Mr. Speaker, on the anniversary of Russia's brutal invasion in Ukraine, we are reminded of something that should never be controversial in the House: Unchecked tyranny anywhere threatens freedom everywhere. We have seen it in Kyiv. We have seen it in Tehran, and increasingly, we see it reaching into our own communities here at home.
Tyranny does not start with tanks. It starts with corruption, with kleptocrats stealing from their own people and with judges who do not serve justice but instead serve the dictators who put them there. It starts with silencing women and girls, jailing dissidents and crushing journalists. Then, when no one stops it, it metastasizes. It becomes the brutality of war. This is the pattern we saw in Moscow, and that is the pattern we are seeing in Tehran and we have seen in Tehran over the last 47 years. It is the pattern this legislation is designed to confront.
Nearly a decade ago, Canada made a decision that defined who we are. My colleague in this place from Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, alongside Senator Andreychuk and many other principled advocates close to this place, brought Canada's Sergei Magnitsky Law into force. It was named after a man who exposed corruption and paid for it with his life. Sergei Magnitsky was tortured to death for telling the truth. His murder was meant to silence others, and instead it gave democracy their most powerful non-military weapon against modern authoritarians: targeted sanctions that strike kleptocrats, despots and dictators where it hurts more, which is their money and, most importantly, their mobility. Canada acted with moral clarity, but today's threats have evolved and so too must the country's response.
Long before I got elected to the House, I had the privilege of working alongside colleagues who understood this deeply, including the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, who has spent more than a decade pushing Canada to take corruption, human rights and foreign intimidation seriously. When he is in the room, I know I am in the right room, and his commitment extends well beyond the House and his time here in it.
This legislation builds on that foundation. It strengthens, modernizes and sharpens our sanctions regime so it is not symbolic, it is not slow and it is not selective. In other words, it makes it clear, predictable and enforceable. It does this because silence protects dictators, while scrutiny, the very thing we are responsible for here, protects those who are oppressed.
Here is a short breakdown for everybody who is interested as to how this modernization would look. This would require an annual public report on Canada's human rights sanctions and on prisoners of conscience worldwide, including Canadians unjustly detained abroad. There is far more that could be done on that front, but this is a start. In fact, there have been a number of pieces of legislation introduced to the House to look at that issue specifically that have been rejected wholeheartedly by the government. We have to say this out loud: Sunlight does save lives. It saved the life of Vladimir Kara-Murza. It did for the two Michaels, and it can do that again.
This bill would also formally define and sanction transnational repression, because what once required secret police crossing borders now requires only a phone, a consulate and a proxy organization operating quietly in our communities. We know it is happening. Let us be honest about what that means. Authoritarian regimes in Beijing, Tehran, Moscow and beyond are intimidating, surveilling, harassing and threatening people right here in Canada. Dissidents receive midnight calls. Activists are told that their families back home will suffer. Students are followed. Journalists are pressured. This is not an abstract theory. It is happening in Toronto, in Vancouver, in Calgary, in Montreal and right across the country.
As an MP, and I am not the only one in the House, I have often taken a call from someone in a car, far away from their house, with a blurred-out background, whispering because they are terrified that the regime they ran away from is following them right here in Canada. If authoritarian states can reach into our cities and hunt their critics, we no longer have full control over the spaces that we claim are our own. Canada should be a sanctuary for freedom, not a playground for these foreign tyrants, but that is exactly what is happening here.
This bill would ensure that when regimes engage in transnational repression on Canadian soil, there are swift, automatic consequences: We would freeze their assets, ban their travel, name them publicly and make it unmistakably clear that Canada will not be their hunting ground and that Canadians who ran away from them will not be hunted.
We would also close the loophole that allows intimidated family members of sanctioned officials to live in luxury while their relatives jail protesters and siphon money from abroad. There would be no more parking illicit assets here while citizens back home suffer, or regime activists working out in the local fitness club or eating steaks at Toronto's fanciest restaurant, which we have also seen.
We would revoke broadcasting licences for state-controlled propaganda outlets run by regimes committing atrocities. A regime committing a genocide does not deserve a megaphone on Canadian airwaves. We should support the creation of an international anti-corruption court, because before tyrants become war criminals, they are corrupt officials. We know this through every point in history. They steal; then they repress, and then they wage war. If we confront corruption on the front end, we reduce the atrocities that often follow.
I want to spend a few moments on why this matters and to whom it matters. The tragedy of flight PS752 still weighs heavily on many families in this country. They have waited years for justice and compensation. Frozen regime assets exist, and they should serve the victims, not sit idle. I know this is not foundational to families, because money does not heal the unimaginable and permanent loss they experience, but it would serve a purpose and it would tell the world that we stand up for our people.
Russian sovereign assets frozen in Canada should support Ukraine's fight for survival. When foreign governments intimidate people on Canadian soil, it is not only a violation of rights. It becomes a test of our own, of whether we still believe in moral consequences or have grown too distracted and too divided to draw that very important line.
The Cold War had a clarity that many in our era have forgotten. It drew a line clearly between fear and freedom. Today, those lines are less visible, but they are just as real. They run through the phone of a dissident who fled Tehran, through the inbox of a Hong Kong activist and through the heart of a Ukrainian family who believed that Canada meant safety and now wonder whether the regime they escaped followed them here. If we do not draw that line, we teach dictators that Canada could be a welcoming home.
This legislation would draw that line clearly. It would say, “Canada will name, shame and sanction you, and will shut the door on your money and your friends. It would say, “Canada will not be neutral between those who are jailed and the jailer.” It would say something that matters deeply to Iranian Canadians who marched for Mahsa Amini and those who marched in the hundreds of thousands, even in the last week, against the genocidal mullahs; to the Ukrainian Canadians watching their homeland defend itself; to the Hong Kong democracy advocates; to the Tibetans; to the Uyghurs and to anyone who came here because Canada represented freedom: “We will not allow the dictators you escaped to intimidate you here in Canada.” That is something everyone here should agree on.
I hope that this legislation passes, that the Liberals take it seriously, that it is studied in committee and that the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman is successful in his pursuit of human rights, dignity and the rule of law, as he has always been in this place.