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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 132

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 22, 2022 10:00AM
  • Nov/22/22 10:09:34 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a number of petitions to present today. The first petition deals with the ongoing genocide of Uighurs and other Turkic Muslims in China at the hands of the Chinese Community Party. The petitioners note various reports showing, for instance, forced sterilization, forced abortion and a campaign of systematic sexual violence targeting Uighur women, as well as political and anti-religious indoctrination, arbitrary detention, separation of children from families, invasive surveillance, destruction of cultural sites, forced labour and organ harvesting. The petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to take action to formally recognize that Uighurs in China have been and are being subject to ongoing genocide, and to also use the Magnitsky act, the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, to sanction those who have been responsible for these heinous crimes committed against the Uighur people. The next petition I am tabling is about a specific Uighur Canadian who has been detained in China approaching two decades. That person is Huseyin Celil. The petitioners note the efforts that were undertaken to secure the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and certainly support those efforts, and they call on the Government of Canada to take similar efforts to secure the release of Mr. Celil. They note that he was taken from Uzbekistan while travelling there. The Government of China has failed to recognize his Canadian citizenship or provide consular access. The petitioners have a number of specific suggestions. They want Canada to demand that the Chinese government recognize Mr. Celil's Canadian citizenship and provide him with consular and legal services in accordance with international law, and to formally state that the release of Mr. Celil from Chinese detainment and his return to Canada is a priority of the Canadian government and is of equal concern as the unjust detentions of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. They want the Government of Canada to appoint a special envoy to work on securing Mr. Celil's release, and to seek the assistance of the Biden administration and other allies around the world in obtaining Mr. Celil's release, as done in the case of the two Michaels.
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  • Nov/22/22 10:09:34 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition I am tabling highlights the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Falun Gong practitioners have been victims of forced organ harvesting and trafficking, as well as various other forms of persecution. The petitioners note the reports done by David Kilgour and David Matas, for example, that reveal this horrific, ongoing campaign whereby people are killed for their organs and those organs are given to others. The petitioners call on the Canadian Parliament and the government to establish measures to stop the Chinese government's mass murder of innocent people for their organs, including but not limited to introducing legislation to ban organ tourism and criminalize those involved. The petitioners also want to see the government take every opportunity to call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.
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  • Nov/22/22 10:09:34 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the next petition I am tabling deals with legislation to combat forced organ harvesting and trafficking. Bill S-223 is currently before the foreign affairs committee. The petitioners want the government to recognize the problem of forced organ harvesting and trafficking and to support the rapid passage of Bill S-223. This bill has been before this Parliament and previous Parliaments for approaching 15 years. The petitioners are hopeful that this Parliament will be the one that finally gets this done.
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  • Nov/22/22 10:15:05 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the final petition I am going to table today raises concern about a report from the Minister of National Defence's advisory panel on systemic racism and discrimination, which produced its final report in early 2022. It is an ironically named panel, because some of its recommendations, in fact, involve discrimination against religious clergy who have views that the government deems politically incorrect. The report called for clergy from religions that have a different view on gender and sexuality in the Department of National Defence to be banned as Canadian Armed Forces chaplains. Petitioners were certainly horrified to see this kind of incitement to religious discrimination from the Minister of National Defence's advisory panel. Petitioners call on the House of Commons to reject the recommendation on chaplaincy in the Canadian Armed Forces in the final report of the Minister of National Defence's advisory panel on systemic racism and discrimination, and to affirm the right of all Canadians, including Canadian Armed Forces chaplains, to freedom of religion. I commend these petitions to the consideration of the House.
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  • Nov/22/22 11:07:52 a.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-20 
Madam Speaker, it is always interesting to engage in debate about the criminal justice situation. I know the member serves on the public safety committee, as he spoke about it. It seems to me that, with the government, failure never leads to course correction. Rather, it always leads to a doubling down. What we see with criminal justice is a clear failure. Crime rates are up. Violent crime rates are up, and hate crime is up. The government talks about combatting hate, yet hate crime is up, which means it is not effectively combatting it. I wonder if the member thinks that now is the time for the government to take note of its failures and look for ways to course correct rather than doubling down on the same approach it has taken in the past.
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  • Nov/22/22 11:40:37 a.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-20 
Madam Speaker, I have many things to say about Bill C-20, but I cannot follow the member for Winnipeg North without offering some response to the absurdities contained within his remarks, something we have come to expect from my friend from Winnipeg North. In particular, the member spoke for about 20 minutes about how people should not be speaking to the legislation, and about how instead we should rapidly pass all of the government's bills. I would submit that, if every member of the House spoke half as much as the member for Winnipeg North, we would be taking much longer, in fact, than we currently do with respect to legislation. I do not claim to be lily-white on that score either, but at least I do not lecture other members about speaking too much. Mr. Mark Gerretsen: You just did. Mr. Garnett Genuis: Madam Speaker, if I could respond here, there is nothing wrong with speaking in the House, but— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
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  • Nov/22/22 11:41:58 a.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-20 
Madam Speaker, it seems the members across the way misunderstood my meaning, whether intentionally or not. I think it is wonderful when members stand up in the House and speak on behalf of their constituents. The member for Winnipeg North speaks quite often on behalf of the government, maybe occasionally on behalf of his constituents, but the point is that he spent 20 minutes telling us there have been too many people speaking to this bill. He gave a 20-minute speech about how we should just stop debating this bill and, in fact, let it pass. I would put it to the member that if he wants more legislation to pass, he could speak less himself, if that was his goal. I am not suggesting that he speak less. He is welcome to speak as much as he wishes. However, it is a bit rich for him to tell other people to speak less when he is giving a 20-minute speech on this legislation. I am sure there are other members of the government caucus who have a particular interest in these subjects or particular expertise and who might have wanted to speak as well. The other point to make about legislation is that the member is right to say that we had bills in the last Parliament that were put forward and then did not become law. I was trying to remember what happened in the last Parliament that might have prevented government legislation from becoming law. One thing was that the government suspended Parliament completely, with the acquiescence of the NDP. For a substantial portion of 2020, when Conservatives were saying it was time to bring Parliament back in some form and that we were ready to work in a modified form, the Liberals, in fact, wanted to shut down Parliament because they did not want to have to deal with question period. Part of that was that their legislation did not move forward, and then they prorogued Parliament. We came back after prorogation, and then they called an election. The Liberals now come back to us and say that they have these bills they have been working on for multiple Parliaments. They ask what happened, when they are the ones who made the decisions around suspending Parliament, prorogation and calling an early election. I think the member for Winnipeg North and the government have to face up to the fact that, if there are bills before us today that have been considered and were widely supported in previous Parliaments, they certainly bear some of the responsibility for decisions that they made. I will make a final point in response to what the member for Winnipeg North said about how the government really wants to pass the bill. We have the same situation when Private Members' Business has been substantially delayed by the government's calling of an early election and by the government's unwillingness to be collaborative. I will give one example. My private member's bill on organ harvesting and trafficking has been before the foreign affairs committee, approaching the full 60 sitting days, at which time it will be automatically reported back to the House. We actually also have another private member's bill, by a government member, which is before the foreign affairs committee, that has been subject to the same kinds of delays. We have private members' bills, as well, that have been back, Parliament after Parliament. Rather than the government being willing to have those studied at committee, we have seen significant delays. Hopefully if the government wants assistance in passing legislation, it will take seriously the fact that there are good ideas that come from all corners of the House and take a little bit more of a collaborative approach around moving forward with Private Members' Business as well. Bill C-20 deals with oversight for law enforcement, as well as for CBSA. It is a bill that underlines, I think, the profound failures of the government when it comes to criminal justice and policing in the country. I want to share some statistics that underline the fact that whatever the government is doing is clearly not working. We are not seeing the kinds of outcomes we would want to see. There has been a 32% increase in serious violent crime since 2015. There were 124,000 more violent crimes committed last year than in 2015. There were 788 homicides in Canada last year. There were 611 in 2015. That is a 29% increase in homicides, a 92% increase in gang-related homicides since 2015 and a 61% increase in reported sexual assaults since 2015. Police have reported that hate crimes have increased 72% over the last two years. The point I made in a question earlier in debate and that I will underscore again is that when we look at these statistics we have to at some point face up to the fact that the government is failing if its objective is to reduce crime. We hear a lot of talk from the government about the problem of violent crime and how we need to work to reduce it. At the same time, the government is presiding over a significant escalation in violent crime, which means that either its strategy is making the problem worse or at least not solving it, or there is such a preponderance of exogenous factors that are shifting the landscape that those factors are driving this increase in crime despite the government's best efforts. What we heard from an NDP member earlier, as we might expect offering defence of the government's approach, was that we should acknowledge that the causes of crime are complex, that there are many different issues that may be contributing to the rise in violent crime we are seeing in Canada and that we should acknowledge it may not all come down to what the federal government is doing. That is plausible. It is true that the causes of crime are diverse and complex. It is true that there are always lots of different things going on that may contribute to crime. However, the government has pursued a particular strategy around criminal justice that is different from what we had seen previously, including the legalization and decriminalization of things. In the case of B.C., we have the government decriminalizing the use of extreme and very dangerous drugs like fentanyl. We see a particular approach to criminal justice being taken by the government with no acknowledgement that, in light of the increase in violent crime, there may be some relationship between the fact that the government changed the strategy on criminal justice and at the same time there was a significant increase in crime. It is also particularly telling that this deflecting of responsibility to exogenous factors is what the government always does on every policy issue. The Liberals talk about how they are trying to achieve certain things and about how they are fighting for certain things, yet when the outcomes they promised are not realized, it is always somebody else's fault. It is the current government that came in saying it was going to help the middle class and those working hard to join it. How is that going? We have an affordability crisis in this country seven years after the government took power. The Liberals said that they were going to work to bring about change for the middle class, to make life more affordable and to promote economic growth and so forth, yet we are seeing significant negative outcomes in terms of the middle class and those working hard to join it. However, the government is here to assure us it is not the government's fault and that all of the measures it put in place were apparently positive. It says that the fact we have an affordability crisis has nothing to do with actions government members have taken, even though experts, including Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada and prospective future leader of the Liberal Party, has said that inflation is a homegrown problem. We have these instances when, on the economy, the members of the government say things are going wrong but it is not their fault because they are there for the middle class, even though things have gotten significantly worse for the middle class. On drug policy, the government says it is going to take a different approach and it has solutions to offer, which include decriminalization and safe supply, in which the government subsidizes drugs. Again, how is that going? The government has pursued a policy approach that is not working and is not achieving the results it promised. Then the Liberals are here to say again, on drug policy, that it is not them, that it is other factors driving this. We see this in violent crime. It is worth mentioning the hate crime statistics again. There has been an increase of 72% over the last two years in hate crime. There are many factors, absolutely, that may be impacting levels of hate crime, but if the government says that its goal is to combat hate, and then we see a significant increase, it might be worth coming back to the government and asking why its policy approach has not achieved the results that clearly we all consider desirable. Maybe doubling down on the same failed approach is not the right way to go. We see this across a broad range of policy areas. There are exogenous factors, of course, but if the government constantly says that when things go well it is because of them, and when things go poorly, it is not the government causing it, that is liable to generate some suspicion. We see how the failures of the government on a broad range of policy issues in criminal justice, drug policy, the economy and other areas, are contributing to a declining faith in government, a declining trust in institutions. The good news, of course, is that we can try to rebuild that trust by having a new government that would chart a new course. What we see now increasingly is a declining trust in institutions, with people having a sense that the current government is not on their side and looking for change. This bill, in creating a mechanism of oversight for the RCMP, seeks to engage in that dynamic of declining trust in institutions. There is a question of the level of public trust in certain communities in particular, of our RCMP, our CBSA, etc., and what can be done to strengthen that trust and to respond to the discourse around declining trust in government and other institutions. I would say this about the broader question of trust in institutions. There are a couple of different factors that can cause declining trust in institutions. One is those institutions failing to earn that trust, but another is those institutions being maliciously run down by those who have an agenda to run them down. What we see in this case is the government failing to earn the trust of Canadians, thus losing their trust. Sometimes when the government shows itself to be unworthy of trust, it tries to invoke a “trust in institutions'” discourse to suggest that people should not be criticizing the government because that leads to declining trust in institutions. In those cases it is important we hold the government accountable, that we push the government to, in fact, earn that trust of Canadians, to act with integrity and to address the repeated problems of corruption we see within the government. I know the Conservative Party is prepared to do that as we offer Canadians an alternative. In the case of law enforcement, mistakes have been made at various times by various enforcement agencies, but I think we also have a dynamic in which trust is challenged because trust in our law enforcement is repeatedly undermined by those who offer extreme criticisms of those agencies. It is very important that we work to build up and support those who serve in our various security agencies, who have a challenging job, who do their best and are worthy of our support. There are some quarters in the House where we hear, for instance, people talking about defunding the police. I will say very clearly that I am against these proposals for defunding the police. I think clarity from other quarters would be appreciated on that topic. We recognize the allied service provision has a role to play alongside law enforcement, absolutely, but we also recognize the critical role played by law enforcement. It is not realistic, in many cases it is counterproductive for those most vulnerable, to say we should be pulling resources from law enforcement. Law enforcement should earn the public's trust, and we should also be critical of a discourse that seeks to run down that trust or undermine that trust. We need to recognize, appreciate and affirm the positive role in our society played by law enforcement. To understand the reality of proposals to defund the police, one only needs to look at places in the world where law enforcement is not available, where the institutions of justice, police, courts, etc., do not function properly or are not available to protect the vast majority of society. In all of those cases, inevitably, when people do not have access to protection and justice, there is more crime, more violence and more harm done. From our perspective on this side of the House, we need to reject those efforts to undermine our law enforcement. At the same time, we need to build up those institutions, such as this civilian complaints mechanism, that support the building of trust. With that in mind, the legislation before us should proceed to committee and be studied. We look forward to the further review on how to make this legislation work as effectively as possible. I think there is work required, but we need to also understand the context in which this work is happening. It is a context in which we have increasing crime and increasing concern about public safety. The government's response to that concern is to double down on a failed approach of reducing sentences. Lowering sentences does not help people give up a life of crime. There are various critical steps that we could take to support rehabilitation, and I am a big believer in rehabilitation. This is work that the justice system and all of us need to do to help people make a transition from a life of crime to a healthy, safe and productive life. However, reducing serious consequences for serious criminality is not a way to achieve that. In terms of oversight of law enforcement and this government's failed approach, I will say a few words about the horrific mass shooting in Nova Scotia. This was an example of perhaps not only gaps in enforcement but also significant failures of policy. We had an individual who was never a licensed firearms owner in Canada, but who had a NEXUS card. By all indications, he repeatedly brought guns across the border from the United States, using the ease facilitated by his NEXUS card. He was known by others in his community to have firearms, even though he was not licensed to be a firearms owner in Canada, and he carried out this horrific act of violence. The immediate response of the government was to try to seize this moment to say that it needed to change and tighten its policy around firearms. However, the lesson it should have learned from that situation, and probably a variety of lessons around enforcement, was that the policy solution clearly was not to make more guns illegal. This was a person who smuggled guns from the United States. He used illegal guns, and he was never licensed to own firearms in Canada. How do we have a situation where someone who had guns, but was not a licensed firearms owner, was not apprehended for his possession of illegal guns in a way that would have prevented this violence? These are questions that we need to hear answered. The fact of the matter is that the government was missing the point, and it was missing the response that was required. It was not about which guns were legal. It was about the fact that illegal guns were still being brought into this country and used. I call on the government to recognize its failures in policy, to stop doubling down on those failures, to correct policies that clearly are not working and to take a new approach when it comes to criminal justice.
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  • Nov/22/22 12:01:31 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-20 
Mr. Speaker, I will never feel remorse about voting against measures put forward by the government. Canadians, looking back over the last seven years, are asking themselves if things are more affordable than they were seven years ago, or if they are better off financially than they were seven years ago. I think virtually all Canadians are saying no. There may be a few exceptions. There may be individuals who have benefited from various government contracts, but the vast majority of everyday Canadians, who do not have access to government largesse, will clearly realize that the government's policies, when it comes to allegedly creating affordability, have failed. The government also has a regular habit of giving with one hand while taking away with the other. People are paying substantially more. Unless the government changes course, we are going to see increases to the carbon tax and payroll taxes next year. When the government was first starting out, it reduced the amount people could save through the tax-free savings account. We have seen multiple instances where the government said it was giving people money over here, but taking that away and more. In particular, we are seeing that now with inflation. The escalation of inflation under the government is gobbling up any of the other so-called gains that it says it is giving to people. If members ask people in Winnipeg North or anywhere, I think they will find that the middle class is not better off as a result of measures taken over the last seven years. In fact, they are much worse off.
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  • Nov/22/22 12:04:00 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-20 
Mr. Speaker, I am not going to say, in the House of Commons, whether someone should be charged in a particular case. There may be other facts of that case that the member did not mention in her question. Therefore, I will leave considerations around that to the appropriate authorities. I will say that I am supportive of the framework of this legislation, in terms of facilitating civilian oversight. That civilian oversight is not me saying, based on a few select facts given by the member, what should or should not happen. However, I am supportive of a process that would look into cases like the member referred to and that would hold people accountable, if appropriate.
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  • Nov/22/22 12:05:33 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-20 
Mr. Speaker, it is often said that the Liberal backbench is revolting. That may be a reason there is unrest in the Liberal caucus over the fact that only a small number of members are given an opportunity to speak. It is hard to speculate on what does and does not happen in the Liberal caucus room, but I agree with the member that it is a bit odd.
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  • Nov/22/22 12:06:52 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-20 
Mr. Speaker, that is an excellent question from my colleague, who always adds a great deal to the debate. I know there is a great deal of concern, in the greater Toronto area specifically, around increasing crime of various kinds, including property crime and violent crime. The government's approach of saying it is going to reduce sentences overall, and trying to use the rhetorical shield of racial justice as an excuse to reduce sentences for everyone, does not make sense. It is not helping anybody, including those in minority communities. In fact, it is leading to the significant increase in crime that we are seeing. I very much agree with the fact, as our leader has said, that when a young person makes a mistake, we should seek rehabilitation. People should have a second chance. However, there are instances of the same people, and in some cases a very small number of people, committing crimes over and over. When it is a relatively small number of people who account for a very large number of interactions with law enforcement, that suggests there is a particular problem of repeat offenders, repeat violent offenders, as well as repeat offenders against property. It simply requires a different approach. The only way to really incentivize rehabilitation is to have serious consequences for serious crimes.
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  • Nov/22/22 12:09:13 p.m.
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  • Re: Bill C-20 
Mr. Speaker, it would be very important, in the development of these mechanisms, for the government to consult with indigenous peoples. I hope that the committee will hear from indigenous leaders about the most effective way to do that. I know that the members on the committee reviewing this bill will be seized with ensuring that indigenous voices are heard and engaged as part of this process. I want to comment on the member's statement on so-called safe supply. My point, very clearly, was that we need to look at the results of policy. We see how, in Alberta, an emphasis on treatment and recovery has led to a significant drop in overdose deaths. We see in B.C. that there continues to be an escalation in overdose deaths, and a different policy is being pursued there. It is one that emphasizes so-called safe supply and giving dangerous drugs to those who are struggling with addiction. There are medical alternatives to dangerous drugs, which I support. It makes no sense to supply the most dangerous drugs to people when medical alternatives could be supplied that actually reduce the harm. I have a hard time making sense of the policy proposed by the NDP. In any event, if we look at the facts on the ground, it is not working.
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  • Nov/22/22 2:05:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as a father and as the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, I was profoundly shocked by the Collège des médecins du Québec's proposal to legalize the murder of children with disabilities. Proposals to kill children with disabilities hark back to the darkest chapter of human history. Children with disabilities have inherent value and inalienable dignity. Children cannot give consent, and killing a child is always a heinous act. The Collège's suggestion that the murder of children is purely a medical issue, not a moral one, is nothing more than cynical sloganeering and a demonstration of the banality of evil. The Conservatives presented a motion in committee to condemn these comments. Unfortunately, the Conservatives were the only ones to vote for the motion. I urge all parties to join us in declaring that the murder of children should never be tolerated and in condemning the position of the Collège des médecins du Québec.
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  • Nov/22/22 6:47:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on Saturday I was invited to attend a rally in Edmonton hosted by the Iranian community, highlighting and showing solidarity with the ongoing protests. My wife was working, so, as I often do, I packed the five kids in the car and we went to this protest together. I had told my children about the situation in Iran and that morning they were making signs to bring. I was so proud of them, my nine-year-old daughter and my kids all the way down, participating in this act of activism and solidarity with people of Iran, along with me. Then as—
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  • Nov/22/22 6:48:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was just saying that on Saturday I brought my five kids with me to a rally in solidarity with the people of Iran. We were making signs in the morning. It was a great family experience, engaging my kids in important social justice activism. However, as I was preparing for this and thinking about what I was going to say at that rally, I was looking at the latest news from Iran and it absolutely broke my heart to read the story of a young Iranian boy, Kian Pirfalak, who also went to a protest with his parents and was killed. He was killed by the so-called Iranian security forces. His story brought into sharp focus the horrors of what is happening and the grievous injustices of the Iranian regime that have been happening for decades, especially now as people are standing up, fighting back and risking their lives for freedom and justice. We have heard the names of Kian, of Mahsa Amani and of so many others who have been killed by this regime. We honour those who are fighting back, who are seeking justice, who are boldly saying that there is no solution but revolution, and who recognize that this time will be different and that we desperately need a change of government and change of regime in Iran. I am proud to pledge my solidarity and support to the people in that fight. Often, politically, we see that, when there is something big going on, politicians want to put themselves into that parade. They want to be part of capturing this movement, and we have seen this from the government. We have seen all kinds of efforts by the government, including statements, questions and so forth, to associate itself with this movement. I would welcome a late conversion to the cause of Iranian freedom by the government, but the fact is it still has not taken the key step that the people of Iran and of the Iranian community here in Canada have been asking for, which is listing the Iranian regime's IRGC, its primary implement of terror, as a terrorist organization. It really is baffling. The Deputy Prime Minister has recognized that the IRGC is a terrorist organization. During a press conference she said that, yes, the IRGC is a terrorist organization, yet the government has refused to list it as a terrorist organization under the Criminal Code. How are we and how is the public to make sense of this? The government says that this is a terrorist organization, but it says, at the same time, that we are not actually going to recognize it as a terrorist organization within the legislative instrument that is designed to recognize and ban terrorist organizations. Recognizing a terrorist organization is not just a symbolic matter. It is about preventing it from being able to do business here in Canada. It has recently been revealed that the Iranian regime is directly behind death threats toward Canadians. Therefore, we have this regime that is enacting terror against its own people and against people throughout the Middle East, is threatening the lives of people here in Canada and has taken the lives of people from Canada, such as through the downing of Flight PS752. The government has acknowledged that this is a terrorist organization, yet it failed to list it as a terrorist organization. If the government really wants to show that it is serious about showing solidarity, we have had enough photo ops, enough statements and enough meetings. When will it list the IRGC as a terrorist organization?
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  • Nov/22/22 6:56:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is sadly typical of the responses we get from this government to read pre-prepared scripts that do not actually answer the question. The question for the parliamentary secretary and for the government was this: Why has the government chosen not to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization? We had a vote in the House, which I believe the parliamentary secretary participated in as did the Prime Minister, where all members of the Liberal caucus voted in favour of our motion to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization. That was four years ago. They did nothing after that. They still have not listed the IRGC as a terrorist organization. Now, it is all well and good to talk about sanctioning individuals, but when we sanction individuals and not organizations, then new individuals can still use the resources of that organization. They are still able to operate here in Canada, they are still able to recruit here in Canada and members of the organization who are not sanctioned can come to Canada with impunity. It is a simple question. The government voted to do it, and the Liberals still have not answered why they have not listed the IRGC. Can they answer the simple question?
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