Senator Plett: Now we see Michael Chong being discredited by the Trudeau government, including by your parliamentary secretary.

Will the Trudeau government stop hiding the truth about foreign interference, stop blaming Michael Chong and apologize to him, or are we going to hear the Prime Minister’s infamous excuse — that people experience things differently — for his own bad behaviour?

Senator Batters: Senator Gold, Prime Minister Trudeau’s Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino plays fast and loose where facts are concerned. He recently claimed that the RCMP had ousted Beijing government police stations operating in Canada, but an article days later proved that wasn’t the case.

During last year’s convoy, Mendicino repeatedly insisted that police asked for the federal government to invoke the Emergencies Act, a claim that was flatly denied by police.

Now, after enduring opposition criticism on this issue, Minister Mendicino finally said last week that he has only known about the threats against MP Michael Chong since last Monday, even though the CSIS assessment was dated July 2021.

Whether the minister willfully failed to be informed, or whether his advisers failed to inform him, either way, it’s a firing offence. The question is who will be fired. If the Minister of Public Safety is so unaware of what’s going on in his portfolio, when will he finally be fired? If CSIS knew two years ago and failed to inform him until last week, who will lose their job there?

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?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Government leader, in December 2021, Prime Minister Trudeau appointed Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate). According to the Library of Parliament, Mr. Gerretsen is the only parliamentary secretary in Canadian history to hold this title. I’m not entirely sure what this parliamentary secretary does to assist you in your work; I don’t think he helps you prepare answers to our questions. I do know, however, that last week he made false claims about the information provided to Michael Chong about Beijing’s threats against him and his family.

Leader, last year, you told this chamber the following:

Disinformation, in its various forms, is a really serious threat to our society, to our democracy and to all Canadians.

Given these words, do you agree with the false claims made in the other place by your parliamentary secretary?