Mr. Speaker, Canada needs to be a leader when it comes to promoting universal human rights around the world. We have an opportunity to share our domestic experience of human rights and to give voice to those who are voiceless.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Burma is edging toward ethnic cleansing in its treatment of Muslim Rohingya people. The New York Times reports villages being burned to the ground, allegations of the slaughter of children by the military, the denial of access to aid workers, and thousands of people fleeing to Bangladesh.
Despite praise heaped on Aung San Suu Kyi over the years, the treatment of the Muslim Rohingya has continued to get worse under her government. In recent weeks alone, hundreds of Rohingya people have been killed and tens of thousands displaced.
Successive Canadian governments have provided significant development assistance to Burma, and we have a moral obligation to use our position to respond to this crisis. It is time the government sounded the alarm and spoke out clearly and forcefully about this troubling and worsening situation.