SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 215 - Jun/16/23

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/16/23 12:37:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to reinforce what the minister is saying with regard to sanctions that are in place and preventing the individuals on whom the sanctions have been applied from being able to come into Canada. The minister is correct when he says there is broad support for it. Canadians as a whole, I believe, are behind the legislation. What we have seen in the debates I have witnessed in the chamber is that all parties will, in fact, be supporting the legislation. The minister said earlier in his first answer that, when legislation is receiving such good support, sometimes it is better to see it pass so we can get to other subject matters on which there might be more division, which would allow for additional debate, given the fact, and this is the big issue, that there is a finite amount of time.

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Context: House Hansard - 215 - Jun/16/23

Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Jun/16/23 12:39:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my concern around this legislation is not so much with the text of the bill as with the way that the government uses the sanctions tools that are available to it. Parliament gives the government sanctions tools, and then it is up to the government to determine how to use them. The government has been relatively limited and ineffective in its use of sanctions tools. There are also, I think, significant gaps in enforcement. I want to ask the government a particular question about their sanctions regime and I hope we will hear an answer. Why has the government stopped using the Magnitsky act to sanction human rights abusers? It has been a number of years since that particular legislative tool has been used.

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Context: House Hansard - 215 - Jun/16/23

Hon. Sean Fraser

Jun/16/23 12:40:24 p.m.
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Re: Bill S-8

Mr. Speaker, I always enjoy questions from the hon. member. I find them to be thoughtful, even though we often find ourselves in disagreement. I think to have respectful engagement on issues that matter is very important. With respect, there are a number of different kinds of sanctions that may be most appropriate for different kinds of scenarios. In fact, before the changes to Bill S-8, there are certain kinds, including for human rights abuses, that could be launched more through our sanctions regime. We also had the opportunity to sanction individuals for significant acts of corruption, both of which could have rendered a person inadmissible. Going forward, we will be able to render people inadmissible as well for violations that cause interruptions to global peace and security. For what it is worth, there is another expansion that will ensure that we are not just dealing with acts committed by countries but also substate actors and terror organizations. I think, going forward, when the facts justify it, it may be most appropriate to use sanctions for human rights abuses, but in the present instance we have seen a significant increase, as a result, in particular, of Russia's latest invasion into Ukraine, of bad actors who I think are complicit in those kinds of actions that have interrupted global peace and security. Whether it is for gross and systematic human rights violations, whether it is for significant acts of corruption or whether it is for this new power that will be rendering people inadmissible based on their erosion of international peace and security, I think all of those groups deserve to be sanctioned with inadmissibility, not just the pre-existing consequences that were available under the particular piece of legislation that is at issue in this particular debate.

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Context: House Hansard - 215 - Jun/16/23

Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

Jun/16/23 12:41:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I recall a very dismal decade of the Harper regime where time allocation was used all the time, but always to eliminate or push down rights or strip away things from people. We saw time allocation used to strip away pensions, forcing seniors to work longer years of their lives, often in physical labour. I spoke on the floor of the House of Commons, members will recall, about the damage that the Harper regime was doing. They forced that through. They stripped away environmental protections. They covered up their myriad scandals over the period of a decade, all using time allocation, 150 times. Now, in this Parliament, we see time allocation having to be used because of the Conservatives blocking things such as a sanctions list or an improved sanctions regime. It just does not seem to make sense. I wanted to ask my colleague what the logic is around this, when Conservatives block important legislation that will actually benefit the country. What does my colleague think is behind that approach of blocking every single piece of legislation?

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