Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House of Commons today to speak about this important motion. It is a great opportunity for us to demonstrate the contrast between us and the Conservative Party. This is an ongoing philosophical conversation in which the Conservatives seem to want to satisfy their own emotional frustration without really taking into account what it is that Canada can do to help people who really need our help.
Let me first start by saying that, when someone dies, we say nice things. It is not something that was unusual for the previous government. It is really not that hard to look through its record and see all kinds of statements that the previous prime minister, Stephen Harper, made when former heads of state who were controversial passed away, statements in which he offered his condolences and said pleasant things about them.
This is what Canadians expect their government to do. In fact, this is what Canadians expect us, among ourselves, to do when someone dies—at least talk about positive things and look toward the future. That is precisely what the Prime Minister has done.
To prove that point, as colleagues from the Conservative Party and the parliamentary secretary have already mentioned, when the Prime Minister was in Cuba a few weeks ago, he did not miss the opportunity to speak directly with the Cuban people about human rights, about inclusion, about fundamental rights of democracy and of self-determination.
Our government, our Prime Minister, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, and our members of Parliament, always champion these causes wherever we are, at home or abroad. This is a fundamental disagreement between us and the Conservative Party. We believe, as the government, that we have a role and that Canadians expect Canada to play a constructive role on the world stage. We need to be champions for human rights. We need to carry the voice of the voiceless around the world. We need to make sure that their rights are protected. We need to put pressure on governments around the world to ensure that their people are respected and heard and that they live in dignity.
One of the ways of doing that is by setting an example here at home. I do not want to miss that point. It is really important if we want to set an example, if we want to send a message to the rest of the world that we here in Canada, first, acknowledge our mistakes of the past and, frankly, our current challenges and set a road map to deal with these issues, whether it is dealing with how to reconcile with our indigenous people, or how to set the law straight on transgender rights, or protecting women's right to choose how to dress. These are fundamental rights that, frankly, the members of the Conservative Party are still struggling with. They are still unable to figure out where they stand on these issues. In fact, I know some members of the Conservative Party oppose these rights. Currently, there is a leadership candidate of the Conservative Party who is going around promoting xenophobia. That is her way of thinking of winning the leadership of the Conservative Party.
If we really want to send a message to the rest of the world that we are champions of human rights, we need to do that at home. I encourage my hon. colleagues to deal with these issues, to deal with these skeletons in their closets, to fix their problems, to make sure that their next leader believes in human rights here at home. That is how they can be effective when they champion human rights abroad.
Speaking of leadership candidates for the Conservative Party, I want to quote another leadership candidate, the member for Milton. This is what she said last weekend:
Doesn't the Prime Minister travel around the world, talking about how wonderful he is as a feminist, how wonderful he is for the LGBTQ community, how wonderful [that] he will speak up for everybody? I mean he sets the bar....
This is precisely what that leadership candidate said on television last weekend. She is confirming what we have been saying ever since we took power. It is what we are saying today. Our Prime Minister does not shy away from championing human rights wherever he is.
We have also established the Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion. We have tripled the budget of the previous office that was set up by the Conservative Party, and we gave mandated it to be an international voice for human rights, to ensure that people's rights around the world have a venue where they are represented, and to ensure that our government speaks up for those who do not have a voice around the world. We have also demanded that our heads of missions around the world ensure that human rights are a fundamental element of every policy that they advocate, and every time they speak with foreign governments to ensure that human rights are a fundamental element of their conversation.
The list of what we have done is long, and I want to go through some of it. We are supporting the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights with significant new funding. Canada has been elected to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. We have tabled new legislation to guarantee and protect the legal rights of transgendered people across Canada. We have announced our intention to adhere to the optional protocol to the United Nations convention against torture.
One other important action that we have done is this. Here in Canada, we do not believe in the death penalty, but there is something that the previous government did that puzzles me to this day. It stopped a policy where Canada would ask for clemency for Canadian citizens who are sentenced to death. I do not understand why the previous government would stop that policy. The moment we took office, we reinstated that policy. Now Canada will always ask for clemency for Canadian citizens if they are on death row, because Canadians expect their government to speak up for Canadian citizens, and Canadians do not believe in the death penalty and do not believe that states should be executing individuals. I do not know why the previous government stopped that policy, but I am proud to say that one of the first things that our Minister of Foreign Affairs did when he took office was to reverse that policy.
I am curious as to whether the hon. members know how they are helping the Cuban people right now, when they want to antagonize about a past that we all agree was a dictatorship. We all agree there was a controversial figure. What we want to do is to help the Cuban people. We want to find the most effective way to work with the Cuban government to ensure that the Cuban people are respected and that their human rights are protected.
Canada has had an unbroken diplomatic relationship with Cuba for decades, and Canadians are proud of that. Canadians know that Canada has an independent foreign policy, that we as the Canadian government derive our foreign policies from the Canadian people. Frankly, I have to give credit to previous Conservative governments because they maintained that tradition. Perhaps it is the opposition benches that are having some kind of influence on them, so that all of a sudden now the Conservatives want to reverse the policies of their own party when it was in government.
With that, I just want to conclude that our government is a strong believer in being a voice for human rights here at home and abroad; and that our Prime Minister and our Minister of Foreign Affairs will never shy away from championing these causes.