Ironically, Mr. Chair, I am going to do it in an unusual fashion. Normally I ask very short questions and ask for answers, but this time I'm going to read into the record bits and pieces of letters I have received, which I think will be of interest to all colleagues here, and which I think are right on point with what Mr. Kolga's testimony was about.
All of us received from the Russian Congress of Canada a letter dated June 15, a statement of the Russian Congress regarding the “announced adoption of the so-called Magnitsky Act, Bill S-226”.
In it they say that it is a “dangerous precedent” and “divisive identity politics” that is “further closing dialogue with Russia“ at this time.
In addition, they say that the “Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons heard only one side of the Magnitsky controversy” , and it was detrimental to Russia's interests.
They say that Magnitsky was an accountant, not a lawyer—somehow or another that's very important—and that Magnitsky was “arrested and put in a pre-trial detention facility” and “After 11 months...he died”.
“The official Russian investigation...did not find any evidence of maltreatment or torture”, they say. “The reports of his beating by prison officials...have not been based on empirical or documentary evidence.” However, just in case it's possibly true, “several high-level functionaries in the prison system” and the bureaucracy “were fired or demoted”.
They go on to say that they won't do it again, because they've changed the law. Then they say that the “death of Sergei Magnitsky was unfortunate indeed”.
Like all colleagues, I dismissed this as a bit of a crank letter. After I read that into the record last Monday night in the debate, we got an opinion from the very person you quoted, Mr. Kolga, namely, Natalia Veselnitskaya , who had some dealings with the Trump administration. This sentence is the most incoherent sentence I've seen a lawyer read. I'll read it to you, and if any of us can make any sense out of it, I'd be appreciative. Natalia Veselnitskaya wrote:
Now, a “new Prevezon” on the example of the new “Denis Katsyv” will appear in Canada, “having received a dollar from the blood money stolen from the people of Russia”, cases would be initiated, will bring Russian judges and prosecutors on the lists of “non-entry” to Canada, as if they were ever there at all or were going to visit, their mythical assets will be arrested, and the cases will “go out” for years with zero results until the generation of these politicians ready to betray their people and dance to the tune of a transnational criminal group will change.
By the way, we are the politicians who have betrayed our people, which again, you would dismiss as crank nonsense.
Yesterday evening I received a letter from the Russian Embassy, signed by the press secretary, Kirill Kalinin. He references a couple of articles where prisoners have died in Canadian jails, as if these deaths of Canadian prisoners are analogous to the torture and death of Mr. Magnitsky.
So, I would say that it's here, it's present, and it's real, and it's very interesting that we should be having the Magnitsky debate at the same time that we're talking about this very thing.
Mr. Kolga, what are your comments?