SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 169 - Mar/20/23

Mr. Eric Duncan (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, CPC)

Mar/20/23 5:34:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, often Liberal members get criticized for not answering questions. I am going to ask the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader the simple question for a third time. NDP members last week supported the idea of having the Prime Minister's chief of staff and key witnesses testify in committee on what they knew and how they knew it when it came to Beijing's election interference. Suddenly, they are wavering. Can the member answer the question with a yes or a no? Have they made the vote tomorrow a confidence matter? For the third time, is it yes or no?

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Context: House Hansard - 169 - Mar/20/23

Mr. Eric Duncan (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, CPC)

Mar/20/23 6:06:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there was a time when a future prime minister said, “It's hard not to feel disappointed in your government when every day there is a new scandal.” When the Prime Minister took power, he proclaimed, “Government and its information must be open by default. Simply put, it is time to shine more light on government to make sure it remains focused on the people it was created to serve – you.” From the floor of the House of Commons, the Prime Minister said, “I believe in sunny ways.... I believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant. Openness and transparency is what Canadians expect. That is what we will always stand for.” After eight years, what a fall from grace there has been. Here we are on the floor of the House of Commons with the final speech of the night. However, instead of keeping to the words the current Prime Minister said, there have been 24 hours of filibuster in committee, including 12 hours last Tuesday, where Liberal members, instead of calling the question and doing any sort of study in public, read from books, clapped at each other and joked about the type of coffee they were sipping. They drew the clock out for 12 hours straight, instead of studying something Canadians want answers to. It is important to remember here tonight why we are having this debate. It is not because the Prime Minister and the Liberal government were forthcoming with Canadians. It is because a brave whistle-blower came forward to expose bombshell revelations about the magnitude and extent of the interference attempts by the Communist Party of China. The worst part is not the magnitude and extent of all that interference on Beijing's part, but the bombshell revelations that it was the Prime Minister and those at the PMO who covered up the truth. When they found out about it, they did nothing because it was helping their political interests. When it came to that topic, they swept it under the rug. We owe that whistle-blower a great deal of gratitude as we have the floor asking for more information and testimony from the government. That is why we need to have Katie Telford, the Prime Minister's chief of staff, appear at committee. We get a lot of fake outrage from the other side, from the Liberals, because they say this is unprecedented and having chiefs of staff should not be allowed. However, chiefs of staff from both Conservative and Liberal governments have testified at committee before, especially when scandals brewed out of their offices. Katie Telford has already spoken twice at committee. She testified on the WE scandal and she testified on the sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces and what the PMO knew, what it did and, more importantly, what it did not do to resolve that problem. So the question Canadians are asking now is this: Why is it suddenly a problem so she cannot testify? With every passing hour of the filibuster, and with the opposition we have seen from the government in the House here today, the truth must be really bad to hear, which is what we can conclude. If Katie Telford had done everything great, if there were no problem and the PMO acted with full integrity, she should have no problem going to committee to defend her actions. However, the third time we want her to come forward, but now on this national scandal, about what she knew, what the PMO knew, what the Prime Minister knew, as well as when, how, and what they did, suddenly every roadblock goes up. Nobody believes that the Prime Minister was not aware of the magnitude and extent of the election interference by Beijing in the 2019 and 2021 elections. The solutions government members proposed today are to go back behind closed doors with no public inquiry, have a close family friend give advice behind closed doors on what we should or should not do, which he may do or not do. They want to continue to have a secret committee behind closed doors with reports that go directly to the Prime Minister instead of that sunlight we desperately need to see. The Liberals and the PMO have lost the right to take this issue behind closed doors again. When they received the reports from our intelligence agencies about the magnitude and the extent, and because they knew it might hurt them, they avoided it, they swept it under the rug and they did nothing. They covered it up. Tonight, as we wrap up the debate, it is equally important to talk about the issue and the need for support for this motion. We also need to rightfully call out the NDP for its lack of backbone in standing up and in supporting this resolution. The state of the NDP today is very sad to watch. Its members are unable to simply stand up for what is right. They propped up the Liberals originally, and then when the bombshells kept coming from the whistle-blower in the media, they said they supported it. The NDP whip said, “Sadly, what we have seen in this country is a continuous leak from CSIS that tells us that there's something serious that we need to be concerned with. And after that many leaks, I am persuaded that we now have to take a step that I am not necessarily...comfortable with, because it is imperative”. That was just a couple of weeks ago. As the Liberals filibuster and hold up a vote and as we come to the floor and force a vote on this tomorrow, all of a sudden the NPD is wavering again. I want to make a comment to the three million Canadians who voted for the NDP in the last election. No one voted for the NDP to allow this to happen, to cover up time and time again on multiple Liberal scandals. There is outrage and frustration from the millions who placed their faith in the NDP, and for it to suddenly start covering up and defending the Liberals time and time again is shameful. The NDP can file amendments and do different things. A week ago, its members supported having Katie Telford at committee. They supported hearing this at committee, and all of a sudden they are wavering. Do not fall for their games. We can have a public inquiry. We can study other forms of election interference. The reason this— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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Context: House Hansard - 169 - Mar/20/23

Mr. Eric Duncan

Mar/20/23 6:14:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, one would think I might be bothered by the heckling of the NDP members. They know they are in trouble. They are confirming what I just said, which is that Canadians believe their cover-up of the Liberals is continuing, and it is absolutely unacceptable. We need this motion to pass, because the Liberals, PMO officials and the Prime Minister's chief of staff need to be at committee answering questions on what they knew, when they knew it and when they hid it. The question tomorrow is whether the NDP is going to stand up for Canadians or prop up the Liberals again and cover up more of the now Liberal-NDP scandals.

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