44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 30, 2023 10:00AM
- May/30/23 11:18:58 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, how did we get to this point? How is it that we are here in the House of Commons to debate a motion to hold a public inquiry on foreign interference?
It started a long time ago. About 10 years, or a decade, ago, the Prime Minister expressed his admiration for the dictatorship of China. He said that the power concentrated in Beijing allowed that dictatorship to impose its will on the people of China and that he wanted to re-create that same power here in Canada. It therefore comes as no surprise that the Chinese government wanted an ideological ally in power.
Thanks to information given to the media, we know that Beijing interfered in two elections to help get the Prime Minister elected. We know that Beijing donated $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation. A telephone call from a Chinese diplomat shows that the purpose of that donation was to buy the Prime Minister's love and loyalty.
We know that, since that time, Beijing has been interfering by threatening the family of at least one MP and targeting other MPs who criticized the policies of the dictatorship in Beijing.
We also know that foreign police stations are operating here in Canada, even after the Minister of Public Safety promised to close them. Not only are those police stations open but, worse still, the Liberal government has subsidized them with taxpayer money.
We know that there are business ties between well-placed Liberals in the business world and the Liberal Party that influence this Prime Minister. All this is known, but there is a lot we do not know. People working for the intelligence service have said that Canadians need to know the truth about the relationships with the Beijing regime and its influence here in Canada. That is why there are unprecedented leaks from the intelligence service in the media. What could have compelled people to take that kind of risk? Since Canadians have learned of these risks, what has the Prime Minister done?
First, he asked Mr. Rosenberg to conduct an investigation. Mr. Rosenberg, a member of the Trudeau Foundation, said there was no problem, and that there was nothing to worry about.
There were still scandals, so the Prime Minister appointed Mr. Johnston as a special rapporteur, a fake position that does not even exist. Who is Mr. Johnston? He has been a friend of the Prime Minister’s family for 40 years, a ski buddy, a cottage neighbour and another member of the Trudeau Foundation, which received the infamous $140,000 donation.
However, the public was told not to worry because there was no conflict of interest. We know that because Mr. Johnston appointed a third person to give his opinion on the potential conflict of interest. It was another member of the Trudeau Foundation.
There are 40 million Canadians, but no one can be found outside the Trudeau Foundation to investigate this matter. That is why we need a public inquiry to make sure Canadians learn the truth.
The Prime Minister is trying to delay the launch of such an inquiry, which is inevitable. Indeed, if the Prime Minister does not launch that inquiry, I will do so when I win the next election. Today, we are studying a motion by the New Democrats, who helped the Prime Minister hide the truth and who are still in a coalition with this Prime Minister.
If the New Democrats are serious about forcing a public inquiry then they should tell the Prime Minister to launch a public inquiry or they will end the coalition with their Liberal bosses. That is the thing to do.
We need a foreign influence registry to ensure that anyone who is paid by a foreign government to influence and manipulate our policies will have their name published online for all the world to see.
We need stricter laws for those who facilitate setting up foreign police stations. We need to give more power to the RCMP and the police forces here in Canada to stop those who break the law by setting up police stations.
We need to wrest control of our democracy from foreign forces. We need to put Canadians back in charge of their lives. It is common sense. Let us bring common sense back by shedding light on the truth and allowing a public inquiry so that all Canadians can know the truth.
I will be splitting my time with the member for Brantford—Brant.
How did this all start? It started with the Prime Minister, who, before he even took office, expressed his admiration for the basic Chinese Communist dictatorship. Elsewhere, he expressed his admiration for Fidel Castro, whom he called a great revolutionary. Seeing this ideological bond, Beijing decided it had a friend and wanted to help the Prime Minister get elected. It interfered in two successive elections.
In the most recent election, intelligence confirms that Beijing wanted to see the Prime Minister win and defeat the Conservatives. It did this by intimidating people of the Chinese diaspora, who had otherwise been going out to vote patriotically. They were told they had to stay home and avoid voting. We saw that ridings with large Chinese populations had massive reductions in voter turnout.
We know that members of Parliament have been threatened by the regime in Beijing, with even the possibility of their families facing harm back home in China. We also know that the Prime Minister has been aware of many of these facts for a very long time and yet chose to do nothing. His defence is that he knew nothing. If he knew nothing and was not getting basic information from his intelligence forces, then he is incompetent and incapable of protecting our homeland.
Worst of all, the greatest victims of this are Canadians of Chinese origin, who came here to build this country, who came here to escape tyranny and embrace freedom, who follow the law and who contribute to our country every day and in every way. However, the government in this country has done nothing to protect them from the government in the country they left behind.
We have the stories, which were told to members of Parliament in our caucus. They were on doorsteps during campaigns meeting people who were in tears, people who told them that they had to leave the doorstep and go to a faraway field somewhere, leaving their phones behind because they were worried they were being tracked by a foreign government, worried that their families could be harmed, worried that acts of intimidation or even violence could happen to them here on Canadian soil. Still, the government has not set up a foreign influence registry that could help us identify the thugs who carry out this intimidation. Still, the government has refused to bring in tougher laws to shut down all foreign-controlled police stations. Still, the Prime Minister has failed to call the public inquiry that is required.
We call on the NDP to set a condition that if there is no public inquiry, the NDP will break the coalition and stand up for Canada and Canadians for once. These Canadians of Chinese origin attacked by this foreign government are patriotic Canadians. They deserve the protection of their government. These are our people. This is our land. This is our country. This is our home.
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- May/30/23 12:25:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it has been a while.
We will get into the debate again. I will start by reminding members that all the Chinese diaspora groups advocating for human rights in Canada and Quebec demand a public inquiry into Beijing's interference.
Mehmet Tohti, representing the Uyghur nation in Canada, Hong Kong pro-democracy dissidents, Falun Gong practitioners, and supporters of independence for Tibet, all of whom were already experiencing Chinese intimidation tactics on Canadian soil long before this scandal broke, slammed the Liberals' actions in The Globe and Mail just this weekend. These groups also called for an independent public inquiry. For the Liberals not to listen to the opposition is one thing, but for them to not listen to these people is, in my view, a sign of total disrespect to the first victims of this interference on Canadian and Quebec soil.
I forgot to say that I will be sharing my time with my good friend and colleague, the hon. member for Trois-Rivières.
We need to talk about one thing: The government needs to stop using the excuse of security surrounding Chinese interference to avoid an independent public inquiry. Just yesterday in the House, I was referring to the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen who was tortured in Syria. There were so many security issues in his case, yet a public and independent inquiry was held into this matter. Moreover, this inquiry was initiated by a Liberal government. The Liberals are able to initiate such an inquiry when they want to, so we wonder why they do not want to in this case.
There are so many other examples of commissions where there were security issues. I am thinking of the Charbonneau commission in Quebec. There were security and secrecy issues. There was the Rouleau commission. It is possible to set up these independent public inquiries even if there are security issues.
What this tells me is that the Liberal government is trying to bury the current Chinese interference crisis. Above all, it is trying to bury its inexplicable inaction, when it has known for many years that China was trying to interfere in our democratic process.
The Prime Minister must have known that there was Chinese interference in the last two elections. Nonetheless, he decided to hide this from the public by creating the position of special rapporteur and handing it to David Johnston, who will be discussed at length today. This is the same David Johnston who seems to be in a blatant conflict of interest over the whole issue and has recommended against holding a public inquiry. Any law professor would confirm that an apparent conflict of interest is no different from an actual conflict of interest. All this is happening despite the crisis of confidence in Canada's democratic system.
It will therefore come as no surprise that the Bloc Québécois supports the motion moved by our New Democrat colleague calling on David Johnson “to step aside from his role as special rapporteur” and calling on the government “to urgently establish a public commission of inquiry”.
Here is what the motion calls for regarding the public inquiry. It should be:
(i) led by an individual selected with unanimous support from all recognized parties in the House,
(ii) granted the power to review all aspects of foreign interference from all states...
(b) [It should] instruct the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to provide a report to the House as soon as possible with a recommendation on who could lead such a commission of inquiry and what its terms of reference should include.
The Prime Minister can talk up David Johnston's many qualities all he wants, but the fact remains that he is a family friend. Not surprisingly, he was a member of the Trudeau Foundation. Worse still, he apparently has such close ties to China that the very democratic Xi Jinping called him an old friend of China. With friends like that, I would be very careful.
Despite all of that, the Minister of Public Safety said yesterday in the House that it was important to “invite...everyone to have an open and transparent conversation about creating new tools to defend our democratic institutions”. I agree with him. Let us talk about democracy. We will talk about democracy. Everything we do today in this debate is based on the concept of democracy.
I must digress briefly, before coming back to democracy. I do not know whether my colleagues are familiar with the Airbus scandal, so I will quickly refresh everyone's memories. In 1988, under a government led by former prime minister Brian Mulroney, Airbus had been awarded a procurement contract for 34 aircraft for Air Canada at a cost of $1.8 billion Canadian. At the time, Air Canada was wholly owned by the government.
According to Democracy Watch, good old Mr. Johnston was also tapped by none other than former prime minister Stephen Harper to help Mr. Mulroney, who was accused of taking bribes. After being appointed by the Harper government, Mr. Johnston gave the public inquiry such a narrow mandate that it could not examine the contracts awarded to Airbus and the corruption surrounding them, including the cash given to Mr. Mulroney. Nonetheless, he is the one the Liberals asked to investigate Chinese interference. They really know how to pick them. We are talking about $300,000 in cash from a criminal, Schreiber, in what is now known as the Airbus scandal. They are all the same. When it comes down to choosing between Liberals and Conservatives, we choose the worst.
We were talking about democracy. Mr. Johnston's preliminary report has been lambasted by the public as a whole, by a large number of media outlets, by politicians, and yet he does not recommend a public inquiry, despite his finding that China is trying to interfere in Canadian politics.
Since I was elected to the House in 2019, I have repeatedly seen the minority Liberal government, which, we must remember, was elected by less than a third of Canadian voters, fail to respect the democratic choices of the House. Here is a good example. In 2020, a majority of the House voted in favour of a motion calling for the number of weeks of employment insurance sickness benefits to be increased from 15 to 50. I have seen nothing come of it. The government does not respect the elected members of the House, a majority of whom voted in favour of that motion.
The House has twice voted in favour of an independent public inquiry into Chinese interference, and both times, the Liberal government refused, even though an inquiry has been requested by over two-thirds of the population and over 68% of the population represented by the opposition members. That is democracy.
I would like to ask a question. How can the Liberal government talk about democracy and claim to defend democracy when it does not respect democracy in its own Parliament? The worst part of all this is that, after tabling his highly criticized report, Mr. Johnston went even further by repeating the government line that the problem was the media and politicians, who he felt had done a bad job.
While we listen to these inane statements, the Prime Minister is trying to stall for time. With numerous members of the Chinese diaspora speaking out about being harassed and coerced by the Chinese government, there is little doubt that the known facts are just the tip of the iceberg.
Here is what I find even more interesting in this matter. According to Mr. Johnston, the member for Don Valley North is not guilty of endangering the lives of the two Michaels. Mr. Johnston therefore cites that member as part of his argument against launching an independent inquiry. That member may rejoin the Liberal caucus, as the Prime Minister has said he is open to the idea. Even so, that member, the person most affected by this matter, voted in favour of an independent public inquiry. This is madness. I feel like I have stepped into some kind of bizarro world. It is clear that the public has good reason to be cynical about democracy in Canada nowadays.
Everyone knows the government is trying to buy time. Meanwhile, certain communities are suffering. As I said at the beginning of my speech, every human rights group in Canada and Quebec from the Chinese diaspora is calling for a public inquiry into Beijing's interference. That includes Uyghurs, Hongkongers, Tibetans, Taiwanese, entire communities that are being robbed of their culture and traditions. It includes men, women and children who are experiencing violence and persecution. It includes members of those communities who are here in Quebec and Canada and who fear for their safety, who fear for the safety of their loved ones, who are the main victims of this interference in our elections. They are calling for an independent public inquiry. Will the government listen to them? Will it show these people some respect?
How can it possibly ignore them? I put that question to the House yesterday, and I was told there would be reassurance. Does anyone really think those people feel reassured? If they did, would they all have told The Globe and Mail that Mr. Johnston's report signalled a sad day for Canadian democracy? Not listening to us is one thing, but not listening to the Uyghurs, the Tibetans, the Taiwanese and the Hongkongers is another. It shows utter insensitivity toward these people.
I am here to say that I stand with them. We will support them. We want the same thing they do.
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- May/30/23 2:16:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, over the last several months, Canadians have seen reports of foreign interference in our democracy by the Communist dictatorship in Beijing. What was the Prime Minister's response? He appointed a member of the Trudeau Foundation to investigate, the same Trudeau Foundation that has been the target of a foreign influence operation that saw it accept $140,000 from the Communist dictatorship in Beijing.
The House called on the government to hold a public inquiry, but instead, the Prime Minister's ski buddy and Trudeau Foundation board member covered up for him. When that came to light, people could count on the official opposition. Could they count on the New Democrats? When the chips were down at committee, they delayed this for the government's benefit and continued to cover up the Prime Minister's inaction, to the detriment of our democracy.
Canadians deserve a public inquiry now.
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- May/30/23 2:32:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Beijing interfered in two federal elections and helped the Liberals win. It threatened members of Parliament of this House and their families. It donated $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation to influence the Prime Minister's decisions. These are very serious matters of foreign interference that require a full public inquiry. Unfortunately, we all knew that the fix was in when the Prime Minister appointed a member of the Trudeau Foundation, who also happens to be his neighbour and a long-time family friend, and then gave him a fake fancy title.
Why the cover-up?
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- May/30/23 2:36:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, let us talk about this government's credibility.
On April 27, the Minister of Public Safety said that the RCMP had closed two of Beijing's police stations in Quebec. We then found out that the two Beijing police stations had not received any closure requests from the RCMP. We even learned that one of the police stations on the south shore of Montreal had received nearly $200,000 from this government.
Is the Minister of Public Safety essentially the Prime Minister's misinformation puppet? Who is pulling the misinformation strings?
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