Canada has been using the Magnitsky Act, which has rarely been activated since 2018, to impose sanctions on “corrupt foreign leaders.” Ottawa thus joins its allies in the war against Russian, Iranian and Burmese officials.
The sanctions target officials accused by Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom of playing a role in long-standing human rights violations.
Among those targeted by these new sanctions are two Iranian officials involved in the torture and murder of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi. The adopted Montrealer died in an Iranian prison in 2003.
Canada also joined its allies in imposing sanctions on four Russians accused of contributing to a violent crackdown on homosexuals in Chechnya, for example by supervising the kidnapping and torture of members of local communities. LGBTQ+.
Ottawa has finally imposed sanctions on Myanmar’s commander-in-chief, who oversaw a coup against a democratically elected government in 2021.
These new sanctions fall under the Sergei Magnitsky Act, which aims to punish corrupt foreign leaders. This law has only been used twice since its adoption in the Canadian Parliament in 2018.
Senators had previously argued that Ottawa should use the law more because it focuses on human rights and corruption rather than relying on broader sanctions laws to target people who help hostile regimes.
