SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 70

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 12, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 70 - May/12/22
Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)
  • May/12/22 4:16:02 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, I am so pleased that our party is once again pursuing the resumption of the work of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations. The committee was initially created in December of 2020, through a motion put forward by the then foreign affairs shadow minister, the member for Durham, and I want to recognize his leadership in bringing this initial motion forward. At the time, about the need for a special committee on Canada-China relations, he said, “this is the most fundamental foreign-policy relationship Canada will face in a generation. We do not need a three-day study at a standing committee. We need a specialized multidisciplinary committee”. From its creation, the committee did critical and relevant work. One indication of that is that, while most parliamentary committees barely get mentioned in the press, this special committee broke news stories at virtually every single public hearing. Its work fed a public hunger to understand the challenges facing Canada in this context and to propose concrete solutions. Its work was covered and discussed not just here in Canada, but around the world. I have met with legislators in the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, India, Lithuania, and many other countries who were deeply interested in the work of and the information uncovered by the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations. The committee had partisan moments and unifying moments. My hon. friends on the committee will remember that there were times when we heckled each other because we disagreed about the appropriate courtesy owed to a witness. There were also times when we cried together over the systemic sexual violence targeting victims of the Chinese Communist Party in East Turkestan. Regardless of these variations, it is beyond dispute that the committee was working. The committee was driving public awareness and policy toward solutions that had not previously been on the Canadian or even the global political agenda. It unanimously endorsed Magnitsky sanctions for those involved in human rights abuses in Hong Kong. It unanimously endorsed the middle way approach for Tibet. It unanimously ordered the production of documents related to the Winnipeg Lab affair. It played a key role in furthering discussions about the Uighur genocide, which led to this Parliament to be the first in the world to recognize it. It highlighted the arbitrary detention of Canadians, including the ongoing detention of Huseyin Celil. It exposed the ongoing reality of the Chinese Communist Party's interference in Canadian domestic affairs. Whether it was in agreement or disagreement, it must be acknowledged that what came out of this committee on Magnitsky sanctions, Hong Kong, Tibet, Uighurs, the Winnipeg lab affair, and many other points, were defining points of conversation that shaped the life of the 43rd Parliament. It was sometimes messy and not always easy, but the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations clearly got results, and it got those results in spite of the fact that it had its work repeatedly interrupted by the government. The committee was suspended during the early months of the pandemic, even though all opposition parties wanted it to continue. It was then shut down for prorogation and dissolved prematurely with the election. All together, given the interruptions, the committee only got in about a year's worth of work. While it presented multiple reports and advanced key recommendations, the committee was not able to complete its agenda and many critical items remained unexplored. This special committee deserved an opportunity to at least bring its work to a fruitful conclusion, to bring forward recommendations out of its study on national security, to study strategic dependency and trade, to engage further on threats to Taiwan and various other human rights issues, and to speak to Canada's overall policy framework for principled engagement with China and broader engagement with the Indo-Pacific region. As a result of the committee's diligent work, I believe the CCP, which actively seeks to advance its interests here in Canada, has clearly identified the fact that it does not want this committee to get back to work, and it is doing so shamefully by trying to suggest that criticism of the CCP, and even of the CCP interference in Canada, is somehow an attack on the Chinese people. Those slanders were repeated today on multiple occasions by some Liberal MPs. As I have said repeatedly, the opposite is true. The Chinese Communist Party in its early years was explicit about trying to annihilate China's ancient and beautiful civilization. Today, the CCP is more subtle and seeks to co-opt the symbology of China's history and historical ideals as tools to serve Marxist materialism. However, Marxism is not China, and China is not Marxism. As I told the House two years ago: ...we must advance a decoupling of these ideas, a recognition that Marxism's dehumanizing materialism is deeply alien to China's rich and ancient traditions of personal responsibility, reverence for beauty, continuity with the past and respect for the non-material aspects of life. It is no contradiction, and in fact it is quite a natural combination, to love China and hate communism. The CCP wants this committee gone, yet here we are. I want to recognize the hard work and the courage of the Leader of the Opposition, the member for Portage—Lisgar, and I particularly salute the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. He has steadfastly worked to bring about the return of this committee, and he is the only member of the House to be personally named in Chinese government sanctions, which he has rightly recognized as a badge of honour. As much as I would have liked for the work of the committee to continue uninterrupted, even last summer and last fall, it is important to use this opportunity to take note of what is happening right now and what has changed since the work of this committee was aborted just under a year ago. The global context has obviously shifted significantly. In the early months of this committee's existence, public attention was very much focused on the actions of the Chinese government because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The world was faced with immense disruption as a result of a pandemic that began in China and which was covered up for a long time by the Chinese Communist Party. Even in the midst of that pandemic, many nations and many international organizations were unwilling to talk about the fact that a novel coronavirus emerged in the same region where gain-of-function experiments were performed on coronaviruses and where authorities did everything they could to hide the outbreak until it was too late. Although our initial motion was proposed and passed before the pandemic, its work aligned with broader public discussion, though a discussion that was ignored and dismissed by many elites, about the way that dangerous experimentation and the suppression of dissent may have created the environment in which a pandemic could start and spread. For those who thought that China's basic dictatorship offered a model for more efficient and effective administration and management, the COVID-19 pandemic powerfully demonstrates the opposite. Although free societies did not always handle the pandemic well, they had the tools to hear the truth and to grow and change in response to new information. In the absence of open deliberation about the pandemic, scientific opinion was suppressed in China, and leaders who pursued failing strategies that caused this global pandemic were not held accountable for their failures. I think that the special committee should return to questions around the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic and the guard rails that we need in the context of scientific co-operation, as well as the pressing problem of CCP and other foreign state actor interference in Canada. The context in which we holding today's debate is also one in which the focus of our foreign policy has rightly shifted to Putin's invasion of Ukraine. It is worth asking this question: In light of the invasion of Ukraine, can we still say that the Canada-China relationship “is the most fundamental foreign-policy relationship Canada will face in a generation”? I believe that it is. To start with, the invasion of Ukraine reminds us of past acts of violence by the CCP and future acts of violence no doubt being contemplated. The military and rhetorical attack on Ukraine's separate existence reminded many of the invasion of Tibet more than 60 years ago. The attacks on linguistic and religious freedom we have seen in Russian-occupied Ukraine since 2014 mirror the escalating attacks on linguistic and religious freedom we are seeing in Tibet. The invasion of Ukraine could also establish a precedent, whereby revisionist powers ignore hard-won norms of international law and instead try to violently control their determined sphere of influence. Ongoing aggression from the Chinese state in the South China Sea and threats to Taiwan demonstrate that Russia is not the only revisionist power seeking to extend itself beyond its borders in violation of international law. What is happening in Ukraine also demonstrates a profound failure of deterrence. Although the world has responded to the invasion of Ukraine, we failed to sufficiently demonstrate in advance what the costs of that invasion would be for Russia. We need to make sure that we do not repeat this failure of deterrence in the case of Taiwan. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia signed onto the Budapest memorandum guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange for Ukraine's relinquishment of its nuclear weapons. Prior to the handover of Hong Kong to China, the Chinese government committed to a one country, two systems framework, which was supposed to guarantee, as a matter of international law, the protection of Hong Kong's unique status. Both the Putin and the Xi regimes have shown flagrant disregard for their own past commitments. This dishonesty in their dealings needs to be recognized, for our own security and our own protection. I note as well that while we have taken RT off the airwaves, Chinese state-controlled media continues to push disinformation, including disinformation about Ukraine. There are, of course, many important differences between Russia and China. Notably, China is a much more important global player than Russia. It has a much larger economy. It has more institutional capacity, and it likely has a much more capable military. We also do not have the same developed structures of strategic co-operation among like-minded nations in the Indo-Pacific region as we do in Europe with NATO. In a scenario of potential further escalation of conflict with the predominant authoritarian power in the Indo-Pacific and in the world, we face a potentially larger threat, and we are potentially less ready to respond, compared to the situation in Europe. This should underscore that what is happening in Ukraine should lead to a deepening of our commitment to engaging in the vital conversation around our position in the Indo-Pacific and our response to the growing power and aggressive potential of the Chinese state. In light of all these challenges, I look forward to engaging with colleagues and getting back to work at a special committee on Canada-China relations as soon as possible.
1901 words
All Topics
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border