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May/8/24 10:05:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I completely agree that we need to work together on this. The member mentioned that this is a worldwide phenomenon, and he is absolutely right. The Trump election in 2016 was a result of substantial foreign interference from the Putin dictatorship in Russia. We saw with the Brexit referendum that Russia, again, interfered. We have seen a wide variety of financial support through the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom. We want to make sure, whether it is Russian, Chinese, Indian, Iranian or any other country, that foreign interference is blocked. That is why it is important for all of us to work together to ensure that the foreign interference that is happening in other parts of the world, as well as in Canada, is stopped at source. That is why I suggest to all members tonight that we need to refer this to the PROC committee promptly and not take a day or two to talk about it. The time for talk is over. It needs to be referred to PROC for action. That, coupled with the Hogue commission, will hopefully give us all the things we need to put in place to fully protect our democracy and any future election.

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Mr. Alexandre Boulerice (Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, NDP)

May/8/24 10:07:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby for his wisdom and his desire to see action taken on this issue. I would like him to tell us more about foreign interference, which is extremely worrisome. It does not just happen during the 36 days of an election campaign. It happens all the time. It happens at conventions with party members, but it also happens at nomination meetings, which are the dark corners, so to speak, that no one pays too much attention to, but where a lot of foreign interference can happen. What could be done about that?

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Mr. Peter Julian

May/8/24 10:07:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I really appreciate that question from my colleague from Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, who brings a great deal of wisdom to the House. The NDP has a very rigid nomination process that ensures that foreign interference does not play a part. I think these practices should be adopted by other parties to ensure that their nomination processes are secure.

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Mrs. Stephanie Kusie (Calgary Midnapore, CPC)

May/8/24 10:08:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I would like to state that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman. I certainly look forward to his remarks as well. Two weeks ago, I was sitting in my constituency office when I got a message from my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. He informed me that there was going to be a special meeting of a small group of us, where he would inform us of a very grave and serious situation. I do not know if one has ever received news where one was told they are the target of a cyber-attack, but I will say that it is terrifying. It is a moment in someone's life when the blood drains from one's face. When someone is told the date of those attacks, January 2021, one wonders what they were doing that month. What was going on in their life that month? How serious is this attack? It is something I do not want anyone to ever experience again, in this chamber or anywhere else in the world, but unfortunately, it happened. One starts to wonder if this happened to me, and this also happened to other colleagues in the House of Commons, then clearly, this is also happening within our nation. Who is attempting to obtain what information? How successful are they? How many attacks like this are going on at this time? Worse than that, the Liberal government knew about this attack, yet it did not inform me, and it did not inform my colleagues. It is reprehensible. It is absolutely horrible. I would like to thank again the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China for informing myself and my colleagues that we were the targets of such an attack. I would also like to thank the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States of America for once again doing the heavy lifting that the Liberal government should be doing. It is shameful that we were informed, through foreign governments, that we were under attack. Unfortunately, it is not a surprise to me. It is not a surprise at all because we found out, just this past week, in the foreign interference report that the former member for Steveston—Richmond East was not successful in his election campaign as a result of foreign interference. Last year, we saw the effects of a foreign government, the same PRC government, on the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, who sits in this very aisle. He was also the victim of the interference of a foreign government in an attempt to try to gain information on his family to try to intimidate him. Unfortunately, I had the honour of being the shadow minister for democratic institutions back in 2018-19. At that time, I begged the member for Burlington to do something about it at that time, and it fell upon deaf ears. We set up things like the Leaders' Debates Commission, which housed a member of the WE Charity scandal. The commission was overseen by the former special rapporteur, who clearly failed in his mission to try to keep this chamber and to keep Canadians safe. We saw the implementation of the toothless digital charter, which achieved nothing to protect Canadians and to protect members of the House. We spent hours going over Bill C-76, where we talked about things like vouching. We talked about things like returning officers. We talked about things like the closing of polls across our nation, yet this did very little to solve the problem that is in front of us now, which is foreign interference. Once again, it is the absence of responsibility of the Liberal government not only to do something about foreign interference, but also to even have the courtesy, the decency and the moral placement to let members of the House know that they were under attack and under threat. We did not get that courtesy, and it is an absolute shame. Once again, we have seen that the government has done too little, too late. We see this time and time again. We saw this in 2019, when I would try and raise questions with the member for Burlington, with the Prime Minister of Canada, and the only response I would receive was that the Prime Minister had an indication that there had been some interference by Russia in the 2015 election, which is very cold comfort at this time, given what we know now. The 2018-19 election was, my goodness, five years ago now. The Liberals have had five years to do something. Clearly, they have not spent their time doing anything. They are, once again, doing what they do best and that is creating the illusion of doing something when, in fact, they are happy to do nothing because, as we saw with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, as we saw with the member for Steveston—Richmond East, it benefits them to do nothing, so they have done nothing, and they will keep doing nothing. Even if I blame the member for Burlington, I know that this direction was from the top. There is no doubt in my mind that this direction was from the top, and the same thing here. I am sure that the Liberals wanted to ignore the cyber-attack and that they wanted to ignore the potential harm it could have caused me, my family and 17 other members of the House. They wanted to turn a blind eye to that because that is what they do. They do not want to take responsibility for the types of atrocities that take place against myself, against other members of the House and against the Canadian people. The good news about this is that this will not deter myself, and this will not deter the leader of the official opposition from continuing to stand up for democracy, human rights and the rule of law, not only in this nation, but also across the world as well. Members will continue to see us standing side by side with our allies in Taiwan, in Israel and in Ukraine. Once again, this is something that we do not see the Liberal government doing. We see the government picking and choosing winners and losers, speaking out of both sides of its mouth, again, not only to the harm of people in the House, not only to the harm of Canadians, but also to the harm of people across the world. As I said, that is because this government will always turn a blind eye. Do members know what happens when we turn a blind eye? Evil prevails. Evil prevails in the House when the current government turns a blind eye. Evil prevails across this country when the government is not willing to take responsibility, as I begged the member for Burlington to do all those years ago; and evil prevails across the globe. It is not a surprise that I was informed, after the fact, that this government had neglected its responsibility to keep our citizens safe and to keep members of this chamber safe, who were informed by a foreign entity, by someone else doing the work that the Liberals should be doing. Shame on them for trying to hide it from us and for keeping it from us. Once again, they would know, Canadians would know, that they had shirked their responsibility and that they had not done what they were supposed to do in overseeing the safety of the House and the safety of the members of the House. As I said, I have, unfortunately, seen this time and time again, so it is not a surprise to me at all that we were left in this position and that we were left as targets of this foreign government and other foreign governments that are looking into us. I am not naive. I was in the Canadian foreign service, now elected to the House, and I understand that, I am sure, I will always be a target for those foreign governments. However, this government was informed by another government and was informed by another organization that is attempting to do the work that the Liberals should be doing, which is keeping Canadians safe and keeping members of the House safe. We can refer this matter to PROC. I certainly hope that we do, but I hope it is with greater results than the previous times, when we saw Bill C-76 come out of PROC with no shield for the members of the House and no shield for Canadians. I hope, this time, that the Liberal government takes foreign interference seriously, does not pretend and actually does something about it.

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ)

May/8/24 10:18:37 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her very moving speech. Obviously, we welcome the Speaker's ruling, we support the motion and we hope that the committee will be able to address this important issue as soon as possible. Foreign powers are attacking elected members of the House. In so doing, they are attacking democracy. This is very serious. We must protect democracy, take care of it and allow it to thrive. I heard the parliamentary secretary downplaying the crisis, saying that this happens in every country. Let us listen to what CSIS has to say, which is that it does happen elsewhere in the world, but that Canada and the provinces are in a class of their own. It really is worse than elsewhere, and we do not seem to recognize the danger this poses and the extent of the crisis. What does the hon. member think about that?

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Mrs. Stephanie Kusie

May/8/24 10:19:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government can indeed give the excuse that the same thing happens in other countries. During question period in the House, it keeps telling us that this is happening in other countries, but the fact is that I was targeted here in this country. The Canadian government needs to do something about our nation, our sovereignty and our democracy.

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

May/8/24 10:20:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, just to respond to the previous question, let us be very clear: The Communications Security Establishment published four unclassified reports of cyber-threats to Canada's democracy process. It highlighted this: “Cyber threat activity targeting elections has increased worldwide.” It is not just Canada, and I think it is important to recognize that. It also says that Canada remains a “lower priority target for cyber threat activity than some of its allies, such as the US and UK.” I think it is important. The government, from the get-go, has been very proactive in dealing with the issue of international foreign interference. That is the reality, and our actions show that. I am surprised the member would bring up human rights, given their position on the notwithstanding clause.

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Mrs. Stephanie Kusie

May/8/24 10:21:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is so disappointing, but it is what we have come to expect from the government, which is to try not to take responsibility. This is how we got into this situation. This is how I got into the situation of being a target of a foreign government; it was as a result of the government's inability to accept responsibility. As I said, this is what it does all the time. It says that these things are happening in other countries. First of all, we should be concerned about what is happening in Canada to Canadians. Clearly, once again, the government has shirked its responsibility in overseeing Canadians. This is also how the government treats its allies, as we have seen with Taiwan and Israel. If one's neighbour is getting robbed, raped, pillaged or murdered, does one sit there and stand by? No, one does not. One takes action as well. We not only have to take care of ourselves, but we also have to act as leaders in the world.

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Mr. Ziad Aboultaif (Edmonton Manning, CPC)

May/8/24 10:22:18 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government sat on the information without even bothering to inform the very people who were affected by such an atrocity and such a danger and threat. What does that tell Canadians, parliamentarians and people who want to be involved in politics? Could the hon. member comment on the message the government is sending?

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Mrs. Stephanie Kusie

May/8/24 10:22:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if they are not going to take care of me, an elected member of the House, then they are not going to take care of others.

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

May/8/24 10:23:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, would the hon. member agree with me that this needs to be referred promptly, this evening, to procedure and House affairs to come up with recommendations?

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Mrs. Stephanie Kusie

May/8/24 10:23:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this should have been handled years ago; the sooner it is handled, the better. I hope that, this time, something effective is done, something with teeth, that will actually protect not only the members of the House but also the citizens of Canada.

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

May/8/24 10:23:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the ruling that we need to look into this, and it needs to go to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs for a fulsome investigation. The privileges of members of Parliament here are really sacrosanct, and we need to make sure that we are protecting them. I am concerned that privilege has been violated. I am one of the 18 Canadian parliamentarians targeted by APT31, a hacking group from the People's Republic of China working under the Ministry of State Security. The role of APT31 includes transnational repression, economic espionage and foreign interference operations on behalf of the People's Republic of China. That Communist regime, of course, has been interfering in our operations and elections here in Canada. It has been trying to quash members of Parliament who are speaking out against the Communist regime, the way that it has been violating human rights and interfering in geopolitics around the world. The reason we know that Canadian parliamentarians were targeted is because the U.S. Department of Justice unsealed an indictment from the FBI on seven individuals from APT31 on March 25. It charged seven PRC nationals with espionage and foreign interference. The U.S. Department of Justice put sanctions on these individuals. The U.S. State Department is also offering rewards for more information about them. When reading through the indictment and some of the activities of APT31, we realize that they had conducted over 10,000 different cyber-hacks around the world, predominantly targeting legislators. It specifies that the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, IPAC, was targeted in 2021. I am a member of IPAC, and all 18 members in Canada who were targeted are also members of IPAC. IPAC was quite shocked to see that this had happened when it realized this in April; it quickly notified all its members in Europe, Canada, the United States and Australia. Of course, the Americans already knew about it. The FBI had alerted their congressmen and senators. They were very concerned. Let us go through the timeline. APT31 targeted me and my colleagues, the 18 of us, in a phishing cyber-hack into our emails. The FBI discovered this in 2021-22. It let U.S. legislators know and then followed the proper Five Eyes protocol and let CSE in Canada know. CSE then contacted House of Commons services through its IT branch, but nothing happened. There were crickets. None of the Canadian parliamentarians were notified by CSE, by the government of Canada or by the House of Commons protective services. It was all mute. IPAC found out in 2024 that its membership around the world, including 18 members in Canada, were targeted; this was two years after the hacking event happened, two years after CSE and the House of Commons were notified that it happened. Nobody thought it important enough to contact the parliamentarians to tell us that our emails and online services were potentially compromised. At that time, in 2019 and 2021, we were already witnessing foreign interference taking place in our federal elections. The PRC was using operatives to intimidate members of Parliament and their families, as we saw with the member for Wellington—Halton Hills with his family back in Hong Kong. They were trying to intimidate him and all the people here in Canada. We know that PRC police stations were set up across this country to interfere with and intimidate the Chinese nationals who call Canada home. We know the PRC was using foreign students to flood nomination meetings. Throughout all that time, the Liberal government turned a blind eye. The Liberals have no problem with the PRC interfering in our election processes when it undermines people like the Conservative member for Wellington—Halton Hills or Kenny Chiu, our former Conservative member of Parliament from Vancouver who lost his riding. As long as the Liberals think they are benefiting, they are prepared not to do anything about it. We know, through Justice Hogue and her commission on foreign interference, that there is sound evidence to show that foreign interference is undermining our democratic institutions. I have been very active, of course, on standing up for Ukraine and holding Russian oligarchs and corrupt foreign officials around the world to account. I am trolled all the time on social media by Russian trolls. I was even asked to appear as a witness at the Hogue commission because of the ongoing attacks that happened on my social media platforms. I am also a patron of Hong Kong Watch Canada, again standing up for democracy and civil liberties in Hong Kong because of the Communist regime's activities there, quashing any individual rights and liberties, especially free and fair elections in Hong Kong. Also, I am the shadow minister for national defence for the official opposition. Therefore, if one thinks about my email potentially getting hacked by operatives for the People's Liberation Army in China, one would think somebody would have called to let me know that I was being targeted. In 2021-22, somebody should have made that call. I am also the vice-chair of the Standing Committee on National Defence. We often deal with information on national security, our Canadian Armed Forces and our operations in Europe under NATO. I am always advocating for supplying more weapons to Ukraine. Members would think that would be enough of a red flag to see the Liberal Government of Canada contact us and say that we need to take precautionary measures to protect the information that I have and I am sharing with my colleagues, including other members on the Standing Committee on National Defence. However, I was never notified by the CSE. I was never notified by the Parliamentary Protective Service. I was not notified by CSIS or the RCMP. Nobody from the Government of Canada has ever reached out to me to inform me that I was at risk or my colleagues were at risk and that we were potentially being undermined. Surprisingly, I am going to get a briefing this week, tomorrow actually, from the FBI. The FBI is going to inform us, as parliamentarians, those of us who were targeted by APT31, to get the information out. One would think that the RCMP, CSIS or the CSE would be stepping up, or at the very least somebody from the Liberal government, but, no, it is mute. That comes down to the fact that we have a Liberal government that has not taken foreign interference seriously. We have a Prime Minister who has never made national security a priority. National security should always be a priority for the Prime Minister, but it is something that is an afterthought for him. He has always downplayed the seriousness of the threats from Beijing, Moscow and Tehran. He has never stood up for us as parliamentarians to protect our democratic institutions. He has never stood up to say that we are going to protect the diaspora communities here, whether Chinese, Ukrainian or Persian, who have run away from oppression, dictatorships and totalitarian regimes. I can tell members this. Our leader of the official opposition, the leader of Canada's Conservatives, will always defend our freedom, our democracy and our national security. We will always put Canada first. We will always stand up for the democratic rights and privileges of those of us who serve in this elected chamber, this hallowed chamber. I know that things will be better under a prime minister who represents the Conservative Party of Canada.

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

May/8/24 10:34:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to express that the government, over the last number of years, has taken foreign interference very seriously, and that is why we have taken a number of measures to deal with it. At some point this will be going to the procedure and House affairs committee. We hope it will be a productive process and that we will come up with some tangible thoughts and ideas. After all, it is happening not just in Canada; it is happening around the world, and I think Canada can play a leading position in dealing with this very important issue.

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Mr. James Bezan

May/8/24 10:34:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know that the member for Winnipeg North has always been an apologist for the Prime Minister and for the failures of the Liberal government. The Liberals have never taken our national security seriously. They tried to cover up the foreign interference that happened in the 2019 and 2021 elections. We know that the special rapporteur was appointed and that he was just going to wax over all of the foreign interference. There is the Hogue commission. After much pressure from the Conservatives, we were able to finally get the answers that we deserve in the first report that came out last week. We expect that there are going to be better recommendations down the road. That is because of our pressure. It has nothing to do with the Liberal government.

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ)

May/8/24 10:35:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his speech. I am truly sorry to learn that he, along with 17 other colleagues, was the target of attacks carried out by foreign powers. To me, that is unacceptable. As for the democratic system, we must fight to preserve it. Obviously we are in favour of the motion, and things need to change. My question for my colleague is the following. The parliamentary secretary just downplayed the situation, saying that this is happening in other countries. However, the intelligence services tell us all the time that Canada has the worst record on this. This has nothing to do with other countries. What do we need to do to change this?

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Mr. James Bezan

May/8/24 10:36:22 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague from the Bloc is right. The government has always been late to the race and usually does not even show up at the starting blocks. In this particular case with APT31, guess what the Americans are doing? They are charging seven individuals. They have sanctioned them. They have offered a $10-million reward for more information that could lead to the arrest of these individuals and have them face the courts in the United States. Of course, here we are sitting today. I bet, when it comes down to the names, nobody on the other side, on the Liberal benches, even knows who the people in APT31 are who are acting on behalf of the People's Republic of China.

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Ms. Niki Ashton (Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, NDP)

May/8/24 10:37:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, given the severity of issues like this, would the member agree to sending the matter to PROC? It is obviously the body that is best equipped to deal with it. Would the member agree that it should be sent to PROC as soon as possible?

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Mr. James Bezan

May/8/24 10:37:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I agree with my colleague from Manitoba that we do need to get the issue to PROC. We need a fulsome investigation on who dropped the ball, why the government has not taken it seriously and why parliamentarians are being threatened by the People's Republic of China. We need to make sure the Communist regime in Beijing does not try to continue to get secrets from parliamentarians. I think it comes down to the fact that we are dealing with issues surrounding national security. It is not just about political operations or partisan issues. For those of us who were targeted, it is because we belong to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China. We are always there trying to counter the threats, as well as the human rights abuses and gross violations, that are happening through the corrupt officials who are part of the Communist regime in Beijing.

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Mr. Dave Epp (Chatham-Kent—Leamington, CPC)

May/8/24 10:38:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there are three reasons that come to my mind for the government's response to the serious situation: ambivalence, and my hon. colleague referenced that; incompetence; and the worst, intentional inaction. Would he opine on what he thinks is the driving force for the government's response here?

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