Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: Honourable senators, I rise in strong support of Senator Omidvar’s bill, Bill S-217, the Frozen Assets Repurposing Bill.

This is an important piece of legislation with the potential to build international momentum against human rights abuse and corruption, as well as to help improve the situations of victims of these people. Senator Omidvar first initiated this bill almost three years ago and I hope we will collectively give this matter some priority with committee study in the near term.

Bill S-217 builds directly on another important Senate initiative, that of former Senator Andreychuk, who led the passage of the Sergei Magnitsky Law in 2017 with Bill S-226. That law now allows for the seizures, freezing or sequestration of assets in Canada of corrupt foreign nationals responsible for human rights violations or corruption.

In Canadian law, assets may also be seized, frozen or sequestered under the Special Economic Measures Act which deals with sanctions, and the Freezing Assets of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, which deals with requests by foreign countries in turmoil.

This bill will take the next logical step by providing a mechanism to distribute frozen assets to appropriate individuals or organizations.

This distribution will take place according to the five principles Senator Omidvar described in her speech in December: first, accountability for human rights abusers; two, justice for victims; three, due process in court for any distribution of assets; four, transparency in terms of both the identity of the officials and the value of their frozen assets; five, compassion with meaningful actions to the repurposing of resources to help vulnerable people.

Establishing this proposed law will further advance Canada as a leader in human rights. Senators can be proud to break this new ground together if we have the will to act.

On substance, Bill S-217 is nothing to fear. The concepts are already well established in our domestic law relating to the proceeds of crime, such as in the Seized Property Management Act. For this reason, I would suggest that this legislation is ready for expert input on the details at committee.

For example, I will note an interesting debate involving the Honourable Irwin Cotler and lawyer Brandon Silver of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal, and the Honourable Lloyd Axworthy and our colleague Senator Omidvar.

The subject of that debate, published in Policy Magazine in 2020, was to what degree frozen assets should go to individuals affected by the wrongful actions, through individual claims, as compared to a more population-focused approach, at judicial discretion. This is a question within the principle and scope of the bill, appropriate for committee consideration. I look forward to hearing expert perspectives.

I would also note that under section 8, Bill S-217 permits distribution to both affected individuals and populations as appropriate to the circumstances, including through contributions to humanitarian relief. I’m sure that would be very useful to Ukraine.

With worsening human rights crises around the world, Canada must always take a stand for what is right. In some situations, this is best done through diplomatic channels, and in other situations through legal, parliamentary and public communications avenues. In some situations, all these avenues may have to play together, but they always play beneficial roles.

In this chamber, we have the benefit of advice on optimal approaches from colleagues with expertise in foreign affairs like Senator Harder, Senator Boehm and others, as well as the benefit of advice on international human rights, legal avenues, from colleagues like Senator McPhedran, Senator Jaffer and others.

On this point, I will note the successful collaboration in this chamber that led to the Senate’s adoption of a motion in June of last year regarding the Philippine government’s unjust and arbitrary detention of Senator Leila de Lima.

With Bill S-217, we have a clear opportunity to improve our domestic law to better address foreign human rights violations, and in so doing to improve the situations of victims and encourage positive action in the global community. We should seize the momentum.

Thank you to Senator Omidvar on this important initiative, and I think that the time has come to send the bill to committee.

Thank you, meegwetch.

Hon. Leo Housakos: Honourable senators, I rise today to speak to Bill S-217, An Act respecting the repurposing of certain seized, frozen or sequestrated assets.

I want to start by thanking Senator Omidvar for bringing this bill forward, for reaching out to me to discuss it and to seek my support. Senator Omidvar has already tabled this bill on two occasions, and I admire her tenacity. I also hope the third time is the charm.

I can tell you off the top that I absolutely do support this bill, just as I hope there will be support for a bill I intend to bring forward with an amendment to our Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, or the so-called Sergei Magnitsky Law, providing for more transparency in the ownership of assets of officials being considered for sanction.

I believe it will further strengthen the Magnitsky Act and strengthen our ability as a country to properly deal with corruption and human rights abuses around the world. That, in a nutshell, is what Senator Omidvar is seeking to do with this legislation: strengthening the way we deal with the likes of Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and those who benefit from doing their bidding, not only to exact some degree of justice for their victims but also to show them that their egregious behaviour will not be tolerated by Western democracies. The need to do that couldn’t be better illustrated than by what we’re seeing right now with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

I spoke in the last Parliament about Sergei Magnitsky, for whom the Magnitsky Act is named, when our former colleague Senator Thanh Hai Ngo and I called for Magnitsky sanctions against Chinese and Hong Kong officials for what was happening in Hong Kong and for what was happening, and is still happening, to the Uighur Muslim people at the hands of the communist regime of China.

I think many of our colleagues often think these motions and calls for sanctions are merely symbolic or perhaps an attempt to score partisan political points, but I hope you’re now starting to appreciate that they’re anything but. The truth is we need to be unafraid to start applying these kinds of measures and this kind of thinking when dealing with the world’s thugs and bullies.

That’s why I’m supportive of this legislation. I believe it takes the natural next step of providing justice for the victims and, in practical terms, alleviating some of the stress for those countries and agencies who are left to pick up the pieces from the damage caused by these tyrannical regimes. It is also punitive and, in my opinion, we need more of that. We need justice; we need fairness.

One of the principles behind this bill is very simple: corruption shouldn’t be rewarded, period. So if you’re corrupt, we will find you. We will name you. We will take all of the wonderful treasures you amassed as a result of your corruption, and we will use those ill-gotten gains to take care of the innocent people whose lives you ruined or tried to ruin because of your thirst for power.

We need to send a loud and clear message that the days of corruption, paying off and living the high life off the misery of others while they live in fear and squalor are over and should never ever be tolerated.

Canada wouldn’t be alone in moving on legislation of this kind. With both countries agreeing to sanctioning oligarchs as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, Switzerland already allows for the repurposing of frozen assets, and the U.K. is considering similar legislation.

Just yesterday, Alaska Congressman Don Young announced plans to introduce legislation that would allow U.S. authorities to seize Russian mega yachts and auction them off to fund humanitarian aid and other just causes. We should be doing the same, but to do so we need to pass this bill quickly.

We could go one step further, as suggested by Senator Omidvar, in the case of Ukraine. Canada could lead the way by proposing a global fund consisting of the monies purloined by Putin and his oligarchs to sustain the humanitarian and reconstruction needs that would follow, a fund that could be administered by the legitimately elected government of Ukraine. But, again, any such action would require this bill to become law.

Let’s not waste any more precious time, colleagues. Let’s get this bill into committee, get it passed and over to the other place without delay. Many voices are calling for it.

We have all been watching the tragic events unfold in Ukraine over the past week. No matter what happens in the coming days and weeks, the human toll is enormous. We’re already seeing tens of thousands of people flocking to the borders as they flee their homeland. They will now be added to the more than 82 million other displaced people around the world, more than half of whom are children, in what Senator Omidvar rightfully called a “displacement calamity.” More than 82 million people have fled their homes because of armed conflict, violence, persecution and human rights abuses by bullies and thugs.

As Senator Omidvar pointed out:

This is the second-highest number of the forcibly displaced since the Second World War and the numbers continue to rise daily. This has created a significant strain, especially on those jurisdictions that border the places they came from, and they themselves are challenged to meet the needs of their own citizens, let alone thousands of arriving refugees.

The truth is we have a tendency to get very caught up in the news of the day, to be moved by the pictures and videos from countries like Ukraine — and before it, Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Venezuela — and then, unfortunately, we very quickly seem to move on, business as usual. It’s easy to go back to our own lives and almost forget about what’s happening all the way over there. But now in Ukraine, we are seeing a threat to international order and stability that is so grave we will no longer have that luxury, colleagues. I believe that what we are facing now are not simply isolated acts of aggression and human rights abuses but rather a global rise of totalitarianism. We need to confront that head on, without reservation and unequivocally. While we are also quick to want and pledge to help in the early days of these types of tragedies, the truth is we eventually return to our own lives while the work of taking care of these people has only just begun.

Resettlement doesn’t happen overnight. Take the situation last year in Afghanistan, for instance. We all would have opened our homes in that instant as we watched the horror of people swarming the airport trying to get out of Kabul. But the truth is many of those people and many more who did manage to get out of Afghanistan prior to Kabul falling are now displaced. They remain displaced.

I know many of our offices have been working with Afghan refugees, thanks to the tireless efforts of Senator McPhedran, and while there have been some success stories, this is a long, arduous and expensive process. But what Senator Omidvar is proposing is, as I said, a practical and logical solution.

Colleagues, while I appreciate Senator Omidvar referring to what’s being proposed here as thinking outside of the box, it really isn’t. I don’t say that as a criticism or to be dismissive, but only because I want to point out that it’s not so radical that it should consume us for any great length of time. It is straightforward and already has broad support.

As a matter of fact, as Senator Omidvar pointed out, it’s something that we in the Conservative Party of Canada had in our electoral program in 2021, and it was in the Liberal Party of Canada’s electoral program in 2018. It was also in the mandate letter to then foreign affairs minister François-Philippe Champagne, which has me questioning why it hasn’t been acted upon already. But I don’t want to be accused of being partisan, so I would say it’s obvious that both the current government and Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition support the intention of this legislation. I see no reason to delay its passage, and we should commit this to the committee stage as soon as possible.

The purpose of this legislation is:

. . . to seize the frozen assets of corrupt foreign officials held in Canada through court order and repurpose them back to alleviate the suffering of the people who have been harmed most by their action.

This, colleagues, is a no-brainer. It’s obvious.

Now, I know that on its face it may make some people feel uncomfortable, especially having recently witnessed our own government arbitrarily freezing bank accounts and the mayor of Ottawa musing about the city taking possession of protesters’ property to sell and use the proceeds to pay for policing and cleanup. Yes, that is and should be troubling. But what Senator Omidvar is proposing is nothing like that. If anything, this bill guards against that sort of overreach because her legislation would remove politics from the equation, instead placing the decision making in the hands of our courts.

It’s similar to what we see in class action lawsuits in which assets are frozen and can ultimately be used to fund any damages awarded. What Senator Omidvar is proposing would ensure that same due process, adherence to the rule of law and compliance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It would provide transparency of the process but also of the assets that have been seized, which we currently do not have. Our government publishes the names of the officials who have been sanctioned, but not their assets. As noted by Senator Dalphond, this process is already entrenched in Canadian law in the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, so we aren’t reinventing the wheel here.

No offence to Senator Omidvar — I’m in no way attempting to diminish her proposal or the work done on this bill by her and her office and the World Refugee & Migration Council. I applaud you for applying this principle to this issue.

My motivation for driving home the point that the intended purpose of this bill isn’t entirely radical is for the benefit of our colleagues so that they can be comfortable with it. The principle of taking from a perpetrator, especially one who benefited financially from their crimes, to give to the victim or victims is one in which I believe wholeheartedly, if for no other reason than it being called justice. Furthermore, it alleviates the toll on the system as a whole. It really is straightforward, colleagues.

The criminals get punished. The victims receive some justice and much-needed support, and the system doesn’t break under the weight of it all. It’s all done through the rule of law and due process. And with that, I reiterate my whole-hearted support for this bill and implore my colleagues to do the same and get this bill to committee forthwith and approve it as soon as possible.

Thank you, colleagues, for your attention.