1:00 p.m. – Green Leader Elizabeth May will speak at the Rally for a Free Tibet.

BC Legislature front steps
Victoria, British Columbia

NOTES:

• Ms. May will speak at approximately 1:20 p.m.
• Green Party of Canada’s release on the 54^th Tibetan Uprising Day.

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“The desperation of Tibetans has led to over 107 self-immolation suicides in recent years. The situation in Tibet is an international crisis. Harper’s Conservatives recently created the Office of Religious Freedom: will it remain silent on the Tibetan question? If protecting religious minorities is really a ‘foreign policy priority’ for Canada, now is the time to send the Office’s ambassador to Tibet,” said Green Leader Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament for Saanich-Gulf Islands.

Last week, Lobsang Sangay, exiled Tibetans’ political leader, called on Canada’s ambassador for religious freedom to investigate in Tibet.

“This is an opportune time for China’s new leader to act on his recent expression supporting democracy. There can be no democracy without respect for Human Rights. Recognizing the leadership presently in exile as the legitimate leaders of the Tibetan people and upholding the earlier negotiated autonomy within China would prove China’s new direction to the world,” said Joe Foster, Human Rights Critic for the Green Party of Canada.

Note: Media advisory for Ms. May’s participation in a Tibetan Uprising Day event on March 9th.

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“China is a nation in transition. In the past couple of decades, it has made tremendous economic strides but this has been accomplished through ruthless suppression of its own people and of Tibet. Cheap labour has been augmented by nearly a million slave prisoners, mostly those being persecuted as Falun Gong practitioners. Moreover, these prisoners have been providing not only free labour but a source for the infamous live organ transplants estimated in the tens of thousands,” commented Joe Foster, Green Human Rights Critic. “Canadians need to speak out against trade agreements that allow purchase from countries where human rights violations are flagrant.”

Elizabeth May, Leader of the Green Party of Canada and MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands, asked, “At what cost has China’s economic miracle been achieved and have we abetted human rights crimes by pretending ignorance?”

While other faith groups, such as House-Christians, have also been persecuted, the Communists fear the strength and growth of the Falun Gong which is reputed to have adherents throughout the country with a membership of between 70 and 100 million. This non-violent faith organization was anathema to the Communist regime.

The outcry against the lack of freedom and human rights in China has been rapidly increasing. This has been led by a few courageous citizens inside China and dissidents who have escaped to inform outsiders of internal atrocities, combined with pleas from the Dalai Lama.  The confirmation of live organ transplant by David Kilgour and David Matas has created an international campaign demanding change. This has sufficiently embarrassed the Chinese government to demote Bo Xilai, the party leader who initiated the campaign against the faith groups. This change must be supported.

May continued, “Questions need to be asked of our Trade Department and of the Canadian business community. With the well-documented and long-standing abuses in China and Tibet and the human rights law suits against Bo Xilai in at least 13 countries, including Canada, how could they be totally ignorant of these horrendous crimes? Why would the Prime Minister, as recently as this February, seek an audience with him? Why is the budget for the Political and Legal Affairs Department, which directs the secret police, now larger than China’s military budget?”

 While the Green Party applauds the diversification of our trading partners, the Canadian government has also turned a blind eye to the atrocities of regimes in Latin America in its rush for trade expansion.

“It is time for Canadians to re-evaluate our priorities against our traditional values of social justice and human rights,” said Joe Foster. “Unless all Canadians speak out, including those originally from countries where human rights abuses are rampant, there will be little incentive for change both within our own government and in those countries that flagrantly abuse human rights.  As a start, the Green Party urges our Prime Minister to create a trade document that insists that no products will be purchased where slave labour is involved.”

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I want to make it clear that I certainly support the idea that we have better ties with China. This is not a statement about our relationship with China and the importance of raising human rights in Tibet and the situation for dissidents in Chinese jails. Our opportunities for raising these issues are enhanced with having a respectful, strong relationship. This is about how Canadians should respond to ensure that foreign investment reviews are clear, that the information is transparent and available and that there are national security reviews that go along with this, particularly where strategic Canadian resources, such as oil sands and uranium, are being traded with the People’s Republic of China’s enterprises.

I would like to put this into context. The hon. Minister of Natural Resources has said there is not very much investment from China directly in the oil sands. Of the $73.6 billion invested in the oil sands between 2007 and 2011, oil sands investment from China was approximately $12 billion, or 16%. This is not a small percentage.

The involvement of Chinese companies, particularly PetroChina, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation and largely Sinopec have been strategic. In the case of Sinopec it has managed to buy a 9% share in Syncrude for a cost of just about $5 billion. It managed to have a seat on the board of Syncrude and be in a position to veto any decision that Syncrude might otherwise make to process the bitumen crude in Canada, thus creating Canadian jobs in Canadian refineries. That strategic advantage for Sinopec does not seem to have been studied in the way that I think Canadians would have expected.

When I asked this question in relation to the oil sands last week, the Minister of Industry claimed that back in 2009 “we improved the transparency”. This was in relation to my question about the national security aspects of this kind of investment. In fact, when we go back to the decisions in 2009, we find that the cabinet rejected the advice of the expert panel that had been put together in 2007. It was a competition policy review panel that had been mandated to review these arrangements.

According to the Canada Gazette of September 30, 2009:

The term national security should be explicitly defined and national security reviews should take place according to concrete, objective, and transparent criteria. This recommendation was not accepted…

In addition to the oil sands investment, we now have the Prime Minister coming back with a deal for uranium. This deal for uranium has much more lax accounting procedures than was offered in previous deals with China, which is why in the past Canada has not continued to trade uranium in China. The strategic concern is not just for what China would do with the uranium, but for China’s relationship with the civilian nuclear industry program in Pakistan and the potential for nuclear proliferation. These are strategic concerns.

I would like the government to tell Canadians exactly what national security review—

The Deputy Speaker: Order, please.

The hon. Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry.

Mike Lake: Madam Speaker, I took note of the member’s questions, both last week and again this week. Both questions are important in light of tonight’s debates.

Last week, she asked the minister about foreign security provisions in the Investment Canada Act. The minister responded that the national security aspect was included in the law in 2009. Unsatisfied with the answer, the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands stood up in the House yesterday and asked the following. She said:

Mr. Speaker, last week I put a question to the Minister of Industry relating to the Chinese takeover of Canadian resources.

He said I was unfamiliar with the Investment Canada Act changes of 2009. 

She went on to say:

In fact, the Canada Gazette of September 30, 2009 said:

Then the member quoted from the Canada Gazette, just as she did now:

The term national security should be explicitly defined and national security reviews should take place according to concrete, objective, and transparent criteria. This recommendation was not accepted— 

Then the member said today, “close quote”.

The trouble is, if you read the Canada Gazette it is not a closed quote. It actually goes on to say something else. The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands was wrong for two reasons. First, she was quoting from a summary of comments and responses to the gazetting of national security provisions in the summer of 2009. She was not quoting from the regulations themselves. Further, she cut the quote in half, as I just mentioned.

The full quote from those comments and replies is as follows. The Canada Gazette states:

4) The term national security should be explicitly defined and national security reviews should take place according to concrete, objective, and transparent criteria. This recommendation was not accepted since national security threats are dynamic in nature and, therefore, constantly evolve. Neither Part IV.1 of the ICA nor the Regulations define the term “national security” since future threats to national security cannot be predetermined and any such definition may limit the government’s flexibility to respond to future threats.

That is the complete quote.

However, that does not mean that national security provisions do not exist. How do I know that? Because they are not hard to find. We just have to grab a BlackBerry or an iPad and go to www.ic.gc.ca. If the hon. member wants, after we are done here she can come over and I can show it to her on my iPad. They have been there for more than two years. I would ask the member to go and read that section of the website and the associated regulations before getting up to ask her next incorrect question.

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Green Party Leader Elizabeth May (Saanich-Gulf Islands) recently stated, “There are Falun Gong practitioners in my riding who have visited my office and have made sure I am aware of the conditions that Falun Dafa practitioners face in China. I am very aware that your practice is one of non-violence, individual responsibility, and grace and that makes it doubly unacceptable that you should be subjected to torture and imprisonment and harsh conditions, only for following a practice that is liberating to mind and spirit.”  May urged Canadian and Chinese leaders to remember that both countries are signatories of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Therefore, any trade negotiations should be considered in the light of improving human rights and the preservation of ethnic cultures.

In 2006, Stephen Harper was making the same points.  At a stopover in Anchorage (Nov. 15, 2006), he stated, “I think Canadians want us to promote our trade relations worldwide, and we do that, but I don’t think Canadians want us to sell out important Canadian values — our belief in democracy, freedom, human rights. They don’t want us to sell that out to the almighty dollar.”

In the past week, rallies have been held on Parliament Hill by both Tibetans and practitioners of Falun Gong, asking the Prime Minister to work for reforms when he visits China February 6th to 12th.  Green Leader May spoke to both rallies.  “If Canada wants to be a partner with China, we also have a responsibility to play a role in ending persecution and human rights abuses.  This is particularly relevant given that Canada is allowing the Chinese government to actually own Canadian resources, with over $20 billion invested in the oil sands.”

Members of the Conservative caucus seem to agree.  Tory MP Garry Breitkreuz noted, “Some of the most serious atrocities are happening in China at the present time and I think we have an obligation to speak up.” Other MPs, including Rob Anders and Stephen Woodworth, also voiced their support.

Zhang Tianxiao, one of the demonstrators, noted, “There is only one principle about trade, it is just that Canada should never sacrifice human rights and moral principles for any material benefit.”  Zhang’s sister, Zhang Yunhe, disappeared in China in 2002 and Zhang’s brother-in-law is among the confirmed 3,400 dead, murdered by the regime for refusing to renounce his belief in Falun Gong.

Former MP and Secretary of State for Asia Pacific David Kilgour added, “Selling production plants in Canada to Chinese state-owned companies with terrible environmental records and histories of playing political roles in the countries they operate in is another matter entirely.”

“Will our children remember us for promoting trade, or for using trade as a vehicle for improving human rights in developing countries?” asked Joe Foster, Green Human Rights Critic.

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Elizabeth May: Mr. Speaker, as a member of Parliament, I rise with pride today and with solemnity on the occasion of marking a vigil that is taking place outside these doors. Canadian Tibetans are in vigil in solidarity with so many Tibetans who are experiencing oppression due to the Chinese government policies toward Tibet.

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The desperation of these people has now led to self-immolation acts, an act of desperation for anyone who understands Buddhist religion and culture. This is the sign that things have become a crisis for those in Tibet. In the words of his holiness, the Dalai Lama, “We must find a peaceful way forward”.

The European parliament, just days ago, on October 27, passed a resolution calling on China to act. I would urge all hon. members to join with the European Union and help protect religious rights in Tibet.

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