Borys Wrzesnewskyj

[Business of Supply, October 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I begin by once again thanking the member for Calgary Nose Hill for her tireless advocacy on behalf of Nadia Murad, on behalf of the hundreds of Nadia Murads who have escaped Daesh's sexual slavery, and for giving voice to the thousands of women who continue to be enslaved by this genocidal death cult.

I would also like to thank the member and her colleagues for bringing this debate into our House.

All of our days are filled with busyness. However, as busy as we are in our institutions of caretaking and good governance here on the Hill, as much as we attempt to manage and control processes in this place, there will be events that intrude upon us, events that are beyond our control, events that require an immediacy of action by us, and that require hard decisions from us.

These will be decisions which will define us, decisions that carry a moral burden, decisions such as those of military engagement, of war and peace.

However, the most morally demanding of action occurs when confronting the darkest of evils, genocide. Genocide is defined as the destruction of a nation or an ethnic group. The simplicity of its definition is a stark contrast to the horror of its meaning.

It was a term coined and defined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944, a Polish Jew born in Vawkavysk, within the bloodlands of eastern Europe, the epicentre of mass killings in Europe's decades of death during the 20th century, where the Holodomor occurred during the 1930s, and where the unimaginable horror of the Holocaust took place in the 1940s.

Lemkin later served with a team of Americans working to prepare the Nuremberg trials, where he was able to introduce the word genocide into the indictment against the Nazi leadership when the word genocide was not yet a legal, criminal term.

These last two years, the world has once again faced the horror of genocide. During these last two years, Daesh publicly declared genocide against the peaceful Yazidi people of Syria and Iraq on the Internet, and then the mass murders began.

Genocidal massacres do not pause and wait for international legal processes to make criminal, legal determinations of genocide. I was a member of the Canadian delegation at the United Nations World Summit in 2005 when former Prime Minister Paul Martin stated before the General Assembly:

Too often, we have debated the finer points of language while innocent people continue to die. Darfur is only the latest example.

In 2005, Prime Minister Paul Martin made clear we could not allow another Darfur to occur. Yet, the Yazidi genocide took place during the last two years as we in the House debated the finer points of language while innocent people continued to die. In the next few days, we will be facing decisions requiring an immediacy of action on behalf of the Yazidi survivors of genocide.

This summer, the citizenship and immigration committee heard testimony from Nadia Murad. Nadia's mother and brothers were murdered by Daesh when they occupied her town, separated, and then slaughtered the men and older women. The younger women and children were horrifically abused and sold into Daesh's sexual slave markets.

This September, during the United Nations World Summit, a decade after former Prime Minister Paul Martin spoke at the World Summit, and the premise of the Responsibility to Protect, R2P, was introduced by Canada, Nadia told the horror of her story before the UN Security Council, the horror of the story of the Yazidi genocide at the hands of Daesh. As the UN Security Council chair noted at the conclusion of Nadia's testimony, it was the first time in its history that the Security Council had given a speaker an ovation.

Nadia's strength is inspirational and needs to be applauded. However, the clapping of hands is not a substitute for concrete action.

Yazidi genocide survivors and many of the women who escaped Daesh's sexual slavery are currently languishing in IDP camps, internally displaced persons camps, and refugee camps, where they often continue to suffer discrimination and abuse as members of a religious minority. However, they also face an even harsher reality, as Nadia stated during our committee hearings in early July three months ago, Yazidi women have no home to return to.

How can women whose villages have been razed, whose families have been massacred, whose neighbours stood aside, or worse, as they were chained and taken to Daesh's sex-slave markets, return to villages that no longer physically exist, to face neighbours complicit in their horror?

Every year on the Hill, we memorialize the Armenian Genocide, the Holodomor, the Holocaust, and solemnly pledge and declare, “Never again”. Yet, Rwanda happened, Srebrenica happened, Darfur happened, and in the last two years, the Yazidi genocide happened.

We cannot predict what will happen in three years time when our elected mandate comes to an end. However, we can all agree that each and every one in this House will have changed during our time in this place. In those moments of quiet reflection three years hence, will each of us individually be able to say, “I passed the test”, or will some of us look back and say, “What happened to me”?

To my colleagues of all parties in this House, this is the institution where the great debates of the day can take place, which can lead us collectively to find unity in motions that arrive at decisions of great moral imperative and immediacy.

Surely, for the sake of the Yazidi genocide survivors, we can rise above partisanship and the splitting of hairs on the finer points of language and details.

One evening, after last summer's hearings into the Yazidi genocide, I brought Nadia into this chamber, with only the security personnel present. In fact, I invited her to sit in your chair, Mr. Speaker. As she looked out into the magnificence of this chamber, she seemed unsure. Perhaps she was thinking of where she had been a year prior, and where she found herself that summer evening.

As she looked out, I said to her, “Nadia, I'm sure that one day the child or grandchild of a Yazidi genocide survivor will stand in this place as an elected member of Canada's House of Commons and reaffirm humanity's pledge of “Never again”. I believe I saw a tear in her eye.

Let us reach out with a Canadian helping hand, as has Germany, and bring a group of these genocide survivors to the sanctuary of Canada. Let us begin the process of restoring their shattered lives.

[Business of Supply, October 20th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Calgary Nose Hill for her tireless advocacy on behalf of Nadia Murad and hundreds of women, such as Nadia, who have escaped sexual slavery and the thousands upon thousands of women who continue to be enslaved by this genocidal death cult.

During our hearings in summer, at which Nadia Murad testified, we heard that there was a country that not only declared that what had occurred was genocide, but also felt compelled to act immediately. It was Germany. Germany brought a large contingent of Yazidi women to sanctuary to help rebuild their shattered lives.

Perhaps the member would like to comment on why Germany was able to act and how it went about bringing those women to Germany and to begin the settlement process there.

[Committees of the House, October 5th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration entitled “Distress Call: How Canada’s Immigration Program Can Respond to Reach the Displaced and Most Vulnerable”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

[Babi Yar Massacre, September 21st, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, today marks the 75th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre. On this date, in 1941, in Kiev, 34,000 Jewish men, women, children, and infants, were rounded up, stripped of their possessions, shot, and dumped into the Babi Yar ravine by the Nazis. So began the “Holocaust by bullets” in Eastern Europe.

This week, a series of memorial events are being held on this horrific anniversary. The Babi Yar memorial project was spearheaded by the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, a groundbreaking group founded and funded by Ukranian-Canadian businessman and visionary James Temerty.

Thousands of forgotten “Holocaust by bullets” sites are deserving of remembrance. One such site is at the ancient Jewish cemetery of Sambir where, on the first day of Passover in 1943, 2,000 Jews were massacred. After seven years of patient and meticulous work, my friend Mark Freiman and I signed a memorandum of understanding with the mayor of Sambir, Yurii Hamar, this September 8 to memorialize this site.

May their souls be bound in the bond of eternal life.

[Citizenship Act, June 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague from across, but from the same party, for his question and also for the tremendous work he has done over the years in the Middle East.

Often this term is not used correctly, but the GTA is unique in the fact that half of our population was born outside our country. Half of the citizenry of this megalopolis of the GTA, 6.5 million people, were born outside of Canada. They feel it. They understand this. When Bill C-24 was enacted, all of a sudden they felt somehow they did not have the same equal rights to citizenship as their children, for instance, would have.

Therefore, people were extremely happy that under a Liberal government we delivered on our commitment. It will be a proud moment this Canada Day when in Etobicoke Centre we once again swear in new Canadian citizens and we can say, “Welcome. In Canada a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian”.

[Citizenship Act, June 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to speak to this issue. We heard one of our previous Conservative colleagues call our electoral pledge to bring 25,000 Syrian refugees—among the most vulnerable on the planet today—a “shameful” pledge. It was inspirational. We stepped up at a time when people were vulnerable. Everyone remembers those awful images of dead bodies washing up on Europe's shores.

We made a pledge. Yes, it is a significant number. We made that pledge knowing that things would not work out perfectly, that there would be problems. However, today before the committee we have heard from refugees who landed in Canada, thankful for the opportunity and explaining that perhaps certain things are not quite perfect. That is to be expected, and that is the role of the committee, to help in this process. The minister has expressed his interest in hearing this testimony so that we can make this process easier. These individuals have lived through horrors. We should really do our best to make sure they can begin a new life in our country.

[Citizenship Act, June 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Willowdale.

I rise to speak to Bill C-6, an act to amend the Citizenship Act and to make consequential amendments to another act. Bill C-6 would make specific and targeted changes to legislation passed by the previous government in Bill C-24. The objectives of those targeted changes are twofold.

Before I expand on those two objectives, I wish to state the following. We live in the best country on the planet: Canada, which we share with our first nations and on whose shores generation after generation landed. We are a Canada of first nations, immigrants and refugees, and their progeny. These were and are freedom's shores and the land of opportunity. It is a great privilege and good fortune to be a citizen of our country.

I state this as the son and grandson of refugees. Both of my parents and all four of my grandparents were refugees who arrived from displaced persons camps. My paternal grandmother called Canada freedom's shores, where everyone was equal before the law and where for the first time in her life she had the vote. She had a voice as an equal citizen. It is with this very personal legacy in mind that I speak to Bill C-6.

One of the two objectives of Bill C-6 is to make the journey toward citizenship less onerous and to bring it back to the standards and requirements of a system that worked well previously. There are changes such as reducing the length of time required to be physically present in Canada to qualify for citizenship. It would be reverted back to three of five years as opposed to four of six. It would also allow time in Canada before permanent residency to count as half-days toward the physical presence requirement. This would allow people who came here to study or work, or are under protected persons status the comfort of knowing that they are welcome to begin the process toward citizenship. As well, it would amend the age range for language and knowledge requirements from age 14 to 64 back to the previous 18 to 54 age requirement. These are important changes.

However, the most important objective of Bill C-6 is to address the dangerous precedent set by Bill C-24, which created two classes of citizen: first-class citizenship for those who obtained citizenship through birthright; and second-class, revokable citizenship for those became citizens by choice, often by difficult choice and through hard work.

During the last election campaign, our Prime Minister and the Liberal Party of Canada made clear to the millions of Canadians whose citizenship had been denigrated to second-class status and done so retroactively by the previous government's Bill C-24 that we would rescind the offending clauses of that legislation. Simply put, under a Liberal government a Canadian would be a Canadian would be a Canadian once again.

A foundational principle of western liberal democracies is the concept of égalité: that every citizen is equal before the law and is to be treated equally by the law. No citizen has an inherent birthright privilege. This runs counter to historical feudal notions of hierarchical rights granted to different groups based upon birth: caste born into; ethnicity born into; wealth born into; or, in the extreme, the birthright of royalty and the absolute, the divine right of kings. In the liberal democratic west, we are beneficiaries of a system built upon the sacrifices of those who revolted against the injustice of feudal birthright inequality.

The concept of equality was at the core of the French and American revolutions and succinctly put into the American Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote, “all men are created equal”. I would with humility paraphrase today that all humans are created equal.

In Canada, the principle is enshrined in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We live under a system of rule of law. However, all laws must subscribe to the fundamental principles of the Charter of Rights.

When expert witnesses appeared before the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration during our review of Bill C-6, I asked the panellists, those who both criticized and supported the Conservative Bill C-24, a simple question: “One of the fundamental principles of our justice system is that every citizen is treated equally before the law... Do you subscribe to this principle?” I asked for a simple yes or no.

Surprisingly, both critics and proponents of Bill C-24 responded yes. Only one did not state yes, prevaricating that “For me, it really reflects...the force of that argument, of the position the government has staked out. I still think there are circumstances in which the breach is so fundamental that it requires some other remedy...”.

Even within this prevarication, the only “no” among the witnesses to “should every citizen be treated equally before the law”, one finds an embedded logical disconnect. If the breach is so fundamental that it requires some other remedy, as was stated, should this other remedy, assuming it is a more arduous legal penalty for a fundamental breach, not apply to a Canadian-born terrorist or person engaged in treason, as well?

However, there are other rational disconnects and legal, ethical pitfalls to this section of Bill C-24; for instance, the penalty for a terrorist or treasonous individual who is a dual citizen of a country that is a state sponsor of terror. What would deportation to such a country result in? Would it be a hero's welcome?

On the other end of the spectrum, would we strip Canadian citizenship and deport to a country that subscribes to torture or a country in whose prisons individuals “disappear”?

The question then becomes this. Why did the Conservative government, in the year leading up to an election year, enact a law so deeply flawed; a law that not only offends the fundamental principle of equality before the law; a law that would not stand up to a charter challenge; a law whose penalty in practice could create moral jeopardy or lack of consequence?

Perhaps the answer lies in the observation that it was the same governing group that established a snitch line for barbaric cultural practices during the last federal election campaign—a slightly more camouflaged attempt at the dangerous politics of division and demagoguery that we are currently seeing in the lead-up to the U.S. presidential election.

However, would a Canadian government knowingly resort to undermining the fundamental principle of equality before the law for electoral gain?

As our Prime Minister pointed out not long ago in this House, it was the same Conservative Party that took away the fundamental right to vote from Canadians in the 2011 election.

During the election campaign, I was proud to be part of a team that pledged to do politics differently; whose leader would not succumb to the temptation of dividing Canadians against themselves; who spoke to our better angels.

As I speak today, I think back to the principles my grandmother imbued me with. She was a hard-working refugee who loved her Canada, who loved our Canada, a country that, for the first time in her life, had given her a voice and the same equal rights of every other citizen. She never missed a vote, and she taught her grandchildren to stand against the injustice of inequality, which had been her lot in life prior to landing on freedom's shores.

Our government, the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, and the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration worked hard and diligently on this legislation.

It is with pride that, this upcoming Canada Day, we will be able to declare that our Prime Minister and our government have fulfilled their commitment and under the current government, once again, in Canada, a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.

[Committees of the House, June 14th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration entitled “Supplementary Estimates (A) 2016-17”.

[Crimea, May 17th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, in 1783, Russia first occupied Crimea and so began a tragic history of 160 years of occupation and multiple ethnic cleansings of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people.

On May 18,1944, Stalin ethnically cleansed all 240,000 Crimean Tatars to central Asia. Over 100,000 perished. Among the survivors was the legendary Mustafa Dzhemilev, who spent 18 brutal years in Soviet gulags for demanding the right of return for his people.

Two years ago, Russia once again militarily invaded and annexed Crimea, and Mustafa has once again been banned from returning to his ancestral homeland. Putin's Crimean terror includes disappearances, torture of detainees, and summary executions. Twenty thousand Crimean Tatars are now refugees. May 18 commemorates the anniversary of the mass ethnic cleansing and genocide of Crimean Tatars, and on this date we will welcome the legendary Mejlis leader Mustafa Dzhemilev to Ottawa.

Slava Krymskym Tataram.

[Committees of the House, May 16th, 2016]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration entitled "Apply Without Fear: Special Immigration Measures for Nationals of Haiti and Zimbabwe".

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.