Madam Speaker, I would like to congratulate you on being appointed to the Chair again. The desire you show to be non-partisan and to be fair and equitable is palpable in the way you comport your responsibilities. I congratulate you and I thank for your service to the House.
Also, a very personal and heartfelt thanks to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, who reminded the chamber today that economics and politics are not the only thing that is important here. Human dignity and solid principle are, as well as the principles of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. I want to thank him for reminding the House that those things are important to Canadians and to this institution.
I want to recap quickly what we have heard today from the Liberal side today and then I will respond to each of them.
The Liberals have said that the foreign affairs committee is the place for this motion to be heard and dealt with. Primarily the member for Winnipeg North has said that. The member for Don Valley West said that this was a complex, important and sensitive issue. He also said that the government was listening to the debate. The member for Scarborough—Guildwood said human rights issues in China were internal issues. Let me address each one of them.
First, let me address the issue about which the member for Winnipeg North continues to speak. He has said that the only place to deal with our motion would be at foreign affairs committee. I would like to quote him from 2015 with respect to a special committee regarding Carter v Canada. He said:
I would also make reference to having a special committee as opposed to any of our current standing committees. It is important to recognize that it is not just the Department of Justice or the Department of Health or the Department of Finance. There are a number of standing committees that might have some interest in the issue. The bottom line is that it is important to have a special committee of the House with the same powers a standing committee has. If we agree to that, we will be on the right track in terms of being able to deliver what Canadians really want to see, and that is some parliamentary leadership on this very important issue.
There are a number of committees that would be concerned about this and that is why we need a special committee. The industry committee would be concerned about the Investment Canada Act and intellectual property. The foreign affairs committee would of course be concerned. The committee I serve on, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, would be concerned. The finance committee would be concerned with the manipulation of the Chinese currency. The public safety would be concerned with Huawei and a number of other issues.
I thank the member for his right and honourable words from 2015.
With regard to the issue being complex and sensitive and the government is listening, if the government really wants to listen to the debate, if it really believes it is complex and sensitive, then why not solicit the expertise of 338 members of Parliament? By the way, it behooves me why the executive does not do this more often anyway. These are individuals. The entire House is elected by the citizens of Canada. To bring about the expertise within this chamber would be good. If the hon. member does not think he has any expertise, he can exit, and that is fine. Forming a special committee on this would be the right thing to do and a timely thing to do, not just for human rights and our own citizens who are incarcerated in China but also for the multiplicity of other things. If the government really wants to listen to this debate, the best thing it could do is agree with the motion to have a special committee.
In regard to human rights issues, the Communist Party of China has persecuted Tibetans, Christians and Falun Gong for decades. We have credible evidence that not only has it persecuted them, jailed them, tortured them, but it has also harvested their organs.
The member for Wellington—Halton Hills rightfully talked about the incarceration and manipulation of over one million Uighurs. The Subcommittee on International Human Rights has done two studies in this regard and found credible evidence that it is going on. I already mentioned our own citizens who have been incarcerated, but a permanent resident of Canada, Huseyin Celil, has been incarcerated as well.
All of these issues are profoundly important. However, I want to bring to the attention of the House an event that happened recently with a Chinese Communist Party defector, who is now in Australia. Wang Liqiang said that he was motivated to defect after realizing the Chinese regime's harm to worldwide democracy. According to a news article:
A man claiming to be a Chinese military intelligence agent has defected to Australia, bringing with him a wealth of insider knowledge that backs up longstanding concerns about Beijing’s attempts to subvert and undermine its opponents abroad.
In other words, that means other democracies.
The article continues:
Wang Liqiang revealed an “unprecedented” trove of information on how the communist Chinese regime funds and directs operations to sabotage the democratic movement in Hong Kong, meddle in Taiwanese elections, and infiltrate Australian political circles, according to reports on Nov. 22.
I could go on, but the fact is that this agent has handed over substantial evidence in that regard. China's capability should be very concerning to the Government of Canada, the House and all Canadians.
The fact is that China is weaponizing trade and using it for economic blackmail. Of course China has done that to us as well as other nations. That should be enough of a concern to strike a special committee.
There are credible allegations, and we heard this several times at the subcommittee for international human rights, that diplomats here from the Communist Chinese party have consistently pressured Canadians who are of Chinese origin to go along with their initiatives and to intimidate Uighurs and others who would oppose their regime. However, with a special committee, as I said earlier in one of my questions, should the government want to have some information kept secret, it could easily swear in individuals on that committee to deal with sensitive issues as far as diplomatic things are concerned.
Finally, the government should answer as to why it appointed the recent ambassador, Dominic Barton, who is a former global managing partner at McKinsey & Company. This firm once held a corporate retreat approximately four miles from a concentration camp holding Uighur Muslims, which my colleague referred to earlier. McKinsey has also advised at least 22 of the 100 biggest state-owned firms in China. The ambassador has no diplomatic experience as well. Canadians should know exactly why the Government of Canada appointed a person with those kinds of connections to state-owned enterprises. Knowing what he knows with regard to the Uighur concerns, why is he our representative in Beijing?
Since 1949, the Communist Party has ruled with an iron fist in China. I have mentioned the people, groups and minorities in China that were dealt with by that iron fist. However, one of the things that we have seen on the subcommittee for international human rights is that if one is prepared to persecute, harm, terrorize and jail one's own people, it is a very small step to export that kind of behaviour.
Therefore, the concerns that have been voiced here by many of our members in regard to China's behaviour, with its so-called international partners, should be enough of a concern for the House of Commons, for the Government of Canada, to ensure we strike this special committee. We should not wait until February when we return and when committees are struck. We should begin to gather evidence so the government can make the best decision on how to deal with the diplomatic, human rights, economic and industrial concerns we have with the People's Republic of China.
I want to make it clear that we have no issue with the citizens of China. We have a lot of Canadian citizens today who have immigrated to Canada and are contributing Canadian citizens. The issue we have is with the Communist Party of China and its behaviour internationally, particularly with the Government of Canada.