Madam Speaker, I want to thank all members for their interventions over the two hours of debate on Bill S-226. There are so many people to thank. First of all, I want to thank Senator Raynell Andreychuk, who brought this bill forward.
As I said in my opening comments, the last paragraph in the preamble best sums up what this bill accomplishes. It reads:
And whereas all violators of internationally recognized human rights should be treated and sanctioned equally throughout the world,
We spent a lot of time, and a lot of speakers here mentioned the abuses in Russia. As someone who has been banned from Russia, along with a number of colleagues, I know it is of grave concern to most members in the House to ensure that we take the right actions against Russia's aggressions in Ukraine; and against Russia's human rights violations within Russia and its neighbouring countries as it continues to crack down on the freedom of the press, the LGBTQ community, and political dissidents.
We have witnessed it again this week, just yesterday. Alexey Navalny is the leader of the official opposition in Russia. He is a Russian Opposition Coordination Council member and the leader of the Progress Party. He has been described by The Wall Street Journal as “The Man Vladimir Putin Fears Most”.
Yesterday, which was kind of like Russian Independence Day, Alexey Navalny organized a number of large-scale demonstrations promoting democracy and human rights and attacking the political corruption of Putin and the kleptocrats at the Kremlin. He has been arrested before, in 2011 and 2017, and he was arrested yesterday morning before he even got out of his house. Before he even got onto the streets to participate in a peaceful protest, he was pulled from his house. All communications were cut off in his house and office. Along with thousands of other people, he was arrested yesterday in Russia and imprisoned for 30 days for holding an unsanctioned rally.
This is 30 days in prison, and we know that prison time in Russia is hard time. It is where Sergei Magnitsky was detained, beaten, tortured, and ultimately murdered, because he was a whistle-blower on Russian corruption, on calling out the kleptocrats who were enriching themselves at the cost of individuals who had been committing a large tax fraud and blaming Bill Browder.
I would like to thank Bill Browder for the hard work he has done, not only in coming to Canada to have us bring forward Sergei Magnitsky-style legislation, but also to the United States, Britain, the European Parliament, Estonia, and other countries that are adopting this type of legislation, so that we as western nations, as democracies that love human rights and freedoms, can go out there and start to change the channel on these human rights abusers, these corrupt foreign officials who continue to enrich themselves and think that they can hide their wealth and their families in our countries. Bill S-226 provides the tools and mechanisms for the government to go out there and sanction them so that they cannot benefit from their crimes.
We also have to remember Boris Nemtsov, who was assassinated on the bridge outside of the Kremlin just two years ago. The last time he was in Canada speaking to the foreign affairs committee, he said that Magnitsky-style legislation is pro-Russian legislation. It is about making sure that the people of Russia enjoy the freedoms of democracy and the rule of law that we take for granted here in Canada, in the United States, and in western Europe. This is about trying to modernize that.
A couple of weeks ago, opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza was here, and he too, after being twice poisoned—two assassination attempts on him—still had the power and strength to come and speak to us as parliamentarians and again say that we should pass this legislation.
I am glad that the government, the NDP, and all members of Parliament are supporting this legislation. I know the government has brought forward amendments. I have met with government officials from foreign affairs, and I can tell the House that the Conservatives are okay with these amendments. There are a few on which we are still working on some wording, but let us get the bill to the foreign affairs committee, which has already done some great work on studying the Magnitsky-style legislation. The committee has the ability to quickly analyze the amendments, implement those amendments, and get them back here to the House so that we can pass them before we break for summer, and then the Senate can deal with those amendments.
Again, I thank everyone who has participated in this debate.