44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 4, 2023 10:00AM
- May/4/23 11:14:01 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to start by saying that I will be splitting my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.
I will not keep the members on tenterhooks any longer: The Bloc Québécois will be supporting today's motion from the Conservatives.
As we know, when things drag, they tend to pick up dirt, and right now everything is turning into a crisis. The longer this drags on, the more likely it is that we will have to face two risks that are coming our way.
First, as the public hears different information about allegations of foreign interference, there is a growing risk that the public will lose confidence in democracy, in its institutions and in the work of members of Parliament.
Second, the more time that goes by without meaningful action being taken, the greater the risk that an election will be called and that, for the third time running, there will be foreign interference in an election because the right legislative measures have not been put in place to fight it.
The motion before the House today has four main points calling on the government to create a foreign agent registry, establish a national public inquiry, close down the People's Republic of China run police stations, and expel all of the diplomats responsible for these affronts to Canadian democracy. I will address all of these points, but not necessarily in that order.
I will begin with the point that the Bloc Québécois sees as the most important. We were actually the first to recommend it. I am talking about establishing an independent public inquiry. We want to make one main point or one key request. The person in charge of this inquiry must be appointed by all parties represented in the House. We have been calling for an independent public inquiry since February 28.
That was two months ago. I cannot believe that, in two months' time, the four parties, representing the entire Canadian population, have not been able to agree on the right person to appoint to lead a public inquiry, someone who is not part of the Prime Minister's inner circle, family or friends.
We have been asking for this inquiry for a long time, and, above all, we want to ensure that the person leading this inquiry is non-partisan and impartial so that the public will have confidence in the recommendations resulting from this inquiry. We hope that this inquiry will be launched.
If information is handled behind closed doors during this inquiry, the public must have confidence that this is being done for valid national security reasons, not for the benefit of a party that wants to hide certain information. That is why it is important to have a commissioner, judge, or commission chair who is impartial. If the information is not disclosed and must be handled behind closed doors, the public will have confidence that it is for non-partisan reasons.
It has been argued on a number of occasions that holding an independent public inquiry in an open and transparent manner could compromise the work of national security institutions by revealing sources or investigative techniques. We could trust this future commissioner to determine what needs to be done behind closed doors.
We in the Bloc Québécois are not alone in calling for an independent public inquiry. Jean‑Pierre Kingsley, a former chief electoral officer for Elections Canada, said in March on Radio‑Canada, “Canadians need to know what happened. Until there is a public inquiry, information will come out in dribs and drabs and people are going to pay the price for that”.
The fact that this is dragging on and no meaningful action is being taken is another problem. The information is being reported haphazardly, which could jeopardize some investigations and certain sources.
In addition to recommending an independent public inquiry and the appointment of an impartial chair to lead the inquiry, the Bloc Québécois recommended overhauling the Inquiries Act to ensure that future chairs of public inquiries are appointed by consensus in the House.
The motion also calls for the creation of a foreign agent registry. In our opinion, we need to go much further than the simple creation of a foreign agent registry. We need to bring in legislative measures to help address interference. That is something people have long been calling for. In November 2020, the House adopted a motion to implement mechanisms with a lot more teeth to tackle foreign interference.
Once again, unfortunately, it took a crisis and media attention for the government to start moving. About a month ago, the government finally announced that consultations would be held about creating a registry.
In addition to creating a registry, we need much broader legislation to tackle interference. One of the things we learned in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs is that there are legislative gaps. Often, information comes in and it is clear there has been interference, but it cannot be addressed because there is no legislative leverage to do so.
Information is also coming in dribs and drabs. National campaign managers have said that information passed between intelligence agencies is a one-way street. Parties give information to the intelligence agencies but get little or nothing in return. Even if someone is given information, there is no avenue for a party to take action and address this interference.
As for a registry, both the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP have been calling for one. Will it solve everything? No. However, it is one of the tools that would, in conjunction with other tools, help us move in the right direction.
Some people are saying that this kind of registry could inadvertently target members of Canada's Chinese community, but I think such a claim is purely hypothetical. There is no definite indication that members of the Chinese Canadian community would be targeted. Besides, when it comes to foreign agents, members of the Chinese Canadian diaspora are the ones paying the price. They are the ones enduring threats and harassment from foreign agents. All things considered, setting up a registry is the best option, precisely to protect members of the Chinese Canadian diaspora.
The Conservatives also propose that we close down these police stations. The problem is that there seem to be some discrepancies concerning what is really going on. The Minister of Public Safety told us on April 27 that all the Chinese police stations operating in Canada had been shut down. However, the media reports that calls made to these offices and agencies, like the Service à la famille chinoise du Grand Montréal, suggest they are still operating.
All the elements presented today are interrelated. Any single recommendation in the Conservatives' motion would not have an impact in and of itself. It would only reach its full potential in conjunction with the other recommendations. If the police stations have not been closed, it is because the law does not allow it. That is why it is important to also create a foreign agent registry, which will allow us to have some control over these police stations.
I would also like to mention that the issue of police stations is somewhat limited. We must tackle other issues and appropriate legislation would make that possible. For example, there are all the issues with economic threats, threats to Chinese Canadians' families who are still in China or, for example, everything connected to honeytraps, an influence tactic whereby a woman seduces a member of the community and then threatens to inform the person's family.
With regard to the expulsion of diplomats, once again, something could have been done but was not. The Minister of Foreign Affairs said that it is difficult to expel foreign diplomats in the absence of sufficient evidence and that doing so would not be in keeping with the Vienna Convention. However, we know that the Vienna Convention allows for the expulsion of diplomats without any justification from the government, so this story about respecting or not respecting the Vienna Convention does not hold water. Former Canadian ambassador to China, Guy Saint‑Jacques, and the former counsellor at the embassy, Charles Burton, both agree with the request and acknowledge that Canada does not have to provide an explanation for expelling diplomats, as the United States and Great Britain did when similar situations occurred there.
The fact that the government is saying that it will not expel diplomats sends the wrong message. It is as though the government is saying that they can continue with their threatening activities in Canada and that we will tolerate their intimidation.
Above all that, I would also like to reiterate the Bloc Québécois's suggestion, which could have perhaps been included in today's motion, and that is the creation of an independent office on interference. That office would not answer to the Prime Minister or the Minister of Public Safety. It would answer to the House, a bit like the Auditor General does. That office would also have the advantage of being able to work outside election periods because interference does not just happen during elections.
An office with the power to investigate, search and arrest and the ability to work with CSIS and the RCMP would cut down on foreign interference and restore public confidence. For all these reasons, the Bloc Québécois supports today's Conservative Party recommendation in addition to the recommendations we have already made.
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- May/4/23 11:25:02 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I do not claim to be inside the government's head, nor do I wish to be. That said, I—
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- May/4/23 11:25:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I said, I do not claim to be inside the government's head, nor do I wish to be.
That said, I will reiterate what I said at the beginning of my speech: The longer this drags on, the dirtier it gets and the more it becomes a partisan issue, when that is not what democracy should be. The longer the House continues to refuse to hold an independent public inquiry, the longer we will be embroiled in he-said-she-said debates, instead of putting measures in place to prevent foreign interference in the future. Unfortunately, we are mired in secrecy and innuendo, and the longer we delay creating an independent public commission, the more likely we are to descend into partisan squabbling, which, unfortunately, will not get anyone anywhere.
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- May/4/23 11:27:19 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the answer is no but, in any case, I do not think the question is that relevant given the debate today.
The questions I am hearing from all sides concerning specific members just lead me to reiterate that this debate is becoming far too partisan, which serves no one, and certainly not democracy. That is why I urge all members to vote for the motion, because the main thing it is calling for is a transparent and independent public inquiry. That will allows us to move forward rather than get stuck in partisan politics and to address pressing problems that, if this continues, may not be resolved by the time the next election comes around.
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- May/4/23 11:29:07 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague’s premise, except perhaps that I believe the Bloc Québécois was the first to point out the importance of an independent public inquiry.
There are several things that can be done and put in place, including the creation of a foreign agent registry, which has been called for since November 2020. We have been told that consultations to set up such a registry are about to begin, when this registry is a tool that would make it possible to make certain arrests and lay charges for the interference that is currently occurring.
We do not have the legislative tools we need. All actions must be taken together, in a concerted manner. Individually, they are not enough. The independent public inquiry is the main one, but there are many other things we can do right now.
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- May/4/23 2:28:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a new development has surfaced.
The Prime Minister claims that CSIS made the decision not to inform the opposition member that he was the target of threats from China.
Richard Fadden, a former CSIS director, demolished this excuse in The Globe and Mail. Mr. Fadden explained that not only would the memo that the media found have been sent to the Prime Minister's office, but it would also have been sent to the departments of foreign affairs and public safety. This means that, at the very least, the Prime Minister and two ministers had the memo.
Why did he keep it a secret?
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- May/4/23 2:29:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is blaming CSIS, but he has been ignoring their warnings for years.
Even before the 2019 election, CSIS warned him that a Liberal candidate was possibly being supported by China. He ignored that. CSIS later warned him that the same Liberal member was discussing the two Michaels with Beijing. He ignored that. In 2021, CSIS warned him that China was threatening an opposition MP. He ignored that. He is only showing an interest in all this today because the information was leaked to the media.
Is it worthy of a member of the Five Eyes alliance to blame its intelligence service for its own willful blindness?
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