Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands)
2020-06-04 13:59

Thank you, Chair.

Through you to the Prime Minister, there is a pattern in history of leaders sometimes using a crisis that absorbs people’s attention to do things they otherwise might not do for fear of global condemnation, such as in a pandemic. We see President Bolsonaro of Brazil turning more brutality against indigenous people in the Amazon.

My questions focus on the People’s Republic of China, which I think is doing the same thing, and on Prime Minister Netanyahu in Israel.

To the question of China, we now see the People’s Republic of China cracking down in Hong Kong in ways that violate the commitment to one country, two systems.

What will the Government of Canada do to help Canadian citizens, even if they are dual citizens of the People’s Republic, to get home to Canada?

Hon. François-Philippe Champagne (Saint-Maurice—Champlain)
2020-06-04 14:00

Mr. Chair, we know that the one country, two systems concept is what has been underpinning the liberty and freedom enjoyed by the people in Hong Kong. We are very deeply concerned by the imposition, unilaterally by Beijing, of a national security law that would undermine that very foundation.

Mr. Chair, we’re working with allies to look at the implications that this imposition would have on the various arrangements and agreements we have in place with Hong Kong.

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The protesters had initially been seeking to prevent the destruction of the last treed green space in central Istanbul – Gezi Park – that was slated be covered over by a shopping mall development. Heavily armoured Turkish police using tear gas and rubber bullets over-reacted, injuring and hospitalizing many of the protesters. This in turn triggered a much larger series of protests across the country over the continuing deterioration of civil liberties and freedom of the press under the government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey currently has the dubious distinction of having the largest number of reporters in jail of any other country and its mainstream media organizations have mainly ignored four days of widespread civilian protests which have now claimed their first fatality. The public information gap has consequently been filled by social media organs that Prime Minister Erdogan attacked as a “social menace.” President of Turkey Abdullah Gul has taken a more conciliatory approach calling peaceful protest a democratic right.

“Social media is not the menace in Turkey or elsewhere,” commented May. “It is governments that think that, just because they have majority power, they try to get away with whatever they can between and during elections.”

International Affairs Critic Eric Walton called on the Turkish government to demonstrate why they deserve a place in the European Union by listening and learning from democratic voices – because this will be expected if their goal to join the E.U is eventually successful.

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