New Pathway.
Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion’s position, which he expressed in mid-May 2016, that Canada does not need an American-style Magnitsky Act, has caused a lot of concern in the Ukrainian Canadian community. For many in the community, this position deepened the fears about the new government’s foreign policy, which surfaced when Stéphane Dion famously said in March that Canada needs to re-engage Russia.
Last week, the Globe and Mail informed that the Liberal caucus in Parliament insisted to have hearings on Magnitsky-type legislation when the House resumes in the fall. The parliamentary Foreign Affairs committee would then make recommendations to the government. In such cases, there is an understanding that the government acts on committee recommendations, as Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj (Etobicoke Centre) explained to the New Pathway. The recommendations may include updates to Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, Special Economic Measures Act and Refugee and Immigration Protection Act to incorporate key features into the legislation that was submitted last year by a former Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, and resubmitted in May as a private member’s bill by Conservative MP James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman).
Borys Wrzesnewskyj is optimistic that the government will come up with legislation that matches the Liberal Party’s electoral commitment to pass a Magnitsky-style law. He told the New Pathway that this kind of law would ensure that those who engage in repressions of various forms will be subject to asset freezes and visa bans in Canada.
Borys Wrzesnewskyj hopes that the Liberals, Conservatives, and NDP in Parliament will be actively engaged in the committee process and that the future report and recommendations will be recommended unanimously: “Whenever a committee reports, if it’s unanimous, then it shows the very clear intent of the legislative branch of government that the executive branch act on the recommendations.”
Although the discussed piece of legislation was initially intended as a response to the death of the Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in the Russian jail, Borys Wrzesnewskyj said that corrupt officials in any country can be subject to this kind of legislation. He also stated that Russian judges and other officials involved in the kidnapping, unlawful incarceration and show trials of foreign citizens, as in the case of the Ukrainian officer Nadiya Savchenko, would also qualify as subjects of this future legislation.
MP James Bezan’s private member's bill is lottery-scheduled for consideration in the House in about two year time. However, as Mr. Bezan told the New Pathway, his bill is also submitted in the Senate which may consider it in the fall and move it to the House. James Bezan criticised the position of Minister Dion that current Canadian legislation provides adequate means for prosecution of foreign officials involved in human right violations: “Current legislation allows the government to impose travel sanctions and economic sanctions against foreign officials only when there is an international call to sanction those particular individuals. So that would require a resolution at NATO, at the United Nations, or the OSCE. What I am proposing is for the Government of Canada to act unilaterally in sanctioning those individuals that are believed to be corrupt and are committing human rights abuses”.
Mr. Bezan was positive when we asked him whether there could be a non-partisan support in Parliament for this legislation: “I would welcome that. If the government wants to bring forward my private member’s bill, a government’s bill or something very similar to it, I would support that. This isn’t about politics, this is about making sure that those individuals, who are committing abuses and using their positions of authority to enrich themselves, aren’t using Canada as a safe haven for their families and financial resources. At the same time, I doubt that Minister Dion will support my private member's bill, the Magnitsky Law, or anything that resembles it since the Liberal government wants to ‘normalize relations with Russia', and the government sees the Magnitsky Law as counterproductive and as something that would undermine their attempts in talking with Putin”
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