44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 30, 2023 10:00AM
- May/30/23 11:41:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after the release of the so-called special rapporteur report, the Conservatives were working to get Mr. Johnston to appear before committee to answer on his failure to recommend a public inquiry. Again, the NDP showed its true colours in siding with Liberals and voting together to try to silence the opposition and hide the truth from Canadians.
Now, 19 sitting days before the summer break, the New Democrats are trying to save what is left of their political legacy by presenting a motion that would once again recommend that the government do things differently. They will then vote blindly against their very own motion. It is hypocrisy at its finest.
Foreign operatives should never be permitted to intimidate and harass Canadian people on Canadian soil, as the government has allowed them to do for several years. Rather than following the response of our neighbours across the border, who promptly shut down these police stations and charged those responsible, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Safety instead chose to spend their energy on misleading Canadians.
First, the minister said that the stations were all shut down; we then found out that they were still in operation in Montreal. Now, most recently, the minister comes clean and admits that there may be more illegal police stations run by Beijing across this country. To make matters worse, we have now learned that the government has been providing taxpayer funding to these groups, which are designed to implode our democracy. As reported by the National Post, Centre Sino-Québec is “one of two Quebec organizations ... under RCMP investigation for allegedly hosting a secret Chinese police station”, and it was given nearly $160,000 worth of funds.
The solution is not difficult. It is very simple. It is to shut down all these police stations and create and implement a foreign influence registry to protect Canadians now. Canadians have no idea what to believe at this point. Who can blame them? Thus, it is imperative to have an open and honest public inquiry on foreign interference in this country to give citizens the answers they so need and deserve.
Unfortunately, we all know very well that the government's lack of action did not stop there. Rather, the Prime Minister showed his true colours when he chose to place his partisan interests above the safety of our institutions and of this country by selecting a family friend and member of the Beijing-funded Trudeau Foundation. He knowingly appointed a ski buddy, a cottage neighbour and a member of the Beijing-funded foundation to a fake job intended to legitimize the Liberal cover-up.
As well stated by Canada's next prime minister, in a country of 40 million people, the government could not find anyone who did not have connections to the Liberal Party or who had not been on the foundation. That is unbelievable. It is remarkable. We have so many distinguished prominent Canadians with the same credentials as former governor general David Johnston, and they ignored each and every one of those individuals and hand-picked Mr. Johnston for the job.
To make matters worse, while working on the report and during the investigation, Mr. Johnston sought advice from another trusted Liberal adviser, Sheila Block. This is a Liberal supporter who donated thousands of dollars exclusively to the Liberal Party of Canada.
If that were not enough, we have another layer of the cover-up cake. When David Johnston wanted to make sure that he was not in a conflict of interest in judging Beijing's interference in the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, we can guess whose opinion he sought. We have all kinds of retired Supreme Court justices in this country who are still alive, but he had to choose Mr. Frank Iacobucci of the Supreme Court of Canada, a member of the Trudeau Foundation. As a lawyer, I am absolutely gobsmacked and astounded that they cannot see this runaway freight train called “the conflict of interest” running smack dab into the middle of the heart of the current Liberal government.
It is not only a pure, active conflict of interest. It is the appearance of such an interest. Any lawyer who goes into court knows that many judges have completely recused themselves on the lower grounds of not doing anything that might compromise the integrity of the process. This process has been substantially compromised by the actions of David Johnston, the Prime Minister and his government.
In conclusion, sunshine is the best disinfectant, per CSIS. Let the public see. Let us let the public be the judge. Let us call a public inquiry. If NDP members really want to prove that they support a public inquiry, they must tell the Prime Minister that they will pull out of their coalition agreement if he does not call one. Stand up for Canadians, NDP.
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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 2:55:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as we speak, 1.5 million Canadians are using food banks every month. As we speak, one in five families has to cut back on their food budget because they do not have enough money in their pockets. As we speak, to help Canadians, this Liberal government has decided to invent a new tax: the Liberal carbon tax 2.0. That is what the government will create, and it will cost every Quebec family an extra $436. We are not the ones saying that, it is the PBO.
Why is the finance minister imposing another tax on Canadians?
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- May/30/23 2:57:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for the member for Louis‑Saint‑Laurent, but he should have listened.
We listened to Canadians, which is something those on the other side should do more often. Canadians told us three things. First, they wanted help with the cost of living. That is why the Minister of Finance proposed the grocery rebate, which will help 11 million Canadians across the country. Second, they told us that they need more health care services, and we took action. Third, they told us to invest in the economy of the future. That is exactly what we did yesterday by bringing GM to Quebec.
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- May/30/23 3:04:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Quebec's cultural sector is in mourning. Yesterday, actor Michel Côté passed away.
For decades, Quebeckers enjoyed and admired his immense talent. He left his mark on several generations and achieved the rare feat of captivating audiences not only in the theatre, but also on television and the big screen.
On behalf of the Government of Canada, can the Minister of Canadian Heritage share a few words about Mr. Côté's impact on our culture?
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