2 days ago
Government told Liberal MP to shelve motion on honorary citizenship for Jimmy Lai
The government's leader in the House of Commons told the Liberal MP spearheading a drive to grant jailed Hong Kong publisher Jimmy Lai honorary citizenship to shelve a motion supporting its award, just before she was about to present it on Wednesday.
Judy Sgro, a veteran Liberal MP, had gained the support of MPs from all parties for a unanimous consent motion raising the plight of Mr. Lai, who has been held in solitary confinement for four and a half years.
Mr. Lai, a British citizen and publisher of the now shuttered pro-democracy Apple Daily newspaper, was arrested in Hong Kong on conspiracy and sedition charges in December, 2020.
The businessman, who has close family and business ties to Canada, has been in a maximum-security prison, and denied bail and a trial by jury.
He is on trial for violating a Beijing-imposed national-security law that critics say is emblematic of the erosion of rights and freedoms in the former British colony.
Ms. Sgro said there is support across Parliament to award him honorary citizenship. And she was surprised to be approached by Steven MacKinnon, the government House leader, on Wednesday and told she could not present it.
'I had everybody on side and ready to move forward yesterday at noon. But then somewhere, something went off the rails,' she said on Thursday. 'Parliamentarians that have come to me and say, like, what happened? When they came and told me, and you can't do that. And I said, I'm going to do it anyway. I was furious with them.'
'He was clearly very frustrated with having to come to me and tell me this, because he knew how much I had been working on it,' she said of Mr. MacKinnon.
Ms. Sgro said she plans to persevere, saying that she had planned for the motion to be passed before the G7 leaders' summit starting in Alberta this weekend.
Ottawa under pressure to raise plight of Jimmy Lai at G7 summit
Mr. Lai's lawyers say that granting him honorary citizenship could prove enormously important for Mr. Lai's case, raising the profile of his case and placing an onus on Canada to help him.
Russian dissident and pro-democracy leader Vladimir Kara-Murza, was granted honorary Canadian citizenship by unanimous consent of Parliament in June, 2023, and released from Russian prison last year.
In 2023, the House of Commons and Senate passed unanimous consent motions urging Mr. Lai's release.
The government has been reviewing the use of unanimous consent motions, including by the NDP, which was angry to have been denied the right to present such as motion about children from Ukraine.
In a statement, the Government House Leader's Office said it would not comment on the 'specific case' of Mr. Lai.
But it said a unanimous consent motion was not the appropriate vehicle for a major foreign policy matter.
'As it relates to unanimous consent motions in general, we do not believe that serious and substantive foreign policy issues should be decided without any debate. A unanimous consent motion does not allow for any debate before a decision is taken,' the statement said.
'There are other tools that MPs can use, such as Private Members' Motions and committee studies to raise issues of importance, and this will ensure that MPs get a chance to participate in a debate before making a decision.'
Brandon Silver, director of policy and programs at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, said in a statement that 'procedural delays should not slow down a life-saving effort to demonstrate Parliament's support for Mr. Lai, a 77 year old diabetic being held in torturous conditions.'
'His life is on the line and time is of the essence,' he added.
NDP MP Jenny Kwan, who was born in Hong Kong, said the immigration minister Lena Diab has the power to grant Mr. Lai honorary citizenship and should do so before the G7 summit, when world leaders are gathering.
