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Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay (Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, BQ)

May/8/23 4:40:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with most of what my colleague said in his speech. We had this vote today, and a majority of the House has spoken. The opposition parties joined together to pass this motion, which instructs the government to launch a public inquiry and create a registry. If the government fails to follow through, we will be forced to consider it untrustworthy and unwilling to follow instructions passed by a democratic vote in the House. Will the NDP not reconsider its commitment to support the government until 2025 over a matter as serious as national security?

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Mr. Peter Julian

May/8/23 4:41:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a motion was moved in the House of Commons for an independent public inquiry. The NDP moved it, after having moved it at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. It was the NDP that did that. There were procedural problems, as members will recall. The Conservatives blocked the intervention on the motion. I thought that was rather unfortunate, but that is their right. Then, we moved the motion and it was adopted almost unanimously. Except for the Liberal Party, every independent MP and all the opposition parties voted in favour of the motion. I expect the special rapporteur to take this into consideration when he makes his recommendations in the next two weeks. I expect that when the special rapporteur makes these recommendations, the government will immediately call a national public inquiry. That is extremely important. That is what the NDP is working toward. That is our role in Parliament, and we will continue to carry out this role.

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Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)

May/8/23 4:43:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague always speaks so eloquently, and I learn so much from his interventions. One of the things he talked about was the fact that the interference in our elections and the interference in our political system are not just happening from one country or another. I think that it is very important, when we stand in this House, to be very cautious and very careful with our language. With this particular example, we are seeing a diplomat from the government of China, but we also know that we have had people from the terrorist regime in Iran. We know that Russia has tried to influence Canada. In fact, during the convoy, we knew there was foreign influence coming from the United States. Could the member speak a bit more about how Canada could do more to protect itself, not just from risks from the PRC but also from other countries around the world that we know are interfering with our political system?

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Mr. Peter Julian

May/8/23 4:44:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the member for Edmonton Strathcona is a very strong and powerful voice on foreign affairs and on many other issues in this House. Her wisdom is something we should all listen to. This is the reality, and this is why, when the NDP brought forward the motion on the public inquiry, we sought to ensure that we were fighting back against all forms of foreign interference. Yes, we know from the CSIS reports that the Chinese regime, the Russian dictatorship, Iran and India all seek to influence our democracy, seek to influence our diaspora and seek to change the direction Canadians want to take together. We have to be mindful of all those things, and this is why we believe that a comprehensive public inquiry into foreign interference is warranted and needs to be put into place. We have been calling for it now since we brought it to the House five weeks ago. We are hoping to see a recommendation in the next couple of weeks and it being put rapidly into place. This is vitally important, and we cannot dissect one type of foreign interference from the Chinese regime or the Russian dictatorship and say that we are just going to examine one type. All of them have an impact on our democracy, and hopefully, all of us as members of Parliament will want to push back against any form of foreign interference in solidarity. Regardless of which country it comes from, it is unacceptable, and Canadians speak with one voice in standing up for our democracy.

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The Deputy Speaker

May/8/23 4:46:06 p.m.
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Before proceeding, it is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke, National Defence; the hon. member for Port Moody—Coquitlam, Transportation.

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Adjournment

Mr. Luc Berthold (Mégantic—L'Érable, CPC)

May/8/23 4:46:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it took two years for this government to finally do the right thing to protect Canada's values of freedom and democracy, or in other words, to expel a foreign agent for threatening a Canadian member of Parliament. This is not the first time we have heard about foreign agents threatening Canadians in this way. A Canadian MP and his family had to be threatened for this government to finally decide to do something, not everything it could have done, but something, namely, to declare this diplomat, this agent of the regime in Beijing, persona non grata in Canada. Not only did it take the agent going after a Canadian MP, but the MP also had to raise a question of privilege in the House so that Parliament could clearly indicate to the government that enough was enough and that we would no longer tolerate this sort of thing. I want to look back at what led us here today. I will explain to people the entire process that led to the diplomat being expelled from Canada and, most importantly, I will talk about the fact that, today, the Speaker recognized a question of privilege regarding the unacceptable and disgraceful behaviour of the regime in Beijing and this diplomat, who was declared persona non grata. This all began in February 2021 when my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills moved a motion in the House to recognize that the Communist regime in Beijing is perpetrating a genocide against the Uyghur people. The result of the vote demonstrates what happened at the time. The motion was moved, there was a vote in the House, and nearly all members voted in favour of recognizing the genocide of the Uyghur people. All members voted for the motion except for the members who are in cabinet. What this means is that all Liberal ministers refused to vote on this important issue, which had caught the attention of parliamentarians from all parties. The Prime Minister and his government were already sending a strong signal to Canadians that the government did not want to upset the Communist regime in Beijing. The story could have ended there, but it did not. Apparently, that vote and our colleague's actions did upset in the Communist regime in Beijing. Last week, the media reported on the whole process that has taken place since our colleague's motion, and what the Beijing regime has done to stop him from taking any action that might conflict with Beijing's priorities. We read in the newspapers that a CSIS assessment revealed back in July 2021 that the Chinese ministry of state security, known as MSS, had taken specific actions to target Canadian MPs who were linked to the February 2021 parliamentary motion condemning Beijing's oppression of Uyghurs and other minorities. The article referred to MPs, plural. According to CSIS, an agent tried to obtain information about the family members of a Canadian MP who were living under the Beijing regime. The agent in question, Zhao Wei, is listed in the Department of Global Affairs' record of foreign diplomats as working in China's Toronto consulate. This same person has been declared persona non grata. I am speaking of information passed on by CSIS two years ago. CSIS notified the government about this diplomat's activities two years ago. On May 2, the director of CSIS told our colleague, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, that he was the Canadian MP who was targeted, along with his family, by the Beijing government, after he sponsored the motion condemning Beijing's conduct in Xinjiang as genocide, and that Zhao Wei was indeed the diplomat involved. On May 4, the Prime Minister's national security adviser, Jody Thomas, confirmed to Mr. Chong that the CSIS information about him and his family had been received by the Privy Council Office in 2021. The information revealed by the press had been sent to the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office in 2021, two years ago. Last week, we witnessed something absolutely appalling in the House. Certain MPs tried to claim that my colleague, the victim of intimidation by China, had known for several years about the actions of this Toronto-based agent of Beijing. My colleague rose several times in the House to state that this claim was false. He had not been notified that he specifically was being targeted by the actions of this Chinese agent. How can those members side with an agent who is trying to intimidate a Canadian MP instead of standing up for that MP and his family, who were targeted by Beijing? On Friday, the Prime Minister echoed these statements, also claiming that the member had been made aware of this information. Again, this was denied by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. Here we have a situation where the government did not take action and where the member for Wellington—Halton Hills felt threatened, and rightly so. He was probably also very worried about the fact that the government had waited so long before warning him, because it took almost two years. He raised this question of privilege that was received by the Chair, so that we could finally debate this very important question. It happened the same day that a majority of Parliamentarians adopted a motion that, among other things, called for the expulsion of not only this diplomat, but any foreign diplomat who threatens or intimidates a member of Parliament or a Canadian citizen who is the victim of the actions of such authoritarian regimes around the world. That was one aspect of the motion. We expected all members to rise together to condemn that sort of behaviour. The motion did not just talk about expulsion. It also called for the government to immediately do what all security intelligence agencies around the world are recommending, and that is to create a foreign agent registry similar to those in Australia and the United States, as well as to establish a national public inquiry on the matter of foreign election interference and to close down the police stations in Canada run by the Communist regime in Beijing. The Minister of Public Safety claimed that these police stations had been shut down, but in the end we realized that not one of them actually had been. The police said that they had disrupted the activities of these police stations but that none of them had been officially shut down and that no one had been arrested for having engaged in such activities. The motion also called on the government to expel all of the People's Republic of China diplomats responsible for and involved in this intimidation campaign. We expected all parties to vote in favour of it. The Conservative Party voted for it. The Bloc Québécois voted for it. Even the government's coalition partner voted in favour of the motion calling for action at long last. Unfortunately, one party chose to vote against the motion. It was the Prime Minister's party, the government. Why? I think the question Canadians need to start asking themselves is, why did the Liberals vote against this motion calling for a national foreign agent registry? Why did they stall for 24 hours in committee to avoid having the Prime Minister's chief of staff come to speak about foreign interference in our elections? What is the reason, if not their lack of courage to stand up for our values of democracy and freedom, the principles that all Canadians hold so dear? I listened to the speech by my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills following the question of privilege. His words were very clear, and I hope to hear them repeated. I remember the gist of what he said, which was that we cannot let ourselves be intimidated, we have to stand up. As difficult as it may be to stand up in the face of these threats, we have to do it for our institutions and for our values. Generations past stood up to protect them. Now, our turn has come to do the same. The government had a chance to do so today. Unfortunately, it voted against the other tools that we could have used. However, Parliament decided otherwise, and voted in favour of the motion. Now we expect the government to act. The government expelled a diplomat today because the media forced its hand, because it was caught in a firestorm. That is the only reason the government took any action. If it had not been for the article in The Globe and Mail last week, we probably would not be here talking about a diplomat who was expelled this afternoon. He simply would not have been expelled, because the Liberals decided to turn a blind eye to the unacceptable and disgusting actions committed against a Canadian MP and his family over the past two years. What particularly concerns me is that the measures we proposed today were not intended to protect only MPs. They were meant to protect all the ethnocultural communities living in Canada that come from these authoritarian countries. We have heard many accounts from individuals whose family members back in their home country have been pressured, intimidated and threatened. It was not until this happened to a Canadian member of Parliament that the government finally decided to act. There is one thing that strikes me about the report that the government has had since 2021. CSIS did not refer to one MP in particular, but to MPs, plural. In English, the report referred to “MPs” with an “s”. Who are the other MPs who were allegedly victims of intimidation by the Beijing government? We have asked the question many times, but we did not get an answer. Were those members informed of this threat? We did not get an answer. Had it been a Conservative MP and had they been informed, I can guarantee that we would know about it. The MP would have told a friend or colleague. The MP would have told the caucus. Had it been a Bloc Québécois member, I am convinced we would know about it. Since the Bloc Québécois clearly cannot form the next government, there is less interest, but all right. That being said, had it been one of our colleagues in the NDP, which has also been calling for a public inquiry for a long time, we would know it. They would have said so. It would have been one more argument in favour of a public inquiry, but no. Is it a member of the government? We do not know. We do not know because we have not heard any talk about it, either. Someone somewhere in the government, in the Prime Minister's Office, in Minister of Public Safety's office, knows. We know that the document, the report in question, was submitted. Unfortunately, the people who are affected do not know it. It is totally unacceptable. We have to ensure that parliamentarians are protected because they are the voice of those who cannot have a say. Here, in the House, parliamentary privilege allows us to say things on behalf of our taxpayers, the people back home, Canadian citizens, and that is what we are doing. We have been doing that ever since we found out about all these allegations of foreign influence. We are doing this because we know that we benefit from a certain type of protection that allows us to say things that the majority of Canadians cannot say. Unfortunately, if the regime in Beijing is going after parliamentarians who have this kind of protection, imagine what must be happening to members of the diaspora. Imagine how much power authoritarian regimes have over citizens who come from these ethnocultural communities, who have family in these countries who are still living under the rule of very authoritarian governments. Imagine the impact. That is why we need a national inquiry into interference in our elections. That is why we need to shut down these police stations. We must not tolerate threats from any country, whether we are talking about the Communist regime in Beijing, Iran or any other country, and I do not just mean threats against MPs, but against all Canadian citizens. One thing is very telling. Normally, I should not have been able to speak right away. Usually, after a question of privilege, all the parties speak, so my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills would have spoken, followed by a Bloc Québécois colleague, an NDP colleague, and finally a Liberal Party colleague. However, it did not happen that way. When it came time for the Liberals to have their say, they remained seated. When faced with such an important question that the Speaker of the House chose to interrupt all other business, the government's entire agenda, to deal with this very specific question about the violation of my colleague's rights and privileges, not one Liberal member from across the way rose to defend him. Not one member opposite rose to say that what happened was an outrage. Despite all the nice words about dealing with this issue in a non-partisan manner, not one government member rose to defend my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills. That says a lot right there. There is a reason the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Public Safety and the entire cabinet said that they did not know anything. The reason is that they know full well that they did absolutely nothing to counter foreign interference, particularly from the regime in Beijing. I commend my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills for having the courage to stand up and continue standing up to wage this battle to protect our rights, our freedom and our democracy.

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

May/8/23 5:06:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if the member were to take the time to read the speech I gave on Thursday, he would find that I stood up for every individual member of Parliament. My question is more looking at it from the perspective of foreign interference, which has been taking place for many years now. There is absolutely no doubt about that. In fact, if we looked at the 2022 report, we would find 49 members of Parliament, a couple dozen MLAs and even local councillors or reeves. What might the Conservative Party's policy be in regard to CSIS? We know there were some general briefings provided. Does the member believe that all 49 members of Parliament and those who were in the report should have been better informed? Does he believe that CSIS did not do a proper job of ensuring that each of those members were more aware of why they were being given the general briefing?

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Mr. Luc Berthold

May/8/23 5:07:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we just got a clear, simple, frank and transparent demonstration of the Liberal government's incompetence. The member for Winnipeg North just told us that 49 MPs were briefed because they were allegedly victims of intimidation or interference by foreign regimes, in particular the regime in Beijing. What steps were taken, what diplomat was expelled and what individuals were arrested in light of the information that the government has in hand? The member just proved that the government was informed but that it did nothing. The sad fact of the matter is that the regime in Beijing already influences the government. It is time for the government to realize it, to put an end to it and to implement the measures required, including launching a national public inquiry. That is how Canadians can be apprised of this matter, and not just the part that the government feels like presenting to Canadians.

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

May/8/23 5:08:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate my colleague from Megantic—L'Érable on his speech. I have a short preamble before I ask my question. The Bloc Québécois's objective is not to form the government. That would be like inviting a vegetarian friend to a pig roast; it makes no sense. That said, I want to address the subject at hand today, namely, Chinese interference. This is very important. Today, the government took action because of pressure from the media and pressure from the public. Thanks to CSIS, it has known for almost two years now that there has been Chinese interference and even threats from China against a member of Parliament. The government did not take any action for two years. Now the government is waking up, seeing that this is dangerous, that its image is being tarnished, and wondering what it is going to do. Today, the government is trying to make us believe that everything is under control. As a good Quebec Liberal used to say, everything is fine with both hands on the wheel. Two years have gone by and nothing. How do we restore confidence? The people I meet every day ask me how this government can build back confidence in our democratic institutions. What does my colleague suggest the government do to restore once and for all public confidence in democracy, which is fundamental, and in our institutions?

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Mr. Luc Berthold

May/8/23 5:10:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the answer is simple. The best way is for us to beat the Liberals in the next election and form a Conservative government so we can take control of the situation.

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Mr. Don Davies (Vancouver Kingsway, NDP)

May/8/23 5:10:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I represent one of the most ethnically diverse ridings in the country. Over 100 languages are spoken in my riding. About 35% of my riding is ethnically Chinese; 15%, Filipino; 15%, South Asian; 6%, Vietnamese; and it carries on. History has shown us that the actions of a foreign government, whether Japan or Italy in World War II or the Austro-Hungarian Empire, can lead to impacts on the diaspora population in our country. What are my hon. colleague's thoughts on that and what suggestions does he have for us to be careful and cautious as we explore the malevolent behaviour of foreign governments? How can we make sure that this does not translate into discrimination or oppression against people who may be from those countries by origin, but who are Canadian citizens in our country and communities?

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Mr. Luc Berthold

May/8/23 5:11:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will try to answer my colleague in English. Transparency is what works all around the world. We can identify the foreign agents in our country and make sure the diaspora knows who they are. Transparency is the best cleaner or sunlight. I do not know how to say that in English, but I think the member understands what I mean. We need a government that will be transparent and that will really act, answer real questions and give real answers to those people who came here to benefit from our freedom, our principles and our values. We should give them the opportunity to say what they know and to protect themselves, and we should help to protect them. With respect to police officers and CSIS, we should make them work for these people and not for the government.

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Hon. Mike Lake (Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC)

May/8/23 5:13:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, earlier, the member for Winnipeg North stood up and did not apologize for some of the comments he made the other day. However, he did acknowledge that when he came into the House on Thursday morning, he did not have his facts straight and that is a start. If the government does not have its facts straight, it is hard for Canadians to make sense of what is going on. Today, we are debating a question of privilege that has an impact on a member, and in fact all members of this House, as we act in the interests of our constituents. It is also important to remember that there are Canadians from coast to coast, and some members have touched on this, who are Chinese Canadians and they face this same type of intimidation from Beijing from the Communist government on a regular basis. I think they are watching the debate we are having right now, the debate we have been having for the last several weeks, really closely. The motion we passed today was very clear. For those Chinese Canadians across the country who may be faced with similar types of intimidation, how important is it for them to see real action moving forward on the substance of the motion passed in the House today?

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Mr. Luc Berthold

May/8/23 5:14:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think people expect the elected members of this Parliament to take action to protect them, to act in their interest as Canadians. The elected members of this place are here to protect Canadians, no matter where they come from and regardless of whether they have families elsewhere in any other country. We are here to protect them and ensure they have a place where they can flourish, express themselves freely, live their lives and fulfill their dreams. That is the government's responsibility. It is on the government's shoulders to protect them. It is on the government's shoulders to give them hope, freedom, liberty, value principles and make sure they can access that.

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Hon. Steven Guilbeault (Minister of Environment and Climate Change, Lib.)

May/8/23 5:15:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I give notice that, with respect to consideration of Government Business No. 25, at the next sitting of the House, a Minister of the Crown shall move, pursuant to Standing Order 57, that debate not be further adjourned.

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The Deputy Speaker

May/8/23 5:16:02 p.m.
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I thank the hon. minister for that notice. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood.

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Hon. John McKay (Scarborough—Guildwood, Lib.)

May/8/23 5:16:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have been sitting here listening to the debate, wondering what I could contribute that would be useful. I do want to express my profound sympathy to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. This should not happen to any of us and I identify completely with the difficulties in which he finds himself. I hope that is true of all 338 of us, that we can readily realize how any one of us could be in this situation. I want to make that point abundantly clear, that I was not sitting here because I did not want to participate in the debate, by virtue of not being interested in the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, but that I wanted to contribute something useful. I had the opportunity to read the Speaker's ruling, while other members were debating, which is what is before us this afternoon. May I say that it is a thoughtful ruling. I agree with his analysis and I agree with his conclusion. He has made a prima facie conclusion that there is something here. That is what prima facie means. It means “on the face of it”. On the face of it, there is something to be addressed here and he made the proper ruling that it be referred to the procedure and House affairs committee. That is the debate. He made it on three points. The first point was whether there was intimidation or the appearance of intimidation. He does make the argument, which I think is critical, that he is not making a conclusion of fact, as a judge would. He is simply saying that on the face of it, there appears to be intimidation. He is not, however, concluding that there was intimidation. On the material that was in front of him, it is clear that there is a case to be made for intimidation and he made the correct ruling on that. He then went on to talk about the timeliness of the report by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. The events did occur two years ago or appear to have occurred two years ago but only came to the attention of the member recently, by virtue of newspaper reports. It is a well-settled principle in criminal law and elsewhere that the clock only starts ticking when one becomes aware of the alleged offence. I think the member rightly brought it to the House's attention in as timely a fashion as it could have been brought and the Speaker therefore ruled that it was timely. The third ruling was whether it was corroborated or uncorroborated, which is an interesting argument. When the PRC and its many minions here in this country carry on what nasty, dastardly things they do here, the nature of the beast is that it is very difficult to corroborate it. It is not as if they write it out, saying that they are now intimidating member of Parliament X, Y or Z. They operate in the shadows. They operate these police stations where they try to intimidate diaspora members. They operate in universities with Confucius Institutes, where they are try to influence or intimidate students from China, primarily, who are studying here in Canada. Of course, they run these operations, by definition, in a way in which the evidence, such as it is, or even the information cannot be corroborated. Again, I think the Speaker made the correct ruling, that, yes, it is a newspaper report and, yes, there is a lot of back and forth between what the government knew or should have known or did know or did not know. However, on the face of it there is a case to be made that should be properly made in front of PROC, which I hope will weigh in on this. I think there is also a larger issue to be addressed here, which is that we are in a new environment. As members know, I have been around here for a few years and like to think I have seen a few things, but I cannot say that I have ever seen anything quite like this before. I know some of us receive briefings about threats, not so much intimidation, but that there might be activities that would affect us. That is becoming abundantly clear. I am not sure that we have really figured out how to react. We operate in an open society that runs on the basis that we trust each other, that we have a shared understanding of the facts and information in the public discourse, and that we respect each other even if we profoundly disagree with each other. That is anathema to the PRC and other dictatorial regimes. However, when we are attacked on those core issues, we have difficulty reacting. I think for many years we have not had to worry about the threat we are facing with the rise of misinformation and disinformation, and it is a threat to our very way of life and doing things. I have shared with the House before the fact that we were in Taiwan a few weeks ago. We visited quite a number of individuals, but clearly one of the most impressive was its minister of cybersecurity. It has a million attacks a day and does not leave anything to chance, so there are generally triple levels of protection in order to be able to keep the core infrastructure of the nation safe. It does not matter whether it is with respect to the military, security, finances or economics, that is expected. The other person who was very impressive is with an NGO that is expected to respond to misinformation and disinformation. In Taiwan, the standard response time is expected to be two hours. In fact, it is one hour. It is really quite impressive as to how it responds to that level of misinformation and disinformation. That includes bots and all of the ways in which these massive numbers of attacks produce information that appear to be true, may be true, could be true, but is not true. These NGOs respond in a very timely way to I think keep the level of discourse on the matter of truth as opposed to misinformation and disinformation, which is just generally sidebar truth. While in my opinion this motion is to be supported, I hope that PROC gets to it quickly. It was a well-founded and reasoned approach by the Speaker. It does occur in the larger context that there is not a person in this chamber who knows what we are facing. We are somewhat in the dark on all kinds of issues. I think we should bring to this larger conversation a huge dose of humility, because it is a profound and existential threat we are facing and we need to be united in how we face it. I will conclude by saying that I am pleased with the Speaker's ruling. It is an appropriate ruling. There is a prima facie case to be made, and I look forward to the report of the procedure and House affairs committee.

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Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, CPC)

May/8/23 5:26:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his role as chair of the national defence committee. I appreciate his support for the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and for the ruling that was made earlier today. This situation was originally brought to the attention of the government two years ago, and the government failed to act. We know that the national security adviser at the time in the Prime Minister's Office received this report. We know that the family of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills was targeted by a diplomat in the PRC consulate in Toronto. However, I would like to get the member's opinion on why the intelligence was not acted upon by the government side of the House, where he sits, to address this very scary situation for the family of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and, more importantly, the attack on democracy. How was Zhao Wei allowed to continue to operate here for the last 48 months unimpeded with his diplomatic immunity? How many other Canadians was he able to intimidate over that time?

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Hon. John McKay

May/8/23 5:28:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the short answer is that I do not know the answer to the hon. member's question. I am working on the assumption that the facts underlying his question are correct: that the information was available to the appropriate government authorities in a timely sort of way and the information was not communicated to the member in question. I have no basis for disputing those facts. I also was not there. I was not there to make that judgment. I do know some of the people who would be involved in making that judgment, and I have nothing but respect for their decision. However, it seems me that on the floor of the House of Commons, it is inappropriate for me to speculate on why the inaction taken was not moved on, in hindsight, a lot more quickly. I would widen the conversation a bit to ask a question that I think members should be asking: Why does China have so many diplomats in this country? I know we have an important trading relationship and important relationship with China, but there does seem to be an extraordinary number of diplomats who have no obvious reason for being here. I think members should be asking that question.

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Ms. Sylvie Bérubé (Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, BQ)

May/8/23 5:30:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. Expelling this person who has been declared persona non grata is good news today. It is too little, too late, but at least it is a step in the right direction to avoid Chinese oppression. The member for Wellington—Halton Hills received threats and we had to vote on a motion today because of the government's inertia. What about our democratic freedom?

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