Debates of Nov. 19th, 2024
House of Commons Hansard #368 of the 44th Parliament, 1st Session
Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP): Madam Speaker, I rise to table the petition, E-Petition 5137. The petition gathered 3,497 signatures. In addition on a previous occasion I tabled a similar petition that had 152 signatures on it. And then there are another 717 that is to be certified from Toronto, another 247 signatures to be certified from Vancouver for a total of 4,613.
The petitioner notes that on August 12, 2024, Hong Kong's top court upheld the convictions of seven of Hong Kong's most prominent pro-democracy activists, including 82-year-old Martin Lee and 76-year-old Jimmy Lai, for participating in a peaceful demonstration on August 18 of 2019.
The group of 47, which includes legislators, were found guilty on May 30, 2024 in the exercise of their democratic rights for participating in the election primaries. Chow Hang-tung and former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance have been arrested for holding annual candlelight vigils in remembrance of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.
Given the extraterritorial reach of the national security law in Article 23 there is ongoing fear of surveillance amongst the Hong Kong diaspora, and in light of the recent spying charges laid against staff at the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office in the United Kingdom, Hong Kongers want to be reassured that this is not happening in Canada.
Therefore, they are calling on the government of Canada to call on Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China to release Jimmy Lai, Chow Hang-tung, the group of 47 and others, whose only crime was to exercise their rights and freedoms as prescribed by the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and to stop according any special rights of diplomatic status to the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office; and finally, to proactively apply sanctions under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act against Chinese and Hong Kong officials.
