Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry.
I rise today to express my serious and heartfelt concerns with and vehement opposition to the abhorrent abuse and genocide actively being perpetrated against the Uighur people and other Turkic Muslims by the Government of the People's Republic of China. The Conservative Party stands in solidarity with the Uighur community in Xinjiang, China, and with the Uighur diaspora.
Several bodies, including Canada's Subcommittee on International Human Rights as well as two American administrations, have now concluded that the Government of China is committing acts of genocide and other crimes against humanity. These acts of genocide include systemic population control, sexual violence and mass detention. Ideally, Canada is a nation unafraid to stand on the side of freedom and human rights. We in the House have done so before, having recognized and condemned seven genocides that occurred around the world during our nation's history.
Before I continue, I want to reflect briefly on a story I read recently that resonated with me. It is relayed by the book, The Boys in the Boat by Daniel Brown. It is the narrative of the U.S. Olympic rowing team and its journey to Olympic gold in the 1936 Olympics, which were held in Nazi Germany. Throughout the book, two histories play out simultaneously. The first story is about Joe Rantz and the rowing crew at Washington University. The second story revolves around the Nazi propaganda department, its desire to showcase a specific image to the world as well as some of the debate that took place in the United States prior to the Olympics, which included whether the Americans should even participate in the games.
Near the end of the book, the two storylines overlap when the rowing team explores the town of Köpenick, the location of their Olympic rowing venue. Let me quote and paraphrase from page 332 onward:
“But there was a Germany the boys could not see, a Germany that was hidden from them....They knew nothing of the tendrils of blood that had billowed in the waters of the river Spree...in June of 1933, when SA troopers rounded up hundreds of Köpenick's Jews, Social Democrats, and Catholics and tortured ninety-one of them to death....They could not see the sprawling Sachsenhausen concentration camp under construction that summer just north of Berlin, where before long more than two hundred thousand Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Gypsies...would die....many of the Köpenickers the boys passed on the street that afternoon were doomed...destined for cattle cars and death.”
Throughout the book, Brown speaks about the lengths the Nazi regime took to showcase an image of Germany that was triumphant, modern and superior, all the while masking their hatred of others in the pursuit of racial purity and power.
Of course the Holocaust is one of the seven genocides that has been recognized in Canada's House of Commons, and now we are debating whether the people's House should recognize yet another.
Unlike the 1930s, however, the world in which we operate today is much different.
Last year the Subcommittee on International Human Rights released a statement regarding the situation of Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims. From first-hand witness testimony, it detailed mass instances of forced detention, where prisoners were refused the right to practise their religion and speak their own language; forced labour disguised as poverty reduction and skills training program, surveillance and control over every aspect of life, an effective police state; forced sterilization and population control, and, indeed, China's most recent statistics even show a massive reduction in the number of births in the Xinjiang region; and control and repression. The Xinjiang region is rich in natural resources and a strategic link to central Asian countries as part of the belt and road initiative.
These instances and sadly many other documented cases fulfill the United Nations definition of genocide under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, created following the revelations of the Nazi Holocaust.
We recognize the seriousness and severity of direct comparisons to the Holocaust. Tragically, the evidence is present and plain for all to see. Dr. Adrian Zenz, senior fellow in China Studies at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, testified before the subcommittee that it was in fact a Holocaust 2.0, but much more sophisticated.
We have heard reference to the chilling drone video from 2019, showing hundreds of men dressed in prison garb, stencilled with the words “Kashgar detention centre” and seated in rows on the ground in a large courtyard outside a train station. They are blindfolded, their heads are shaved, their hands are bound behind their backs and they are being guarded by dozens of police officers in SWAT-like uniforms. I ask people to please watch it if they have not yet done so.
Shortly after this clip aired on the BBC, the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, at the time U.K.'s Chief Rabbi, stated, “As a Jew, knowing our history, the sight of people being shaven headed, lined up, boarded onto trains, and sent to concentration camps is particularly harrowing.”
Australia's Strategic Policy Institute has documented 27 forced labour camps across China using forced and displaced labour for many mainstream brands.
These instances are not rumours or one-offs, but corroborated and verified accounts. We have first-hand testimony from victims who managed to survive and escape the Chinese Communist regime of oppression and torture.
Mr. Omerbek Ali testified before the subcommittee this past July. He stated:
I was electrocuted. I was hung up. I was whipped with wires. Needles were inserted. I was beaten with rubber batons and pliers were used on me.
Ms. Gulbahar Jelilova of Kazakstan was kidnapped from her hotel and transported to prison, where she was stripped, shackled, had blood and urine samples forcibly taken and unknown pills and injections administered, pregnancy tests performed and sexual violence perpetrated against her. She relayed the threats the Chinese state, stating:
They talked to me and told me that I had to remain silent, that if I wouldn't stop talking, they would reach me, because China has long arms. They said they would reach me and kill me anywhere in the world.
Legal academic and journalist Ms. Azeezah Kanji and her colleague Mr. Mehmet Tohti, long-time Uighur rights activists, have reported on these actions as the current stage of the Chinese government's “project of settler colonization and demographic change in the resource-rich territory China refers to as 'Xinjiang'.” Tellingly, this name literally means “new frontier”. The terrifying parallels to the Lebensraum and Anschlusss terminology used by the Third Reich during the 1930s and 1940s are clear.
Kanji and Tohti cite:
...renowned scholar of settler colonialism Patrick Wolfe famously wrote that “the question of genocide is never far from discussions of settler colonialism.” In the case of China’s policies against the Uyghurs, this question of genocide is not just abstract or metaphorical, but imminent and literal.
Continuing the disturbing similarities to the meticulously organized methods employed by the Nazi state, Ms. Kanji testified to leaked official Chinese documents that prescribed mass forced sterilization and mass surveillance in the Uighur homeland.
Human Rights Watch likens the Chinese Communist Party to an “Orwellian high-tech surveillance state”. It says, “No other government is simultaneously detaining a million members of an ethnic minority for forced indoctrination and attacking anyone who dares to challenge its repression.”
Where does this leave Canada?
I was taught that being a Canadian meant our nation stood for something. Like thousands of young Canadian university students, I remember learning about the positive role that Canada's foreign policy played in the 20th century throughout such hallmarks as the 1948 signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Lester B. Pearson's creation of the UN Emergency Force during the Suez crisis and the role of Canadian peacekeepers. We were taught that Canada meant something internationally, that its actions were a force for good, that Canada stood above the fray as an example to the world. Canada is not only a place people want to live, it is a nation that others strive to emulate.
Now is the time for our Parliament to reflect those Canadian values, which are still par for the course in classrooms across our country. Our Prime Minister should work with his American counterparts. Canada should join the republican and democratic senators in the United States to coordinate an international response. Canada is a principled nation that believes in fundamental values, values that run contrary to the interests of the Communist Chinese government and its objectives.
Turning back to the book The Boys in the Boat, in 1935, the American anti-Nazi federation called for a boycott of the Olympic games in Nazi Germany. A vote was taken at the U.S. Amateur Athletic Union to send a three-man committee to investigate the atrocities. The resolution failed 58 to 55.
Unlike 1935, we cannot claim ignorance or a lack of knowledge in the broader population. We need to demand internationally that China is held accountable for its genocidal acts. Therefore, we must choose. Canada can stay silent and allow President Xi to gain international favour and superiority through the platform of yet another Olympic games hosted by an authoritarian, genocidal and repressive regime or we can work together with our like-minded allies and call out the horrendous human rights abuses being perpetrated by Beijing against the Uighur people. After all, if there is any truth to the idea of Canada as a nation that stands on guard for freedom and human rights now would be a good time to prove it.