Mr. Speaker, I am requesting an emergency debate on the hunger strike that is currently happening at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre where Mohammad Mahjoub, Mahmoud Jaballah and Hassan Almrei are on a hunger strike regarding the conditions of their detention at the holding centre. We need an emergency debate on this issue because I think the situation is a serious one. Their health condition is deteriorating day by day.
Medical evidence shows that serious health issues can be possible after a hunger strike of only 10 days and that after 49 days there is a significant risk of renal failure, heart failure, heart arrhythmia, severe hypotension and hypertension.
Mr. Speaker, you might also recall some of the famous hunger strikes of the early 1980s and especially those at the Maze prison in Belfast. Those hunger strikers actually passed away after hunger strikes of 45 to 61 days. We are certainly within a period of parameter where there is very serious concern about the health of the hunger strikers in Kingston.
Mr. Mahjoub is on day 74 of his hunger strike and Mr. Jaballah and Mr. Almrei are on day 63, putting them well beyond the parameters noted above.
There has been no resolution to the grievances raised by the men at Kingston and no ombudsperson is available to them. Unlike other prisoners in the Canadian penitentiary system who have access to an ombudsperson and unlike other prisoners in our provincial system who have access to provincial ombudspeople for their grievances in the prison system, the men being held at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre have no access to an independent grievance procedure or ombudsperson.
I also believe these men now risk dying in custody because of these very serious health issues that they face, given the length of their hunger strike and given the fact that there has been no movement to resolve the issues that they have been raising. Furthermore, I am concerned that they have never been charged or convicted of any crime and have no idea of the evidence against them.
Given the length of time that these hunger strikes have gone on and the serious consequences that stem from a hunger strike, when push comes to shove I think the House needs to put some attention toward this matter given that these men are being held in a federal facility at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre.