Senator Woo: Broad-ranging sanctions and sanctions that have very ambitious goals, such as changing the fundamental policy direction of a country or regime change, rarely succeed. What is very clear, however, is that broad-ranging sanctions have devastating effects on ordinary citizens and lead to long-term immiserising effects on the population. They can also produce boomerang effects where resentment against the sanctions, combined with domestic repression, create popular animosity against the sanctioning states. If sanctions don’t really work, should we bother with them? The reality is that governments are not likely to give up on their use, if for no other reason than a need to play to a domestic audience.

But if sanctions don’t work, and we continue to use them, they will no longer be part of the diplomatic tool kit, but will rather have turned into a form of economic warfare. And if we are in a world where sanctions are used unabashedly as economic warfare, this bill, for all its good intentions, will become a lethal weapon in that arsenal.

Senator Omidvar: Your Honour, I know that Senator Woo’s time has expired. However, with leave of the Senate, could I ask a question?

Senator Plett: No.

(On motion of Senator MacDonald, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator McCallum, seconded by the Honourable Senator Pate, for the third reading of Bill S-219, An Act respecting a National Ribbon Skirt Day.