Senator Tables Bill with Former UN Envoy to Spend Seized Assets of Dictators
OTTAWA — An independent Canadian senator has proposed a bill that would allow the government to take the frozen assets of dictators and their cronies to help refugees forced to flee their tyranny.
Sen. Ratna Omidvar tabled the Frozen Assets Repurposing Act on Thursday with the support of Allan Rock, the former Liberal attorney general and justice minister who also served as a United Nations ambassador.
The bill builds on the recommendation and research of the World Refugee Council, an initiative of the Ontario-based Centre for International Governance Innovation, to put to constructive use the estimated $20 billion to $40 billion seized annually from corrupt officials around the world.
The council, formed in May 2017, is chaired by former Canadian foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy, and its two dozen members include former world leaders, ministers, peace activists, as well as leading business, civil society and human-rights figures.
The new bill would build on Canada’s current Magnitsky Act sanctions that target human-rights abusers, and it comes just after Canadian sanctions against politicians and business people in Russia and Venezuela.
Omidvar said her bill goes one step further than the act because it calls for the confiscation of seized assets so they can be used to help victims of rights abuses, including those forced to flee their homes.
Read the full article on the National Post’s website.
Click here to read about repurposing frozen assets in the World Refugee Council’s final report.