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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 320

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 29, 2024 02:00PM
Context: House Hansard - 320 - May/29/24
Mr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC)
Madam Speaker, I am glad to be joining this debate with respect to Bill C-353, the foreign hostage takers accountability act. Again, it is always an honour and a privilege to rise in the House and speak not only on behalf of my constituents, but also on behalf of a lot of friends of mine from the Middle East: Kurds, Persians and a lot of Chaldeans and Arab-Iraqis and Turks, whom I know are dissidents who live in our country. Many of them had the experience of being imprisoned or detained unlawfully by a group and some of them, unfortunately, by terrorist organizations operating in the Rojava region of Syria. In one case I know of, it was a journalist who was unlawfully detained in her own country at the time. Now, thankfully, she is in Canada, and she is a Canadian citizen here, and an author. I always refer to her as the “Robert Fife of Turkey” because she was the one who broke the story that the Turkish government was allowing arms, money and weapons to flow to ISIS organizations. She was unlawfully detained. She eventually became a Canadian citizen, here in Canada. There are countless such examples, and if what we just heard from the parliamentary secretary were true, that all of this great work is happening and that it is functioning, then Huseyin Celil, who has been unlawfully detained in the PRC since 2006, would not be there; he would be safely in Canada as a Canadian citizen and would be allowed here with his family members and with his kids. Huseyin Celil has been in prison, like I said, since 2006. He was renditioned as a Canadian citizen out of Uzbekistan to the PRC and was falsely accused of a number of charges. I believe that the main benefit of Bill C-353, and I want to thank the member for Thornhill for having tabled such legislation, is that it would be a way to dissuade and to deter organizations. The bill would take what is policy, some regulations, some ideas and some behaviour, by what the parliamentary secretary said, and would put it into legislation and would make it functional and usable in law so that family members would know that this would actually happen. The bill, Bill C-353, is supported by a great number of organizations across the country. There are so many examples that we can point to of Canadians who have been unlawfully detained overseas or who have been imprisoned by terrorist organization, and what they are doing is just not working as well as it should. Therefore, to me, this is an improvement. It would not wipe out what the government has already started doing. In fact, much of that is referred to in the preamble of this private member's bill. It is a recognition that there are activities, and there are things going on, but we could do so much better. We could do more for Canadians, typically of dual citizenship. I will say that as a Canadian of dual citizenship, I deeply care about this. I happen to be from a country that today is a democratic republic and has all the rights afforded to all types of citizens, but that was not the case pre-1989. I was born in a country that was a communist country at the time, and there were no equal rights for people. There was martial law for six years. There is a reason that my family is here and that we were allowed to leave during that same martial law. In that case, there would have been unlawful detention of dual citizens as well. I want to focus on a few other Canadians because there is another recent case, as of 2021, of one young lady who disappeared in Tehran. Her name is Behnoush Bahraminia. She is a dual citizen of Canada and had been a Vancouver resident since 2013. She disappeared in Tehran on November 6, 2021. As a dual citizen of Canada and a young lady, her parents are still very worried as to her whereabouts. They have sufficient information, which they have shared in media reports in the past, that they believe she is being unlawfully detained by the Islamic regime in Tehran. We often refer to the IRGC as a terrorist organization. In fact, the House has twice now pronounced itself as labelling the IRGC as a terrorist organization. The government's position is that the Islamic regime is a state sponsor of terror. With the little bit of Farsi that I do know, Sepah-e Pasdaran should be listed as a terrorist organization. I just wanted to speak up on behalf of Behnoush. I also want to speak up on behalf of Zahra Kazemi. Very famously, she was murdered in Evin prison. She was a Canadian, a Montrealer no less. She was perhaps a professor or taught as an instructor at the same university I used to go to, Concordia University. She was murdered in Evin prison. The police chief at the time of her murder, who gave excuses on national television in Iran, now lives in Canada, unfortunately. I know it is quite a surprise, but he does. In that particular case, again, it is an example of regimes overseas that feel there is no accountability. They are never held accountable for their actions. That is why a piece of legislation like this is necessary. The other one I wanted to mention, because the member for Thornhill mentioned it before as well, is the case of Saeed Malekpour, a Canadian permanent resident who, while visiting his ill father, was also arrested, again in Iran, and then was subject to the death penalty. In Farsi they call it hokm-e ‘edam, which is very commonly spoken about, because it is so common in Iran for political opponents of the regime, regardless of whether they are foreign nationals, dual citizens or citizens of the Islamic republic, to be subjected to the death penalty almost on the whims of these courts. These are, of course, not legitimate judges with deep legal educations. These are typically members of the IRGC, or these are kangaroo courts that really do not care about the rules. If the government labels the Islamic regime, the Islamic government of Tehran, as a terror organization, then rules like this would formalize how we treat them when they unlawfully detain or arrest our citizens. This is how we should treat this regime. This is not a friendly regime to us. I am focusing most of my commentary on Iran because I have so many people I have come to know all across the country. I want to speak on their behalf, whether they are Baloch, Kurdish from Rojhelat, Persians, Azerbaijanis or the Arabs in the very deep southwest corner in Khuzestan and other provinces, who are continuously persecuted by a regime that took over in 1979. Many governments have come to know them as state sponsors of terror. After all, this is the same regime that arms and trains Hamas. This is the same regime that arms, trains and protects Hezbollah in Syria. This is the same regime that arms, trains and helps the other Hezbollah, in Syria, among other organizations that they support on the ground. This is why so often in the news there are IRGC generals and officers who die in air strikes, whether from drones or from jets, because they are operating freely in Syria, whether in Rojava, nearer to Damascus or nearer to the Turkish-Syrian border. This is also the same regime that operates freely and has backed the Houthis in the civil war in Yemen. They have backed them perpetually. Now, the Houthis are attacking international shipping. This type of legislation targets regimes like the Islamic regime in Iran. I will also remind members that this is a regime that, for decades now, has been killing its political opponents, even in Europe. There are people like Qazi Muhammad, who was murdered in Iran, but there are many others whom they target, sometimes using diplomatic immunity for this type of purpose. Sometimes they use rendition as a tool to get back these people; and sometimes, as has happened now, they target Canadian permanent residents and Canadian citizens. There are many human rights activists who have come to Canada and found a safe place of refuge here, who continue to fight for human rights in Iran, who are the target of this regime. Most famously in North America, although she is not a Canadian citizen, I think of Masih Alinejad, who was targeted by the regime to be renditioned back to Iran to face hokm-e ‘edam, the death penalty. I do have a Yiddish proverb, because I am speaking of Iran, which had a historically large Jewish community. It is not Yiddish in source, though. It is this: I hope what I have spoken here is that my eyes have spoken what I have seen. It is very important to me that we reflect on this particular issue. There are many diaspora groups in Canada who self-censor, who worry. They are afraid that a regime like Iran's is not held responsible when it takes hostages and when it picks on families. People are sometimes terrified of travelling back to Iran to go to a funeral or to go to a marriage. Even though they may have come here as economic immigrants, become Canadian citizens and joined our family, they are worried what the Islamic regime would do to them in a hostage-taking exercise like that. It is a terrorist regime. It has terrorist organizations that are part of this large octopus of terrorism. Sometimes that image is seen in caricatures of the government. Legislation like Bill C-353, holding them accountable for hostage-taking, is absolutely necessary. It formalizes a lot of what the government has been doing and does a lot more.
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Context: House Hansard - 320 - May/29/24
Mr. Kevin Vuong (Spadina—Fort York, Ind.)
  • May/29/24 7:31:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on May 9, I asked the government if it was concerned that pro-Hamas entities in Canada are funnelling money to support an illegal encampment at the University of Toronto. Unfortunately, it is very sadly telling of the naïveté of the government that my question touching on an issue of public safety, of foreign interference and foreign financing of an illegal pro-terrorist occupation of a university campus was answered not by the Minister of Public Safety, not by the Minister of Global Affairs and not even by the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, but by the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion. Who is the Liberal government trying to include here? Is it Samidoun, which has been on B.C. campuses? This is a registered Canadian non-profit with a direct affiliation to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a listed terrorist organization since 2003. Is it Hamas or the IRGC, which murdered 55 Canadians on board flight PS752 and is able to continue to operate on Canadian soil with impunity because the government has been too cowardly to designate the IRGC as the terrorists they are? Who is the government trying to include? The encampments set up at university campuses across Canada are not representative of peaceful protests. In the case of the U of T encampment, it is an illegal occupation comprising mostly external demonstrators for hire who are not even students at the university. Moreover, the vitriolic, hate-filled comments and signs at this site are nothing but anti-Semitic propaganda aimed to intimidate and threaten legitimate U of T students. We are seeing the normalization of hate and anti-Semitism. Students are being subjected to death threats and assaults. Just yesterday, I was at OCAD University with Samantha Kline. Samantha is suing OCAD because of its inaction. OCAD chose to turn a blind eye to the death threats that Samantha was receiving, and OCAD chose to ignore the threats of sexual violence toward Samantha's mother. I guess I should not have been surprised when I saw that a group claimed it was from OCAD and supported the illegal encampment at U of T. This is not normal, but it is rapidly becoming the new norm in our country. These types of peaceful protests are anything but peaceful. They are certainly not a reflection of the Canada we aspire to be. Enough is enough. Governments at all levels must be seen to take action to restore the safety of our educational institutions and indeed our streets. These sham protests are being funded by shadowy pro-Hamas entities that are supporting a listed terrorist organization. Also, the government, in choosing to ignore violence, threats, anti-Semitic slogans and other forms of hate propaganda, is making a complete mockery of Canada's laws. I want to ask the parliamentary secretary whether it is government policy to turn a blind eye to the violent protests abetted by Hamas supporters. If so, perhaps the government is unaware that when an ostrich sticks its head in the sand, its most vulnerable part sticks out. I will ask this again. Is there any concern by the government over what is happening on our campuses and streets? Are there any investigations being conducted by the RCMP or our security service agencies? Also, what exactly does it take for mob rule to overtake the rule of law? How far will government go to ignore what is going on? If Canada supposedly has hate propaganda laws, what is required for such laws to be enforced? Is it the government's strategy to just duck its responsibility and pass the buck to other levels of government to handle until these sham protests go away, or does someone have to die before the government finally acts?
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