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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/12/22 12:54:07 p.m.
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We will have to leave the rest for questions and comments. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Drummond.

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May/12/22 12:54:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, all of this has me wondering. I sometimes understand the political game of Liberals systematically opposing motions that come from the Conservatives and vice versa, on the principle that nothing good ever comes from the other team. However, I think it is a fairly old-fashioned idea that really should be reconsidered. Many of the indicators and facts here have already been proven. There is plenty of material to pore over, particularly in the case of Canada-China relations. Chinese Canadians are justifiably concerned about being harassed by the the Chinese communist regime. I do not understand why the Liberal Party stubbornly refuses to support such a sensible motion. As one of my colleagues suggested earlier, perhaps we could consider limiting the duration of this committee's mandate so that it is accountable to the House of Commons for a specific period of time. I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that. Given the current context, does he not think there are enough concerns to warrant a specific committee to address the issue of Canada-China relations?

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Mr. Kody Blois

May/12/22 12:55:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question. First, I think that I am an MP who generally recognizes that there are a lot of good ideas coming from everywhere in the House, including the opposition in some cases. I absolutely feel that the issues affecting Canada-China relations are important, but there are other important issues too, including Canada's relations with other countries and other regions. Perhaps it is important to raise this issue in the House, but my concern is the burden that this would place on the House's available resources. There is also the fact that this committee would focus exclusively on China without regard for the global context.

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Mr. Eric Melillo (Kenora, CPC)

May/12/22 12:56:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, given the member's comments and what we have been hearing from the government side so far, they certainly seem to have some reservations with this motion. I note that in the last Parliament, if my memory serves me correctly, the Liberals voted against the creation of this committee. Having seen the committee in action, and seeing the very important work and information that has come from it, does the member not see the value of this committee? Would he perhaps consider voting for it this time around?

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Mr. Kody Blois

May/12/22 12:57:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this question gives me the opportunity to thank my hon. colleague, the former member of Parliament for Halifax West, Geoff Regan, who was the chair of that committee. I had the opportunity to speak with him a number of times. My issue does not lie in the importance of the relationship between Canada and China. It is that we are going at this too narrowly. Now, indeed, if the House votes for the motion today with a majority and we move forward, of course the government will oblige and this committee will move forward. However, my issue is that there are a number of relationships that Canada has in the world right now that we could be studying, and there is already a place on a permanent committee, such as foreign affairs, where these types of studies could be done quite exhaustively. This is creating an additional committee, and where do we stop? That is my question in return.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

May/12/22 12:58:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if there was a new committee created under the government, it should be looking at the toxic drug supply crisis in this country. About 27,000 people have died, and the government has not put forward one single piece of legislation to address it. The Conservatives have also not brought forward a single response to that crisis. As to the motion, we know that indigenous people have been impacted deeply by trade agreements like the FIPA, which overrides indigenous rights. The Hupacasath First Nation, in my riding, and Brenda Sayers went to court against the Harper government to fight the FIPA, because with its provisions, companies can get redress should laws be put in place to protect land and water. Does my colleague agree that the impact on indigenous peoples of all trade agreements needs to be examined?

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Mr. Kody Blois

May/12/22 12:58:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me first address the member's opening comment on the opioid piece. Our Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, our government and our Minister of Health are working directly with the province the member resides in, British Columbia, to find ways to address the opioid crisis. We know that this is important. I know that there is—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/12/22 12:59:19 p.m.
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Unfortunately, we do not have time for more. The hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles.

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Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, CPC)

May/12/22 12:59:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes. When I was asked if I wanted to speak to our motion, I jumped at the opportunity, of course. Since the beginning of the debate this morning, I have been hearing my Liberal colleagues making assumptions about the way we see Chinese people. I would therefore like to read the first four paragraphs of our motion, which I think are very important, because in them we recognize the following: (i) that Canadians of Chinese descent have made immeasurable contributions to Canada, (ii) that the people of China are part of an ancient civilization that has contributed much to humanity, (iii) the distinction between the people of China and the Chinese state, as embodied by the Communist Party of China and the government of the People's Republic of China, (iv) that authoritarian states, including the People's Republic of China, increasingly pose a threat to the rules-based international order, It is very important to make this clear right away: The members of the Conservative Party recognize that there is a fundamental difference between the people of China and the Chinese communist regime. We feel it is very important to reconstitute the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, and that is what our motion would do. This motion is not designed to have the committee study the people, but rather the regime and what it is doing against its people and against states like Canada. We would ask the committee to conduct hearings on all aspects of the Canada-China relationship, including diplomatic, consular, legal, economic and security relations. I want members to understand why the Conservative Party wants this committee to resume its very important work. As I said, the Chinese people have a rich, ancient culture and plenty of goodwill. The problem is the communist regime, and we must remain vigilant and ensure that Canada is not oblivious to the actions of this regime. I will give an example. A young man of Chinese descent came to work as an intern in my office here, on the Hill, when I was a member of the former Special Committee on Canada-China Relations. He was very enthusiastic and helped me read some texts in Mandarin. We came up with discussion topics together and he told me about the government in his country of origin. He was very angry about how the Chinese communist regime attacks its own people. Take, for example, the political crisis in Hong Kong or China's view of Taiwan. These are all very important issues, and that is why this committee is so important, so that we can understand what is going on and study Canada's relations with China. When I was a member of the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, many experts came to testify and brought up some issues that most people are unaware of. Parliamentarians from all parties were able to learn more about those issues. I moved a motion that enabled us to spend a few months studying the implications of China's national security vis-à-vis Canada's. Again, several witnesses came to testify. We had one particularly important witness, Philippe Dufresne, law clerk and parliamentary counsel at the House of Commons, who explained what happened with the Public Health Agency of Canada documents about the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg. We learned how that worked. The committee also had an opportunity to hear from experts from the Pentagon, who shared information about China's Arctic ambitions. They explained that, in 2015, the Chinese government designated the polar region, the deep seabed and outer space as China's new strategic frontiers, having evidently recognized that these regions were rich in natural resources. The Pentagon also published a report in which it warned that the Chinese government is mapping the Arctic seabed. That is another reason for the Government of Canada to hurry up and build a polar icebreaker. We need to be present and start monitoring the borders in that highly strategic region. Huawei is another file we heard a lot about. We on this side of the House do not understand why the current government has not shared its decision on whether Huawei will be banned from Canada's 5G network, when the four other member countries of the Five Eyes have confirmed that there are obvious national security concerns with Huawei's 5G technology. Christopher Parsons, from the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, came to talk to us in committee. He said: A rising concern is the extent to which Canadian companies, such as our telecoms, might become dependent on products made by Chinese companies, inclusive of Huawei. Dependency runs the risk of generating monocultures or cases in which a single company dominates a Canadian organization's infrastructure. In such cases, up to three risks can arise. First, monocultures can enable foreign governments to leverage dependencies on a vendor to apply pressure in diplomatic, trade or defence negotiations. Second, monocultures can create a path dependency, especially in 5G telecommunications environments, where there's often a degree of vendor lock-in into vendors' telecom equipment. Third, monocultures risk hindering competition among telecommunications vendors, to the effect of increasing capital costs to Canadian telecommunications providers. One of the benefits of having this committee on Canada-China relations was receiving this type of expert who could explain to us the risks of having business relationships with a company like Huawei. Some will say that it is an independent company. However, the way things work in China, the Chinese communist regime can decide to take control and require Chinese businesses to meet its demands. Even though the company claims to be independent, the regime has full control over all businesses, subject to its whims. The Liberal government said that it was not worried, that there was no danger, that the communists were not dangerous. I find it really strange that the government would deny being concerned about a regime like the Chinese Communist regime. Another witness, David Vigneault, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, also appeared before the committee. He said, and I quote: I will tell you that the Chinese government is indeed engaged in all those activities.... With respect to interference, as I have said publicly, Chinese government entities are interfering with Canadian democratic life. They are interfering with people in Canada using people from China, cyber threats and also people here in Canada, who are co-opted to work with the Chinese government. It's something we are looking into. With China, but also with other countries, we must absolutely keep our guard up, take very concrete steps to protect Canadians and do it in a coordinated way with our allies. It's the only way I believe we can protect Canadians. It was not me, the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles who said that. It was David Vigneault, the head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, who said that in his testimony. All of this was included in the first version of the committee on Canada-China Relations, whose meetings and studies were unfortunately terminated when the session ended with the 2021 election. We were not even able to write a final report. Our work came to a halt and was never restarted. However, there is still too much information missing that is critical and vital to national security and to economic and diplomatic relations between the two countries. That is why I believe that it is important to resume the work of the committee on Canada-China Relations. As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, the target is the Chinese communist political regime. It is certainly not the people, who are too often the victims of this regime.

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Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

May/12/22 1:09:12 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am a bit concerned about the appropriateness or relevance of taking a full opposition day to talk about our relationship with another country. Foreign policy is very important, but right now in Canada, there are a bunch of major crises that we could have debated all day. For example, there is the housing crisis, which I think is quite important. There is also the climate crisis, and we could have spent all day trying to come up with solutions to that. There is the health crisis that we are just now emerging from. The Bloc Québécois has proposed holding a health summit. Health transfers are extremely important. There is also the language crisis in Quebec. We could have spent a day on that to find real solutions, not the solution that the government has come up with, the modernization of the Official Languages Act, which will not solve the problem of French in Quebec. The Conservatives could even have spent the day on inflation. They never stop talking about that. We could have spent a day discussing inflation. In my opinion, that would have been much more worthwhile. Why did they choose this topic?

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Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus

May/12/22 1:10:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what planet is my colleague from? China is one of the biggest economies in the world, and that has a direct impact on Canada's economy. Let us not forget what happened when China blocked canola imports with billions of dollars at stake. How about hospitals and health care? Chinese nationals worked against Canada and Quebec to steal intellectual property and research. There are plenty of ways in which China has acted aggressively toward Canada, and we have to talk about them. Let us not forget the environment either. Canada emits less than one-tenth of 1% of global pollution, whereas the Chinese are major polluters. Why would the Bloc want to hush that up and not talk about it? That makes no sense.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

May/12/22 1:11:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Longueuil—Saint-Hubert talked about the important issues. I talked earlier about the 27,000 Canadians who have died from a toxic overdose and the Conservatives want to ignore the expert task force on substance use and its recommendations, which are science-based and evidence-based, because they do not believe in experts. They do not believe in science. To the motion, it is as though the Conservatives have a new-found concern about human rights because, back in 2014 when they signed FIPA, there were human rights violations against the Uighurs and the Tibetans, yet they chose to ignore them. In fact, they signed an agreement with China and overwrote indigenous rights here in Canada. Maybe my colleague can speak to that, or does he think we all have amnesia? I know the Conservatives want us to forget about it and say it is from the past, but it is a 31-year agreement. That agreement is going to lock in my kids and my grandkids.

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Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus

May/12/22 1:12:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, at the beginning of his question, my colleague spoke about drugs. Do members know that fentanyl comes from China and that this opioid comes into our country through Vancouver, British Columbia, my colleague's region? We need to mobilize a lot more resources to control that fentanyl, which is another public health and safety issue we need to talk about. My colleague mentioned an agreement that dates back before 2015. It is important to remember that the Chinese Communist regime really changed starting in 2015, when its new president took office. Canada's former foreign affairs minister, now the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, told the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations that today's China is not the same as yesterday's China. When we say “yesterday”, we are talking about just a few years. Since the new president took power, the Chinese Communist regime has undergone drastic changes, and the situation is now completely different. That is why we need to keep our eyes wide open.

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Ms. Michelle Ferreri (Peterborough—Kawartha, CPC)

May/12/22 1:13:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what I heard in the member's speech was that we have to be prepared. That is the key when we look at protecting our democracy and when we want to help people, other nations and, in this particular case, the people of China. How important is this committee to being prepared? What we have always seen from the government on the other side is a lack of preparedness, a lack of a plan, a lack of knowing what to do. How important is this committee for being prepared?

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Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus

May/12/22 1:14:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, knowledge is the best resource to have. We need to understand the Chinese Communist regime and its approach to the economy and national security. With that information, we can make the right decisions for Canada.

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Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)

May/12/22 1:14:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise to speak to the opposition day motion that we have before the House with respect to reinstating a committee to look at our country's relationship with China. I would be remiss not to first mention, during Asian Heritage Month, the more than six million people of Asian heritage who live in Canada and who have enriched our country with their unique cultures, languages and traditions. Asian Canadians have made countless contributions to Canada in medicine, music, literature and business, and I could go on. Asian Canadians have blessed Canada and added to the incredible richness of our diverse and wonderful country. I hope they have already been mentioned today, but if not I will mention some noteworthy Asian Canadians and their contributions to our country, such as Douglas Jung, the first Chinese Canadian MP; another proud Asian Canadian, Bev Oda, the first Japanese Canadian MP; and a friend of mine, Nelly Shin, the first Korean Canadian MP. All of them have one terrific thing in common: They are all Conservatives. There is an interesting nexus, when I talk about the contribution of these folks. While we talk about the need for this committee, I will say that Ms. Shin, a former hon. member of this place, and several colleagues and candidates were targeted in the most recent election by agents of the Chinese Communist Party. They were subjected to an organized campaign of disinformation and misinformation, perpetrated on Canadian soil and online platforms in an attempt to destabilize the community, and in particular to punish some Asian Canadians, such as Ms. Shin and Mr. Kenny Chiu, for having the courage to speak out against the communist regime in China. Not only does the CCP target MPs of all parties; it also targets students and new Canadians with threats, harassment and intimidation. This is one of the reasons why this committee is so important. This committee did a great job in the last Parliament of looking at all aspects of the relationship between Canada and China. I would note one of the reasons why this committee's creation has not been pressed to this point is because of the limited lack of resources that we have in the House of Commons and the emerging opportunity that comes with the programmed wind-up of the special committee on Canada and Afghanistan. In the context of the resources that we have, it would be good to engage the House resources and members of the House on this committee. I have heard in the debate today, which I have been listening to, thoughtful comments from all sides of the House. Does the committee undermine the work of other standing committees, such as the foreign affairs committee? I would have to say no, because those committees are seized with other important issues and their agendas are full through June, when they are busy getting reports prepared, but also through the fall. This issue of Canada's relationship with China, and with the government of China, is a big one. It is incredibly important. I want to talk about a couple of reasons it is so important. I would be remiss not to mention the contrast between Canada and countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. The contrast is this: Those four countries have all identified a national security risk from Huawei, a company that is effectively controlled by the Communist Party of China, and has banned it from their 5G networks. Those four countries have a particular relevance to Canada, because they are our partners. They are our allies in the Five Eyes partnership. The focus of that partnership is national security and the sharing of information. We have a consensus forming with four of the five, but the government has not taken action with respect to that. Based on the evidence that we have seen out of those other countries and what we have heard in this country, even at the special committee on Canada-China relations in its previous iteration, which is that we need to ban Huawei from our 5G network, it speaks to the larger issue of Canada's relationship with China. We have heard comments and questions from other members about previous engagement with China under previous governments. We have heard testimony at committee that the reality, the global picture and the actors within the CCP are very different today than they were even a few years ago. If decisions were taken in previous years that some members in this place feel should be re-examined, as I have just outlined with respect to a decision on Huawei, this is all the more reason why members in this place should see this motion passed. Speaking of the issue of information technology, the involvement in our ever-evolving and growing digital world by companies with an interest controlled out of Communist China, I would hearken people back to a time when, in Ottawa, we had a very proud IT sector and a globally recognized company that was on the cutting edge of IT. It was a huge employer: Nortel Networks. Nortel Networks, we know, fell victim to infiltration and theft of intellectual property by agents of the Government of China. It had devastating effects on IP in Canada, devastating effects on employment and, frankly, devastating effects on that sector in this country. I also should note that the House has recognized, and that the world is waking up to, a reality that I do not think we have talked about before. It speaks to the need to further magnify the role that China is taking, and what business we want to do with that country. It is the ongoing genocide perpetrated by the Communist government in China against the Uighurs and Turkic Muslims. We cannot turn a blind eye to that. This should colour much of our relationship and potential future dealings with China. We know that with the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, China has signalled a very close relationship with Russia, and a comprehensive strategic partnership. Mr. Putin described it as “a relationship that probably cannot be compared with anything else in the world”. That should send chills up and down the spines of people around the world, and certainly of all members of this place. I have to mention that we saw, in the last Parliament, the effects of having state agents operating in this country: Foreign agents were operating in this country. We saw that with the Winnipeg labs. State actors from China were being expelled from this country. We saw much drama in this place. Precedents were set. Actions were taken that had not been taken in 100 years. We were looking for truth and transparency for Canadians. There is more work to be done, and I think it is so important when we live more in this global society, that we have our eyes wide open about who our partners are, who are friends are, who our allies are, where there are risks and where there are threats. We can do that while being respectful of the important contributions of Asian Canadians and Chinese Canadians, and of Chinese people who want to come to Canada, live here and contribute to our wonderful country. However, we cannot be strong on the world stage without first knowing the fullness of our relationship with the CCP here at home, and that is why the Canada-China committee must be reconvened.

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Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)

May/12/22 1:24:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to ask my hon. colleague this, because I sat at the ethics committee with him last year. There has been a very well-funded revisionist campaign by supporters of the WE group to try to rewrite the history of what actually happened at the parliamentary committee that was looking at the Kielburgers. I think my hon. colleague would remember that there were four threats of legal summonses, unprecedented, to try to get their key financial people to actually testify. We did not get them all to testify. In the recommendations, the all-party committee said that, “after 10 months of study we were unable to ascertain how money flowed through the charitable wing and their for-profit operations, and we were denied information on the ownership structure of their multitude of side companies.” I would like to ask my hon. colleague what it says about accountability when a group that claims to be there for a charity for children will not turn over to Parliament basic infrastructure on who is actually making the money in their multitude of companies and international holdings.

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Mr. Michael Barrett

May/12/22 1:25:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a really important question. It speaks to the work that parliamentary committees can do. It also speaks to the importance of transparency: A parliamentary committee was demanding answers when the government of Canada had done a lot of business over successive years with this company, the WE group, that said it was there to help Canadians and help young people. It would not exercise basic levels of transparency when, frankly, ordered to legally by Canada's Parliament and by members of the House of Commons. It is unacceptable. Frankly, it cannot go unanswered. We know now that they are undertaking a very likely expensive PR campaign to try and rewrite history, and maybe clean up their image. Frankly, it is a very telling lesson on what we can do as Parliament, but also that more work still could be done because we certainly did not get all the answers that we were legally entitled to, as the people's representatives here in Canada. Canadians deserve better than what they saw from the WE organization.

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Mr. Martin Champoux (Drummond, BQ)

May/12/22 1:26:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I completely agree. I believe that the Bloc Québécois has already stated several times that we will support this motion to create this committee. However, there is something that I find to be somewhat paradoxical. I draw a parallel with Bill C-11. The Conservatives are arguing that we must not regulate the Internet, and that we must be careful not to put up barriers in the free market of the Internet. However, one of their reasons for creating this committee is to study the concern or fear that the Chinese Communist Party could be meddling with the Canadian population, the Asian population in particular. I would like my colleague to comment on that. Where exactly is the logic in that? Why can we not regulate the Internet in the case of web giants dominating the broadcasting market, but we could do it to curb possible Chinese interference in Canadian communities?

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Mr. Michael Barrett

May/12/22 1:28:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is very simple. It is a question of content created by individual Canadians who have seen that the government has taken unprecedented steps to, frankly, intervene when it does not like what Canadians are saying. We saw that with the government trying to quash dissent with its use of the Emergencies Act, as one example. We need to be on guard against that, but when info ops are being perpetrated on Canada by a foreign government, and Canadians are not speaking out within their rights in a democratic framework against their own government, those are two very different things. We need to study this. We need to examine what foreign governments are undertaking in Canada. Specifically with respect to this motion, we need to find out the full breadth of what the CCP is doing, and what that should look like for our future involvement with them here in Canada.

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