Putting an end to impunity

After months of internal fighting, the Trudeau government has finally done the right thing and joined a growing global movement to support so-called Magnitsky sanctions against gross humanrights violators in Russia and around the world.

The move brings Canada in line with a number of our allies that have already chosen to impose sanctions on individual rights violators, rather than just countries. The United States, Britain and Estonia have adopted similar legislation and Lithuania is currently considering a draft Magnitsky Act.

The sanctions are named after Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who blew the whistle on a major oligarch-perpetrated tax fraud in his country and was imprisoned and beaten to death in 2009 after he refused to recant.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland’s support for a Senate bill enacting the sanctions comes on the heels of a Commons foreign affairs committee recommendation that Canada punish human rights violators by freezing their assets and denying them visas.

It’s a step supported by both opposition parties. As Conservative foreign affairs critic Peter Kent put it: “These (sanctions) are for the jailers, those who take directions from superiors to brutalize, to kill, to intimidate and to move ill-gotten gains around the world.”

But despite the apparent consensus, the road to this point has been difficult. The Trudeau Liberals promised on the campaign trail to create a Magnitsky Act, but backed off once in office because former foreign affairs minister Stéphane Dion opposed it.

After a decade of the Harper government’s moral posturing on foreign policy, Dion vowed to take a more pragmatic approach. He argued that the legislation would alienate President Vladimir Putin just as Canada was undertaking efforts to reopen a dialogue with Russia. (Relations have been strained between the two countries since Putin annexed Crimea in 2014.) And Dion was also concerned that adopting the sanctions might hurt Canadian companies wanting to do business in Russia.

That may well be. The Russian embassy in Ottawa issued a statement last week denouncing the Canadian government for supporting the bill. “If the Canadian Parliament approves this sanctions legislation, the relations between our countries, which are already experiencing difficult times, will suffer significant damage,” it warned.

Whether that’s true, or just a bully’s threat, Canada cannot afford to sacrifice its leadership on human rights issues to appease a country that is using its power to expand its boundaries and stifle free speech and democracy, not only in Russia but around the world.

Dion was right that Harper’s simplistic moralizing often undermined our diplomatic objectives, but in his own approach he too often erred in the other direction, creating the appearance of a moral vacuum.

In any case, Dion’s efforts appeared to do little to endear Russia to us. Putin continues to refuse to lift a travel ban it imposed on Freeland in 2014, despite her being named to cabinet in 2015. Nor has he stopped pro-Moscow websites from launching a smear campaign against the foreign minister earlier this year focusing attention on the fact her maternal Ukrainian grandfather was a Nazi collaborator.

As human rights activists vehemently argue, Canada can hardly stand back and do nothing as the list of Putin’s murdered foes grows.

In addition to Magnitsky, the victims include opposition leader and human rights champion Boris Nemtsov, journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya, liberal politician Sergei Yushenkov, former secret service officer Alexander Litvinenko, lawyer Stanislav Markelov, journalist Anastasia Baburova, and human rights activist Natalia Estemirova.

The government is right finally to move ahead with these sanctions. If the global movement to adopt Magnitsky acts spreads, abusers around the world will find it increasingly difficult to commit their crimes with impunity. If there are practical costs to this, so be it. At some point moral values must trump pragmatic concerns.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland announced Canada would join a group of countries fighting human rights abuses by adopting a Senate bill to impose sanctions against abusers