Ahead of Canadian Elections Next Monday, All Major Canadian Political Parties Commit to Implement Magnitsky Sanctions Legislation if Elected

October 13, 2015

13 Octo­ber 2015 – All of Canada’s major polit­i­cal par­ties have pub­licly pledged to imple­ment Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions leg­is­la­tion if elect­ed ahead of the fed­er­al elec­tion set for next Mon­day, 19 Octo­ber 2015. 

Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions leg­is­la­tion will cre­ate con­se­quences for gross human rights vio­la­tions. Such leg­is­la­tion is already in place in the Unit­ed States.
Last spring Lib­er­al Cana­di­an MP Irwin Cotler’s motion call­ing for a Mag­nit­sky law won unan­i­mous sup­port in the Canada’s House of Commons.

Canada’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Affairs and mem­ber of the Con­ser­v­a­tive par­ty Rob Nichol­son gave a pledge to amend Canada’s exist­ing sanc­tions regime to include Mag­nit­sky sanc­tions — the abil­i­ty to tar­get human rights abusers through­out the world with visa bans and asset freezes (http://upnorth.eu/canadian-ministers-pledge-to-adopt-global-magnitsky-nemtsov-legislation-and-create-digital-freedom-fund/)

NDP and Green Par­ty of Cana­da stat­ed that they will intro­duce Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion involv­ing sanc­tions against Russ­ian offi­cials respon­si­ble for the ille­gal impris­on­ment in Rus­sia of Ukrain­ian cit­i­zens (NDP: http://www.ucc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/1‑NDP-Response-Ukrainian-Canadian-Congress-Questionnaire.pdf; Greens: http://www.ucc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/1‑Green-Party-Leader-UCCResponseFinal.pdf)

The Lib­er­al Par­ty of Cana­da said that a Lib­er­al Gov­ern­ment will intro­duce leg­is­la­tion, mod­elled on the US Mag­nit­sky leg­is­la­tion, because of the belief that, “by impos­ing sanc­tions, we can impose mean­ing­ful penal­ties on human rights vio­la­tors and deter future vio­la­tions,” and that it “will imme­di­ate­ly expand the list of sanc­tioned Rus­sians to include influ­en­tial busi­ness­men, and close Putin sup­port­ers, Igor Sechin and Vladimir Yakunin.” (http://www.ucc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/1‑LPC-Response-Election-2015.pdf)

The state­ments from the polit­i­cal par­ties came in response to ques­tions raised by the Ukrain­ian Cana­di­an Con­gress (UCC) chal­leng­ing all Cana­di­an polit­i­cal par­ties on issues of impor­tance to the Ukrain­ian Cana­di­an com­mu­ni­ty in advance of the election. 

The 2015 Cana­di­an elec­tion will be held on Octo­ber 19, 2015 and will elect mem­bers to the House of Com­mons of the 42^nd Par­lia­ment of Canada.

For more infor­ma­tion please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky
+44 207 440 1777
e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org
web­site: www.lawandorderinrussia.org
Face­book: http://on.fb.me/hvIuVI
Twit­ter: @KatieFisher__

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