Mr. Speaker, Leonardo Notario Gongora, age 27; Marta Tacoronte Vega, age 36; Caridad Leyva Tacoronte, age 36; Yausel Eugenio Perez Tacoronte, age 11; Mayulis Mendez Tacoronte, age 17; Odalys Munoz Garda, age 21; Pilar Almanza Romero, age 30; Yaser Perodin Almanza, age 11; Manuel Sanchez Callol, age 58; Juliana Enriquez Carrasana, age 23; and Helen Martinez Enriquez, age six months.
The event that provoked this motion was the Prime Minister's glowing tribute to Fidel Castro and his shameful and yet shameless parroting of the Castro propaganda about education and health care.
Reynaldo Marrero, age 45; Joel Garcia Suarez, age 24; Juan Mario Gutierrez Garda, age 10; Ernesto Alfonso Joureiro, age 25; Amado Gonzales Raices; Lazaro Borges Priel, age 34; Liset Alvarez Guerra, age 24; Yisel Borges Alvarez, age four; Guillermo Cruz Martinez, age 46; Fidelia Ramel Prieta-Hernandez, age 51; Rosa María Alcalde Preig, age 47; Yaltamira Anaya Carrasco, age 22; Jose Carlos Nicole Anaya, age three; María Carrasco Anaya, age 44; Julia Caridad Ruiz Blanco, age 35; and Angel Rene Abreu Ruiz, age three.
The Prime Minister called Castro a “legendary revolutionary and orator” who made significant improvements to education and health care. He said “both Mr. Castro's supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people”.
Jorge Arquimides; Lebrijio Flores, age 8; Eduardo Suarez Esquivel, age 39; Elicer Suarez Plascencia; Omar Rodriguez Suarez, age 33; Mira lis Fernandez Rodriguez, age 28; Cindy Rodriguez Fernandez, age two; Jose Gregorio Balmaceda Castillo, age 24; Rigoberto Feut Gonzales, age 31; Midalis Sanabria Cabrera, age 19; and four others who could not be identified.
It is a matter of public record that the Cuban dictatorship has driven a full one-fifth of the population to flee or die trying. Medicines are scarce and reading materials must be pre-approved. If people would like education to involve a complete lack of ideological flexibility, and health care without proper medicines or facilities, then they might like Cuba's situation, but not otherwise. It is a further matter of public record that any claims about education and health care rely entirely on data provided by the Cuban government. People cannot exactly file an ATIP.
By the way, I will be splitting my time with the member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa.
The Prime Minister called Castro “legendary”, which is perhaps an apt adjective, if by “legendary” he means that the stories told about him do not at all resemble the realities.
The many crimes of Fidel Castro and the Cuban state are too numerous to describe in one speech, but I want to tell about one in particular. The names that I have read thus far are men, women, and children who lost their lives aboard the 13 de Marzo on July 13, 1994.
Let me read verbatim from the report of the Inter-American Commission on Human Reports, Report No. 47/96:
On July 13, 1994, at approximately 3:00 a.m., 72 Cuban nationals who were attempting to leave the island for the United States put out to sea from the port of Havana in an old tugboat named “13 de Marzo”. The boat used for the escape belonged to the Maritime Services Enterprise of the Ministry of Transportation.
According to eyewitnesses who survived the disaster, no sooner had the tug “13 de Marzo” set off from the Cuban port than two boats from the same state enterprise began pursuing it. About 45 minutes into the trip, when the tug was seven miles away from the Cuban coast—in a place known as “La Poceta”—two other boats belonging to said enterprise appeared, equipped with tanks and water hoses, proceeded to attack the old tug. “Polargo 2/1 one of the boats belonging to the Cuban state enterprise, blocked the old tug “13 de Marzo” in the front, while the other, “Polargo 5/1 attacked from behind, splitting the stern. The two other government boats positioned themselves on either side and sprayed everyone on deck with pressurized water, using their hoses.
The pleas of the women and children on the deck of the tug “13 de Marzo” did nothing to stop the attack. The boat sank, with a toll of 41 dead. Many people perished because the jets of water directed at everyone on deck forced them to seek refuge in the engine room. The survivors also affirmed that the crews of the four Cuban government boats were dressed in civilian clothes and that they did not help them when they were sinking.
Later, Cuban Coast Guard cutters arrived and rescued 31 survivors. After being rescued, the survivors were taken to the Cuban Coast guard post of Jaimanitas, which is located west of Havana. From there, they were taken to the Villa Marista Detention Center, which also serves as State Security Headquarters. The women and children were released and the men were held.
In the days following the tragedy, relatives of the victims who had drowned asked the Cuban authorities to recover the bodies from the bottom of the sea. The official response was that there were no special divers available to recover the bodies.
The nonprofit organization “Hermanos al Rescate” (Brothers to the Rescue)—which is dedicated to rescuing Cuban boat people trying to escape from the island—asked the Cuban Government for permission to fly over the spot where the events took place, to help recover the bodies, but the request was immediately denied. To date, none of the drowning victims' bodies has been recovered by the Cuban authorities, despite the fact that the sinking of the tug “13 de Marzo” occurred in Cuban territorial waters.
I raised the issue of the Prime Minister's comments in the House for the first time on Monday. The foreign affairs minister told me that he wants to help the people of Cuban to be united instead of agonizing over the past. I am quite sure that the minister would not be so dismissive of those agonizing over the past if it had been one of his children on board the 13 de Marzo, a boatful of unarmed men, women, and children intentionally sunk by the Cuban state authorities in Cuban territorial waters, who made no effort to rescue the drowning civilians, who imprisoned the male survivors, and who did not allow the recovery of the bodies.
It is right and necessary to agonize over the past. Indeed, immediately beside the Prime Minister's statement regarding Castro on his website is a statement regarding Holodomor Memorial Day. We remember the Holodomor and we must learn its lessons in the present and the future. We must similarly remember not just the past but the ongoing crimes of the Castro family and the Cuban state, a state the very nature of which stands in stark opposition to the foundational covenants of international law, and of international decency.
The Prime Minister has three beautiful children, and I do not think he would say the things he has said about Fidel Castro if one of them had been on the 13 de Marzo on July 13, 1994. In praising Castro, he spoke about family ties, but love for one's family is only a decent thing when it flows into a broader love of humanity that emanates from empathy. The essence of a minimally moral foreign policy is that every time he stands up to speak about issues that impact the lives and well-being of children in other countries, that he then imagine those children to be his own.
However, across the board this government's foreign policy fails that moral test. There is the failure to defend Yazidis and Christians in Syria and Iraq. That is well known, but there are a litany of other cases where the government has also ignored basic human rights. For instance, as we speak, China is cracking down on religious minorities: Uighur Muslims in East Turkestan, and Tibetans Buddhists in Tibet, as well as Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners. That is what we call “China's basic dictatorship”, and shame on the PMO for refusing to call out China's so-called justice system.
For these Liberals, as they cozy up to dictators around the world, it is very clear that human rights is just a slogan. They speak of engagement, but there has been no meaningful engagement on human rights issues with these dictatorships with whom they are so eager to curry favour.
On every major international human rights file, the government is completely missing in action. It is because this foreign policy of the government is not rooted in morality or empathy, but very clearly rooted in self-interest. It wants to cozy up to dictators who will give them votes in the UN Security Council election. The Liberals call this sophisticated diplomacy.
However, there are some things in life and there are some things in politics that are more important than a Security Council election. Very clearly, on this side of the House, we will not become the useful idiots of foreign tyrants, not for this price, and not for any price. Canada is so much better than this.
