Subcommittee on International Human Rights Committee on July 21st, 2020

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

—in which the Uighur people are majority Muslim and the other groups are also majority Muslim and are therefore being pulled into this thing?

[Olga Alexeeva]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Ms. McPherson, you have five minutes for questions.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to start by asking a few more questions of Mr. Mendes. I missed an opportunity previously to ask a little bit more about private sector pressure and how we can utilize that tool.

You spoke a little bit about the Canadian ombudsperson not having the teeth, not having the ability to do the job they need to do. This is something that's very close to my heart, something I've worked on for a number of years.

Is it possible, in your opinion, that we could change the scope of the ombudsman's role to make it more effective?

Also, what further legislation would you like to have the Canadian government and Canadian parliamentarians consider as we go forward to make sure that we have good, strong anti-slavery legislation such as you indicate France has?

Could you speak a little bit to that, please?

[Errol P. Mendes]

On the ombudsman, among the criticisms that civil society has made, which you should think about, is that it's primarily voluntary. It's not mandatory for the private sector to actually comply with what the ombudsman says. Secondly, it does not have the ability, under the Inquiries Act, to actually compel documentation, etc. It lacks the powers of investigation that could then allow the ombudsman to be seen as a powerful tool for companies to respect the rules on modern slavery, forced labour, child labour, etc.

My suggestion is to really look at what other countries have done, the measures that have basically met with approval from people who actually live this on a daily basis. For example, the French due diligence law requires companies, in advance, to make sure, and to produce documents to that effect, that they have looked into whether or not, in their supply chains, there are instances of child labour, forced labour, etc., and to sign off at the highest levels on that. If they don't, there could be real consequences. In other words, it moves from just a voluntary position to the ability to investigate and potential consequences. So that's one thing.

My computer crashed before I could answer the other question you asked me. It was a good devil's advocate question that you asked. It was, what could happen if the Chinese just ignore whatever we do and suggest?

Here's where I want to make something clear. I spent 15 years of my professional life researching in China, at all of the top universities. I even met some of the top people in the supreme court, etc. The one thing I came away with is that the Chinese government is not the Chinese people. The people I met, including one woman, five feet tall, who basically did the same thing as the man with two baskets who stopped the tank. She did that also. She did it because she did not believe that her own people should be crushing the students at Tiananmen Square. I think what we should be focusing on is what the government is doing. I have tremendous affection for the people of China as a whole. We should separate them from what is happening with the Communist Party of China, and indeed the present leadership of the Communist Party.

When I first went to China in 1993, I felt completely free to speak my mind on human rights. I actually met people from Xinjiang, and from Tibet, etc., and was amazed at how free and open the conversation was. At that time Jiang Zemin was the president. He basically allowed this to flower.

I think we should be focusing on the fact that this could be the predicament of the present leadership of the Communist Party of China and how the rest of the world deals with it. That's why we need a level of sophistication much, much higher than just quoting China as being the problem. It's not China that is the problem. It's not the people of China who are the problem. It's the present leadership. Even within that leadership there are grumbles that the idea of collective leadership has been tossed out, which Deng Xiaoping basically said should have happened in China.

We are playing chess at one level. What Canada has to do and what the rest of the democratic world has to do is to play chess on three or four levels, trying to figure out how we deal with this level of aggression. It's not just in terms of Xinjiang. It's there in Hong Kong. It's there with our two Michaels. It's there in the South China Sea, and potentially could be devastating for the whole world. It could also be there in Taiwan.

What I'm suggesting is that, on China, Canada should play a lot on different levels to deal with the situation.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

With the time left we're going to have a third round. We're going to allot five minutes per party.

We're going to start with Ms. Khalid for five minutes.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I will address my question to Mr. Browder one more time.

You spoke about being in the U.K. Recently the U.K. Foreign Minister expressed his profound concerns over what is happening to the Uighur community in China. In response, in a BBC interview, the ambassador from China spoke out categorically and denied there were any concentration camps and stated that the Uighur people are living freely and happily in China. And he called the video we had spoken about in yesterday's testimony, of Uighur men being blindfolded and shaved and then put on trains, fake news.

The U.K. Foreign Minister did not go as far as calling this a genocide, but said that they would contemplate sanctions on China, on the Government of China.

What can we do to compel more of a united or organized front? It seems that individual states are very fearful of taking these actions against China, especially with the response of the Chinese representative that if the U.K. does this, we will act in kind?

Mr. Browder, can I have your thoughts on this, please?

[William Browder]

I watched that interview with the Chinese ambassador and so did most people here in the U.K. We were all appalled by his responses and heartened by the tough interviewing techniques of that particular person who interviewed him, Andrew Marr.

For what it's worth, there is a fever pitch inside the political establishment in every different party to do something about this Uighur situation and to do more than has been done so far. Dominic Rabb, the foreign secretary, has not yet—I stress the word “yet”—announced Magnitsky sanctions. I believe it would probably be easier to get him to do it if Canada were to do it in concert and to basically sanction the same four individuals. If the U.K. sanctioned the same individuals and Canada sanctioned the same four individuals that the U.S. sanctioned just recently, I think that would be the way to go.

As for my personal prediction, the U.K. has just recently implemented the Magnitsky Act, just two weeks ago. They sanctioned 25 individuals from Russia, roughly 20 from Saudi Arabia and a few from Myanmar and North Korea. I would be surprised if.... Given the situation with China, given what's going on with Hong Kong, given the fact that the U.K. has just cancelled the extradition treaty with Hong Kong and given the fact that the U.K. has offered Hong Kong British national overseas residents the opportunity to become citizens, it doesn't seem that great a step further to add those four people to the Magnitsky list and get this process started.

I may be reading the tea leaves wrong. It's very foolhardy to make political predictions, but my sense of the mood right now here in the U.K. is that something will happen. Dominic Rabb, the foreign secretary, has indicated to me that he has been in touch with your foreign minister about Magnitsky in the past, so I would hope that this would be something that they would be talking about together.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You have just under a minute.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Mr. Browder, we also heard yesterday about other organized co-operation across the world that could potentially have a lot of impact. We heard about the OIC as a potential way of pressuring the Government of China on fulfilling and maintaining human rights within their country, especially with the Uighur people. What do you have to say about that kind of pressure?

Again, in these conversations we've had, I think about.... So we apply this pressure. What does China do? Let's say a genocide is declared, the international community comes forward and we put in the sanctions. What happens to the Uighur people ultimately?

[William Browder]

The—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I think we're going to have to leave it there. I apologize.

We're going to move to Mr. Genuis for five minutes.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

I have to go fast with my time here, so maybe I can have just a one-sentence answer, first from Mr. Mendes.

You've spoken about supply chains. Are you supportive of measures like the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which essentially creates a reverse onus that presumes that goods coming out of East Turkestan involve slave labour unless proven otherwise? Would you be supportive of those kinds of measures?

[Errol P. Mendes]

I would, and I would actually make a reference to the fact that now, under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico agreement, we should basically be following the U.S. If it's done under the agreement, then we should be doing the same thing.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Kanji, you've highlighted this sort of I guess schizophrenic approach, if you like, of the Chinese state towards Islam, where on the one hand they're involved in genocide domestically but supporting it abroad. They're seeking to eradicate Islam, but on the other hand, they're pretending to extend a hand of friendship towards Muslim majority countries; countries that have been very muted in their response. This is part of the state colonialism of the Chinese state that you referred to. There are two questions about that.

First of all, what can we do to end support for Chinese state colonialism in Asia, such as perhaps withdrawing from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and not supporting the belt and road initiative? I would appreciate your take on that.

Secondly, how can we work with Muslim majority countries more effectively to build partnerships to oppose Chinese state colonialism and to have a unified response to what's happening to the Uighurs?

[Azeezah Kanji]

Participation in the belt and road initiative on Canada's part would be extremely fraught, given, as Professor Alexeeva has described, the extreme investment in exerting control over Xinjiang precisely because of its geopolitical importance for the belt and road initiative.

There are other kinds of economic participation in Xinjiang that are also problematic for the Canadian state. For example, Canadian mining companies are investing in projects in Xinjiang, which is very rich in resources. There are reports, for example, that Dynasty Gold Corp. is operating a mine in Xinjiang.

These are the kinds of projects on the part of Canadian corporations that need to be examined to ensure that Canadian entities are not themselves complicit in the colonial project in Xinjiang.

When it comes to building stronger partnerships with the OIC and Muslim-majority countries in addressing this issue, I think we have to understand that many Muslim countries are very economically beholden to China through the belt and road initiative and other infrastructure development projects at this point. It is precisely these economic interests and economic entanglements that are preventing Muslim countries from taking any kind of strong stance—and in fact actively whitewashing and supporting China's project—with respect to the Uighurs.

On the contrary, it is precisely that Canada isn't similarly economically beholden to these types of Chinese projects that enables Canada's to be a stronger voice.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you very much.

I'll transfer the rest of my time to Mr. Sweet.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

You have a minute and a half.

[David Sweet, Conservative, Flamborough—Glanbrook, ON]

I just want to confirm what Ms. Kanji said, because I suspected there was a distinct link between the persecution of the Muslim Uighurs in East Turkestan and that of the Rohingya Muslims in Burma.

Do you see a clear link, in both cases, to CCP manipulation?

[Azeezah Kanji]

There are very strong connections between the genocide occurring against the Rohingya and what we are now moving to call a genocide against the Uighurs. We know that at an international level, China has been one of the strongest forces precluding strong Security Council action being taken with respect to the Rohingya situation, such that, even after the International Court of Justice delivered a very strong provisional measures decision supporting the rights of the Rohingya, the Security Council was unable to even put forward a statement supporting implementation of these provisional measures, because of the blocking role of China.

China is also invested, through the Belt and Road Initiative, in projects in Rakhine State, which is where the Rohingya population and the genocide against them is occurring. China is also directly economically invested in the persecution of the Rohingya.

Chinese officials have also made comments linking the supposed threat of Uighur terrorism to the supposed threat of Rohingya terrorism. Discursively, we also see very strong connections in the way that narratives about the terrorist threat supposedly posed by extremely persecuted Muslim minorities, who are far more the victims of extreme state violence than the propagators of violence.... We see very strong connections in the way these discourses are being deployed.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you.

We'll give five minutes to Mr. Brunelle-Duceppe.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Mendes, yesterday a witness talked briefly about this, and I would like to know your opinion. Could introducing Chinese technology in North America and Europe compromise activists' ability, by putting them at risk of retaliation from China and the Communist Party?

[Errol P. Mendes]

Yes. I think the introduction of Chinese technologies with companies such as Huawei—but not just Huawei, because there are other major technology companies in the United States and other places with the potential to basically include national security.... That's why I think it would be interesting to see, once Canada decides whether to not allow Huawei in its 5G project, what the reaction will be. This is something else that we have to factor into account in the way we deal with China, because no doubt there will be consequences if we do exclude them from the 5G.

This is where I think we should start the planning with our allies. Certainly Britain is going through this right now, and it's likely to face consequences too. So will other countries. That's why I think right now is the time to figure out how to work collectively with the democratic countries on ways to counter this type of blackmail.