Mr. Speaker, I am here again to raise the issue of the ethnic cleansing facing the Rohingya community in Burma. This is an issue that I understand we will now be discussing at greater length tomorrow in the context of an emergency debate. I am grateful for that opportunity. However, this is something that I will raise every opportunity I have, regardless, because I think it is that urgent.
In all of our minds, very clearly, we can see that it is ethnic cleansing. This was a process by which citizenship of Rohingya people in Burma was denied, and progressively more and more pressure was put on them in every possible way. This is nothing new, even though it may be a situation that is new to many Canadians, since it is only now really getting the media coverage and attention that it deserves. This is something that has been going on for a very long time, something that we have been raising in question period and in other ways for a very long time.
We have asked the government to do more in response. We are at a critical phase right now, in that the Burmese military has launched this terrible new assault, which seems to be their effort to complete a process of ethnic cleansing that has been going on for a long time. This terrible policy is something that requires our urgent response.
I want to quote, as I did earlier, Amnesty International's crisis response director, who said:
The evidence is irrefutable--the Myanmar security forces are setting northern Rakhine State ablaze in a targeted campaign to push the Rohingya people out of Myanmar. Make no mistake: this is ethnic cleansing.
During the summer, I went to Berlin and I visited a concentration camp for the first time. My grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, so any time I see instances of ethnic cleansing around the world, it hits close to home for me personally. I think what strikes a lot of people when we see those sites of historic atrocities is that they are often inside urban centres or close to urban centres, and people could have seen and did see many of these atrocities happening. They could see from tall buildings, perhaps, at least into the edge of concentration camps. They could see people being marched to trains for deportation.
We look at those scenes and we wonder why people who could see these things did not do more to respond to them. Today modern technology, news media, and the Internet play the same role that tall buildings in close urban centres played historically, in that again we have terrible atrocities and ethnic cleansing happening, and we can see that it is happening. Too often, I think, governments in the west fail to respond adequately.
I want to ask some specific questions to the government on this issue.
First of all, I asked this earlier in question period and did not get an answer. I want to ask the question again. What is the Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion doing? It is tasked with addressing these issues in some form. Has that office been at all engaged with this situation?
Second, has the government engaged directly with the military leadership? We know that after having repeated calls from the opposition, finally the government called Aung San Suu Kyi, but we also need the government to engage with the military leadership in Burma, especially commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing, and raise these issues specifically and with a strong emphasis.
I also want to ask why we could not have responded faster and earlier. As well, is the government committed to a sustained response? Since this issue may not remain in the media for long, is the government committed to a sustained response?