Madam Speaker, it is not only a great pleasure for me to rise in the House today to speak to this motion, it is also a duty. All parliamentarians in the House of Commons should feel that sense of duty.
I will reread the motion for everyone tuning in. It says the following:
That, (a) in the opinion of the House, the People's Republic of China has engaged in actions consistent with the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 260, commonly known as the “Genocide Convention”, including detention camps and measures intended to prevent births as it pertains to Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims; and
(b) given that (i) where possible, it has been the policy of the Government of Canada to act in concert with its allies when it comes to the recognition of a genocide, (ii) there is a bipartisan consensus in the United States where it has been the position of two consecutive administrations that Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims are being subjected to a genocide by the Government of the People's Republic of China, the House, therefore, recognize that a genocide is currently being carried out by the People's Republic of China against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, and call on the government to officially adopt this position.
The plight of the Uighurs in China is not something that people in Quebec and Canada know very much about. If truth be told, the media in Quebec rarely address the subject. We rarely see an article about what is currently happening in China.
The Uighurs are a people who live in northwestern China. There are 11.5 million Turkic Muslims who have been living in that area for centuries. Hundreds of thousands of Uighurs are sent to deradicalization camps and used for forced labour. What is more, a number of organizations, including Canada's Subcommittee on International Human Rights, and two American administrations have now found that the Chinese government was committing acts of genocide and other crimes against humanity.
These acts of genocide include systematic population control, sexual violence and mass detention. We are deeply concerned about the genocide of the Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in China. These reports demonstrate in detail the extent of the abuses perpetrated by the Chinese government against the Uighurs. They show the Chinese government's growing contempt for human rights and international law, including in Hong Kong, as well as for Tibetans, Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities.
This situation is very serious, especially when it is a major world power like China that commits these acts of violence against its own citizens and its minorities. That is why we, like so many others, are sounding the alarm against these crimes.
History shows us that our country, Canada, was built by people from all over who, one way or another, came to settle in Canada. Canada has a reputation for being a welcoming country, even though our record is not perfect.
Let us not forget that in 1939, Canada refused to accept certain refugees because of their race. The MS Saint Louis, a German ocean liner carrying Jewish refugees, travelled to Cuba where it was refused entry even though the passengers had visas. They then went to the United States, where they were turned away. Canada also refused entry to this ship with Jewish refugees on board. The ocean liner returned to Europe and the passengers were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, where 254 of them died.
I think we have since learned that we need to do as much as we can to speak up and help people who are in abusive or life-threatening situations. Today's motion calls on the Prime Minister and his members of Parliament to open their eyes and face the facts. As my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan has pointed out, independent investigations have already been conducted. The investigations relied on testimony from survivors, satellite images and leaked Chinese government documents. The evidence is clear, and the government needs to believe it.
The Prime Minister seems to have some doubts. His response this week was to say that he was not sure. I suggest that he consult his Minister of Foreign Affairs, who recently said, “The mounting evidence of a systematic campaign of repression cannot be ignored.”
The United States, Canada's Subcommittee on International Human Rights and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, just to name a few, have all confirmed the point we are making today. The Prime Minister seems to be the only one who does not want to believe it.
Even his good friend Bob Rae, Canada's ambassador to the United Nations, said that there is no question that aspects of what the Chinese are doing fit the definition of genocide set out in the UN Genocide Convention.
We are calling on the Liberal government to do four things: to officially recognize the Uighur genocide, as the Biden administration did; to encourage the other allies to recognize this genocide; to work with our allies, including the United States, in order to take coordinated action in response to this genocide; and to impose Magnitsky sanctions on those responsible for the heinous crimes against the Uighurs.
We are also calling on the government to take any action necessary to keep Canadians safe. That includes updating travel advisories to reflect the potential threat for Canadians travelling to China and stopping the foreign influence and intimidation operations being carried out by the People's Republic of China here in Canada. We will certainly use various parliamentary tools and every other tool at our disposal to ensure that Parliament recognizes this genocide as soon as possible.
I would like to remind the House that Canada's Subcommittee on International Human Rights has already examined the facts and found that the actions of the Chinese Communist Party constitute genocide. We know that the Uighurs are being systematically detained in camps, violated, sterilized and forced to become labourers on a mass scale. The time for debating semantics has passed.
I have often spoken in the House about the dangers of Huawei, a Chinese company controlled by the Chinese communist regime.
Huawei applied for a patent for a facial recognition system. This system uses cameras to conduct facial recognition in order to determine whether the person belongs to the Uighur minority. Once the analysis is complete, the person is tracked, registered and identified. Then they are sent to jail or a forced labour camp. In China, this system is being used to identify Uighurs specifically. However, Huawei asked China's government patent authorities to remove the word “Uighur” because it knows full well that it is unacceptable. That is what is happening right now, but they are still trying to hide the truth.
When we talk to the Chinese government, they claim that the camps that the Uighurs are in are educational camps and that attendance is voluntary. That is what Beijing would have us believe, but we know what is going on. There is evidence. There are witnesses. Satellite images confirm what is happening on the ground. We can see the camps. We can see what the problems are.
We have often said that Canada needs to become a leader. In 2015, five years ago, the government said that Canada is back. That is what we heard, but we have yet to see it. Canada must support the United States and publicly and officially confirm the existence of the Uighur genocide by supporting the motion. Canada must publicly say that it is prepared to do everything in its power to ally with every democratic country that is willing and speak forcefully to the Chinese Communist Party. If Canada does not, then it is complicit in everything going on over there. If the Government of Canada turns a blind eye and says nothing, it is complicit in what the Chinese Communist Party is doing, and that is unacceptable.