Hon. Denise Batters: Senator Gold, Canadians are shocked at the reports that Beijing diplomatic officials in Canada targeted MP Michael Chong and his family in retaliation for his House of Commons motion condemning the Uighur genocide. Even more astonishing was that you repeated Prime Minister Trudeau’s assertion last week that CSIS didn’t think the threats to a sitting member of Parliament were “a significant enough concern in their judgment.”

A CSIS intelligence assessment from July 2021 warned of the potential threats against MP Chong’s family. At that time, Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig were still held hostage in China. Their sham trials had occurred only three months earlier. In that context, it is unbelievable that CSIS and the PM’s National Security Advisor found threatened intimidation of a sitting MP and his family failed to pose “a significant enough concern” to warrant informing the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Safety and the targeted MP himself.

Senator Gold, if what the Prime Minister is saying were true — that CSIS didn’t think this threat to a sitting MP was serious enough — why hasn’t anyone been fired for this? Is this because Prime Minister Trudeau has set up his senior security apparatus to treat him as a ceremonial Prime Minister?