MPs Reiterate Commitment to Vote in Favour of Senate Bill to Combat Forced Organ Harvesting and Trafficking

Two doctors perform surgery in Chongqing, China, on Aug. 9, 2013. Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images

MPs of all political stripes reiterated their stance to vote in favour of a Senate bill that would create new offences in relation to forced organ harvesting, as their second debate on the bill’s third reading concluded in the House of Commons on Dec. 7.

Should it pass Parliament on Dec. 14 and receive royal assent, Bill S-223, introduced by Sen. Salma Ataullahjan, would make it a criminal offence for an individual to go abroad to receive an organ from someone who did not give informed consent to the removal of the organ.

It would also amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to render a permanent resident or foreign national inadmissible to Canada if they engaged in activities relating to trafficking in human organs.

Conservative MP James Bezan, who serves as his party’s shadow minister for national defence, said illegal transplants are “predominantly coming from mainland China.”

“We know that there has been a systematic organ harvesting program going on in China, led by the communist regime in Beijing,” he said.

“They have used it on political dissidents and ethnic and religious minorities, like the Falun Gong practitioners, like the Uyghurs, like Christians, and others. They have gone out after them, arrested them, and then forcibly removed their organs to profit from them.”

Chief Source of Donors

In July 1999, under the rule of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Jiang Zemin, the CCP launched a far-reaching campaign of persecution against adherents of Falun Gong, which continues to this day.

After The Epoch Times broke the news in 2006 that the CCP was involved in forced organ harvesting for profit from adherents of Falun Gong, human rights activists approached the late David Kilgour, a former MP and cabinet minister, and asked him to investigate the alleged crime.

Former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific David Kilgour presents a revised report about the continued murder of Falun Gong practitioners in China for their organs, as report co-author lawyer David Matas listens in the background, in Ottawa on Jan. 31, 2007. The Epoch Times

Kilgour joined forces with David Matas, a Winnipeg-based international human rights lawyer, and their investigation culminated in a report, later followed by a book titled “Bloody Harvest” in 2009, concluding that the allegations were true.

In 2016, Kilgour, Matas, and investigative journalist Ethan Gutmann jointly published a 680-page report on forced organ harvesting in China. They estimated that Chinese hospitals performed 60,000 to 100,000 transplant surgeries on a yearly basis, and that the chief source of the organs was Falun Gong practitioners.

Sanctions

In July 2020, the Falun Dafa Association of Canada (FDAC) submitted a list of 14 Chinese officials to former Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne to be sanctioned under the Magnitsky Act, along with nearly 300 pages of supporting documents.

“There were 14 names to sanction under the Justice for Victims of Corrupt Foreign Officials Act, the Sergei Magnitsky Law, and the government responded but never sanctioned any of the individuals named,” said Bezan, who worked alongside FDAC at the time, including sending a supporting letter to the minister.

In 2021, FDAC submitted another list of 150 individuals who were actively involved in the persecution of Falun Gong—including those who profited from the sale of illegally obtained organs from the adherents—to Champagne.

Falun Gong practitioners take part in a parade to raise awareness about the Chinese regime's brutal persecution of the spiritual practice, including forced organ harvesting, in New York on May 13, 2022. Larry Dye/The Epoch Times

Bezan said the names were later sent to Mélanie Joly after she became Foreign Affairs minister last October. “I first sent the 150 names to her predecessor at the time and then to her. Again, we got a response but no action was taken,” he said.

The Tory MP said he also presented a petition last spring, calling on the government to address the issue.

“It said that in the last 21 years, Communist Party officials had orchestrated the torture and killing of a large number of people who practised Falun Gong and that it was being done on a mass scale so their vital organs could fuel the communist regime’s organ transplant trade.”

‘Bringing Them Into Force’

Bezan noted that though Bill S-223 is receiving support from all parties, parliamentarians need to ensure “we can step up” to sanction those involved in the illicit organ trade from entering Canada, and to sanction them using the Magnitsky Law.

“They are hiding their wealth, taking advantage of our strong banking system, taking advantage of our fairly robust real estate market, and capitalizing on the illicit gains they have been able to achieve because of this illegal trade in organs,” he said.

“We also need to make sure that those who know they are purchasing organs through this gross human rights violation of illegal organ harvesting face the full cost and full force of law here in Canada.”

Liberal MP Darren Fisher said Bill S-223 proposes the reforms needed to amend the Criminal Code to stop illegal organ trafficking. Prior to the bill’s current form, there were 15 years of legislative efforts through many similar bills, but they all died when Parliament was dissolved at each respective period.

“While many like-minded countries regulate the transplantation of human organs and prohibit organ trafficking in the same way Canada currently does, such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia, few countries have criminalized purchasing organs, including transplant tourism,” Fisher said.

“The government supports the Criminal Code reforms proposed by this bill, and we'll continue to work towards bringing them into force.”

“We are committed to ensuring the bill’s reforms support their objective of ending organ trafficking in all its forms, including the commercialization of human body parts, and the harm it causes to those impacted and to all of society,” the MP added.

‘Let Us Be Neither Ignorant Nor Blind’

Bloc Québécois MP Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe said China is the only country where organ trafficking is organized on an industrial scale by harvesting organs from prisoners of conscience.

“Nearly 2 million Uyghur and Turkic Muslims are in concentration camps, where many acts of torture are committed. Human beings are killed in cold blood and their organs are sold on the red market,” he said, calling it “the crime of genocide.”

Brunelle-Duceppe added that though he doesn’t know what will happen with Bill S-223, at least “no one can plead ignorance.”

“Ignorance … is the greatest ally of totalitarian regimes after blindness. Let us be neither ignorant nor blind,” he said.

He said he knows there is “a political price” to pay for standing up to the CCP given the economic ties with China, and he is willing to take that risk.

“There can be economic repercussions. Every single one of our ridings has economic interests in China. That is to be expected because China is an economic giant,” he said.

“[But] we have to stand up to [the Chinese regime] no matter the political cost. I am ready to put my seat on the line by standing up to China.”

‘A Strong Message’

NDP MP Lori Idlout said the passing of Bill S-223 into law would send a “strong message” to countries “who have corrupt agents to people in developed countries, including Canada.”

She noted the chronic shortage of most organs needed for transplant in Canada.

“I am pleased to see that this Parliament has tried to address that by making it easier for people to sign up and become an organ donor,” she said.

“However, the illegal organ trade continues to grow and people continue to be exploited. The demand for organs is high and as our population ages, we certainly need to have smart and effective policy to address this issue. It is important that education on organ donation be made more accessible to Canadians.”

Andrew Chen, Frank Fang, and Omid Ghoreishi contributed to this report.