SoVote

May/9/23 11:05:13 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, we are all very concerned with the fact that there is information that went through the proper channels, but either the Prime Minister ignored it, or he was incompetent in receiving that information on behalf of Canadians. We have been over this. This has been perhaps the most alarming part of the information we have received. Canadians have been left in the lurch for two years. The Liberal government is trying to figure out why, only based on the fact that the freedom of the press allowed information to come to the public. Otherwise, we would be going about our days dealing with an array of other issues right now. First and foremost, we want to know who knew, and when. We cannot believe that the Prime Minister and a lot of other people did not know. Certainly, the first act is, how do we fix that? The only way to do that is through an open inquiry at this point.

163 words

Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)

May/9/23 11:06:11 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I think we all agree that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills has an incredible amount of integrity. Where we do not see integrity is in how the Conservatives are trying to exploit this. I am amazed that my colleague quotes Teddy Roosevelt. Do Conservatives think their leader is going to carry a big stick? Teddy Roosevelt, of course, launched illegal invasions into Cuba and Philippines, and mass murder, based on falsehoods. The Conservatives believe that, as long as Canadians do not know history, they will be okay. When it was Stephen Harper who was kissing up to China, what did they announce? The member on the back bench can confirm that they were going to send blueberries to China. In exchange for blueberries, what did China take? Chinese state corporations took control of a huge part of the oil sands. Stephen Harper said that was okay because they were sucking up to China. For Conservatives to come in now with this false history is really concerning. They are exploiting a very serious situation to make their very juvenile leader look like he is going to walk out on the world stage with his big stick to take on China. For sure, Canadians deserve better than that.

210 words

Mr. Ryan Williams

May/9/23 11:07:30 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, Canadians deserve a government that is going to stand up for them. As I clearly noted, the big stick is our trade relationship, which is will ensure that we can not only encourage growth and investment, but also keep out bad actors and bad countries that want to do bad things to Canadians. We are certainly going to do that. This prime minister or the next prime minister, the opposition leader is going to be a great prime minister and will do that for Canadians.

87 words

Stand

Mr. Todd Doherty (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC)

May/9/23 11:08:00 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, in listening to the debate last night and today, which has been quite something, I am at a loss for words as to how to frame what we are hearing from the other side and the costly coalition down the way. They are scrambling to the defence of the one member of the government who continually stands up to speak to this very important issue. How did we get here? For months, Canadians have been hearing, through leaked security reports to the media, about Chinese interference or foreign interference in our previous elections and nominations. Then, within the last week, we found out that there was a foreign operative from Beijing, by the name of Zhao Wei, who took it upon himself to find out about a sitting member of Parliament in the House, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. The member for Wellington—Halton Hills is very respected on all sides because he is a very reasoned leader. He is very passionate and very articulate. He is measured in his responses, measured in his debate, and he has garnered respect on all sides. However, this foreign operative endeavoured to find out the whereabouts of this sitting member of Parliament's family in China and perhaps here. Why was that? It was to make an example of him because of the way he voted and the motion he put forward on China's human rights atrocities and its record on human rights as it applies to the Uyghurs, a section of China's population who are being persecuted. Horrible acts are being committed against them. All that he was doing was standing up for this minority, and this Chinese operative decided to target him and his family to make an example of him. Two years ago, in September 2021, a CSIS report came out identifying this, and this government did nothing. As a matter fact, up until yesterday, Zhao Wei was still in this country affording the privileges and rights that many Canadians do not even have. He had diplomatic immunity to say anything and to do anything. Indeed, the lone speaker from the government would want Canadians to believe that the Prime Minister, his ministers and his cabinet knew nothing about this. I want to read something from CSIS a report entitled “Mission Focused: Addressing the Threat Environment”. Under the heading of “Duties and Functions”, it reads that they are to: Investigate activities suspected of constituting threats to the security of Canada and report on these to the Government of Canada. Take measures to reduce threats if there are reasonable grounds to believe the security of Canada is at risk. Provide security assessments on individuals who require access to classified information or sensitive sites within the Government of Canada. Provide security advice relevant to the exercise of the Citizenship Act or the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Conduct foreign intelligence collection within Canada at the request of the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the Minister of National Defence. However, the report continues with what CSIS, in its own words, can do. It reads: CSIS may collect foreign intelligence; that is, intelligence relating to the intentions, capabilities and activities of a foreign state. However, foreign intelligence may only be collected from within Canada at the request of the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the Minister of National Defence, and with the consent of the Minister of Public Safety. These assessments or reports are relied upon and provided to the Government of Canada. The report goes on to say: In 2022, CSIS produced over 2,500 intelligence [reports]. These are relied upon by Departments and Agencies to help inform policy making and to support evidence-based decisions. Separately, CSIS may also take measures to reduce threats to the security of Canada. I offer that into the record because there are only two choices here. Either the Liberals and the government do not care about the safety of parliamentarians, the families of those who serve, and the stress and mental health of those in the chamber trying to do their jobs daily, or they are negligent in their duties with malicious intent. They are either grossly incompetent or grossly negligent. That is right. We have two choices here. That is it. They allowed a threat against a sitting member of Parliament and his family, then they allowed this person, who sent that volley across the bow of the ship and threatened a sitting of Parliament, to stay in the country for two years. They will also have us believe that, seven days after they found out about it, the Prime Minister acted swiftly. If the leader of our country does not know about these threats, he does not care about them, which is crazy to believe. As I said, there are two choices here: They are either grossly incompetent or grossly negligent. For over two years the government has sat on knowledge that a member of this House and his family have been under threat. For over two years, it has done nothing about it. If we go around this chamber or anywhere on the site of Parliament, there are signs about our security. If we see something, we say something. Now, we have top secret CSIS security reports that are being leaked to the media. Why is that? It is because, as we heard through other testimony on foreign interference, CSIS has been providing these reports and nobody is acting on them, so whistle-blowers from within are trying to find a way to raise the awareness of the threat levels in our country, whether they are threats of interference in our elections, threats against sitting members of Parliament or threats against Canadians of the Chinese diaspora. We go out, as members of Parliament, and we meet with Canadians from all walks of life, and there are many times I have had a meeting with members from different diasporas, and they say, “Can we just go outside? I am going to turn my phone off, and I want to go outside.” This is real. They are worried about the foreign interference. They are worried about their country of origin listening in and finding out. They are being intimidated during elections as to who to vote for. These threats are real, and our colleagues across the way would have us believe that there is nothing to see here. Originally, they said it was because they did not have the information. The government did not act because it did not have the information. It only found out about the threats and intimidation when it was revealed in a Globe and Mail story. What has transpired over the last week in the case before us today provides valuable insight into the Liberal government. What has happened to the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills is just another example. Two days after the story broke, the Prime Minister told Canadians that the CSIS document in question had not been circulated. Can members believe that our leader, the leader of our country, is so woefully unaware? He is blissfully unaware, going merrily about his way in whatever he is doing, going to cocktail events and taking selfies, but he does not know about the threats against a sitting member of Parliament in the House. He told Canadians that the report by CSIS outlining the details of the threat to intimidate the member for Wellington—Halton Hills never left the building. On Thursday, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills caught the Prime Minister in this miscommunication. I say “miscommunication”, because it would be unparliamentary to call it anything like a “lie”. According to the member, the Prime Minister's very own national security adviser called him directly to tell him that the intelligence assessment of July 20, 2021, was indeed sent to all relative departments, that in fact it did go to the Prime Minister's Office and it did go to the public safety minister's office. I do not want to get into the machinations of the machinery of the government, but for those watching, the Prime Minister's Office also includes the Privy Council Office. PCO is the Prime Minister's department. He is solely responsible for it. Anyone who has worked in a large organization will understand the silo effect, each part working on its own projects, its own agenda with one large body overseeing everything, being the guy who sits in that seat right there. With the exception of possibly the finance department, PCO is the only organization in all of government that actually knows what is going on everywhere. In fact, each week all the deputy ministers from across the government descend on the Prime Minister's Office in Langevin Block to discuss what has transpired, what is coming up and how they are going to move forward. They strategize. Each week, all the political chiefs of staff from each department meet so they can inform the Prime Minister's Office on their files and how they are progressing. The Prime Minister and the government want us to believe that they did not know, that they were not informed, that this information simply fell through the cracks. With all these people meeting each week, discussing issues of national importance, I find it extremely hard to believe that no one in this government would flag this issue, that not one person would say to the Prime Minister that he needed to know about this, that not one person would raise it. As I said at the start, we should give them the benefit of the doubt. Gross incompetence or malicious intent, there are cases made for each. We have seen gross incompetence daily. We have all heard the rumours about files piled so high on the Prime Minister's desk that it is not inconceivable that perhaps he actually still has not seen the memo yet as it is not on this month's reading list. Maybe it is on next month's reading list. The total control demanded by this PMO is unlike any in the history of government. Nothing gets signed or passed until the Prime Minister's Office has seen it or okayed it. Nothing gets done until the Prime Minister has given it the green light. Advice from the departments can sit for weeks and months in PCO and PMO and, because the Prime Minister is vacationing in the Caribbean, surfing in B.C., taking all-expense paid trips, things just seem to pile up. I mean, leading is hard. We all heard the testimony of the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Katie Telford, in recent weeks. The Prime Minister reads everything. If that is true, if he reads everything, we know with certainty that the CSIS intelligence file was in his office. Would it not stand to reason that he actually read it, that he understood it and that he willfully chose to ignore it? That leads us to gross negligence. Why on earth would a Prime Minister put the lives of members of Parliament at risk? I will remind this chamber that the Chinese operative was going to “make an example of” a sitting member of Parliament. What does it mean to “make an example of” ? Why would any threat against a parliamentarian go unanswered? Why would the government willfully ignore intelligence briefings from CSIS? It is because it did not suit their needs or their political agenda. That is right. If it was not incompetence, it was negligence. It is that simple. If we look at the political climate and the events that were transpiring around this time, we can see a pattern. We know that foreign actors were funnelling money to 11 Liberal candidates in the greater Toronto area, 11 sitting members of Parliament. That is a fact. CSIS has reported on that. We know that the Prime Minister was planning a snap election at the same time. We know that, despite numerous warnings, the Prime Minister and his staff understood the security threats. We know that CSIS provided the information on the intimidation campaign against the member for Wellington—Halton Hills in 2021 and the government did nothing. In its 2021 annual report to Parliament, CSIS said that foreign interference threats had increased. Canada's spy agency said efforts by foreign states to steal intellectual property from Canadian researchers and companies were “persistent and sophisticated” and contributed to a “mounting toll on the country's vital assets and knowledge-based economy.” It warned that foreign interference threats in Canada to shape public policy or harass dissidents, as well as espionage, “increase[d] in scale, scope and complexity”. In 2022, an unsealed indictment in the U.S. alleged that Beijing's overseas campaign to put pressure on Chinese nationals to return and face criminal charges in China included enforcement efforts on Canadian soil. That is right, through its use of illegal police stations operating in Toronto and Montreal, the Communist Chinese regime was using intimidation to influence Canadian citizens. Prior to the 2021 election, constituents came to me and asked if it was real, was it actually happening in Canada that a foreign country had police stations in our country and was forcing Chinese Canadians to do their deeds through intimidation. I chalked it up as conspiracy and told my constituents that it could not be true, yet it is. Months after the government stood in the House and admitted, yes, it is and it had closed their doors, but these police stations are still open. They are still threatening Chinese Canadians. I said at the beginning that if one sees something, one should say something. Can anyone imagine being from China and living here? They come here for a better life, and yet they are still feeling the undue pressure of the foreign government that they fled because they still have family there. They are still worried about persecution. They are still worried about intimidation. They are still worried about the threats of violence or whatever could happen to their families. Why would they say something when they see the leader of our country taking such a weak stance? Talking about weakness, time and again we have seen the Prime Minister on the world stage being so weak. Literally weeks after Iran shot down PS752, a Ukrainian airline, killing 57 Canadians, there he was bowing to the same regime that killed those Canadians. The right thing to do is to send a message to these countries that we are strong, that regardless of our political beliefs, we will stand up for one another here. There is something that we do not take into consideration, at least I did not when I signed up to be a member of Parliament, and that is the threats of violence, the increasing threats to our own safety and our families' safety. I have to say it is alarming. I can handle myself, but I worry about my family, always. The message has to be that regardless of which party we are with, if a country attacks one of us, it attacks us all, and it will not be allowed. When the government was challenged with that, its response was that it was kind of worried about what China was going to do. That is BS. I would like to say that word in full. The government is so weak on such issues that matter to all Canadians. We can do so much better. Yesterday we had a motion before the House about setting up a foreign interference agency and having a non-partisan commission to investigate foreign interference, and the government voted against it. Yes, it has appointed a special rapporteur who has close connections to the Prime Minister. He might as well just sign the report right now and hand it in because we know what it is going to say. I am not besmirching our former governor general. I am saying the Prime Minister should have better guidance from those around him. I will cede the floor with this. I am so troubled by the fact that all the government wants to do is impugn the reputation of a sitting member of Parliament that it could have protected in the first place.

2746 words

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

May/9/23 11:28:11 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, what has become abundantly clear in the hours of debate we have had thus far is the fact the Prime Minister found out about this just last week, and a number of measures were taken, including the expulsion of a diplomat within a week. Those are the facts. The member might want to speculate, hypothesize and all these other weird things, but those are the facts. The Conservatives continue to want to dial up the issue because they want to focus on character assassination more than they want to deal with an issue of substance. One member affects all members. This is an issue that will be discussed at committee. The question is this. There were 49 members of Parliament in 2022, a couple of dozen provincial legislators and even some local councillors. Does the member not believe that the best way to deal with this is to put politics aside and let the committees do what they need to do?

163 words

Mr. Todd Doherty

May/9/23 11:29:28 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, the best way to deal with this would have been two years ago when the government first had the report. I do not believe for one minute that the Prime Minister, his ministers or those around him did not know about it. I think it is unacceptable that this member of Parliament continues to stand up here and gaslight with respect to the 49 elected officials who were briefed on this. He continues to throw that out there. Last week, when the Liberals changed their talking points, they tried to say that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills somehow knew about it two years ago and did nothing when it was solely their responsibility to stand up not only for the sitting members of Parliament who have been elected to represent Canadians, but also for those Canadians who are facing intimidation from foreign agents.

147 words

Wellington

Mr. René Villemure (Trois-Rivières, BQ)

May/9/23 11:30:14 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, when we look at this whole situation, it is obvious that the Prime Minister does not understand China. When it comes to foreign affairs, I do not think he understands Russia. There are many things like that. I would like to ask my hon. colleague a question. Is the Prime Minister acting this way because he is gullible, naive or incompetent?

64 words

Mr. Todd Doherty

May/9/23 11:30:43 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, that goes to the main point in my intervention, which is this. The Liberals do not care about the safety of parliamentarians or the families of those who serve, so they are either negligent in their duties with malicious intent, grossly incompetent or grossly negligent. I worked in China for a long time in my previous career and I know about the threats and intimidation. As soon as people land and get into a taxi, it gets pulled over and the Chinese officials know exactly who they are and why they are there. I have faced intimidation by China. I cannot imagine what it is like to be from the Chinese community living here in Canada, having fled that country for a better life, yet still being faced with threats of violence and intimidation, and worrying about my friends and family back home and the coercion they face. It is unacceptable and the sign of a weak leader. It is not even leadership; it is just weakness.

169 words

Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

May/9/23 11:31:47 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, my hon. friend from Cariboo—Prince George would know that my colleague from Kitchener Centre and I, the Green Party, supported the motion to ensure that the prima facie case of privilege that the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills advanced goes to committee for study, but there is one factual matter I want to probe a bit with him. We know a lot of things about the circumstances here, and I have an open mind on whether the Prime Minister or the people near him in the PMO knew for two years. We do not know that. We know that CSIS wrote a report, we know that the national security advisers knew, but we do not know whether that information was communicated to the Prime Minister's Office and I am not prepared to make that assumption. With respect to the information going forward from CSIS or the national security adviser to the Prime Minister's Office, I find it entirely plausible that it did not pass it on. I would like to ask him if he does not think there is even a possibility that is the case.

194 words

Mr. Todd Doherty

May/9/23 11:33:07 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am going to respectfully disagree. This is a matter of national importance and of the safety and security of a sitting member of Parliament. I will go back to what I said during my intervention. CSIS does these reports and investigations only at the request of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Public Safety or the Minister of National Defence. I just cannot see it happening that it produced these reports and they somehow sat under a stack of selfies in our Prime Minister's Office without him seeing them. I just cannot see a situation where our Prime Minister does not know about the matter of a national security threat. Beyond that, CSIS built these reports about potential threats within his party to nominations or whatever. I cannot see any scenario where the Prime Minister, in his leadership, had no knowledge of it. He can say he did not know and plead ignorance all he likes, but I just cannot see it. I have sat in security briefings at the highest level, and I cannot believe that the Prime Minister had no knowledge of it. Our first job is to tell our commander-in-chief when there are threats. We cannot insulate them and allow them to be willfully ignorant of these threats.

219 words

Mr. Gary Vidal (Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, CPC)

May/9/23 11:34:50 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I want to ask my colleague from Cariboo—Prince George to comment briefly on the facts of the timing of all this. We heard from the member across the way that he wants to talk about facts, so let us do so. We started on Sunday night, when the member for Wellington—Halton Hills was informed of this potential threat to him and his family. That story came out in the media on Monday. On Monday and Tuesday, the government side deflected; there was no comment about anything. Finally, on Wednesday morning, the Prime Minister and the public safety minister said that this report never made it out of CSIS. I think by the end of the day or early the next morning, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills was in fact informed that this report had made it to the PCO and the national security adviser's office. The Liberals deflected for a couple more days. They were going to summon the ambassador to have a conversation, and finally, we end up with this operative, as he is called in many reports, being expelled from our country. What we are trying to accomplish in this parliamentary privilege motion is actually getting to the truth, and we have the goal of getting it to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for a deeper study. Could the member for Cariboo—Prince George talk about how this changing set of facts and narratives affects this?

251 words

Mr. Todd Doherty

May/9/23 11:36:16 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, that is kind of the modus operandi we have seen from the Prime Minister, at least in the seven and a half years that I have been a member of Parliament. Whether it is “elbowgate”, Jody Wilson-Raybould, SNC or the WE scandal, it is always, “There is nothing to see here.” Then they blame Stephen Harper or the previous government. It just goes on and on. The Prime Minister reminds me of the schoolyard bully, where he picks and natters at somebody. When the person finally has enough, they punch the bully in the nose, and the bully runs to his parents and blames everybody else. He does not take responsibility for his own actions, which caused that to happen. It is the lack of leadership we have seen and come to expect from the Prime Minister, as well as the weakness he has shown time and time again. It is his own self-adulation, the arrogance we have seen and how he loves being on the red carpet rather than being on this green carpet right here. This is the House of the people; this is the House of Commons. This House elects 338 members of Parliament so that we can bring Canadians' voices here. At the very least, the Prime Minister should be standing up for the 338 members of Parliament so that they can vote with their conscience and be the voices for their constituents and Canadians. Canadians know that we will stand up for them. Regardless of who they are or where they are from, we will allow them to have a free and democratic life here in Canada. We will not stand for a foreign country intimidating them.

290 words

Mr. Alain Therrien (La Prairie, BQ)

May/9/23 11:38:14 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I must first acknowledge the Speaker’s ruling on the question of privilege raised by the member for Wellington-Halton Hills. I find the Speaker’s response to that motion very interesting. I am an economist by training. More specifically, I am a macroeconomist. Some say that a macroeconomist is a microeconomist who knows how to count, but, no, I would not say that. Many things could be said about economists, but I would say that I like to have an overall picture of the situation, so that is what I will provide to the House. I know my colleagues have waited a long time for me to explain the situation to them. No, that is not true, I know that is not the case, but I will nevertheless take on the task of explaining who the Prime Minister is. I will share my macroanalysis of this situation. I will start at the beginning. I was a member of the National Assembly in Québec City before sitting here and, in Québec City, I served under two premiers, Ms. Marois and Mr. Couillard. When I saw them during oral question period, they were always passionate. For Ms. Marois, it was always a true pleasure to cross swords with her friends across the floor. It was clear that she loved debate and that she loved being premier. As for Mr. Couillard, there are many things that divide us. I can say that because I faced him for four years. However, he was like that as well. When he got to question period, he was prepared. It was clear that he enjoyed it, and we enjoyed asking him questions. One of Mr. Couillard’s problems is that he had left “his heart at home”, as Michel Rivard would say. However, that is another debate. If he is listening today, I salute him and I reverently salute Ms. Marois, the first woman premier in Quebec history. When I arrived in the House of Commons, I was anxious and happy. I told myself that I would be finally seeing the Prime Minister in all his splendour. In 2015, it was said that he was a rock star, a bit like Bono or something. He was heard singing songs from Queen even though it was not very convincing. I still thought it would be impressive. I arrived in the House and I saw him for the first time. I would say, respectfully, that I was disappointed. There are many other words that would come to mind. I know that there are people who would encourage me to say them, but I will just say that I was disappointed. In summary, I would say that I saw someone who did not want to be here. He is in the House but he does not really want to be, nor does he want to answer questions. Sometimes, he prorogues Parliament and leaves for a while. He was excited to be re-elected in 2021, but we waited months before returning to the House. It appears as though he does not really want to be here. It occurred to some that he might not like this part of the job, but surely he still worked hard as the leader of Canada, was aware of everything that was going on, read the CSIS reports and had an opinion on everything. People really wanted to believe that that was true. I will give a short presentation. I hear people laughing on this side of the House, while on the other side, people are giving me the stink eye and wondering where I am going with this story. I feel like they are worried, but I want to assure them that I am not speaking to the Liberal Party, but to its leader. I know, there are small differences. I figured that I might as well watch him for a while and give him a chance, because that is the kind of guy I am. Those who have watched me for a while know that I give people a chance. It is something that people like about me. I therefore gave the Prime Minister a chance and then I studied his actions over many crises. First, I always have the proverb in mind that says, “To govern is to anticipate, and whoever does not anticipate is doomed.” It was Émile de Girardin who said that in 1852. I believed that, because he was in government, the Prime Minister had to be someone who plans ahead, but that is not so. He planned to hire McKinsey until 2100. This is one of the things that he can anticipate. He anticipated that Canada would have a population of 100 million by 2100. It is a prediction, but I am not sure that it would be very glorious. When it comes to anticipating things, he scores a big fat zero. He simply does not have that skill. Some might say that anticipating is not always easy, but I would remind the House that to govern is to anticipate, and whoever does not anticipate is doomed. He certainly seems to be running toward a brick wall. He is running toward it at such speed that even Alexis le Trotteur could not catch up. Then, when a crisis hits, he decides to take his time. It is a bit like The tortoise and the hare. He starts off very late and moves at a tortoise's pace. He has both disadvantages at the same time. Let us return to the crisis. Let us talk about crises for a moment so that members can understand where I am going with this. I am painting a portrait. First, there was the Wet'suwet'en crisis. When that happened, had he anticipated it? The answer is no. He did nothing. In fact, it is because he did nothing that it ended in a crisis. When the crisis began, he was travelling. That is another thing, he likes to travel. He does not like crises, does not like governing, does not like being here, but he likes to travel. He is a great traveller. Let us think back to the first 10 days of the crisis. He was travelling and said that he would not return for that. It was a rail crisis and there were no more trains anywhere, but he said that he would not return for that, that there was no way he would miss a trip. It is like a trilogy. It lasted 30 days. In the first 10 days, he said he was travelling and did not want to be bothered. However, he had to return one day. In the next 10 days, he acknowledged that there was a problem but stated that it was not the government's job to address it and that the provinces would have to figure it out. In the last 10 days, he realized he was really in a jam, so he decided to listen to what the Bloc, among others, was saying, and to do what the Bloc had requested him to do, and it worked. Then, there was the COVID‑19 crisis. Could it have been anticipated? Of course not. COVID‑19 could not be predicted. I cannot blame him because nobody, or at least almost nobody, saw it coming. Countries began closing their borders. People were panicking and asking what the Prime Minister had decided to do in Canada. He had not done a thing. People were coming here and they did not need to be tested. There was nothing. Planes full of people were arriving from China, from Italy. There was no problem. The Prime Minister's handling of the situation was so abysmal that even Valérie Plante, the mayor of Montreal, became involved. The mayor arrived at Dorval and said to stop letting people into the country, that it was terrible and that we would end up full of COVID‑19 cases. It is unbelievable: The Prime Minister did so little that the mayor of Montreal had to become Canada's head of state on the fly. Let us talk about trucks and the occupation in front of Parliament. Was it foreseeable? It was, a bit. There was talk of it. I remember a man from British Columbia. He was in Vancouver in his 53‑foot truck. He said he was headed to Ottawa to protest. Canada is big. He left Vancouver with a 53‑footer. When I heard him talking he was clean shaven. When he arrived here, his beard was so long he could have joined ZZ Top. In other words, we saw him coming, the guy with his truck. The protesters settled in. Once they were settled, someone a bit calmer than the others asked the Prime Minister to intervene. The Prime Minister did just that: He went outside and insulted them. He waved his arms in the air and insulted them. He went back inside satisfied that his job was done. Sadly, no, it was not; the protesters were even more riled up than usual. Their eyes were practically popping out of their sockets and they needed sunglasses to keep them in. It was bad. The Prime Minister finally decided to emulate his father, more or less. He brushed off the Emergencies Act and ended the whole thing by using the nuclear option. The Prime Minister is a procrastinator. He keeps putting things off and letting them drag on. Picture a teenager's bedroom. That is pretty much Canada, in Trudeau's eyes. He lets everything drag on—

1619 words

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/9/23 11:47:43 a.m.
Watch

I would remind the member that we do not use names.

11 words

Names
Remind

Mr. Alain Therrien

May/9/23 11:47:48 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I apologize. I was not referring to him. I was talking about the Prime Minister. I am sorry and I will never do that again, unless I make a mistake. Now let us talk about Chinese interference. Chinese interference is very serious. It poses a threat to democracy. According to the intelligence services, it is the greatest known threat to Canada. This is very serious. It seems to me that the guardian of democracy in Canada is the Prime Minister. It is up to him to ensure that we have a healthy democracy. This guy was democratically elected, so I think it would be in his interest to try to protect our democracy. This all began in the fall of 2022. Honestly, there are so many elements to Chinese interference, but I will focus on the most important ones. I will address all of them and try to find the common threads, in other words, the same issues that keep coming up over and over again. Members will see where I am going with this. In the fall, we read in the papers that China had interfered in 11 ridings in 2019. We asked the Prime Minister what was going on. He said that he had no idea, that he had never heard anything about it. When we asked again, he compared us to Trump, of all people. I cannot say we were happy about being compared to Trump. The Prime Minister accused the opposition of saying that the elections were not legitimate, despite the fact that no one in the opposition had said anything of the sort. That made us angry. We answered that we were not saying that the Liberals had not won the election, but that we simply wanted to know what happened in 11 ridings. The Prime Minister told us that he had no knowledge of this. Right after that, he went to the G20. I can still see it. He told us he did not know what was happening, but at the G20, he ran after Xi Jinping to talk to him, as if he had no one else to talk to. He spoke to Xi Jinping for so long that Xi got fed up. The Prime Minister told us that he had talked to Xi about interference. However, he had told us that he had no knowledge of any of this and that the election results were not illegitimate. Why did he talk to the president about interference? That is the first problem. Was he joking? Is the Prime Minister a joker? Perhaps he is. There was also interference in 2021. I would like to remind the House that this is a minority government. According to the final polls, it was a close race. The Chinese interfered in 11 or 15 ridings in 2019. Since then, they must have practised and gotten better at it, because they may have interfered in up to 15 or 20 ridings. It does not take a PhD in math to understand that, if someone can influence the election results in 10 or 15 ridings where the Liberals and Conservatives are neck and neck, that could mean victory or defeat for one of the parties. It could determine which party forms government. This is no laughing matter. We know that the Chinese government is fond of the Liberals. It likes them. It believes it could get close to the Liberals without much trouble. It would prefer a minority Liberal government. The Chinese government is not as fond of the Conservatives. It is a well-known fact. This is troubling. We told the Prime Minister that the issue had to be dealt with before the next election. We have a minority government, which means that an election could be called at any time. We need to resolve this problem quickly to make sure that the dice are not loaded when the next election happens. That will take intelligent action. Then we learned that, in 2021, the member for Don Valley North apparently spoke to the Chinese consulate and even asked them not to free the two Michaels, so as not to favour the Conservative Party. It is not always easy to grasp all the arguments in this affair. It is about as easy as eating an apple through a tennis racquet. I do not really understand it, but, in any case, that is what happened. Obviously, the Prime Minister says that he was unaware. The Liberal member for Don Valley North is now an independent member, despite the fact that he had the Prime Minister’s support. It is troubling. Then there is the Trudeau Foundation debacle, and that is a real circus. If anyone thinks they understand something about the Trudeau Foundation, it is because someone explained it wrong. It is complicated, so we are looking into that. Apparently, in 2016, the Chinese government donated $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation. The Prime Minister says that he has not had anything to do with the foundation for 10 years. That is another joke. He is a real card. He says that neither he nor his office has had anything to do with the foundation. Then again, his brother is involved in the foundation. In 2016, the Prime Minister’s Office called the foundation about the Chinese donation. After that, the Prime Minister asked Morris Rosenberg, the former CEO of the Trudeau Foundation, to look into the matter and determine whether there had been any Chinese interference. In Mr. Rosenberg’s massive report, there are four lines about Chinese interference and that is to say that there is none. The Prime Minister then asked David Johnston to act as special rapporteur so he could decide on whether there is a need for an independent public inquiry. Mr. Johnston told him that that was a big ask, that he was not sure he could answer right away, and that he would study the situation for two months. It is like Rodin’s The Thinker: everyone is waiting. While we are waiting, other things are happening. All of these people are from the Trudeau Foundation. The Prime Minister goes to spend Christmas with a friend who is involved in the Trudeau Foundation. His office also hosted the Trudeau Foundation. Do they take me for a fool? The Prime Minister says that he has not had anything to do with the foundation for 10 years. He keeps repeating it. The members of his government keep repeating it. The government House leader rises and says that he has not had anything to do with the foundation for 10 years. Does he believe that? The Liberals are in trouble. They believe that guy, when everyone knows that it is all complete nonsense, and it just goes on and on. The latest news is about the police stations. There are two in Quebec. That is new. The Minister of Public Safety was very serious last week when he said that they had been closed. We called, and they are still open. How can he not know that? Before saying something, he should check it. He is a minister. He also has a team. If he does not have time to check, he can ask his friend to call and find out. They are still open. It is troubling. One of these police stations is five minutes away by bike in my riding. I will say it again, this is troubling. Here is the cherry on the sundae. Now I come to the present day. Two years ago, the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills and his family received threats. Once again, the Prime Minister says he was unaware. Jody Thomas, his national security adviser, said she was aware, but he was not. Is he telling jokes, or is he a little lost? I am putting it extremely politely, but that is what we must ask ourselves. Now, we have a member who was threatened by the Chinese government because he voted against its wishes. We do not care about its wishes. It did not elect us. I just said that. The Prime Minister will never be able to say that the hon. member for La Prairie may have been threatened. We do not know. The hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills was threatened two years ago, but we did not find out about it until this week. The government still says it was unaware. I swear that if I were the prime minister of Canada, which will never happen, but let us just pretend for a moment, and I found out that a member had been threatened, I would be throwing the diplomat out five seconds later. It would not take me five weeks or five days. In just five seconds, he would be out on his ear. If the Prime Minister had learned about this right away, he could have thrown him out and told him to beat it. Instead, he procrastinated. The Liberals got together to figure out what they should do. The Prime Minister knew two years ago, the rascal. He knew two years ago. Now they are getting together to figure out what they should do. The opposition demanded that this person be ejected. They said that they could not do that and that it is no easy thing to expel an ambassador. Finally, yesterday, they bought themselves a spine and announced they would be throwing him out. Now they are patting themselves on the back like they are heroes. We do not believe that. Are any other members of the House being threatened by China? We do not know. It is troubling. It is very troubling. Members of the House and their families may be under threat. The Prime Minister may know this is happening, but he will not say. The Prime Minister is a cross between Ulysses and Pontius Pilate. Happy the man who, like Ulysses, has travelled well. There is one thing this Prime Minister likes. He likes to travel. Last weekend, when he was in front of the Liberals, he was happy because he was travelling to see the King—

1701 words

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/9/23 11:58:23 a.m.
Watch

We have to go to questions and comments. The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

17 words

Secretary

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

May/9/23 11:58:31 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, at times, we can witness that the coalition between the Conservatives and the Bloc is doing quite well. It is kind of like the blue and the light blue. It is interesting. I went through premiers Gary Doer, Greg Selinger, Gary Filmon and, of course, former prime minister Stephen Harper, all in opposition. I am very comfortable with what we have been able to accomplish. I would challenge the member. He has a different view of the last eight years. I could talk about the tax break to the middle class; the GIS lifting hundred of thousands, going to millions, of people out of poverty; and the historic number of trade agreements signed off by the government. Shall we talk about COVID and about the nine million Canadians who benefited from CERB? What about the wage subsidy program? Shall we talk about post-COVID? We can talk about child care. We can talk about the health care agreements. We can talk about the Volkswagen deal. It is endless. That is a leader who has demonstrated an immense amount of focus, when every day, the Conservatives, and now the Bloc, are more concerned about character assassination. As those two political parties focus their attention on the negative, on the Prime Minister, and are spreading misinformation, we will continue to espouse what is important to Canadians.

226 words

Mr. Alain Therrien

May/9/23 11:59:47 a.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, that was not really a question. It was a love letter to his own party. I am surprised to hear him list all the things that the government has done in the last eight years. Considering how much money they make, I should hope that they are getting things done. The Prime Minister certainly ought to be doing things. He has a packed schedule. However, we could list all the things he did not do or did wrong. Dental care was a mess, and CERB was plagued by fraud. My colleague said that we are a coalition. I would respond that we are the coalition of democracy. That is what we are. The Conservatives are right to be angry with this government, because one of their members was intimidated, threatened for two years, and this government sat idly by. Now the government is trying to get the Bloc Québécois to say that they are only Conservatives and that they are not part of our party. Come on. They are right. When the Conservatives are right on one issue, we are not ashamed to stand up and say we support them. The coalition for democracy is standing up to this government of opacity.

208 words

Mr. Todd Doherty (Cariboo—Prince George, CPC)

May/9/23 12:00:55 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I agree with the hon. member. If I ever have the opportunity to be prime minister, regardless of where the threat came from and against whom, that diplomat and that country would know, exactly, that the government would not tolerate that. It is NHL hockey playoffs right now. Evander Kane, from the Edmonton Oilers, said something that is a saying in my riding as well, which we say to bullies. I will paraphrase because some of the language is unparliamentary: If someone messes around, they will find out what will happen to them. That is the message I would send to China regarding this: Mess around and find out. In my intervention, I said that there are two choices we have here: malicious intent or willful negligence. I want to ask what my hon. colleague believes as to why the Prime Minister sat on this information and did not inform the sitting member of Parliament.

157 words

Mr. Alain Therrien

May/9/23 12:02:04 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, there is an obvious kernel of truth in my colleague's question. It is very troubling. Did the Prime Minister know the truth but fail to say anything when he should have, or did he not know because he was too naive? Which of these alternatives is preferable? Neither of them. The government obfuscates and remains silent every time we say something about Chinese interference. Their attitude is deny, deny, deny. Lives may be at stake, but the Liberals continue to deny. That is the problem.

88 words

SoVote

House Hansard - 193