Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Montarville for his speech. Since he paid me a compliment, I will reciprocate by saying that his speech was powerful, eloquent and sound, and I congratulate him.
I am extremely thankful to be here in the House for what may be a historic debate. For this reason, it is especially important that we ask ourselves the following question: what side of history do we want to be on? It is not often that we are fully aware we have this choice, but today, in the House, we are faced with a unique opportunity.
We are here in Parliament, exactly where many politicians have stood before and either failed or succeeded. It is not up to me to judge what happens today. History will decide. I will limit myself to judging my and my colleagues' ability to convince every member of the House that what is going on in Xinjiang is genocide. My only power over my colleagues is to convince them to stand on the right side of history.
The facts are troubling, and members from every party could cite them, so I, too, will do so. Regardless of what the House does with the motion put forward by my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills, at least no one will be able to plead ignorance, which happens to be the greatest ally of totalitarian regimes, after willful blindness. Let us be neither ignorant nor blind.
This summer, the Subcommittee on International Human Rights, on which I sit, studied the human rights situation of the Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang after documents were leaked that strongly suggested that there was a system of mass detention and oppression in this region of China. Numerous experts consulted by the subcommittee estimated that millions of people are being held in what Chinese authorities despicably refer to as “vocational training centres,” surrounded by walls, barbed wire and guards.
For some people, just hearing this is not enough, and that is where the increasingly troubling satellite images and photos of huge complexes, factories and lines of prisoners and forced labourers come in. These images reveal the scope of the operation that has been under way for several years in Xinjiang and that is now unfolding before our very eyes. This operation needs to be called by its name: genocide. There were witness accounts, but they were eclipsed by the western world's complacent attitude towards the Communist Party and its secrecy. Suddenly, these stories were corroborated by the missing physical evidence. I can say that members of parliaments around the world have taken notice.
As we speak, a veritable cultural obliteration is taking place. In Xinjiang, wearing a beard, praying or quitting smoking can get a person sent to a concentration camp. There, people are prohibited from practising Islam or even speaking their own language. They are forced to eat pork and to praise the Communist Party and President Xi Jinping.
It is not easy to hear Uighur expatriates tell their story. It is very hard to remain indifferent when human beings are telling stories of children being taken away from their families and placed in state-run orphanages or schools. It is even harder when we know that they will be robbed of their language and culture so they can be indoctrinated and ultimately assimilated.
Unfortunately, it gets worse. We were disgusted, to put it politely, to hear that many women had been raped in these camps. When we heard the unproven allegations of organ harvesting, we could not decide what horrified us most, that this was possible or that we were not surprised because it had happened before to Falun Gong followers and other religious minorities.
That is not all. We were deeply troubled by the stories of mass sterilization in Xinjiang. It was revealed that the authorities hoped to sterilize 80% of all women of child-bearing age. The methods used include forced insertion of IUDs and forced surgery. It was reported that people are being forced to take drugs and receive injections.
If anyone does not trust the stories, all they have to do is look at the figures. Between 2015 and 2018, the population growth rate in the mostly Uighur areas of Xinjiang dropped 84%. I recently heard members of Parliament, including our Prime Minister, who were reluctant to use the word “genocide”. They claim that “genocide” is a loaded word and that we need to think hard before using it.
With all due respect, it is because it is such a loaded word that we must use it. The first nations of Quebec and Labrador are not reluctant to use it. Representatives of the Ukrainian community are not reluctant to use it. Representatives of the Jewish community are not reluctant to use it. Irwin Cotler, Canada's special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combatting anti-Semitism, is not reluctant to use it, and he was appointed by the Prime Minister. We should not be reluctant to use it, either. It is our duty to denounce it and to take action.
We may not realize it, but we are involved in this genocide. Without knowing it, we are benefiting from the situation. More and more evidence is coming to light directly linking western companies' supply chains to forced Uighur labour. I will not name names, but I would bet that each one of us very likely has items in our possession that were fully or partly made by Uighurs.
In any other situation, we would not hesitate to call taking people out of their regions to make them work as forced labourers modern-day slavery. I submit to the House that the situation in China should not be considered any more leniently than if it were in any other country. We realize, at a time when the entire planet is facing the worst health and economic crisis in more than a century, that human rights are not front and centre. We are talking about genocide, the most horrible example of man’s inhumanity to man. We cannot remain silent.
That is what prompted me to find a possible solution, because I believe that we have to start somewhere. Following our allies and declaring that genocide is taking place is an important step that I hope to take with every other member in the House, and we can do more. We can and must hit the Communist Party regime where it hurts the most: in its arrogance and pride. In 2022, Beijing is set to hold the winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. It is a prime opportunity to act and to unite humanists and democrats the world over around a very simple idea: refusing to participate by not allowing this world sports event to be used as a platform for the self-aggrandizement of a regime that is committing the most heinous crimes against its own people. We cannot reward the Communist Party for its nefarious schemes by going to Beijing, and neither can the rest of the world.
On February 6, 13 members of the House signed an open letter along with human rights organizations and a number of Quebec MNAs. In fact, my colleagues from Montarville and Longueuil—Saint-Hubert both signed the letter. We are not asking our athletes to give up their Olympic dreams. We are very aware of the considerable efforts they have put into following that dream. We believe that there is still time to demand that the International Olympic Committee move the games if the Chinese government continues its genocidal spree.
Some have said that we should not mix politics and sports. We are not taking our elite athletes hostage. We cannot hide behind politics when a genocide is taking place. My answer is that we are facing a genocide. As I just said, we are not talking about politics, but about human rights and crimes against humanity. We need to make sure that the medals athletes win in 2022 are not tainted, because history will undoubtedly remember these games as the games of shame, much like the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. We cannot accept the status quo. I know that my 12 colleagues and I are not alone in the House.
That is why I am proposing an amendment to the motion moved by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, which I hope will garner the support of a majority of members of the House. I move:
That the motion be amended by adding after the words “against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims,” the following:
“call upon the International Olympic Committee to move the 2022 Olympic Games if the Chinese government continues this genocide.”