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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

May/4/23 1:01:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it has been an interesting debate thus far. I hope to be able to contribute to it in a relatively positive way. At least that is my initial intent. I reflect on what the New Democratic member put on the record regarding the impact it is having in one community. It is a good starting point, recognizing that international interference takes all sorts of different forms and comes from a wide variety of other countries. It is not just from one country. That is important for us to understand and appreciate as we continue the debate today. It is also important for us to realize that Canada is not alone. It is not as if Canada is the only democracy in the world being looked at as a country that is vulnerable to foreign interference. We can talk about the U.S.A., Australia and France. We can talk about other democracies where the same sorts of attempts are being made in different ways by different countries. It is an intentional attack to try to undermine the things that Canadians value so much: our democracy, our freedoms. These are the things that are important to Canadians and to all members of the House. At the end of the day, it is important that we recognize those two facts. The other really important thing for all of us to recognize is that members of Parliament have been targeted in a very real and tangible way. It is not only members of Parliament, but also members of legislatures across Canada, councillors and others. A CSIS report gave some numbers for 2022. There were threats against 49 members of Parliament; 26 provincial threats, which I cannot say with certainty were against MLAs, but I am pretty sure they were MLAs; and threats against 17 municipal councillors. These were cases that CSIS was involved in. It affects all of us when one person, let alone dozens of elected officials, is being made vulnerable, being manipulated or threatened in any fashion. In my political career, I have had one or two occasions when my life was threatened. I like to think, whether it is a minister, a prime minister, leaders of political parties or others in the chamber, that we would all get behind the member and their right to represent the constituents to whom they are assigned through our electoral process. There are mechanisms in place. When members of the New Democratic Party stand and say that we need to dial it down and make it less political, there are mechanisms to make it less political. It is not the governing party that is bringing the issues up. In many ways, the governing party has been listening and has even been taking serious and significant verbal abuse on the issue. All one needs to do is look at the question periods from earlier this week. However, the government continues to respect the work that CSIS has done. I think it is important to recognize the role that CSIS plays in this whole area. When we really get down to the nuts and bolts of it, it is a question of whether we have confidence and faith in CSIS. The Government of Canada does. That is why we have seen people, whether the Prime Minister, the minister responsible or others, reflect as much as possible on what they know through CSIS, as far as their participation in CSIS allows. When the Prime Minister said that he was made aware of it on Monday, all the allegations, the heckling and the words being said on the record, by the Conservative Party primarily, I would suggest, did politicize the issue. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, as they continue to want to heckle, they can look and review. The government, in a very real way, has been clear. An attack against one member of Parliament, in any form, is an attack on all members of Parliament. When the Prime Minister found out about it earlier this week, he ensured that CSIS would have meetings with the member in question, like the other 49 members in 2022. I do not know the content, but I understand that there have been numerous members to whom CSIS has provided a general briefing. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, the member who is heckling now does not know the content of those briefings, just as I do not know. I do not know, and the member should admit he does not know either. It was on Monday that the Prime Minister found out about it, and he took immediate action. If we want to start to depoliticize, as some in the chamber are saying is so important for us to do, we need to look at what it is. Do they support CSIS? Let us put it into perspective the work that CSIS does. Let me read from the CSIS report. It says: In an increasingly dangerous and polarized world, Canada faces multiple threats to our security, sovereignty, national interests, and values. CSIS is committed to keeping Canada and Canadians safe from all threats to our national security. In doing so, CSIS investigates activities that fall within the definition of threats to the security of Canada as outlined in the CSIS Act. Specifically, CSIS is authorized to investigate espionage and sabotage, foreign interference, terrorism and extremism, and subversion. Importantly, CSIS is prohibited from investigating lawful advocacy, protest or dissent—except when it is carried out in conjunction with activities that constitute a threat to the security of Canada. This is what I really want to emphasize, just so that members have a sense of the reporting and how important it is that we have a protocol put in place. The report states, “In undertaking its work, CSIS reports on these threats by providing advice to the Government of Canada, including through the production of intelligence assessments and reports”, like the one I am citing right now. CSIS has produced over 2,500 intelligence reports. That is, I would argue, one of the reasons that it is CSIS's responsibility to recognize those issues that need to be elevated. It has a responsibility to all members of the House. If there are concerns in regard to their safety or something that it believes that a member should be aware of, it can have that consultation. I have never had that consultation. Maybe that is something that, as a standard rule, CSIS should provide in the future for all members of Parliament. I think it might be something worthwhile. Every member has the opportunity to ensure that they have that discussion, and it is CSIS that determines what information it is prepared to release, whether to the individual in question or whether to someone higher up. Like the rest of the House, we just found out about the case regarding the particular member. The Prime Minister has now indicated that all cases, and I would assume that would include the 49 in 2022 that CSIS looked into, should be brought to the attention of the PMO. I see that as a tangible action, just like I see a tangible action where we have the Minister of Foreign Affairs now calling upon the ambassador to come before the government. We constantly hear from the Conservatives, “Expel the diplomat, expel the diplomat.” They do not even know the content, yet they feel that they can be judge, jury and whatever else. They have made the determination. That could be the determination, but I do not know the facts. How could the opposition know the facts? Do they know something that we do not know? Maybe the members of the opposition should be a little more transparent. If they know something, they should tell us. All they are saying is that we must get rid of the diplomat. That could ultimately be the case, but I think we have to go through the process and have confidence in CSIS. We can take a look at a government that has been proactive on the issue of political interference. In the days of Stephen Harper, not all of those days but a good number of them, I sat in opposition. What did Harper actually do? Let me tell members some of the things that the Government of Canada has done since we have been in government. We established a national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians. When we were in opposition, we called, virtually begged, for prime minister Harper to bring in that committee. We attempted to get that committee. It was one of the big pushes that we made. Shortly after getting elected, we instituted that committee. The Conservatives even protested it for a while. There was about a year during which they would not even participate in the committee. What does that committee actually do? It would address the issues we are talking about today. The committee could actually have CSIS come before it and obligate CSIS to share the information. The individuals who sit on that committee are Conservatives, Bloc members, Liberals, NDP members, I believe, and members of the Senate. That is something that we put into place shortly after the election. What about the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, again, bringing together an organization to ensure that there is a proper review in process to protect the integrity and the safety of our freedoms and our democracy? That is a substantial initiative by the government. We had a critical election incident public protocol put into place, with top civil servants, so if something does happen during an election, in terms of foreign interference, there is something tangible through the group that deals with security, intelligence and threats during elections. We established the rapid response mechanism for sharing intelligence with our G7 partners. Because Canada has made significant progress, a lot of the knowledge that has been gathered to date is now being shared among our allied countries. Those are some of the initiatives we have taken as a government, because we take the issue seriously. Let us compare that to Stephen Harper. An hon. member: Oh, it is the ghost of Harper.

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Context: House Hansard - 191 - May/4/23

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

May/4/23 1:18:48 p.m.
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Yes, the ghost of Harper. He is haunting. He is kind of spooky, I agree. Mr. Speaker, look at what Stephen Harper did. Let me think about what he did. I could not come up with anything because there was nothing that the former prime minister did. The ultimate irony is in who was responsible for democratic reform at the time, when CSIS first raised the issue of foreign interference. Let us think about who it was. It is almost like a Trivial Pursuit question. I think my colleague from Kingston and the Islands knows the answer. What we find is that it was the Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. That is why it is difficult, when we see the members of the political party opposite feeling they can be as political as they want. They can take all the cheap shots and say whatever they want, and there is no recourse. Heaven forbid they are called out on it. If I point out some of the obvious things, then I am the bad guy. In fact, I listened to Conservatives this week, and the language they were using this week—

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Context: House Hansard - 191 - May/4/23

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

May/4/23 1:29:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am not sure, in my speech, that I made reference to any single country. It is quite possible I might have, but I did start off by making it very clear that there is no single country that participates in political interference and interventions in Canadian society. Rather, there are a multitude of different countries doing this. Moreover, Canada is not alone; there are other countries, whether Australia, the United States, European countries or other democracies, that also get interfered with by a wide variety of other countries. I am very sensitive to the issue. I would suggest to the member that she might want to give serious consideration to having confidence in the former governor general doing the work he needs to do, which could ultimately lead us to have a public inquiry. He was a Stephen Harper government appointment as governor general.

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Context: House Hansard - 191 - May/4/23

Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

May/4/23 3:34:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is great to rise today to speak to this motion. I want to say from the outset that I have the utmost respect for the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. As a matter of fact, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills is the only Conservative member of the House, over the last eight years, whom I have had the pleasure of going out to dinner with alone to talk about issues that we are both passionate about. I have always regarded the member for Wellington—Halton Hills as one of the most progressive voices on the other side of the House. In fairness, the bar has been set pretty low, but nonetheless, I have always had the utmost respect for him. I sincerely apologize for the manner in which this debate got kicked off this morning. I should have perhaps chosen my words a little more closely. I have since apologized for that, but I think it is very important to reflect on what we are actually experiencing here. We see the Conservatives, routinely, day after day, get up and directly and indirectly accuse the Prime Minister of Canada of lying. They have said so many times in this debate alone that the Prime Minister of Canada and the government have known about this particular incident with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills for two years. They are saying it now. They are heckling about it now. Why I find this to be so incredibly amazing is that, on the one hand, we all believe the member for Wellington—Halton Hills when he says he was not briefed on this specific matter, yet we will not afford that same luxury of belief to the member for Papineau, the Prime Minister of Canada, when he says the same thing. I cannot help but wonder where all the outrage is in the House when the Prime Minister of Canada says he did not know until Monday and, time after time, the Conservatives will get up and say, well, yes, he did know and he is lying to us. That is the double standard around here that I am having such an incredible time wrapping my head around. I believe the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. I will get to my previous comments, but I also believe the member for Papineau, because they are both honourable members who come before the House. I think anybody who comes in here and cries bloody foul over the idea that we have to trust every member at their word, as they are honourable, but then chooses who exactly they are going to accept that from is disingenuous at best. I think it is important to go back and reflect. What I said earlier in this debate is that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, along with 47 other members of Parliament, in 2022 alone, although for him it may have been in 2021, received defensive briefings from CSIS. Of course, we do not know what the content of those briefings was. We do not know exactly what was said, but we do know generally speaking what a defensive briefing is. A defensive briefing is basically CSIS coming to a member of Parliament and saying that it wants to give the heads-up that they are person of interest who should be watching out for certain things. They are given some tips on how to handle this and on the things they should be looking out for, and are asked to inform CSIS when things happen. We know the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and 48 other members in 2022 alone received that particular briefing. When the member for Wellington—Halton Hills says that he did not learn about these specific threats, I believe that. All I am trying to say is that we have to understand that these particular briefings occur on an ongoing basis. To come to the conclusion that they are one-offs is not the reality, because the CSIS report indicated that in the 2022 report. The other thing that I am having a very hard time with is the general assertion from the other side of the House that the government has done nothing as it relates to foreign interference. That is completely and utterly untrue. I will read the second half of what I read earlier in a question, because I think it is the most important part. It is from a 2013 CSIS report, the same one as the 2022 version from CSIS, the public report. The Leader of the Opposition, the member for Carleton, who at the time was the minister of democratic reform, received that briefing, which said: As boundaries between foreign state and non-state actors become increasingly blurred, it is particularly challenging for intelligence services to differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate activities. Foreign interference in Canadian society—as a residual aspect of global or regional political and social conflicts, or divergent strategic and economic objectives—will continue in the coming years. The member for Carleton, when he was minister of democratic reform, received this briefing in 2013 and did absolutely nothing about it. For the two more years the Conservatives remained in government, they did not act on this. As a matter of fact, shortly after we came along in 2015, we brought in a bill to tighten up the rules around funding with respect to foreign interference. Do members know who voted against it? It was the Conservatives. The Conservatives voted against Bill C-76, a bill that would specifically strengthen our ability to control foreign interference. We have done a whole host of things in addition to that. We established NSICOP, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. There are Liberal, Bloc and NDP members, as well as Conservative members when they choose to show up and not boycott the committee, who sit on this committee. They are sworn to secrecy and receive the most sensitive information, not only for this country but indeed for our allies around the world. They have the political oversight and accountability to assess information and make recommendations to CSIS and the government on how to act on it. By the way, it is a credible tool that the United Kingdom and other Westminster parliamentary systems have, and we adopted it. What else did we do? We brought in a special advisory panel that is activated during the writ process of an election, while everybody in this House and other candidates are running around the country trying to sell themselves and their political parties as the best choice. We do not have the time or capacity in those circumstances to act as a caretaker to watch over our democracy at that most important time, the time when an election is happening. That committee is made up of experts who are charged with reacting in real time to what is happening. It is something the Conservatives have criticized as being an almost useless tool. These people are watching our elections in real time to make sure they are not being interfered with by foreign state or non-state actors. The Conservatives have come here and said we have done nothing, when the record clearly shows they knew about this from CSIS in 2013 and did nothing about it for two years. We came along in 2015 and have implemented policies and legislation time after time since then to strengthen our ability to control foreign interference as it relates to our democracy. It is completely unfair for the Conservatives to be making their assertions and they should know better. I will now get to the motion we are talking about today. I will be honest with members. Of the four asks in this motion, there are three I do not see a problem with. One is to create a foreign agent registry, similar to those in Australia and the United States. We announced months ago that this is already in process; it is already happening. I will get to the public inquiry in a second. Another one is to close down the police stations run by the People's Republic of China and operating in Canada. Of course, the RCMP is going to be seized with that and will do everything it can there. There is only one respected police authority in each jurisdiction in this country: the RCMP federally; the provincial police, where applicable, or the RCMP as charged by the provincial governments; and the local police. Those are the only police authorities the government or any member of Parliament, regardless of the rhetoric, will ever accept, and we of course will do whatever necessary to ensure that illegal police stations and operations like these are shut down immediately. Of course, the motion would expel all of the People's Republic of China's diplomats responsible for and involved in the affronts to Canadian democracy. As indicated today by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, she is absolutely willing to do that where it is deemed necessary. There is obviously a process in place to do that. She has already summoned the ambassador of China regarding this issue, so I do not have an issue with that either. I think, as appropriate, that absolutely has to happen. The part I have a problem with, which I feel is the most political, is the call for the public inquiry. I will be honest. I am on the PROC committee, and when this first came before the committee, I thought to myself that it made sense. A public inquiry would shine sunlight on this issue. Why would we not do that? Unfortunately, this is not what we heard from the experts who came before the committee, whether it was those from CSIS, the national security experts, or the head of the RCMP. Everybody told us that we were dealing with extremely classified information. There was no way we could release that information to the public, and not just because of the effect it would have domestically. Can members imagine how our Five Eyes partners would feel if they realized we were sharing this sensitive information? We would be the laughing stock of the international community. They could never trust us with that information. We would be ostracized from the international community if we were to try to release that information. It became very clear to those who were sitting on the committee, and those who were interested in hearing the expert advice, that a public inquiry is not the place for this sensitive information to be discussed. Rather, we were told it should be discussed in NSICOP, which is the parliamentarian committee that is established for this. What I found to be the most interesting out of all of that, when this discussion was happening, was that the member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition, was told by the media that the government offered to give him a briefing, but he would have to be sworn into secrecy. He was asked if he would be willing to take that briefing. He said he did not want to know the information if he could not go talk about it. All that matters to the member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition, is to grandstand and get out there to politicize every single issue he can get his hands on. As such, the member for Carleton is not interested in receiving highly classified information, even if it is for the betterment of the country. He is not interested in that because it would serve absolutely zero political gain for him. That, I think, is what Canadians should be reflecting on. As I come to the conclusion of my speech, I want to say that there is great opportunity here for the House to work together. I understand there is a difference of opinion, when it comes to the public inquiry. I am going to respect whatever David Johnston, the former governor general, recommends to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister already said that we would accept his advice. If David Johnston says a public inquiry is the best way to go, we will do that. However, I find it very troubling that members, primarily Conservatives, are railing against a former governor general who is so highly respected throughout this country. They talk about him as though he is a Liberal insider or something. He was a governor general who was appointed by Stephen Harper. The Conservatives should think about that. They will stop at nothing. They are on a crusade to take down absolutely everybody, as long as it gives them a tiny bit of political gain. They would take an ounce of political gain at the expense of ruining somebody's reputation, if the opportunity presents itself to them, and they do it time after time after time. We have an opportunity to work together to do something about foreign interference. I respect the debate between a public inquiry versus an inquiry that is not public. It is a debate that I respect. It is an issue I have found myself on both sides of, at times, and I hope we can have meaningful debates about how we can genuinely affect the security of our democracy. It is absolutely imperative. It is not something we should be playing politics with. I will take responsibility for the way this debate started off today. I feel as though I contributed to that manner, and I apologize for that, but I really hope that, when this settles down, we can all focus on what is really important, and that is protecting the democracy we all hold so dearly.

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Context: House Hansard - 191 - May/4/23

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

May/4/23 4:27:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I have indicated, the government has been building and will continue to build upon the work that we have done over the last number of years dealing with election interference and the issues that we have before us today. We have commissioned a special rapporteur, a former Stephen Harper appointment, the hon. Mr. Johnston, to conduct a report, which could ultimately bring in a request for a public inquiry. Will the Conservative Party of Canada support what the former governor general brings back to Parliament?

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