SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 191

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 4, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 191 - May/4/23
Mr. Kevin Vuong (Spadina—Fort York, Ind.)
  • May/4/23 11:10:36 a.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, I want to start by expressing my support for my colleague, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. Like him, I am a proud Canadian of Chinese heritage, and it is leaders like him who made it easier for people like me to serve today. My Liberal colleague talked about transparency and accountability. The fact has been that it is now confirmed, not only by CSIS but also by the Prime Minister, that a Chinese diplomat targeted my Conservative colleague. Would my colleague not agree that this action is clearly in contravention of the Vienna Convention? Why does the government not exercise article 9 to declare this diplomat persona non grata and kick him out of the country?
120 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 191 - May/4/23
Ms. Jenny Kwan
  • May/4/23 12:06:17 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, the government should have initiated a completely independent public inquiry. It should have engaged all party leaders in the House to agree to a process and a commissioner, so there would be no question about who would be leading this work and the mandate related to it. There would need to be interim reporting of this work so we would put an end to it. All this bickering about who knew what, when, where, how, etc., could be investigated under a national inquiry so there would be no blaming this way, that way and the other way. In the meantime, what is absolutely essential as well, is for other work to be under way, which is why New Democrats support this motion. As an example, we support a foreign agent registry. We support fully that the police stations operated by the Communist Chinese government should be shut down. Equally important, there should be absolute accountability by those countries that are interfering with our democracy. There has to be accountability and measures taken to send a clear message that, no matter what country is attempting to do this, Canada will not tolerate it.
194 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 191 - May/4/23
Mr. Garnett Genuis
  • May/4/23 12:59:29 p.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, that is a great question. Clearly, in areas of national security, not everything can be shared publicly, but that should not be a carte blanche for the government to be able to call anything “national security” when it might not actually pose a risk, or to keep secret whatever information it, for its political interests, wants to keep secret. Again, we clearly have a problem here of foreign interference and a lack of government action. Let us have a public inquiry where we have a leadership structure that all parties can agree on and a competent outside person investigating what the government is doing. It could make public what it could, of course, not making everything public, but that would provide an accountability function that the government wants to avoid right now. The government wants to keep the sharing of any of this information out of the public eye, not just because of national security, but also, I think, primarily because the motivation is that it does not want to be accountable.
176 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border