Ottawa Should Tackle Transnational Repression by Establishing Foreign Interference Czar: Conservative MP
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Conservative MP Shuvaloy Majumdar says the Liberal government needs to take “meaningful action” to combat transnational repression in Canada, through establishing the foreign interference registry and czar.
“They should actually start taking meaningful action about how transnational repression occurs in Canada,” Majumdar told The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet, NTD, on Dec. 1.
Majumdar told NTD that the federal government needs to do more than sign statements like these, by also taking concrete action toward combatting transnational repression.
“There’s a lot of measures, actual meaningful things, that they should be doing rather than just signing fancy statements in some other country,” Majumdar said. He noted that there’s “a lot” of transnational repression happening in Canada and “we have to fight it tooth and nail.”
He said Canada needs a foreign interference czar to “go after the threat in our country, particularly by fake police stations, cultural groups that pretend to stand up for Chinese culture, but actually are using it to control Chinese people.”
However, the registry still has yet to be set up and a commissioner has yet to be appointed. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand told MPs of the foreign affairs committee on Nov. 27 that, as also stated by the public safety minister, the registry would be implemented by the end of the year.
“There is no tolerance for foreign interference, including transnational repression targeting Canadians or individuals on Canadian soil.”
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‘Consequences’
Garry Clement, former national director of the RCMP’s proceeds-of-crime program, who also attended the book launch event, told NTD that Canada needs to apply the “necessary consequences” to transnational repression.“You can’t just use words—there has to be some actions and there has to be some consequences, and that’s where, I think, Canada has fallen down,” Clement said. “We’ve never, ever applied the necessary consequences. Transnational repression is a horrid statement in the world today, and China is probably a leader in it, and we really have to hold them to account.”
Canada’s current legislation is not sufficient at combatting transnational repression, Clement added, noting he believes the federal government’s delay in implementing the foreign interference registry is due to pressure from China. “They don’t want to see us have this registry, but we need it,” he said.
He noted that he hopes the nations that signed onto it, including Canada, “put some legislation behind it and push back against China’s egregious human rights record.”
Baxendale also said that before Canada engages with the Chinese regime, the regime needs to “make serious commitments to human rights” and “stop oppressing and repressing the Chinese diaspora community around the world.”
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‘Betrayal of Canada’
Human rights lawyer and advocate Alex Neve, who attended the Dec. 1 book launch, praised Burton’s new book for “conveying a strong message that we’ve really got it wrong.”“Charles was always a clarion voice about the downside and the dangers of failing to put human rights at the heart of our relationship,” Neve told NTD. “I think he’s been proven to have been very accurate in that assessment, and his book captures that message. I hope it is one that policymakers across government will read and deliberate on very carefully.”
He said consecutive governments have failed to take the issue of Chinese transnational repression in Canada seriously, and failed to “consistently ensure that human rights were coming first” in Canada’s relationship with China.
“We’re finally on the cusp, perhaps, of starting to do so. We have legislation that has been passed, promising a foreign interference registry will be established here in Canada, but the government has been dragging its feet on that,” Neve added. “I think Charles’s book is an important reminder of how necessary that is, and that it needs to move forward without any further delay.”
Burton said at the Ottawa book launch that the work he does, analyzing what’s going on with China under the Chinese regime’s dictatorship, is “emotionally draining.”
“I do feel very saddened and disappointed by the greed and naivety of the co-opted elements of Canada’s Laurentian elite in their tacit consent for Xi Jinping’s infiltration of Canada, their callous acceptance of the Chinese Communist Party’s corrosive undermining of humanitarian law. It really effectively amounts to a betrayal of Canada,” Burton said.
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