Hon. Pierre J. Dalphond: Colleagues, on February 16, the death of Russian lawyer and political activist Alexei Navalny at the age of 47 in a penal colony in the Russian Arctic sent shockwaves around the world.

After the very public assassinations of journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya in the elevator of her building in the heart of Moscow, and former deputy prime minister of Russia Boris Nemstov in the middle of the street near the Red Square, President Putin’s dictatorial regime has now chosen to eliminate an adversary who became too famous in the secrecy of a prison far from Moscow.

Whatever the means chosen — assassination, unfortunate fall from the top of a building, plan crash, poisoning or death in prison — the Putin regime’s message is always the same to those who would challenge it: “Play ball or die.”

A quote attributed to Stalin seems increasingly well suited to President Putin: “Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.”

Navalny’s fight for democracy began with protests in the winter of 2011-12, when he set up the Anti-Corruption Foundation, which earned him his first prison sentences.

In July 2013, the Russian justice system sentenced him to five years in a camp for allegedly embezzling funds. He was granted a reprieve on appeal despite the judges’ inclination to do what the regime demanded.

In 2018, when he tried to run as a candidate in the presidential election, the electoral commission declared him ineligible based on his prior criminal convictions. As far as the Russian system was concerned, he was a tried and convicted criminal.

In 2020, he became a victim of poisoning and fell into a coma that required months of treatment and rehabilitation in Germany.

He knew, when he returned to Russia on January 17, 2021, after a long convalescence, that he risked prison once again, and that’s what happened. He was arrested as soon as he stepped off the plane. On February 2, 2021, the Russian judicial system converted his suspended sentence to hard time in prison. Then he was sent to a penal colony for two and a half years. His foundation was shut down for extremism, and the regime put Navalny’s name on its list of terrorists and extremists. The system has no mercy for dissidents.

In March 2022, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for fraud and contempt of court.

Finally, in August 2023, he was found guilty of extremism again, and this time he was sentenced to 19 years in prison. He was then transferred from his prison in east Moscow to a penal colony in Siberia. In other words, he was consigned to oblivion. Nevertheless, in Russia and around the world, he was seen as a crusader for democracy who was still standing up to President Putin.

On February 16, 2024, just a few weeks before the Russian presidential election, prison authorities announced that he was dead. Although two months have passed since he died, the circumstances surrounding his death remain unclear. His widow, Yulia Navalnaya, believes that it was an assassination ordered by Putin to eliminate his greatest opponent and critic. On February 28, she told the European Parliament, and I quote:

Putin killed my husband. On his orders, Alexei was tortured for three years. He was starved in a tiny stone cell, cut off from the outside world . . .

She continued, saying, “And then they killed him. Even after that, they abused his body and abused his mother.”

His wife, who is now a widow, was threatened through Russian official media with imprisonment upon arrival.

Navalny’s funeral had to be organized by his mother, Lyudmila Navalnaya. Russian officials attempted to coerce her into having a private, secret funeral, even threatening to allow Navalny’s body to decay if she refused. His body was finally returned to his mother on February 24, eight days after his death. For his mother and others assisting her, it was hard to find a location for the funeral; due to fear of reprisals from the authorities, there were no funeral homes or churches available, not even for a private funeral.

On February 27, Vasily Dubkov, a lawyer for Navalny, was briefly detained in Moscow for “violating public order,” as part of the ongoing crackdowns on Navalny’s legal team and the Anti-Corruption Foundation by the Russian authorities.

Finally, Navalny’s farewell ceremony was held in his home district of Maryino, a suburb of Moscow, on March 1.

Thousands attended despite heavy police presence and fears of the reprisal that many are likely to be exposed to now.

As we all know, the latest presidential elections were held in Russia from March 15 to 17. It is important to note that voting is compulsory and largely done by electronic ballot. Commenting on the Russian election, our own Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, said:

The presidential election in Russia was a non-democratic process that does not conform to international standards. Flaws include a biased and exclusionary nomination procedure, abuse of public resources in favour of Vladimir Putin’s candidacy, extremely unbalanced media coverage, lack of public discussion of policy issues, and lack of guarantees of secrecy in electronic voting. The system was stacked to benefit the favoured candidate and deny voters a meaningful choice long before balloting began.

United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken said:

Russia’s recent presidential election occurred in an environment of intense repression of independent voices and the imprisonment, death, or exile of virtually all genuine political opposition. The Kremlin has systematically marginalized groups advocating for democratic processes and rule of law, including election monitors. Russian authorities also denied anti-war candidates’ registration for the presidential election on spurious technical pretenses and did not invite the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, or any credible international organizations, to observe polling. These steps illustrate the extent to which the Kremlin has denied its citizens a transparent, meaningful democratic process. Against this backdrop, this election can only be described as undemocratic.

Despite all of that, Vladimir Putin officially won only 88% of the vote. In other words, despite the fear that the regime has put in place over the years, the lack of real opponents to run and the electronic voting — which cannot be trusted — at least 12% of Russians dared to vote against him.

What should we do here in Canada?

Let me again quote Navalny’s widow. In a speech before the European Parliament, she said:

You cannot hurt Putin with another resolution or another set of sanctions that is no different from the previous ones. You cannot defeat him by thinking he’s a man of principle who has morals and rules. He’s not like that, and Alexei realized that a long time ago. You are not dealing with a politician but with a bloody mobster. . . .

She continued, saying:

You, and all of us, must fight this criminal gang. And the political innovation here is to apply the methods of fighting organised crime, not political competition. Not diplomatic notes, but investigations into the financial machinations. Not statements of concern, but a search for mafia associates in your countries, for the discreet lawyers and financiers who are helping Putin and his friends to hide money.

This is a message similar to that of our colleague Senator Omidvar, who has advocated for strengthening the Magnitsky Act to authorize the confiscation of seized assets of Putin and his allies in Canada. We should act on this.

The Honourable Irwin Cotler; Bill Browder, the man behind Magnitsky-type acts around the world; and their colleague Brandon Silver, who is working with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights in Montreal, said this in a piece jointly published on March 13:

Canada should encourage allies to confiscate Russia’s frozen central bank reserves, and implement sanctions against the architects of Putin’s political imprisonments. Proceeds of such sanctions should be disbursed to organizations supporting dissidents and their families, like Kara-Murza’s 30 October Foundation as well as victims of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine.

In closing, I would like to pay tribute to Navalny, as well as to all the other opponents, whether they are well known or anonymous, who continue to resist tyranny in Russia.

I am of course thinking of Vladimir Kara-Murza, who, as Senator Omidvar also mentioned, has been granted honorary Canadian citizenship by our Parliament and who is serving a 25-year prison sentence. I’m also thinking of the other political prisoners, who number around a thousand, according to the NGO OVD-Info, a Russian human rights monitoring organization. To all those who are defying the Putin regime and risking death and detention, I say this: We will be watching closely. We’re here. We see what you’re doing. Don’t give up. We won’t forget you. You are not forgotten. You are fighting for democracy.

Colleagues, thank you for your attention.