SoVote

May/9/23 11:38:14 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I must first acknowledge the Speaker’s ruling on the question of privilege raised by the member for Wellington-Halton Hills. I find the Speaker’s response to that motion very interesting. I am an economist by training. More specifically, I am a macroeconomist. Some say that a macroeconomist is a microeconomist who knows how to count, but, no, I would not say that. Many things could be said about economists, but I would say that I like to have an overall picture of the situation, so that is what I will provide to the House. I know my colleagues have waited a long time for me to explain the situation to them. No, that is not true, I know that is not the case, but I will nevertheless take on the task of explaining who the Prime Minister is. I will share my macroanalysis of this situation. I will start at the beginning. I was a member of the National Assembly in Québec City before sitting here and, in Québec City, I served under two premiers, Ms. Marois and Mr. Couillard. When I saw them during oral question period, they were always passionate. For Ms. Marois, it was always a true pleasure to cross swords with her friends across the floor. It was clear that she loved debate and that she loved being premier. As for Mr. Couillard, there are many things that divide us. I can say that because I faced him for four years. However, he was like that as well. When he got to question period, he was prepared. It was clear that he enjoyed it, and we enjoyed asking him questions. One of Mr. Couillard’s problems is that he had left “his heart at home”, as Michel Rivard would say. However, that is another debate. If he is listening today, I salute him and I reverently salute Ms. Marois, the first woman premier in Quebec history. When I arrived in the House of Commons, I was anxious and happy. I told myself that I would be finally seeing the Prime Minister in all his splendour. In 2015, it was said that he was a rock star, a bit like Bono or something. He was heard singing songs from Queen even though it was not very convincing. I still thought it would be impressive. I arrived in the House and I saw him for the first time. I would say, respectfully, that I was disappointed. There are many other words that would come to mind. I know that there are people who would encourage me to say them, but I will just say that I was disappointed. In summary, I would say that I saw someone who did not want to be here. He is in the House but he does not really want to be, nor does he want to answer questions. Sometimes, he prorogues Parliament and leaves for a while. He was excited to be re-elected in 2021, but we waited months before returning to the House. It appears as though he does not really want to be here. It occurred to some that he might not like this part of the job, but surely he still worked hard as the leader of Canada, was aware of everything that was going on, read the CSIS reports and had an opinion on everything. People really wanted to believe that that was true. I will give a short presentation. I hear people laughing on this side of the House, while on the other side, people are giving me the stink eye and wondering where I am going with this story. I feel like they are worried, but I want to assure them that I am not speaking to the Liberal Party, but to its leader. I know, there are small differences. I figured that I might as well watch him for a while and give him a chance, because that is the kind of guy I am. Those who have watched me for a while know that I give people a chance. It is something that people like about me. I therefore gave the Prime Minister a chance and then I studied his actions over many crises. First, I always have the proverb in mind that says, “To govern is to anticipate, and whoever does not anticipate is doomed.” It was Émile de Girardin who said that in 1852. I believed that, because he was in government, the Prime Minister had to be someone who plans ahead, but that is not so. He planned to hire McKinsey until 2100. This is one of the things that he can anticipate. He anticipated that Canada would have a population of 100 million by 2100. It is a prediction, but I am not sure that it would be very glorious. When it comes to anticipating things, he scores a big fat zero. He simply does not have that skill. Some might say that anticipating is not always easy, but I would remind the House that to govern is to anticipate, and whoever does not anticipate is doomed. He certainly seems to be running toward a brick wall. He is running toward it at such speed that even Alexis le Trotteur could not catch up. Then, when a crisis hits, he decides to take his time. It is a bit like The tortoise and the hare. He starts off very late and moves at a tortoise's pace. He has both disadvantages at the same time. Let us return to the crisis. Let us talk about crises for a moment so that members can understand where I am going with this. I am painting a portrait. First, there was the Wet'suwet'en crisis. When that happened, had he anticipated it? The answer is no. He did nothing. In fact, it is because he did nothing that it ended in a crisis. When the crisis began, he was travelling. That is another thing, he likes to travel. He does not like crises, does not like governing, does not like being here, but he likes to travel. He is a great traveller. Let us think back to the first 10 days of the crisis. He was travelling and said that he would not return for that. It was a rail crisis and there were no more trains anywhere, but he said that he would not return for that, that there was no way he would miss a trip. It is like a trilogy. It lasted 30 days. In the first 10 days, he said he was travelling and did not want to be bothered. However, he had to return one day. In the next 10 days, he acknowledged that there was a problem but stated that it was not the government's job to address it and that the provinces would have to figure it out. In the last 10 days, he realized he was really in a jam, so he decided to listen to what the Bloc, among others, was saying, and to do what the Bloc had requested him to do, and it worked. Then, there was the COVID‑19 crisis. Could it have been anticipated? Of course not. COVID‑19 could not be predicted. I cannot blame him because nobody, or at least almost nobody, saw it coming. Countries began closing their borders. People were panicking and asking what the Prime Minister had decided to do in Canada. He had not done a thing. People were coming here and they did not need to be tested. There was nothing. Planes full of people were arriving from China, from Italy. There was no problem. The Prime Minister's handling of the situation was so abysmal that even Valérie Plante, the mayor of Montreal, became involved. The mayor arrived at Dorval and said to stop letting people into the country, that it was terrible and that we would end up full of COVID‑19 cases. It is unbelievable: The Prime Minister did so little that the mayor of Montreal had to become Canada's head of state on the fly. Let us talk about trucks and the occupation in front of Parliament. Was it foreseeable? It was, a bit. There was talk of it. I remember a man from British Columbia. He was in Vancouver in his 53‑foot truck. He said he was headed to Ottawa to protest. Canada is big. He left Vancouver with a 53‑footer. When I heard him talking he was clean shaven. When he arrived here, his beard was so long he could have joined ZZ Top. In other words, we saw him coming, the guy with his truck. The protesters settled in. Once they were settled, someone a bit calmer than the others asked the Prime Minister to intervene. The Prime Minister did just that: He went outside and insulted them. He waved his arms in the air and insulted them. He went back inside satisfied that his job was done. Sadly, no, it was not; the protesters were even more riled up than usual. Their eyes were practically popping out of their sockets and they needed sunglasses to keep them in. It was bad. The Prime Minister finally decided to emulate his father, more or less. He brushed off the Emergencies Act and ended the whole thing by using the nuclear option. The Prime Minister is a procrastinator. He keeps putting things off and letting them drag on. Picture a teenager's bedroom. That is pretty much Canada, in Trudeau's eyes. He lets everything drag on—

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Mr. Alain Therrien

May/9/23 11:47:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I apologize. I was not referring to him. I was talking about the Prime Minister. I am sorry and I will never do that again, unless I make a mistake. Now let us talk about Chinese interference. Chinese interference is very serious. It poses a threat to democracy. According to the intelligence services, it is the greatest known threat to Canada. This is very serious. It seems to me that the guardian of democracy in Canada is the Prime Minister. It is up to him to ensure that we have a healthy democracy. This guy was democratically elected, so I think it would be in his interest to try to protect our democracy. This all began in the fall of 2022. Honestly, there are so many elements to Chinese interference, but I will focus on the most important ones. I will address all of them and try to find the common threads, in other words, the same issues that keep coming up over and over again. Members will see where I am going with this. In the fall, we read in the papers that China had interfered in 11 ridings in 2019. We asked the Prime Minister what was going on. He said that he had no idea, that he had never heard anything about it. When we asked again, he compared us to Trump, of all people. I cannot say we were happy about being compared to Trump. The Prime Minister accused the opposition of saying that the elections were not legitimate, despite the fact that no one in the opposition had said anything of the sort. That made us angry. We answered that we were not saying that the Liberals had not won the election, but that we simply wanted to know what happened in 11 ridings. The Prime Minister told us that he had no knowledge of this. Right after that, he went to the G20. I can still see it. He told us he did not know what was happening, but at the G20, he ran after Xi Jinping to talk to him, as if he had no one else to talk to. He spoke to Xi Jinping for so long that Xi got fed up. The Prime Minister told us that he had talked to Xi about interference. However, he had told us that he had no knowledge of any of this and that the election results were not illegitimate. Why did he talk to the president about interference? That is the first problem. Was he joking? Is the Prime Minister a joker? Perhaps he is. There was also interference in 2021. I would like to remind the House that this is a minority government. According to the final polls, it was a close race. The Chinese interfered in 11 or 15 ridings in 2019. Since then, they must have practised and gotten better at it, because they may have interfered in up to 15 or 20 ridings. It does not take a PhD in math to understand that, if someone can influence the election results in 10 or 15 ridings where the Liberals and Conservatives are neck and neck, that could mean victory or defeat for one of the parties. It could determine which party forms government. This is no laughing matter. We know that the Chinese government is fond of the Liberals. It likes them. It believes it could get close to the Liberals without much trouble. It would prefer a minority Liberal government. The Chinese government is not as fond of the Conservatives. It is a well-known fact. This is troubling. We told the Prime Minister that the issue had to be dealt with before the next election. We have a minority government, which means that an election could be called at any time. We need to resolve this problem quickly to make sure that the dice are not loaded when the next election happens. That will take intelligent action. Then we learned that, in 2021, the member for Don Valley North apparently spoke to the Chinese consulate and even asked them not to free the two Michaels, so as not to favour the Conservative Party. It is not always easy to grasp all the arguments in this affair. It is about as easy as eating an apple through a tennis racquet. I do not really understand it, but, in any case, that is what happened. Obviously, the Prime Minister says that he was unaware. The Liberal member for Don Valley North is now an independent member, despite the fact that he had the Prime Minister’s support. It is troubling. Then there is the Trudeau Foundation debacle, and that is a real circus. If anyone thinks they understand something about the Trudeau Foundation, it is because someone explained it wrong. It is complicated, so we are looking into that. Apparently, in 2016, the Chinese government donated $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation. The Prime Minister says that he has not had anything to do with the foundation for 10 years. That is another joke. He is a real card. He says that neither he nor his office has had anything to do with the foundation. Then again, his brother is involved in the foundation. In 2016, the Prime Minister’s Office called the foundation about the Chinese donation. After that, the Prime Minister asked Morris Rosenberg, the former CEO of the Trudeau Foundation, to look into the matter and determine whether there had been any Chinese interference. In Mr. Rosenberg’s massive report, there are four lines about Chinese interference and that is to say that there is none. The Prime Minister then asked David Johnston to act as special rapporteur so he could decide on whether there is a need for an independent public inquiry. Mr. Johnston told him that that was a big ask, that he was not sure he could answer right away, and that he would study the situation for two months. It is like Rodin’s The Thinker: everyone is waiting. While we are waiting, other things are happening. All of these people are from the Trudeau Foundation. The Prime Minister goes to spend Christmas with a friend who is involved in the Trudeau Foundation. His office also hosted the Trudeau Foundation. Do they take me for a fool? The Prime Minister says that he has not had anything to do with the foundation for 10 years. He keeps repeating it. The members of his government keep repeating it. The government House leader rises and says that he has not had anything to do with the foundation for 10 years. Does he believe that? The Liberals are in trouble. They believe that guy, when everyone knows that it is all complete nonsense, and it just goes on and on. The latest news is about the police stations. There are two in Quebec. That is new. The Minister of Public Safety was very serious last week when he said that they had been closed. We called, and they are still open. How can he not know that? Before saying something, he should check it. He is a minister. He also has a team. If he does not have time to check, he can ask his friend to call and find out. They are still open. It is troubling. One of these police stations is five minutes away by bike in my riding. I will say it again, this is troubling. Here is the cherry on the sundae. Now I come to the present day. Two years ago, the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills and his family received threats. Once again, the Prime Minister says he was unaware. Jody Thomas, his national security adviser, said she was aware, but he was not. Is he telling jokes, or is he a little lost? I am putting it extremely politely, but that is what we must ask ourselves. Now, we have a member who was threatened by the Chinese government because he voted against its wishes. We do not care about its wishes. It did not elect us. I just said that. The Prime Minister will never be able to say that the hon. member for La Prairie may have been threatened. We do not know. The hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills was threatened two years ago, but we did not find out about it until this week. The government still says it was unaware. I swear that if I were the prime minister of Canada, which will never happen, but let us just pretend for a moment, and I found out that a member had been threatened, I would be throwing the diplomat out five seconds later. It would not take me five weeks or five days. In just five seconds, he would be out on his ear. If the Prime Minister had learned about this right away, he could have thrown him out and told him to beat it. Instead, he procrastinated. The Liberals got together to figure out what they should do. The Prime Minister knew two years ago, the rascal. He knew two years ago. Now they are getting together to figure out what they should do. The opposition demanded that this person be ejected. They said that they could not do that and that it is no easy thing to expel an ambassador. Finally, yesterday, they bought themselves a spine and announced they would be throwing him out. Now they are patting themselves on the back like they are heroes. We do not believe that. Are any other members of the House being threatened by China? We do not know. It is troubling. It is very troubling. Members of the House and their families may be under threat. The Prime Minister may know this is happening, but he will not say. The Prime Minister is a cross between Ulysses and Pontius Pilate. Happy the man who, like Ulysses, has travelled well. There is one thing this Prime Minister likes. He likes to travel. Last weekend, when he was in front of the Liberals, he was happy because he was travelling to see the King—

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Context: House Hansard - 193 - May/9/23

Mr. Alain Therrien

May/9/23 11:59:47 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, that was not really a question. It was a love letter to his own party. I am surprised to hear him list all the things that the government has done in the last eight years. Considering how much money they make, I should hope that they are getting things done. The Prime Minister certainly ought to be doing things. He has a packed schedule. However, we could list all the things he did not do or did wrong. Dental care was a mess, and CERB was plagued by fraud. My colleague said that we are a coalition. I would respond that we are the coalition of democracy. That is what we are. The Conservatives are right to be angry with this government, because one of their members was intimidated, threatened for two years, and this government sat idly by. Now the government is trying to get the Bloc Québécois to say that they are only Conservatives and that they are not part of our party. Come on. They are right. When the Conservatives are right on one issue, we are not ashamed to stand up and say we support them. The coalition for democracy is standing up to this government of opacity.

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Context: House Hansard - 193 - May/9/23

Mr. Alain Therrien

May/9/23 12:02:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is an obvious kernel of truth in my colleague's question. It is very troubling. Did the Prime Minister know the truth but fail to say anything when he should have, or did he not know because he was too naive? Which of these alternatives is preferable? Neither of them. The government obfuscates and remains silent every time we say something about Chinese interference. Their attitude is deny, deny, deny. Lives may be at stake, but the Liberals continue to deny. That is the problem.

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Context: House Hansard - 193 - May/9/23

Mr. Alain Therrien

May/9/23 12:04:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague is right. Speaking of coalitions, I think it is pretty clear. The Conservatives, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP all agree. Is that partisanship? No, it is not. I completely agree with my colleague that we need an independent public inquiry. We have been asking for one for a long time. The NDP has been asking for one. The Conservatives are also asking for one. The government got the brilliant idea to procrastinate once again, hoping things would get better on their own, only to discover that it had wasted two months and that the revelations keep on coming. It is not over yet, I am sure. I therefore agree with the hon. member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie. We need an independent public inquiry.

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Context: House Hansard - 193 - May/9/23

Mr. Alain Therrien

May/9/23 12:06:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I recognize all the work done by my colleague. Our caucus truly appreciates him and so do his constituents. The question is whether CSIS has discovered anything. I have never been there, but I imagine that those people must work hard. They are not sitting on their couches eating chocolates and waiting for people to come to them with information. They have to go look for the information and work hard. They go look for information some place, somewhere, and that is extremely important. They want to protect Canada's democracy and parliamentarians. After making all these efforts, they come up against a government, and especially a prime minister, that completely ignores the hard work they do. There is reason for concern. We are in the dark.

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Context: House Hansard - 193 - May/9/23

Mr. Alain Therrien

May/9/23 12:07:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it would take me longer than 40 seconds to say how much I appreciate my colleague. He is amazing. To answer his question, yes, an independent public inquiry is essential. One thing we know for sure about the Prime Minister is that he is in no way competent enough to find out what happened and disclose it publicly. He has to hand over the reins to someone else, and an independent, public inquiry is what it will take.

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