SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 118

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
October 26, 2022 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 118 - Oct/26/22
Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ)
  • Oct/26/22 6:25:45 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, I want to congratulate my friend from Pierrefonds—Dollard on his speech. We know that he is very committed. Many people in the House have been working on the Uighur file for a very long time. It is unfortunate that when we say that Parliament has spoken with one voice, that is not entirely true. My Conservative friend just raised the issue. When we voted on the Conservative motion, with the Bloc's friendly amendment, the executive and the Prime Minister abstained. It is very difficult for us to fight a problem if we cannot name it. We have to call a spade a spade. When it is genocide, we must call it genocide. Genocide is no small matter. There is all kinds of evidence. The Subcommittee on International Human Rights made that known. My question is simple. I understand that we must speak with one voice, but when will we speak with one voice in this Parliament?
161 words
All Topics
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 118 - Oct/26/22
Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ)
  • Oct/26/22 6:38:16 p.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, my friend from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan gave an excellent speech, and I want to commend him for it. It is always a pleasure to work with him, particularly on the file that we are discussing this evening. I think I am kicking this off by being transpartisan. Just last week, I was saying that we have different ideas in the House. It is not always easy working with my colleagues from other parties, but I am not in the habit of playing partisan games. I even think that, most of the time, being transpartisan helps me to do my job properly. In politics, there are issues where partisanship has no place. Obviously, human rights issues fall into that category. It will therefore come as no surprise to anyone when I say that, like my Bloc Québécois colleagues, I support Motion No. 62, which seeks to protect the Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims from China by resettling them in Canada. I know that many of my friends from the Uighur community are in the gallery this evening. I want to sincerely welcome them. On October 21, 2020, the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights issued a statement in which it said: The Subcommittee unequivocally condemns the persecution of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang by the Government of China. Based on the evidence put forward during the Subcommittee hearings, both in 2018 and 2020, the Subcommittee is persuaded that the actions of the Chinese Communist Party constitute genocide as laid out in the Genocide Convention. In a way, Motion No. 62 is a continuation of past positions taken by the House. It contains four demands that I will sum up for those who are watching us: the recognition that Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims from China have emigrated to escape repression and intimidation by the Chinese state; the recognition that many third countries face pressure from China to deport those it refers to as “critics”; the need to welcome refugees over a period of two years starting in 2024; and the need for the government to table a report with a detailed plan within 120 sitting days following the adoption of the motion. That is the motion. I just want to reiterate this. Motion No. 62 states that Parliament determined that China's treatment of Uighurs is genocide, but, as mentioned earlier, the council of ministers cravenly abstained during the vote on the previous motion. As I speak here in the House, close to two million Uighurs and Turkic Muslims are being held in concentration camps that Chinese authorities odiously refer to as “vocational training centres”. Mass rapes and numerous acts of torture are being committed in these camps. Women are being forcibly sterilized, adults and children are being kidnapped, and surveillance camera systems are being combined with artificial intelligence software to track Uighurs around the globe. A full-fledged campaign of cultural erasure is also being waged, including the indoctrination of prisoners and the suppression of all Uighur cultural expression. The facts are disturbing. Parliamentarians of all parties are aware of them. I do not know how the House will vote on my colleague's motion, but one thing is certain: Nobody can plead ignorance. In fact, next to turning a blind eye, ignorance is the greatest ally of totalitarian regimes. Let us not be ignorant. Let us not be blind. At this very moment, the most awful crime that a government can perpetrate against its own citizens is taking place: genocide. The Bloc Québécois has been at the forefront of denouncing the genocide against the Uighurs, notably by amending the February 2021 motion to force the government to demand that the Olympic Games be moved out of China. The government settled for a diplomatic boycott that had no effect. In response to this proposal and that of the Bloc Québécois, some people told us that we should not mix politics and sport. Our response was that when we are confronted with a genocide, it is no longer a question of politics. It is a question of human rights, a question of crimes against humanity. I made that effort so that justice could be done. We did it so that justice could be done. We did it for the Uighurs, so that the crimes of China's regime would not be unjustly rewarded with the prestige of hosting the world's best athletes in its capital city. Much like the 1936 Berlin Games, history will unfortunately remember the Beijing Olympic Winter Games as the games of shame. As both a member of Parliament and as a human being, I simply cannot accept the status quo. My colleague's motion calls on the Government of Canada to welcome 10,000 Uighur and other Turkic Muslim refugees from China over a two-year period beginning in 2024. As I said earlier, the Bloc Québécois supports the motion. Nevertheless, part of me still believes that this is a bit arbitrary. Why is the number of refugees set at 10,000? What bothers me about this number is that the Uighur advocacy groups that I speak with every day are saying that this is not enough, that we should take in many more. The Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship has once again applied a double standard to this situation. This is probably the result of political rather than humanitarian decisions. I cannot say for sure, which is why federal immigration programs need to be thoroughly reviewed to ensure that they are fair going forward when it comes to welcoming refugees. I want to point out that Motion No. 62 calls on the government to table in the House, within 120 sitting days following its adoption, a report on how the refugee resettlement plan will be implemented. That is a good thing, because we know the Liberal government has a tendency to ignore motions from the House of Commons. The government must respond quickly to make sure that the plan does not end up gathering dust on a shelf, like many immigration and refugee files do. Requiring the government to table a report is necessary and even essential, but it seems to me that 120 sitting days is much too long for members of the Uighur community to wait. The government needs to respond much more quickly than that. At the risk of repeating myself, I want to close with a reminder. I often have the opportunity to rise in the House to speak to motions proposed by all of the parties, and I think that we are all on the same side when it comes to providing assistance, and rightly so. I would remind members that a genocide is taking place as I stand before the House today. As parliamentarians, we must work for the common good without any partisanship, and that is especially true when it comes to human rights issues. It is with that in mind that I support my colleague's motion, but I am mainly supporting it because I stand for the principles of justice, and it is high time that justice prevailed for my Uighur friends.
1222 words
All Topics
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border