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Mr. René Villemure (Trois-Rivières, BQ)

May/8/23 4:07:57 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are at the point where we have to request a special decision from the House to recognize that a sitting member of the House has been intimidated. That is something. We are talking about a direct attack on democracy. That is where we are. When did this start? The friends I meet on the street in Trois-Rivières on the weekend often tell me that we have been talking about this for weeks. It has not been weeks. The Liberal government has been totally oblivious to what is going on in foreign affairs since 2015. The government is not particularly interested in foreign affairs, and has no clear idea of the direction it should take. The government has had four ministers of foreign affairs in seven or eight years, which is not a sign of strong diplomacy, as diplomacy requires continuity. One of my colleagues is telling me that there have been five. Five ministers in seven years is not continuity. It suggests that the government is not concerned about diplomacy. What is diplomacy? It is a form of dialogue between nations intended to ensure peace. Right now, there is no dialogue between Canada and China. China tells us what to do and we do it. That is unacceptable. The Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, of which I am a member, has been working on the issue of Chinese interference for months now. It does not stop there. Universities, research centres and the business community often fear that if they look too closely into interference they will lose funding or market shares. Losing our democracy is worse than that, however. This makes no sense. A line has been crossed that I did not even think it possible to approach in the House. Let us talk about academia. In 2017, the French government conducted a survey that showed that the Chinese regime was courting former politicians to obtain information and derive benefits. That is called elite capture. They can be former politicians who are now sitting on boards of directors, or former faculty deans who hold other chairs in China or who receive various research grants. That is elite capture, and it is a phenomenon that we do not talk about here. We are hearing a lot of talk these days about the Volkswagen factory that will be opening in Ontario. That company also has a factory in China. Does anyone think that Volkswagen really owns that factory? Volkswagen does whatever the Chinese government tells it to do. The company cannot pull out of China, and it does not control the prices of its cars. The Chinese regime is philosophically and ideologically diametrically opposed to what we stand for here. It does not recognize the value of democracy and would prefer to do without it. China has always tried to sow chaos among its trade partners. What is chaos? Obviously, it is when things go off in different directions, but let us look at what has been going on in the House over the past three months or so. Every day during question period, we ask the government whether it is going to do something about what we are seeing and whether it will continue to justify the unjustifiable for much longer. It is chaos here. Meanwhile, Beijing is jumping for joy. The same cannot be said of our government. This is terrible. The Chinese regime is bent on destroying all other social systems. We are not on the same page. I think that the government would be better off learning to play Go rather than trying to play Risk because, right now, it is not working. We need to think in terms of generations. I will give an example. Around 2013, when Xi Jinping came to power, I was in Paris with the then ambassador of China. One of my colleagues asked the ambassador why the President of China is appointed rather than elected in free and fair elections like in this country. The ambassador carefully explained that, in China, all the children are screened at a very young age, and the ones with potential are singled out to be educated in the best schools, evaluated again and sent to study abroad. Eventually, based on the challenges of the day, the best person is chosen to achieve a given goal. It was very difficult for me to hear, but he told me that what we do basically amounts to a beauty contest. We were approaching 2015 at the time. I could not really argue with him. While we hold beauty contests, people make sure they have the means to achieve their ends. I think that we are being taught an important lesson in foreign affairs as a result of our lack of interest in recent years, and it hurts. Today's expulsion of the Chinese diplomat sends the message that we are not the only ones who will be facing consequences. The Chinese government will also have to face certain consequences. There was an obvious lack of courage in everything leading up to that decision, which was the right decision. It was about time, but the government made the decision with a gun to its head. The government did not really make a decision, it simply no longer had any choice. Its credibility with its partners was at stake. However, this decision sends the message that we are prepared to face the consequences of our choice, because yours was unacceptable. I do not think we should tolerate the intolerable. We need to stand up, appreciate the value of our system and our democracy and protect it.

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Mr. John Brassard (Barrie—Innisfil, CPC)

May/8/23 4:14:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I sit on the ethics committee with my hon. colleague. He is quite right that we have been studying the issue of foreign interference for some time, and the pathways it is leading us down are quite interesting. My question to him is one of confidence in our institutions. We heard the previous member, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, speak about the executive branch of government and the responsibility of the executive branch to keep its citizens, and in fact MPs, safe. What we have seen is a structural failure in that. It was only because of CSIS and The Globe and Mail that we found out that the member's family and perhaps some other MPs' families had been threatened. Does my hon. colleague agree with me that there is a structural breakdown in the institutions and the executive branch of government that is allowing this foreign interference to propagate within Canada?

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Mr. René Villemure

May/8/23 4:15:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague. I am pleased to be working with him on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Yes, the machine is broken. It cannot see beyond its immediate surroundings. The machine is stuck and cannot think beyond its narrow confines. What happens outside its immediate surroundings does not appear to be taken into consideration. The issue here is trust. Trust is a very fragile thing. It is the ability to rely on something without having to examine it closely. Today we have to examine everything. We cannot close our eyes for an instant and think that things will be done properly. The opposite of trust, what happens when trust is broken, is distrust. What does distrust lead to? It leads to defiance, which itself often leads to revolt, revolution or, at least, some undesirable action. I think that everything we do today must be aimed at restoring trust in the government, the machinery of government and the House of Commons, because with broken trust, all we will have is distrust and defiance.

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

May/8/23 4:16:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are talking about an act of aggression against our democracy. As the member so aptly put it, we are all targeted. If one member is targeted, we are all targeted by these actions. We are now getting into an extremely important debate. Last week, I was disappointed with certain members who tried to say or to suggest that the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills was aware of his situation before it was made public. I would like to ask my colleague the following question: Is it important to stand together, whether we are with the government or the opposition, to send the message that we stand together and united against foreign interference, whether it comes from China or any other country?

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Mr. René Villemure

May/8/23 4:17:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is essential that we stand together. Solidarity is an interesting word. It comes from the word “solid”, so it has to be strong. Solidarity means standing united to achieve a common goal. I think that we need to determine what this common goal is, what protecting democracy means. When one person is targeted, everyone is targeted. Last week, a shiver went down my spine when I read the word “MPs” in The Globe and Mail. That cannot be tolerated. I think that the initial reaction reported here, that of not believing the victim, at the time the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, is not only hurtful, but an assassination of his character.

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

May/8/23 4:18:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have heard through a CSIS report that this is about not only one but a number of MPs. In fact, in 2022, there were 49 members of Parliament, many members of provincial legislatures and even city council members. We also understand that it is not only one country; it is a number of different countries. Would my colleague across the way agree that it is the broader picture of foreign interference that we need to look at, that it is not just one isolated case and that this is indeed what the priority should be?

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Mr. René Villemure

May/8/23 4:18:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are certainly seeing a fundamental shift when it comes to foreign interference. China, Russia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates are involved. A number of countries today have new tools that they are using for nefarious purposes. However, today's debate is about China. We have reason to believe that it has a slightly different strategy. Russia tends to carry out brutal attacks, but China thinks in terms of generations. China has had a presence in Canada for some time. The Chinese police stations have been operating for some time. They did not just materialize overnight. I think we need to start trying to understand. Experts on China tell us that it is a bit like erosion. Say I see a river when I am young. Fifteen years later, it will have eroded, yet I walked by it every day and did not see the erosion happening. Erosion is a silent transformation. Right now we are seeing the result of the silent transformation that we failed to see, failed to monitor or did not want to see, as the case may be. There has been a transformation, and we need to acknowledge it. The global landscape has changed.

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Mr. Maxime Blanchette-Joncas (Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ)

May/8/23 4:20:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Trois-Rivières for his excellent speech. He is inspiring. He has a lot to teach us, and he is an excellent teacher. I hope that the government will be inspired by his constructive comments. China's interference is in the spotlight. Last week, we found out that a member was threatened almost three years ago. It took three years for the government to make a decision. I would like to hear the opinion of my colleague from Trois-Rivières. What should the government do to secure public trust in our institutions and in a healthy democracy in our society?

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Mr. René Villemure

May/8/23 4:21:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques and congratulate him for his work on French-language science. Raphaël Glucksmann, chair of the Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, appeared before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics the other day and told us that the special committee held 300 meetings on foreign interference, that it put forward numerous options, and that it did nothing. He warned us not to make the same mistake. I think that it is important to take note of this, to start working in the House and in committee and to do something, because doing nothing is not an option.

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Hon. Mike Lake (Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC)

May/8/23 4:21:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, we had a debate on this important issue. Of course, we had a vote today and the vote passed. However, what was most striking was not the vote. It was actually the first 15 minutes of the debate on Thursday, when it was very clear that Liberal members were going to mock and condescend their way through that debate to discredit the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. Specifically, the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, the member for Winnipeg North, made a comment when heckling. He said the member is not credible when talking about the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. We heard the member for Kingston and the Islands reference—

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The Deputy Speaker

May/8/23 4:22:36 p.m.
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There is a point of order from the hon. member for Winnipeg North.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

May/8/23 4:22:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member knows full well that the Speaker in the chair at the time indicated that she would look into this and report back to the House. To continue with misinformation on such a sensitive issue does a disservice. The member should be waiting until the Speaker comes back with his ruling on the very issue the member raises.

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Ruling
Issue

The Deputy Speaker

May/8/23 4:23:04 p.m.
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On the same point of order, we have the member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands.

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Mr. Jeremy Patzer

May/8/23 4:23:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member across the way has been asked numerous times to apologize for slagging the integrity of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. He has not done it yet. I will give him the opportunity one more time to apologize. He should do it.

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The Deputy Speaker

May/8/23 4:23:22 p.m.
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This is descending into debate once again. It seems like it is the same thing. We keep falling into debate. I know that the Speaker was thinking of coming back with something on this. The hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.

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Hon. Mike Lake

May/8/23 4:23:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, once again, the member sitting in that spot, with three other members from the Liberal Party, was laughing and mocking our Speaker at the time. I was sitting close enough to hear him very easily—

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The Deputy Speaker

May/8/23 4:23:49 p.m.
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The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader is rising on a point of order.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

May/8/23 4:23:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member is now imputing my motives, as if I was mocking the Speaker of the House on Thursday. That is false and wrong, and the member is doing a disservice to, and showing a lack of respect for, the Speaker's chair. On Thursday, the Speaker was very clear and indicated that he would return to the House if there was anything worthwhile to report back to the House. He is reflecting on a Speaker's ruling from Thursday, and I would ask him to withhold his side comments or, at the very least, get on with his question.

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The Deputy Speaker

May/8/23 4:24:23 p.m.
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A number of points of order came out on Thursday and Friday, and I know the Speaker is seized with trying to come back with an answer. He wants to read the transcripts and listen to the audio to make sure that what we heard is what we heard. I would rather wait for the Speaker to come back with that decision than continue. The hon. member for Cypress Hills—Grasslands is rising on a point of order.

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Mr. Jeremy Patzer

May/8/23 4:24:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are still waiting for the member to apologize. We already had a Speaker's ruling. He needs to apologize.

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