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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 324

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 4, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 324 - Jun/4/24
Mr. Stéphane Bergeron (Montarville, BQ)
  • Jun/4/24 2:16:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today we sadly mark the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, during which thousands of students lost their lives. The brutal crushing of this peaceful movement by the Communist Chinese regime produced images that continue to haunt us to this day. I can still picture the student standing in front of the tanks to stop them from advancing. We denounced those tragic events, to be sure, but we also denounced the complacency of western countries, including Canada, which, in placing commercial interests above the protection of human rights, had in some ways opened the door to such repression. Thirty-five years later, the People's Republic of China exerts even more control over its population and continues to violently target its opponents, real or imagined, in addition to acting belligerently toward its neighbours. At a time when it continues to ruthlessly crush the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and relentlessly threaten Taiwan, we have a duty to memorialize the tragic events of Tiananmen Square in order to combat the apathy that could once again make us complicit in a recurrence of such events.
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