44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 8, 2023 11:00AM
- May/8/23 7:46:33 p.m.
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If this continues, I am just going to end the debate, because we are going to run out of time.
The hon. member for Edmonton—Wetaskiwin.
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- May/8/23 7:46:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have a chance tonight, at the end of this debate, to right that wrong. Will the member support the motion to have PROC study this point of privilege from the member for Wellington—Halton Hills?
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- May/8/23 7:47:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to take very seriously the approach of the member across the floor, which is to threaten to stand up on points of order every time I speak. I would ask that the member come and apologize to me. It was not very parliamentary for him to do so. If he is not prepared to do that, I do not feel I have to answer his questions.
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- May/8/23 7:47:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am certainly happy to rise, although three minutes late because of some of the shenanigans arising in this place this evening on this very important issue.
Before I begin, I want to thank the Chair for the ruling today on the question of privilege from the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills. This is an extremely important issue that we are debating here tonight. It has far-reaching consequences, not just for the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, but also for those Canadians in the Chinese diaspora who have felt the threats of intimidation, the harassment and the fear of the Communist regime in Beijing's interfering in almost every aspect of their lives.
We are here tonight not just because of the question of privilege, but also because there are questions that need to be answered. The hope is that the motion presented by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, to have the PROC committee look into this, will find some of those answers. Some of those questions are these: Who knew, when did they know and what did they do about it?
With recent reports in the media, particularly in The Globe and Mail with information that is seemingly being provided to it by the security establishment, there are many facts related to this case that are indisputable. First, we now know that the government knew about these threats almost two years ago. We know that there has been foreign intimidation of Chinese diaspora members for several elections now. We also know, according to the national security adviser to the Prime Minister, that the government did receive a report from CSIS saying that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and his family were facing threats. They were facing threats not just here in Canada, but were facing threats also, by extension, in Hong Kong. Those facts are indisputable. There is no amount of standing up and elevating our voices that will dispute those facts.
Therefore, the question remains: What, if anything, did the government do about it? We found out today, and over the course of the last week, through lines of questioning, that it has done nothing about it. It has done nothing with this information over the course of the last two years. The impact of that is significant, not just for the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. He is a member of Parliament and enjoys certain privileges as a member of Parliament, not the least of which is the expectation of security being provided by the government. All Canadians should expect that.
If this can happen to a member of Parliament because of a position they have taken with a vote or multiple votes, what about the members within the Chinese diaspora in Canada who come to this country to be free of intimidation, to be free of fear and to be free of harassment? We have heard that there are many members of the Chinese community, Chinese Canadians, who are being intimidated and harassed, and who, quite frankly, are afraid. We have also heard of the interference of the Chinese regime with respect to cultural associations within this country, infiltrating and setting up police stations within this country to keep track of those in the Chinese diaspora, to promote fear, to intimidate and to harass them.
The consequences of what we are discussing today are far-reaching. Let us think about this: A member of Parliament, or any Canadian, for that matter, wakes up in the morning on a Monday and finds out through The Globe and Mail, through reports from our intelligence infrastructure, that the person's family, for over two years, has faced threats, intimidation and harassment. Think of the fear this instills in anyone, not just a member of Parliament. Think of the fact that the member has children. What if the Chinese consulate and this now-exiled Chinese diplomat had conducted a campaign of gathering information on his family and his children, having access, perhaps, to his Internet and his family's Internet?
This is why this is so egregious and why we are seized with this issue tonight. The member's privileges have been breached. I hope that the procedure and House affairs committee can get to the bottom of this and find out exactly what is going on and what happened to this member and to his extended family in Hong Kong.
As I mentioned earlier, it is not just a member of Parliament. There are countless stories, thousands within the Chinese diaspora, among those who came to the country to flee persecution and fear, to be able to practise their own faith and political freedom in this country. They are dealing with the same issues as the member for Wellington—Halton Hills; maybe they are not doing so as publicly, but they are dealing with them.
One thing that we are doing at the ethics committee is studying the issue of foreign interference. One of the first panels of witnesses we had involved those within the Chinese diaspora who are facing this harassment, these fears and these intimidation tactics by the Chinese government. This is how we got to this point with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. If we recall, in February of 2021, there was a motion put before the House to declare the human rights abuse of the Uyghur Muslim community in China as a genocide. It received majority support in the House. In fact, some of the Liberals voted for it. However, can we say who did not vote for it and actually abstained? It was the entire cabinet of the government of this country. Marc Garneau sat in this place and abstained on behalf of the cabinet.
I am going to call it for what it was. It was a gutless move. When the government had a chance to stand up for human rights and call out the Beijing Communist regime for the human rights abuses of the Muslim Uyghurs, it hightailed it out of this place. It did not even have the decency to vote. However, who voted for the motion? It was the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and every other member of Parliament, with the exception of cabinet. For that, the member was targeted; he faced a campaign of harassment, fear and intimidation. Who carried out this campaign? It was the very person who got kicked out today.
The government has known about this for two years. It had two years to act; however, with diplomatic immunity, this agent of the Chinese Communist regime was able to run amok around this country.
We know about the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, about the intimidation and the fear that he faced. How many other Canadians faced the same tactic by this diplomat over the course of the last two years? By extension, in other countries, such as Hong Kong, how many other family members were intimidated?
When we had that panel come to the ethics committee, it was sobering. We heard a former colleague, Kenny Chiu, talk about this fear and intimidation tactic on the part of Chinese Beijing officials. He talked about this misinformation and disinformation campaign that was executed against members of this place during the last couple of elections.
We heard from Mehmet Tohti, one of the foremost defenders of human rights of Uyghur Muslims in China. He lives in this country, and he told us a story of phoning his relatives in China and having Beijing Communist officials picking up the phone. They just wanted to intimidate him and to let him know that they were there, in case he wanted to continue this campaign of speaking out against human rights abuses toward the Muslim community in China.
This is what we are dealing with. This is the reason for this debate tonight. It is why it is so important for the procedure and House affairs committee to deal with this issue. It is why the ethics committee is dealing with foreign interference. There is another committee of Parliament dealing with foreign interference, and I cannot for the life of me understand why the government will not launch an independent inquiry about this. I have sat through most of this debate today, since the point of privilege was read out by the Speaker. I have heard members from the government side talk about the politicization of this issue. However, one way to not politicize this issue is to have an independent public inquiry so that we can get information on the depths, the infiltration and the impact that foreign interference from the Beijing Communist regime is having on this country. This is something the government does not want to do. However, it is time for the truth to be known.
We have put forward motions. They were approved of by opposition parties in this place. However, the government voted against them. I have the utmost respect for the former governor general, Mr. Johnston. In the eight years of my time here, I have gotten to know Mr. Johnston. I travelled to Vimy Ridge for the 100th anniversary of Vimy with him. He is a decent man, and I do not think anybody should be impugning his character. However, Mr. Johnston is too closely connected to the family and to the Trudeau Foundation to have any sort of independent view on whether a public inquiry should be had. It is not just opposition members who are speaking about this. A majority of Canadians are speaking about the same thing. We need an independent inquiry, and we need the Prime Minister to call it now.
This pandering to the Chinese Communist regime on the part of the Canadian government seems to be a pattern. It effectively started, as we are finding out through our study in committee, when the Prime Minister won the leadership of the Liberal Party, well in advance of his becoming the prime minister. There was a $140,000 donation that was procured and negotiated by the brother of the Prime Minister, Alexandre Trudeau; he actually signed the cheque. We had him at committee last week, and it was the first time in the history of the Trudeau Foundation receiving a cheque that the Prime Minister's brother was actually involved in it. Therefore, he had a lot to do with it and a lot of say in the $140,000 donation.
A question has arisen about the receipt that was issued. The receipt was issued to an individual in Beijing, yet the donation was made through a company located in China. We started seeing a pattern of influence and infiltration by the Chinese Communist regime at around the time the Prime Minister won the leadership of the Liberal Party. The donors of those cheques had access to the Prime Minister shortly after he became the Prime Minister. Therefore, a lot of questions are being raised about the connection between the Liberal Party and the Chinese Communist regime. Of course, it has been well documented that the Prime Minister said that he had a basic admiration for China and the Chinese regime. We started to see very early on, when he won the leadership of the Liberal Party, that the pattern of pandering and infiltration was starting to work its way through the Liberal Party. Therefore, it is not surprising to me when we see the evidence starting to mount about this.
We have also seen some other things related to China. Members will recall the Winnipeg lab incident, the information related to that and how the government fought so hard to make sure that this information was kept under wraps. It required a court challenge on the part of the Speaker to get that information.
I mentioned the Trudeau Foundation and the failure to recognize cabinet stepping away from its obligation to stand up in this place and be counted, actually abstaining from a vote on the Uyghur Muslim genocide. We have illegal police stations that are still operating in this country. We have donations to election candidates. We saw over $70,000 donated to one riding in this country within a 48-hour period. The donations came from right across the country; they were not even part of the riding.
We have heard stories through CSIS and, again, through The Globe and Mail, where these donations were actually paid back by the Chinese consulate. We have CSIS documentation, CSIS reports, through The Globe and Mail, about involvement in choosing candidates. Of course, we have heard about what happened in the 2019 and 2021 elections. It was well documented in 2021. We have had former members of Parliament talk about their experiences during those campaigns and how difficult it was to get their message out. People who had traditionally supported them within the Chinese community were now not supporting candidates because of the level of disinformation and the misinformation campaign that has been directly attributed to those consulates. They were acting to undermine not only our democratic institutions but also the electoral process in this country.
Today, and I would like to say as a result of the motion that we put forward, we saw the government act. Over a week after the news came out about the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, we finally saw the government act and consider a Chinese consulate official persona non grata, expelling this official two years too late. When this information first came out two years ago and the government was made aware of it, as the national security adviser told the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, there should have been no question about what the government was going to do with this individual.
He should have been expelled. As I said earlier, he has had two years now to continue this campaign of harassment, intimidation and inciting fear, not just in terms of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and perhaps other MPs in this place, but also in terms of the Chinese diaspora in this country. Those citizens of Canada who have come here from China do not have the platform that we do, as members of Parliament. They do not have the platform of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. They cannot stand up in this place and ask the Speaker to rule on a point of privilege based on newspaper and CSIS reports.
From what we have heard at committee, many of them live in fear. They do not participate in the electoral process because of the fear of retribution by those agents who are acting in this country on behalf of the Beijing Communist regime. What kind of country have we descended to when we cannot even protect, not just our own citizens, but a sitting member of this House because he or she stands for what is right, standing up against human rights abuses in China? It is a sad indictment that we are actually at this point.
It is sad that the government does not see the seriousness of this issue, where they would call an independent public inquiry to get to the bottom of it. That is what is needed. We need somebody who is not connected in any way, shape or form, to either the family or the foundation to make that decision.
We are seeing more stories, more accusations and more pathways that our committees could go down. We are going to see those things over the next little while. However, the only pathway that they lead to is an independent public inquiry to get to the bottom of this so that we can deal with the issue of foreign interference once and for all.
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- May/8/23 8:07:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member said at least three times that the government knew about this and sat on this information for two years. It is factually incorrect. As a matter of fact, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills has recently said, in an interview that he gave outside this place, that he was informed by the national security adviser that both the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's chief of staff knew nothing about this until last week.
I asked this same question to the member for Perth—Wellington and he stepped back from that because he realized that he was going beyond where reality was. Therefore, I will ask this member the same thing: Is the member saying that, when the Prime Minister stands in this House and says that he did not have that information prior to last week, he is lying to this House?
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- May/8/23 8:08:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Prime Minister is accountable for his own words and his own actions. I have the utmost faith and the utmost belief in the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and the information that he received from the national security adviser.
Members will recall that when Katie Telford appeared before the procedure and House affairs committee, she said that there was nothing that the Prime Minister does not see, including all of the security briefings and all of the security reports. All of it, he sees. We have no reason to believe that the Prime Minister did not see this information two years ago. He should have. If it went to the Privy Council Office, as was stated by CSIS, then the Prime Minister would have surely seen this information but he failed to act. For two years, this individual ran around Canada, intimidating—
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- May/8/23 8:09:33 p.m.
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Questions and comments, the hon. member for Trois-Rivières.
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- May/8/23 8:09:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague, with whom I have the privilege of serving on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. I have always admired his sense of public interest and his perspective on our debates, which is very helpful.
All the examples he just gave, such as the police stations and the Trudeau Foundation, and everything he said in his speech, show that democracy is under attack.
In his opinion, how did we get here? How did we get to the point that we have to vote on such an issue?
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- May/8/23 8:10:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I truly believe that it is a question and a matter of weakness. The Chinese Communist regime has certainly infiltrated or tried to infiltrate other parts of the world; namely, Australia and United States. They have stood up to it. They have had a foreign agent registry that they have enacted.
However, I think that China sees our Prime Minister and the current government as weak. It goes back to when the Prime Minister said that he has a basic admiration for the dictatorship in China. It goes back to their trying to have influence and access to the Prime Minister through donations in the Trudeau Foundation of $140,000. Many of these Chinese operatives have been at cash-for-access fundraisers. They have actually worked their way into the current government because of weakness and that really speaks to the root of the problem with the government. The lack of initiative to provide security for its citizens is critical.
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- May/8/23 8:11:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I deeply appreciate the tone of the member's speech this evening. As a member of PROC, I look forward to having this come before our committee. This is essential work. There are a lot of questions. Over the last few months, Canadians are growing increasingly concerned and afraid. I especially think a lot of the Chinese Canadian population in this country have been warning Canada and different levels of government for a long time that this is a huge concern and that it is not just during elections but it is in between elections. It is looking at all of the realities where interference is taking place.
I wonder if this member could talk a bit about his thoughts about how Chinese Canadians have been standing up, the racism and discrimination that they have experienced because of this and what that means for them when they are not consulted on the actual process of foreign interference. The media only seems to focus on asking them specifically about how it feels to be Chinese Canadian, instead of asking, “Where do we need to move as a country to really deal with this issue?” They have a lot of expertise. I just wonder how the member thinks about this.
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- May/8/23 8:12:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a very interesting question from the member for North Island—Powell River. I was listening intently to the member for Vancouver East the other day when she spoke about this particular issue during our opposition day motion, which was passed by all opposition parties and the government voted against it.
Everyone that we have spoken to, every witness who has come to committee, has spoken about the need for a foreign agent registry and the ability for us to track those foreign nationals who are lobbying the government, who are meeting with ministers and who are perhaps attending cash-for-access fundraisers. Every single one of them has spoken about the need for a foreign agent registry.
They have talked about examples like Australia and the United States that have implemented a foreign agent registry successfully. Every single one of them, despite the government's contention, does not feel it is racist at all to implement such a registry if it means that we are going to keep track of those agents and those regimes that are intimidating, inciting fear and doing things to our citizens that should not be done, as the government has an obligation to protect them.
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- May/8/23 8:14:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there are a lot of issues at play here with this privilege motion. One of the ones we need to talk about more is trust and the trust that Canadians should have but do not have in the government. Trust is declining in the institutions around Parliament and the government in general here in Canada.
Can the member elaborate on how properly dealing with this motion here today can help rebuild trust in the institutions that Canadians have? It is because they know the opposition parties are working closely together to make sure we get the best possible outcome from a motion such as this today.
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- May/8/23 8:15:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is a good question. The challenge right now is to instill trust in a government that, in my opinion, is distrustful. It is showing a lack of trust with Canadians, particularly on the issue of convening an independent inquiry on this particular issue.
This is a government that, though its eight years in office, has continually proven to Canadians that it is great at talking about stuff, but very poor at implementing things. We have the security establishment in this country that is feeding information to The Globe and Mail. I would suggest the government is not doing enough, not just to protect Canadians, but to protect our country as well.
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- May/8/23 8:15:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in attempting to answering my question, notwithstanding the fact that he did not, the member said that according to Ms. Telford, who came before the PROC committee, the Prime Minister received and looked at everything. That is not what she said.
What Ms. Telford said was that she shares everything that she knows about and sees with the Prime Minister. We also know that she did not receive this information, nor did the Prime Minister, as cited by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills just outside this building in a media interview.
I will give the member another opportunity to try and answer my question. Why are we supposed to take all members at their word in this House, except when it is the member for Papineau? Why is he not afforded the same luxury that we afford to everybody else?
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- May/8/23 8:16:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if that is in fact the case, and the government has shown a propensity to misinform Canadians many times since it has been in power, I think the hon. member just gave a perfect example of the failures of the government and the lack of seriousness in priority by which it takes national security.
If the Prime Minister's chief of staff, as he is alleging, or the Prime Minister, as he is alleging, did not see this information given to the Privy Council Office, then that is a complete abdication of their responsibility to govern. They should step down, call an election and let a government that is serious about national security, protecting its citizens and protecting those of Chinese diaspora in this country, Iranians and others who are facing the same fear and intimidation tactics by regimes—
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- May/8/23 8:17:45 p.m.
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Resuming debate, the hon. member for South Surrey—White Rock.
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- May/8/23 8:17:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are at a pivotal moment in our democracy, because the threats we talk about, the threats to our core institutions, our members of Parliament and this very institution, are real. They are playing themselves out on a daily basis and there is no greater priority, or should be no greater priority, from a national government than our national sovereignty, than the safety and security of all our citizens.
It really does not matter when one became a citizen and whether one is a citizen by birthright or if one came here later on in life, maybe as a child with one's family and became a citizen or if one became a citizen as an adult. Having made the difficult decision to either leave or flee from one's country of origin, one became a citizen of Canada. As a citizen, this should mean something. What it should primarily mean is the government of one's new country, of the country one is now proud to say one is a citizen of, is there to protect one's interests, whatever they may be. This could be safe streets in communities at a very local level or on the macro level we find ourselves debating tonight, with threats from foreign governments or foreign entities, those who are adverse in interest to Canada.
I still am a lawyer, I confess, but in my active law practice days, we often would say that it was very important in any form of litigation, negotiation or mediation to understand who is adverse in interest to someone, or if one is a representative, adverse in interest to one's client. It is only with understanding that can one look to motivation, intent and how this may play itself out. We find ourselves in these kinds of moments here.
There are a couple of arguments I keep hearing put forward by government members. One is that the earlier government, the government of former prime minister Stephen Harper, the Conservative government, has known all about this. They say that it knew this was going on and did not do enough. We certainly did not know, and how could we know, there were specific threats against the families of members of Parliament or that there were members of Parliament who CSIS, which is charged with our international security, at the time was concerned about being so compromised by a foreign country that they really should not be running as a candidate in an election or should be somehow more thoroughly vetted.
We did not have those kinds of situations brought before us at the time. Did we know there were foreign actors out there often adverse in interest to Canada who might play out their extraterritorial ambitions through proxies, money or through compromising Canadian citizens? Yes, we knew those general things.
Just before the 2021 election, I was one of the members of Parliament who had a general defensive briefing from CSIS. I received a call one day and someone said they wanted to meet me in my office. I asked if this was a secret meeting. They said no but that it was an important meeting and they wanted me to make myself available, which I did right away. That briefing, frankly, was not that detailed. It was a briefing about foreign governments attempting to influence our elections and our governments, and how they might go about doing that.
It might be something that seems like just a social invitation to go have dinner with a new friend. It might be through one's staff who they might befriend, and then that person might volunteer in one's campaign or have a paid position in one's campaign and then seek to have a position in one's constituency office or maybe one's Hill office, where they might have access to sensitive information.
Of course, depending on our role here in this Parliament or any other, the information one has coming into one's office may be more or less sensitive. I assumed at the time that they were speaking to me because we have in my area a large diaspora that came from or has the ethnicity of India and China. Those were two of the countries mentioned, as was Iran. These are places that may seek to influence what happens here in Canada because they are not our natural allies.
With that information, they asked me to speak to my staff to inform them about and give them these broad parameters. I did that. I understand now, from disclosures in this House, that approximately 49 MPs had these same kinds of briefings, but certainly on nothing specific at all.
What I saw play out in the 2021 election, and was aware of in the 2019 election but not to the same degree, was that citizens of Canada of Chinese ancestry in my riding and in neighbouring ridings around mine, where I was helping on campaigns, felt very much under threat from their country of origin. It was not even necessarily those born outside of Canada. Some had parents who were born outside of Canada but were of ancestry from China in particular.
They are very proud Canadians. I have often said that some of the proudest Canadians are those who have come here and become Canadians. They are very proud of the country they have come to, and they are very proud to say, “I am a Canadian.” That is how they see themselves. They do not see themselves as dual citizens and they do not see themselves as citizens of other countries. They see themselves as citizens of Canada, with all that that should entail.
It was an event that happened to me in my riding in particular that brought this home to me. In fact, our leader alluded to it in his speech earlier. We were asked to turn off our phones and go outside into the backyard of one of my constituents. With tears in his eyes he said he could not talk to me inside his home because he believed his home was being monitored. That was very upsetting because I could see the pain this man felt. He said he had voted for the Conservatives in the past, but he simply could not in that election because his family was under threat and he believed they would know if he voted Conservative.
I was also sent translated screenshots from WeChat where it was made very clear that even the idea of a foreign lobby registry was being painted as an attempt to register everyone of Chinese ethnicity in Canada, because it was our intent to round them up, just as Japanese citizens were rounded up in World War II, and confiscate their assets. That was the long-term plan.
I am also aware from other campaigns that there were people of Chinese ethnicity standing outside polling booth areas watching and even taking pictures of people of Chinese ancestry who were in line to vote. Some of those people turned around and went home. It is hard to brave that kind of intimidation.
A foreign government does not even actually have to do all those things. It just needs to make people believe that it can or it will. That is enough to make people afraid, enough to bring a grown man to tears in his backyard and enough to get to citizens of Chinese ancestry who are trying very hard to fit in here in Canada and become part of our life here. It is easy to have them think this is possible.
I have another example. We have a group in my riding, an educational group that is actually an incorporated society, made up of people of Chinese ancestry. They invite speakers from all parties. They have heard from all federal, municipal and provincial parties about how government in Canada works, what our various jurisdictions are and how we go about our business, that sort of thing. I was told, first, that they have disbanded their WeChat group because they felt it was being monitored, and they now communicate in another way. Second, two of their board of directors stepped away because they felt families were under threat simply because they were engaging in educational activities to learn more about their new country.
I had a volunteer on my 2021 campaign who was Uyghur. Just before the campaign, his mother went back to China because her father was ill. She felt it was her familial duty to go back, even though there were some dangers involved, in order to tend to her ailing father, who passed away at some point. When she got there, everything was taken away from her: her ID, her documents and everything that showed her citizenship status in Canada.
When she went there, she had permanent resident status but had not yet had her citizenship ceremony. As we know, during COVID, a lot of them were suspended. She was waiting to hear the date of her citizenship ceremony, but when she arrived in China, all her documentation was taken away. She had no way to appear for her citizenship ceremony in Canada. She had no way to leave China. It was very difficult to even communicate with her family back in Canada, who were all waiting for her return. What was supposed to be a six-month trip turned out to be an almost three-year trip by the time she was able to find a way to get some place where she could be communicated with in order to get the documents to get back to Canada.
These are real examples of how the Chinese government in particular is affecting what we do here.
When a threat is made against a member of Parliament, as chief opposition whip, it is my heightened duty to stand up for all members of Parliament, but particularly those in His Majesty's loyal opposition. I stand up for their privilege in this House and their right to vote and to exercise all the requirements of their duties as members of Parliament. The member for Wellington—Halton Hills is suffering through this, but then added to that is government members suggesting that his general briefing two years ago, which was the same as mine, should have somehow put him on specific alert about his family members. That is a false narrative. It is impossible to put those two things together. That is victim-blaming in the classic sense, or gaslighting, as we often hear the term used now.
The very person who is under threat and told that the exercise of his franchise in this House is somehow compromised is being told that he should have done something about it, he should have brought it to the attention of the House and he should have done more. Well, we can only do more if we actually know that we have something to deal with, and he did not know that until last week through a news article.
I am not surprised CSIS is frustrated and talking to the press, and I know the government has had a strong reaction to that. Its reaction was to try to figure out who the whistle-blowers were in CSIS and go after them. Instead of praising the whistle-blowers and saying there is a problem here and that it needs to get on it as a government to protect our citizens and do more to protect members of Parliament, it was upset that the stories were getting out.
I go back to a report by Liberal member David McGuinty—
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- May/8/23 8:32:34 p.m.
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The member knows that we cannot mention current members of the House by name.
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- May/8/23 8:32:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I go back to a report from the chair of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. It was submitted to the Prime Minister on August 30, 2019, so in our 42nd Parliament, before I returned to this place.
A study was done and recommendations were made. I would like to read some of those recommendations, because they alerted this Parliament to some of the problems we are seeing roll out now. The report reads:
In the interest of national security, members of the House of Commons and Senate should be briefed upon being sworn-in and regularly thereafter on the risks of foreign interference and extremism in Canada.
That does not happen.
It continues:
In addition, Cabinet Ministers should be reminded of the expectations described in the Government's Open and Accountable Government, including that Ministers exercise discretion with whom they meet or associate, and clearly distinguish between official and private media messaging, and be reminded that, consistent with the Conflict of Interest Act, public office holders must always place the public interest before private interests.
It continues:
The targeting and manipulation of ethnocultural communities is the primary means through which these states control messages and seek to influence decision-making at all levels of government.
This was two and a half years ago.
It goes on to say:
Some individuals willingly act as agents of a foreign power for a variety of reasons including patriotism or the expectation of reciprocal favours. These states also co-opt individuals inside and outside of ethnocultural communities through flattery, bribery, threats and manipulation.
It goes on:
A great deal of foreign interference has the goal of creating a single narrative or consistent message that helps to ensure the survival and prosperity of the foreign state.... However, ethnocultural communities are not homogeneous and individuals or groups may not want to get involved or do not support the foreign state's goals. Therefore, foreign states utilize a range of tactics to enforce a single narrative. Those tactics include:
threats;
harassment;
detention of family members abroad; and
refusal to issue travel documents or visas.
Many ethnocultural community members are also monitored for what the foreign state considers to be dissident views or activities.
It also says:
States engage in foreign interference activities to support their national interests. These interests include regime protection and domestic legitimacy; strategic advantages and spheres of influence (such as their economic, political or security agendas); projection of power and deterrence....
It continues:
PCO and CSIS assess that Canada is a target due to its global standing; robust and diverse economy; large ethnocultural communities; membership in key multilateral organizations such as the Five Eyes, G7 and NATO; and close relationship with the United States.
It goes on:
The PRC utilizes its growing economic wealth to mobilize interference operations: “with deep coffers and the help of Western enablers, the Chinese Communist Party uses money, rather than Communist ideology, as a powerful source of influence, creating parasitic relationships of long-term dependence.”
The report goes on and on in the recommendations to point out that, yes, these are very real risks.
In a general sense, of course, we know that there are foreign countries with adverse interests to ours that try to gain influence here through money, through relationships, through threats and through intimidation. However, to do so specifically against a member of Parliament based on a vote taken in this House, particularly a vote on human rights, is outrageous. That is why we stand in support of the question of privilege by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills asking that our PROC committee study this and look at it. It is also why a motion was passed in the House today asking the government to create the foreign registry that I spoke of earlier, to establish an independent public inquiry on the matter of foreign election interference, to close down Beijing-run police stations and to expel other operatives, not just the one we were told about today.
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- May/8/23 8:37:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, foreign interference has been reported publicly through CSIS since as early as 2013, when Conservatives were in power. The member for Carleton, the Leader of the Opposition, was then the minister responsible for receiving that report. Conservatives did nothing for two years.
Since then, we brought in Bill C-76, the Elections Modernization Act, which tightened up rules around donations to campaigns, specifically limiting foreign donations. We brought in Bill C-59, which established NSIRA, the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency. We brought in NSICOP, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, to oversee national security.
Conservatives voted against all of that, everything, and at times they would not even vote to let the bills go to committee. How is it they can come in here and be so interested and speak so passionately about protecting democracy against foreign interference when they have routinely and systematically voted against every single initiative?
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