House of Commons Hansard #116 of the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was china.

Topics

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

8:50 p.m.

Conservative

Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK

Mr. Speaker, we cannot really control what the rest of the world does with this. We can designate this situation to be a genocide here in Canada. We can take those actions.

More importantly, actions we can take that are significant are, for example, blocking products that are made with Uighur forced labour. That is something we can do in Canada. Just last month the European Union banned exactly that. It banned products made with Uighur forced labour. That is an example of something within our control to do, and we can do it.

We can also halt complicity in organ harvesting. This is a very significant thing where organs are actually being harvested from people, such as Uighurs in China, and are being sold all around the world. This is a horrific thing that should not be happening.

There is a bill right now, Bill S-223, that is at the foreign affairs committee. That is another very important piece of legislation. It is something we can do to take action on this important file.

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

8:50 p.m.

Conservative

Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for sharing the wisdom he gained from his experiences in Rwanda with the House this evening.

Could he elaborate further on similarities between what happened in Rwanda and what is happening with the Uighurs in China right now? Could he look back at what happened there and possibly suggest some solutions?

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

8:50 p.m.

Conservative

Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK

Mr. Speaker, it is a shame when we see situations repeat themselves. We all know the story of Rwanda and how Canada played a very important roll in that situation.

The things that the government, or the rebels in that case, did to the Tutsi people were horrific, and many of the same things are happening right now to the Uighur people in the Xinjiang province of China.

One of the big errors we made in Rwanda was that the world did not recognize it and act quick enough. I believe that, unfortunately, a very similar thing is happening right now. That is why the motion today is very important. It is very important for the government to take some action and make some concrete steps to help everybody in the world recognize what is going on and do something to stop it.

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

8:55 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Mr. Speaker, today, several petitions were presented on combatting forced organ harvesting around the world.

Does the hon. member have any thoughts or opinions about the passage of Bill S-223 through the House?

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

8:55 p.m.

Conservative

Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK

Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, it is a very important bill. It is currently at the foreign affairs committee, and it really needs to move through the House and become fully adopted. It is one of those bills that is a no-brainer. We should not be allowing people to harvest organs and then get paid to have those organs used. It is one more way that the Uighur people are being violated and taken advantage of.

It is not just Uighurs, unfortunately. It is other people around the world too. This bill is very important because it will stop that practice, at least in Canada, for whoever might be affected by it.

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

8:55 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise to speak to this motion.

Way back in the day, in 2015, just after I was elected, I was invited to a Christian embassy Christmas dinner and was seated at a table with a gentleman named David Kilgour. David Kilgour was a former member of Parliament when I met him, and he had represented a riding in Alberta. Interestingly, he had been a member of the Conservative caucus and a member of the Liberal caucus and he had sat as an independent, so he had seen the House of Commons from all sides.

We got into a heated debate at that Christmas dinner on issues I did not agree with him over, but I guess the fact I was willing to argue with him made us immediate friends. From that point onward until his death just recently, I had probably seen David Kilgour on a monthly basis in and around Parliament Hill.

David Kilgour was a human rights lawyer and former member of Parliament, and he was the one who really opened my eyes to the situation of the Uighur population in China and the forced organ harvesting that happens in China. Forced organ harvesting is something that, just on the face of it, sounds terrible, yet David Kilgour went through the effort of building reports to prove the Chinese Communist Party and government officials are complicit in this. They are actively participating in it and have created entire systems to facilitate forced organ harvesting in China.

I commend the work of David Kilgour. It is really too bad he is no longer with us. He died suddenly just a couple of months ago. He made the calculations around the number of foreigners coming into China for organ harvesting. He was tipped off originally and started to monitor that, and it was dramatically more people than was possible given the natural occurrence of accidents, overdoses and things like that from which one usually harvests organs. He said that, given the size of the population of China and the expected number of organs that would be available for donation, one would expect a certain amount of people to be able to get a donor, given there has to be an alignment of the ability to donate from one person to the other. It was an order of magnitude of 10 times more people going to China for organ harvesting than he calculated to be possible.

Then he received a phone call from an Israeli doctor who said that the darndest thing had just happened to him. He said that he had just been able to book an organ transplant. He said that never in his life had he been able to book an organ transplant. Typically, one waits on a waiting list for a donor and a match. One waits and waits, because this is a life-and-death situation for the person receiving an organ. Lo and behold, when one comes available it is like winning the lottery. The person travels across the world to find their specific donor who happens to be a match, and on a moment's notice a person needs to drop everything and go to get this organ donation.

The doctor said it was the weirdest thing. He said he now could book two weeks out from today and had scheduled an organ transplant, and that something was odd about it. He knew Mr. Kilgour was investigating this already, so that was kind of the first tipoff. I think that was probably almost 20 years ago now that Mr. Kilgour received that phone call.

As Mr. Kilgour was investigating these things, it came to light that, yes indeed, there was a systematic process of organ harvesting happening in China, but the Chinese government said it was using folks who were on death row, hardened criminals who were being executed. It said it was using organs from those people. It said it was using it from accidents, from other tragedies and also from criminals who were being executed. I think we would all have our foibles about that a little bit.

The other interesting thing is that the Chinese have an extensive network of political dissidents who are imprisoned. We were considering whether the Chinese are using political prisoners as organ donors. Mr. Kilgour made the case that this is in fact happening.

Mr. Kilgour then showed us a lot of footage from the particular regions of China where most of the organ harvesting is happening. It happens to be not in Shanghai, not in the centre of China, but out in the more mountainous regions, in more remote communities. This is for a couple of reasons. Typically the air quality is better, so lungs and organs are in better shape because of that. Also, the people are less educated and are less aware of what is going on.

He showed that these marginal populations in Canada were being targeted for organ harvesting. The Uighurs have been a victim of this, there is no doubt. It gets crazier, so I cannot say that is the craziest part, but if one lands in particular airports in China, they have signs in English saying “This is the organ donor expressway.”

They have yellow markings on the floor and yellow signs saying that those who are there for an organ donation are to follow the signs. There is an entire system set up from the moment people land at the airport, so they do not get lost, and so they can rush, as people are typically in a hurry in these are life-and-death situations. There is an entire system of signage, shuttle buses and specialized elevators, with yellow signage and yellow arrows on the floor to tell people who are there for an organ to follow the signs and they will get where they need to go. That is organized.

Then there needs to be a supply of organs. Mr. Kilgour showed us complete remote villages of people all getting blood tests, and nobody seemed to know what they were getting them for, but they were getting a blood test. Everybody had to show up at the school to get their blood test, and then everybody went home again. Later on, people would randomly go missing. Mr. Kilgour was making the case that this was part of that organ harvesting that is happening in certain populations in China.

This is the greatest connection to the Uyghur population. The Uyghur population are of the Muslim faith, and what is interesting about that is that, particularly when it comes to the organ harvesting, there is a demand for organs that come from a Muslim person. China seems to be using the Uighur population to fill that demand.

This is another thing that Mr. Kilgour pointed out to us. Between the forced organ harvesting happening in China, the particular community of the Uighur population being targeted for this, and the amount of effort the Chinese Communist Party has gone through to make the Uighur people pariahs in their communities, so they are reported by their fellow countrymen and not associated with, make it so they are not missed when they are taken. It makes it so they are seen as lesser than human and generally reported to the government.

Interestingly, this happens to the Uighur people and it also happens to the Falun Gong. Again, Falun Gong is a unique religion, but they also have a very healthy lifestyle and are excellent organ donors. It just seems interesting that the Chinese government would turn the Falun Gong into social pariahs, people their neighbours would turn in for what seems to me to be a steady, healthy supply of organs.

That is the story that I have been told by Mr. Kilgour. I will be forever indebted to him and the work that he has done.

I also want to recognize Francis Yell, who took many trips with Mr. Kilgour to China to investigate a lot of these things. A lot of times, Mr. Kilgour did this at great personal cost, so I want to recognize his legacy. I also want to recognize this motion as being great work by my colleague.

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

9:05 p.m.

NDP

Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Mr. Speaker, my colleague spoke about the importance of not recognizing lesser humans. He spoke of lesser humans, how there is this hierarchy and how dangerous that is.

One of the concerns I have, as I have mentioned in this place, is that we pick and choose which human rights to protect. Children are, of course, innocent regardless of the circumstances they find themselves in.

I wonder if my colleague is supportive of the notion that children need to be protected regardless. Would he stand with the NDP in calling for a special envoy for children in Palestine who are the victims of violence in Palestine?

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

9:05 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to the basic idea of human rights. What are human rights? Do all human beings get human rights? Those are my questions. For me, human rights come to us because we are created in the image of God. Therefore, all of humanity is equal and worthy of dignity and respect.

Particularly when it comes to children, that is definitely the case. Regardless, innocent human life should not be taken. I do not know much about the specific thing the member is referencing, but those are my views on human life and human rights, and I defend human life and human rights wherever I can.

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

9:05 p.m.

Conservative

Brad Redekopp Conservative Saskatoon West, SK

Mr. Speaker, I really did appreciate learning more about organ harvesting and all of the terrible, tragic things that are happening there.

I want to ask the member a different question, though. One of the other related topics is the idea of Lululemon, Target and Walmart all having products that potentially come from the forced labour of Uighur people in China. Uighur people are removed from their families and villages and taken to cities where they are put to work in factories, and then the state benefits from their labour. I am just wondering whether the member has comments and thoughts about that.

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

9:05 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Oh boy, do I ever, Mr. Speaker. I think I would need a whole other speech just to address that.

What I would point out is that there is currently a bill in front of the foreign affairs committee, Bill S-211, that deals with supply chain reporting. It deals with big companies that operate in the west or in Canada. In particular, they would have to do a report on the impacts of their companies on human trafficking and forced labour. That is for sure a bill I would like to get passed.

The other thing is what the Americans are doing. They are identifying the province of Xinjiang as a place where forced labour is a problem, so for any products that are coming out of that area, there is a reverse onus and companies must prove that forced labour is not being used in their products. That is another initiative that I could get behind, and I look forward to the government moving on that.

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

9:10 p.m.

Conservative

Ted Falk Conservative Provencher, MB

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Peace River—Westlock for the work he does on human trafficking. He did not talk a lot about how perhaps the Uighurs have been subjected to that. He talked a lot about organ harvesting, and we know about that through the work of David Kilgour. We know it is happening and how atrocious it is.

I wonder if the member could expand a bit on any elements of human trafficking that there may be with the Uighurs in China.

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

9:10 p.m.

Conservative

Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for highlighting the work I do in combatting human trafficking both here in Canada and around the world.

Human trafficking for the Uighur population mostly looks like forced labour. It is a big challenge for Canada to identify who is being trafficked and forced into labour in some instances. In some places, it is not at all.

In some instances, people who have worked for a company for 20 years got their job all on their own and they are of the Uighur ethnicity or religion but have moved into the city and now work there. Sometimes we struggle or grapple with how to identify a person who took that job on their own and another person who has been trafficked into it, but it is definitely the case that it happens.

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

9:10 p.m.

Conservative

Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Mr. Speaker, I will start my brief remarks by saying that I thought, at least at the onset of this debate, that there would be a great show of unity about an issue that strikes at the very core of who we are as Canadians, which means to stand up for those who are being persecuted. However, I was very disappointed, specifically by some members of the government who did not use this opportunity to make a stand of unity but instead tried to score cheap political points.

We are debating today an important issue. It is something that many Canadians are probably unaware of but have probably seen the impacts of, whether that be forced labour, human trafficking, forced organ donations or the whole host of actions that have led this place and many around the world to state very clearly that there is a genocide taking place against the Uighur and Turkic Muslim people in China.

It is especially important that we have this debate today, because we come to this debate after the Chinese Communist Party closed its five-year annual convention, where the current leadership of the People's Republic of China and the Communist Party, that one-party dictatorship, has, with a heavy hand, shut down discourse, which has led to, in this case, systematic persecution against a minority population that needs Canada's support and needs the world's support.

In the very short amount of time that I have, I would simply say that it behooves us all to ensure that we stand up for those who are being persecuted, that we stand up for human rights and that we take the actions that are outlined in this motion and with the vote that will be coming, I believe, on Wednesday, to ensure that this Parliament makes a clear statement to say that we stand for religious freedom and we stand for the rights of minorities, and to ensure that Canada's Parliament, the voice of the people in our nation, stand with the Uighur people who have faced systematic persecution.

I am thankful for the opportunity to speak, and I look forward to a strong show of support in Canada's Parliament.

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

9:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Chris d'Entremont

It being 9:14 p.m., pursuant to order made earlier today, it is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith every question necessary to dispose of the motion now before the House.

The question is on the motion.

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes that the motion be carried on division or wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

The hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

9:15 p.m.

Conservative

Damien Kurek Conservative Battle River—Crowfoot, AB

Mr. Speaker, I would ask for a recorded division.

Citizenship and ImmigrationCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

9:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Deputy Speaker Conservative Chris d'Entremont

Pursuant to an order made on Thursday, June 23, the division stands deferred until Tuesday, October 25, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

It being 9:15 p.m., pursuant to an order made earlier today, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 9:15 p.m.)