farms have been seized or their homes have been bulldozed or something. I have to believe....
David Matas and I have met wonderful people from China. The people of China want democracy and want the rule of law as much as you and I do, and it's going to happen.
The fact is that the new president-elect, Mr. Xi, spent I think nine years living in a cave during the Cultural Revolution, if I'm not mistaken. He seems to offer some hope of at least fighting corruption. I hope he will offer other things as well, but I felt it was a terrible mistake for Mr. Harper to allow Nexen to be taken over by CNOOC and I feel great pity for these 3,000 employees of Nexen.
You're not an Albertan. Are there any Albertans here? Yes—sorry. Forgive me.
It was a model company. They had the best corporate responsibility in places like Colombia and Africa, and I regret profoundly that we've allowed that company to in effect be nationalized by the party state of China. I noticed about 74% of Canadians seemed to agree on that.
Lawyer, International Human Rights, As an Individual
What you're asking is a strategic question to a certain extent, which this committee might be better placed to answer than we could, but I've tried to grapple with that myself. How do we deal with this particular issue, the killing of Falun Gong for their organs? There are different ways of dealing with it and dealing with human rights in China generally, including the persecution of Falun Gong and the labour camps. There seems to be some movement on the labour camps, because there have been some statements recently that they're going to close them. The statements have not been unequivocal, but it looks as though they're interested in doing that.
The most obvious way of stopping this immediately is stopping the killing of prisoners for organs, because once you stop the killing of prisoners for organs, you stop the killing of Falun Gong prisoners for organs. When you deal with some of these other issues, such as Falun Gong or human rights or labour camps or the death penalty, you get pushback, but when you tell the Chinese government to stop the killing of prisoners for organs, they will say we're right. If you give them time, they will do it. They will acknowledge that it's wrong and that it shouldn't be happening. It's a much different discourse, and it's a lot easier to deal with them on that issue.
Mr. Sweet mentioned Huang Jiefu. I have never talked with him myself; I wanted to, but the Communist Party handlers wouldn't let me meet with him. However, he has talked with other western people and he's western trained and he seems to be trying to work within the system to do this. I have some problems with the pace at which he is going, but some people in the system are trying to change this situation, and I think one could profitably press on this particular point without inflaming relations with China.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
On several occasions, it has been stated that prisoners in China have been arrested and detained without trial or appeal or any explanation. These detentions can be for days, even years, and they're a violation of their rights, of course.
Is this a common occurrence for many other prisoners, or are the Falun Gong a systematically targeted population?
As an Individual
I'll say just a word about capital offences in China. I think 58 offences are capital offences in China, including tax evasion, so the law is bad. Your fellow British Columbian Clive Ansley, from Vancouver Island, practised law in Shanghai for 13 years, and what caused him to leave China, I believe, is that an email or whatever it was went out to the 200,000 judges in China saying that no foreigner will win again in a Chinese court.
I quote him, I think, in my statement. He points out that the hearings are theatres in China, and that the three judges who sit seemingly listening to the evidence in these courts don't make the decision on most cases or on significant cases. A group of judges that meets on a Wednesday morning decides that this case is coming up on Thursday and this one on Friday, and the decision will be this on the one on Thursday, and the penalty will be that; the judge who comes in and reads the decision and gives the penalties has not made the decision. That's the way their judicial system works, which is tragic.
Lawyer, International Human Rights, As an Individual
You were asking about what's going on in forced labour camps. Of course, the Chinese government doesn't tell you that. They won't allow the Red Cross or anybody from outside into these camps. There's no reporting. There are no NGOs. They don't tell you where the camps are. They don't tell you what the populations are.
The way we find out about the labour camps is we talk to people who've been in them and then get out of the camps and out of China. That's basically our only source of information. We can piece together a lot of information as a result, but we should again be insisting the camps be closed, that the Red Cross should get in, and that there should be transparency in the system.