House of Commons photoWon his last election, in 2021, with 52% of the vote.
Foreign Affairs September 28th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, for five days, the Prime Minister let Canada's reputation whither. For five days, the Prime Minister did not apologize, and when he did, it was not on behalf of the government or on behalf of Canada. It was on behalf of Parliament, for whom he does not speak. Why did he avoid speaking on behalf of himself, the government or Canada?
Foreign Affairs September 28th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully yesterday to the Prime Minister's apology in the House. He did not apologize on behalf of the government or on behalf of Canada. He apologized on behalf of the House.
However, a prime minister does not speak for the House; a prime minister speaks for the government or for Canada. Yesterday in the House, he did not apologize on behalf of either for the embarrassment and shame of the government's mismanagement of an official state visit. Why?
Guests in the House of Commons September 26th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, the Speaker bears responsibility, but so too does the Prime Minister. It was the Prime Minister and his office who made a decision on short notice to request a joint address for President Zelenskyy on the floor of the House. That decision came with consequences. That decision came with responsibilities. We are witnessing some of these around the world today.
Again, when will the Prime Minister for once take some responsibility for this diplomatic disaster?
Guests in the House of Commons September 26th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, it is not just the reputation of Parliament that has been sullied; it is the reputation of this country on the world stage. This is not just a parliamentary issue; it is a full-blown diplomatic one. Ian Bremmer of Eurasia Group said yesterday that this was the “worst week for Canadian diplomacy in I can't remember how long.”
Diplomacy is the responsibility of the Government of Canada, so when will the Prime Minister take responsibility for this diplomatic disaster?
Committees of the House September 26th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, I will just briefly say that Canada has to balance our approach with upholding our commitments to the NATO alliance, particularly in joint operations that involve NATO allies that may not be a signatory to that particular treaty.
Committees of the House September 26th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, I think what is happening right now in Nagorno-Karabakh is extremely serious. The matter is urgent, and I think we do have to discuss it in the House of Commons.
I think it is a grave enough issue to bring to the attention of the world through the floor of the House of Commons, which is why I support moving concurrence in this report. The crisis that has unfolded began late last year, with the Government of Azerbaijan blockading the Lachin corridor, but it has accelerated in recent weeks as the blockade has gotten ever tighter and as the reports of malnourishment have begun to leak out.
I will finish by saying this. When a former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Mr. Ocampo, says in a report, “There is an ongoing genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh”, we need to listen and we need to act.
Committees of the House September 26th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, the committee has been seized with the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh for some time, but the crisis has accelerated in intensity in the last several weeks as a result of an ever-tighter blockade of the Lachin corridor. This is a mountainous region of the world where there are not a lot of supply routes from the outside world into the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. One of the few supply routes into the region is the Lachin corridor, which has been blockaded by Baku authorities for some time. Russia, which is supposed to be the peacekeeper in this long-standing conflict, has not paid sufficient attention to what is going on and has failed to uphold its commitment to both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
As a result, the humanitarian crisis has accelerated. There are reports that up to a third of the 120,000 people living in Nagorno-Karabakh are malnourished and at risk of starvation.
Committees of the House September 26th, 2023
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Lethbridge.
What is going on in the Caucasus today is of grave and deep concern. Just over a century after a horrific genocide, the Armenian genocide of 1915-16, the world still has not learned from the lessons of the past. Just over a century later, we are witnessing a major humanitarian crisis unfold in Nagorno-Karabakh, in the western part of Azerbaijan. Tens of thousands, if not over 120,000, civilians are being slowly starved to death in that corridor because of the blockage of that corridor.
The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, wrote a report recently in which he said, “There is an ongoing Genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno- Karabakh”. That should raise alarm bells for all of us here in Canada, with Canada being a signatory to the 1948 genocide convention. Many people think of a genocide as an active, physical slaughter of innocent civilians, but the 1948 genocide convention contains many other reasons for an event's constituting a genocide. It can mean taking away children from a particular group. It can mean destroying the means of life for a particular group, either in part or in whole. It does not necessarily require mass killing.
By blocking the Lachin corridor, the Government of Azerbaijan is putting at risk the lives of some 120,000 civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh. They are putting at risk those lives through starvation, a silent killer. Starvation, in many respects, as Mr. Ocampo has written, “is the invisible Genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks.” This was written several weeks ago and should be of great concern to us.
The International Court of Justice has ordered Azerbaijan to remove the blockade. Instead, Azerbaijan has established a checkpoint on the road and has begun blockading even humanitarian aid being delivered by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The BBC has reported that people have been fainting in the bread lines. Other witness accounts have shown that people are slowly starving to death. However, because of world events, this humanitarian crisis in the Caucasus has gotten little attention.
The reason for today's concurrence debate in the House is to draw to the attention of the world the fact that this humanitarian crisis is unfolding and needs to stop. We call on the Government of Azerbaijan to immediately reopen the corridor, not just to humanitarian aid but also to passenger traffic and commercial traffic. We call on both sides in this conflict, the representatives of the Government of Baku and representatives of the community in Stepanakert, to immediately meet to sort out an agreement on transportation that would allow the corridor and alternative supply routes to reopen to ensure that food, medicine and other goods could flow into the region to ensure that 120,000 people are not slowly starved to death.
I want to finish my speech by delivering a message to both communities involved in this long-standing conflict. Canada was once a country where sectarian violence ruled the politics of the day. It was not that long ago, in the 19th century, that various sectarian elements in our society put forward their sectarian interests and used violence to advance their political causes.
It was not that long ago, in the mid-19th century, that Protestants and Catholics would be at each other's throats in a violent way, never co-operating on anything and, instead, using violence to advance their means, using discrimination and other forms of non-democratic tools to get their way and achieve their political ends. Thankfully, through a lot of hard work, dialogue, constitutional change and discussions that took place over many decades, we were able to leave that terrible time behind.
So too with the linguistic divide that once existed in this country between anglophones and francophones, we ultimately resolved our differences through constitutional change and legislative changes that endure to this day. It has not always been perfect, as we see with the continued debates on language that take place here and at the provincial level.
Nevertheless, we have achieved a remarkable degree of social peace and cohesion in this country by moving beyond these sectarian and linguistic divides toward a Canada where people can achieve the good life and a resolution to their differences through democratic dialogue and not through the end of a sword. Such, I hope, will be the ultimate result for the peoples living in the South Caucasus in that part of the world. Such, I hope, will be the end result for Armenians living in Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis living throughout the region.
We call on the Government of Canada to be more categoric and clear with the international community on the need for Azerbaijan to lift the blockade to allow the free movement of goods, of people and of humanitarian aid. We call on the government to be more clear in calling on both parties, those in Stepanakert and those in Baku, to come together to iron out an agreement to allow the free movement of goods, people and humanitarian aid. We do that with a sense of urgency, because while this conflict has been going on for some time, it has become especially more urgent since Azerbaijan concluded its hostilities against Armenia a couple of years ago. I hope that in this time of conflict in Ukraine and other parts of the world, the world will not turn a blind eye a mere 107 years after another genocide took place in that part of the world.
For all those reasons, I call on the Government of Canada to use its diplomatic resources, to use its influence here and abroad, to deliver a clear message to the Government of Azerbaijan that this blockade of the Lachin corridor is completely unacceptable and that it is leading, in effect, to an ethnic cleansing through the means of a silent killer: starvation.
Questions Passed as Orders for Returns June 21st, 2023
With regard to the report titled "PRC Foreign Interference in Canada: a Critical National Security Threat, CSIS IA 2021-22/31", dated July 20, 2021: (a) did Global Affairs Canada receive the report, and, if so, who received it and on what date; (b) did the Privy Council Office receive the report, and, if so, who received it and on what date; and (c) did Public Safety Canada receive the report, and, if so, who received it and on what date?
Canada Business Corporations Act June 19th, 2023
Madam Speaker, in the research we did, only the Province of British Columbia, at the provincial level of government, is implementing a registry that will include provincially incorporated companies and provincially incorporated trusts, which will include real estate. Nova Scotia is the other province that has already implemented a separate beneficial ownership registry for real estate. None of the eight other provinces has any plans to implement a registry for real estate, and that is a problem because the Cullen commission highlighted the fact that significant international money laundering is being laundered through real estate in British Columbia, and, no doubt, is being laundered through real estate in other provinces, such as Ontario.
The system is only as strong as the weakest link, and the fact that eight out of 10 provinces do not have a beneficial ownership registry for real estate, and that one province has no beneficial ownership registry for provincially incorporated entities and trusts, means that the system would be ineffective. That is why the federal government should have proposed legislation that used the criminal power given to it in the Constitution to create a registry that mandated all companies in Canada, federally incorporated companies, provincially incorporated companies, all trusts and all real estate, be registered under a single system to start giving law enforcement the tools they need to crack down on money laundering, the proceeds of crime and the proceeds of terrorism.