Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.
I rise in the House today to speak to and support a motion that calls on the Liberal government to agree that ISIS is responsible for crimes against humanity aimed at groups such as the Yazidis, Shia Muslims, Christians, and other religious and ethnic minorities in Syria and Iraq; utilizing rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war and enslaving young girls and women; targeting gays and lesbians, who have been tortured and murdered; and, as a consequence, the House strongly condemns these atrocities and declares these crimes as genocide.
This is a motion that I believe all sides of the House should support. The Liberal government cannot and must not turn a blind eye to this situation.
Just within the past few days, and we heard this earlier today, 19 Yazidi girls who refused to have sex with their captors, were put into iron cages and burned alive. Ján Kubiš, UN Special Representative for Iraq, told the UN Security Council that “More than 50 mass graves have been discovered so far in several areas of Iraq” and that ISIS continues the atrocities against women and children.
A United Nations report stated that Yazidi boys between the ages of eight and 15 are being trained as child soldiers and forced to watch beheadings.
As well, the UN estimates that over 3,500 Yazidi women and girls are being held, with many used as sex slaves, while others are sold. In fact, not only have they set up slave auctions in the marketplace, but they have turned to social media and created digital auction blocks. The unfortunate fate of an 11-year-old girl was widely reported just last week when she sold for $9,000.
It is also reported that more than 5,300 Yazidi have been abducted and more than 3,000 men have been murdered. The UN estimated that another 5,000 Yazidi were killed by ISIS in northern Iraq.
The systematic rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war against women and girls, some as young as the age of six, is an atrocity beyond anyone's comprehension. As well, ISIS uses this as a recruitment tool, letting men know that women and sex are available for the taking at will.
The European Parliament agrees that the atrocities committed by ISIS are genocide. The British members of Parliament agree that the atrocities committed by ISIS are genocide. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom agrees that the atrocities committed by ISIS are genocide. The Vatican agrees that the atrocities committed by ISIS are genocide. The U.S. House of Representatives voted unanimously that the atrocities committed by ISIS are genocide. The UN Special Representative for Iraq said that violent acts by ISIS—killing, kidnapping, rape, torture—constitute crimes against humanity, war crimes, and even genocide.
Canada is a signatory on an international agreement, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes of Genocide, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, and it states that all participating countries are required “to prevent and punish” acts of genocide, whether carried out in war or in peacetime.
Article II of the convention defines genocide as:
...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Every single point of this definition has been violated. It escapes me as to why the Liberal government cannot see what everyone else sees. How many more mass graves need to be discovered? How many more young girls need to be sold and raped? How many people need to be burned alive or beheaded? How many people need to be tortured and murdered? How many families need to be destroyed?
There are 10 million people right now in immediate need of humanitarian aid. Canada has a responsibility to show leadership and to act in a meaningful way. We have the opportunity to ensure that the people who have committed these horrendous acts of violence are held to account. We need to be there for the people who continue to suffer, the women, the young girls, the boys, and the men who have lost their wives and daughters. For all of those who are buried in more than 50 mass graves, we need to show we care. We need to show that they matter and that Canada has not forgotten them. The very first thing we need to do is to bring Yazidi women and children to Canada. It is shameful that only nine families have been brought here and that the Liberal government has cancelled the Iraqi program.
The UN does not recognize the Yazidi people as refugees. They are internally displaced persons. This is the very first step we can take to effect change. It is a concrete action that we should undertake and that the current government should rectify immediately.