Two minutes doesn't provide enough time, so I'll ask witnesses to provide a submission in writing to respond to my comment.
The transnational repression hearing is something that I've led here for three sessions. It is a mixture of how authoritarians impose their rule across borders in repression. The word “repression” is particularly important to me because it defines in its nature the differentiation between victim and oppressor.
In the democratic world, we have a conflation of these ideas, which has created moral confusion and come at the cost of moral clarity. Tolerance as an idea and our desire to be inclusive have created a world in which everything is included, including the things that are outside of the laws of our country, our sovereignty and the freedoms our people have been promised.
In that context, in the western world at large, when one party wins an election, it's called populism. When another party wins an election, it's called democracy. We have various models of moral equivalency that make it even harder for us to identify an oppressor and an authoritarian when they are imposing their will on the lives of our people, whether they're from Niagara, Halifax, Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary or anywhere else.
It is a growing and disturbing problem that requires strength, fortitude and a total awareness of what has been promised in terms of what our liberties in this country should be. In that sense, the test of moral clarity in our country, as our democracy is as vibrant as it is, is perhaps one of the biggest ones. I think of countries and peoples on the front lines of this—which include the Taiwanese, the Baltic nations and much of the Jewish world—who have had to deal with concepts of transnational repression robustly.
In that vein, I would invite all witnesses to provide some written thoughts and submissions for the benefit of this committee and of this study, which we are just about to close, on how Canada and the western world can confront transnational repression.
Thank you very much.