44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 9, 2023 10:00AM
- May/9/23 10:27:49 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, honestly, as a fellow Manitoban, I know that the member is better than that. I know he does not really believe what he just said, so it is hard for me to dignify that with an answer. What he is saying is that, having all this information, knowing that the report was in the Prime Minister's Office two years ago, he would just have us sit here quietly, like Beijing has its opposition sit quietly and like Mr. Putin puts his opposition in its place. He would have the loyal opposition sit here and do nothing, and that is not something we can do. There is too much at stake.
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- May/9/23 11:08:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in listening to the debate last night and today, which has been quite something, I am at a loss for words as to how to frame what we are hearing from the other side and the costly coalition down the way. They are scrambling to the defence of the one member of the government who continually stands up to speak to this very important issue. How did we get here?
For months, Canadians have been hearing, through leaked security reports to the media, about Chinese interference or foreign interference in our previous elections and nominations. Then, within the last week, we found out that there was a foreign operative from Beijing, by the name of Zhao Wei, who took it upon himself to find out about a sitting member of Parliament in the House, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills.
The member for Wellington—Halton Hills is very respected on all sides because he is a very reasoned leader. He is very passionate and very articulate. He is measured in his responses, measured in his debate, and he has garnered respect on all sides. However, this foreign operative endeavoured to find out the whereabouts of this sitting member of Parliament's family in China and perhaps here.
Why was that? It was to make an example of him because of the way he voted and the motion he put forward on China's human rights atrocities and its record on human rights as it applies to the Uyghurs, a section of China's population who are being persecuted. Horrible acts are being committed against them. All that he was doing was standing up for this minority, and this Chinese operative decided to target him and his family to make an example of him.
Two years ago, in September 2021, a CSIS report came out identifying this, and this government did nothing. As a matter fact, up until yesterday, Zhao Wei was still in this country affording the privileges and rights that many Canadians do not even have. He had diplomatic immunity to say anything and to do anything. Indeed, the lone speaker from the government would want Canadians to believe that the Prime Minister, his ministers and his cabinet knew nothing about this.
I want to read something from CSIS a report entitled “Mission Focused: Addressing the Threat Environment”. Under the heading of “Duties and Functions”, it reads that they are to:
Investigate activities suspected of constituting threats to the security of Canada and report on these to the Government of Canada.
Take measures to reduce threats if there are reasonable grounds to believe the security of Canada is at risk.
Provide security assessments on individuals who require access to classified information or sensitive sites within the Government of Canada.
Provide security advice relevant to the exercise of the Citizenship Act or the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
Conduct foreign intelligence collection within Canada at the request of the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the Minister of National Defence.
However, the report continues with what CSIS, in its own words, can do. It reads:
CSIS may collect foreign intelligence; that is, intelligence relating to the intentions, capabilities and activities of a foreign state. However, foreign intelligence may only be collected from within Canada at the request of the Minister of Foreign Affairs or the Minister of National Defence, and with the consent of the Minister of Public Safety.
These assessments or reports are relied upon and provided to the Government of Canada. The report goes on to say:
In 2022, CSIS produced over 2,500 intelligence [reports]. These are relied upon by Departments and Agencies to help inform policy making and to support evidence-based decisions. Separately, CSIS may also take measures to reduce threats to the security of Canada.
I offer that into the record because there are only two choices here. Either the Liberals and the government do not care about the safety of parliamentarians, the families of those who serve, and the stress and mental health of those in the chamber trying to do their jobs daily, or they are negligent in their duties with malicious intent. They are either grossly incompetent or grossly negligent. That is right. We have two choices here. That is it.
They allowed a threat against a sitting member of Parliament and his family, then they allowed this person, who sent that volley across the bow of the ship and threatened a sitting of Parliament, to stay in the country for two years. They will also have us believe that, seven days after they found out about it, the Prime Minister acted swiftly. If the leader of our country does not know about these threats, he does not care about them, which is crazy to believe. As I said, there are two choices here: They are either grossly incompetent or grossly negligent.
For over two years the government has sat on knowledge that a member of this House and his family have been under threat. For over two years, it has done nothing about it. If we go around this chamber or anywhere on the site of Parliament, there are signs about our security. If we see something, we say something.
Now, we have top secret CSIS security reports that are being leaked to the media. Why is that? It is because, as we heard through other testimony on foreign interference, CSIS has been providing these reports and nobody is acting on them, so whistle-blowers from within are trying to find a way to raise the awareness of the threat levels in our country, whether they are threats of interference in our elections, threats against sitting members of Parliament or threats against Canadians of the Chinese diaspora.
We go out, as members of Parliament, and we meet with Canadians from all walks of life, and there are many times I have had a meeting with members from different diasporas, and they say, “Can we just go outside? I am going to turn my phone off, and I want to go outside.” This is real. They are worried about the foreign interference. They are worried about their country of origin listening in and finding out. They are being intimidated during elections as to who to vote for. These threats are real, and our colleagues across the way would have us believe that there is nothing to see here.
Originally, they said it was because they did not have the information. The government did not act because it did not have the information. It only found out about the threats and intimidation when it was revealed in a Globe and Mail story. What has transpired over the last week in the case before us today provides valuable insight into the Liberal government. What has happened to the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills is just another example. Two days after the story broke, the Prime Minister told Canadians that the CSIS document in question had not been circulated.
Can members believe that our leader, the leader of our country, is so woefully unaware? He is blissfully unaware, going merrily about his way in whatever he is doing, going to cocktail events and taking selfies, but he does not know about the threats against a sitting member of Parliament in the House. He told Canadians that the report by CSIS outlining the details of the threat to intimidate the member for Wellington—Halton Hills never left the building. On Thursday, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills caught the Prime Minister in this miscommunication. I say “miscommunication”, because it would be unparliamentary to call it anything like a “lie”.
According to the member, the Prime Minister's very own national security adviser called him directly to tell him that the intelligence assessment of July 20, 2021, was indeed sent to all relative departments, that in fact it did go to the Prime Minister's Office and it did go to the public safety minister's office.
I do not want to get into the machinations of the machinery of the government, but for those watching, the Prime Minister's Office also includes the Privy Council Office. PCO is the Prime Minister's department. He is solely responsible for it. Anyone who has worked in a large organization will understand the silo effect, each part working on its own projects, its own agenda with one large body overseeing everything, being the guy who sits in that seat right there.
With the exception of possibly the finance department, PCO is the only organization in all of government that actually knows what is going on everywhere. In fact, each week all the deputy ministers from across the government descend on the Prime Minister's Office in Langevin Block to discuss what has transpired, what is coming up and how they are going to move forward. They strategize. Each week, all the political chiefs of staff from each department meet so they can inform the Prime Minister's Office on their files and how they are progressing.
The Prime Minister and the government want us to believe that they did not know, that they were not informed, that this information simply fell through the cracks. With all these people meeting each week, discussing issues of national importance, I find it extremely hard to believe that no one in this government would flag this issue, that not one person would say to the Prime Minister that he needed to know about this, that not one person would raise it.
As I said at the start, we should give them the benefit of the doubt. Gross incompetence or malicious intent, there are cases made for each. We have seen gross incompetence daily. We have all heard the rumours about files piled so high on the Prime Minister's desk that it is not inconceivable that perhaps he actually still has not seen the memo yet as it is not on this month's reading list. Maybe it is on next month's reading list.
The total control demanded by this PMO is unlike any in the history of government. Nothing gets signed or passed until the Prime Minister's Office has seen it or okayed it. Nothing gets done until the Prime Minister has given it the green light. Advice from the departments can sit for weeks and months in PCO and PMO and, because the Prime Minister is vacationing in the Caribbean, surfing in B.C., taking all-expense paid trips, things just seem to pile up. I mean, leading is hard.
We all heard the testimony of the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Katie Telford, in recent weeks. The Prime Minister reads everything. If that is true, if he reads everything, we know with certainty that the CSIS intelligence file was in his office. Would it not stand to reason that he actually read it, that he understood it and that he willfully chose to ignore it? That leads us to gross negligence. Why on earth would a Prime Minister put the lives of members of Parliament at risk? I will remind this chamber that the Chinese operative was going to “make an example of” a sitting member of Parliament. What does it mean to “make an example of” ? Why would any threat against a parliamentarian go unanswered?
Why would the government willfully ignore intelligence briefings from CSIS? It is because it did not suit their needs or their political agenda. That is right. If it was not incompetence, it was negligence. It is that simple. If we look at the political climate and the events that were transpiring around this time, we can see a pattern. We know that foreign actors were funnelling money to 11 Liberal candidates in the greater Toronto area, 11 sitting members of Parliament. That is a fact. CSIS has reported on that.
We know that the Prime Minister was planning a snap election at the same time. We know that, despite numerous warnings, the Prime Minister and his staff understood the security threats. We know that CSIS provided the information on the intimidation campaign against the member for Wellington—Halton Hills in 2021 and the government did nothing.
In its 2021 annual report to Parliament, CSIS said that foreign interference threats had increased. Canada's spy agency said efforts by foreign states to steal intellectual property from Canadian researchers and companies were “persistent and sophisticated” and contributed to a “mounting toll on the country's vital assets and knowledge-based economy.” It warned that foreign interference threats in Canada to shape public policy or harass dissidents, as well as espionage, “increase[d] in scale, scope and complexity”. In 2022, an unsealed indictment in the U.S. alleged that Beijing's overseas campaign to put pressure on Chinese nationals to return and face criminal charges in China included enforcement efforts on Canadian soil. That is right, through its use of illegal police stations operating in Toronto and Montreal, the Communist Chinese regime was using intimidation to influence Canadian citizens.
Prior to the 2021 election, constituents came to me and asked if it was real, was it actually happening in Canada that a foreign country had police stations in our country and was forcing Chinese Canadians to do their deeds through intimidation. I chalked it up as conspiracy and told my constituents that it could not be true, yet it is. Months after the government stood in the House and admitted, yes, it is and it had closed their doors, but these police stations are still open. They are still threatening Chinese Canadians.
I said at the beginning that if one sees something, one should say something. Can anyone imagine being from China and living here? They come here for a better life, and yet they are still feeling the undue pressure of the foreign government that they fled because they still have family there. They are still worried about persecution. They are still worried about intimidation. They are still worried about the threats of violence or whatever could happen to their families. Why would they say something when they see the leader of our country taking such a weak stance?
Talking about weakness, time and again we have seen the Prime Minister on the world stage being so weak. Literally weeks after Iran shot down PS752, a Ukrainian airline, killing 57 Canadians, there he was bowing to the same regime that killed those Canadians. The right thing to do is to send a message to these countries that we are strong, that regardless of our political beliefs, we will stand up for one another here.
There is something that we do not take into consideration, at least I did not when I signed up to be a member of Parliament, and that is the threats of violence, the increasing threats to our own safety and our families' safety. I have to say it is alarming. I can handle myself, but I worry about my family, always. The message has to be that regardless of which party we are with, if a country attacks one of us, it attacks us all, and it will not be allowed. When the government was challenged with that, its response was that it was kind of worried about what China was going to do. That is BS. I would like to say that word in full.
The government is so weak on such issues that matter to all Canadians. We can do so much better. Yesterday we had a motion before the House about setting up a foreign interference agency and having a non-partisan commission to investigate foreign interference, and the government voted against it. Yes, it has appointed a special rapporteur who has close connections to the Prime Minister. He might as well just sign the report right now and hand it in because we know what it is going to say. I am not besmirching our former governor general. I am saying the Prime Minister should have better guidance from those around him.
I will cede the floor with this. I am so troubled by the fact that all the government wants to do is impugn the reputation of a sitting member of Parliament that it could have protected in the first place.
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- May/9/23 12:23:17 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the other area where we are seeing some significant gaslighting is where the government says that it is the member's fault and the member should have known about this. This is an interesting thing about victim blaming. We see the government accuse others of doing this all the time, and here we are seeing that once again. The government's newest line is that it did not know; it only found out on Monday, just the other day. However, there seems to be a lot of evidence that it knew about this over two years ago. That does not include all the other troubles we have with foreign interference in this country. The Trudeau Foundation is embroiled in a whole host of scandals now around taking Chinese money.
When the government was kind of embarrassed about its coziness with the Beijing government and Chinese influence in Canada, it appointed a special rapporteur. This position does not have any legal standing in Canada; nonetheless, it has appointed this person. One would think that if one were trying to allay Canadians' fears around this foreign interference issue, one would find somebody with no connections to the Beijing government and no relationship to the people who are being accused of not doing anything about it. However, here we are with the director of the Trudeau Foundation being appointed as the special rapporteur.
That organization has taken money from the Beijing government or their emissaries. We have seen all kinds of confusion around who took the money and how it was organized. The Prime Minister's brother was the one who facilitated a donation. Then we see that this organization's annual report names the Prime Minister as a member. Now, he says he is unaffiliated and has not had contact with it for over 10 years, but his name is still in the annual report. He is still part of the Trudeau Foundation. That is the reality, whether the Prime Minister wants to admit it or not. He can say that he is currently uninvolved in the operations of the organization, but when he leaves this place, he will be able to be a part of its directorship. If he says that funds donated to that organization today could not be disbursed in the future, what does he take Canadians for?
Today, donations are being made to the Trudeau Foundation; despite saying he is unaffiliated to it at the moment, the Prime Minister has connections to this organization. It is obvious that even if it were true that he is unaffiliated, which it is not, he will be reaffiliated in the future. He will be back on the governance board doing the same things, and he will have whatever kind of money has been donated to the Trudeau Foundation at his disposal once again.
We have also seen over and over that the Liberals' claim to success is about how much money they spend. The Liberals accuse the past Conservative government of not doing anything and then go on to state how much they have increased funding for whatever the situation is. The Liberals accuse Conservatives of not having done something compared with how much more money they are spending on a particular thing.
Again, this is another place where the Liberals will say that they have spent more money on this, which is an interesting way of ranking things. If we can get something and not have to spend money on it, that would seem to be a good win. We will not have to spend money on it if we can have national security because of our posture in the world and because we speak softly and carry a big stick. We will not have to spend money if we have no foreign interference because, rhetorically and by our posture, we signal to the world that Canada is not open to foreign interference.
These are things that will happen naturally and organically. We will prevent foreign interference by our posture and by our rhetoric, and we will not have to spend money. However, the Liberals will come and tell us how much money they are spending on initiative X, Y or Z as a point of proof that they are doing more. I just want to reject that whole premise outright. The amount of money that is spent dealing with a particular thing does not necessarily correlate to taking action on that thing.
I just want to restate once again that Canada is not for sale. Canada is a sovereign nation. The Canadian government should do all that it can to prevent foreign influence in our democracy and ensure that Canadian democracy is upheld wherever it is under threat.
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- May/9/23 12:35:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, building on the comments from my hon. colleague around the gaslighting that happens in this place, one of the other things that the Liberals bring up all the time is the perceived partisanship of this. Again, it is interesting that they accuse their opponents of doing what they are actually doing.
One of the things that is fairly obvious is that the Liberals benefited from the Beijing influence in the previous election, and, therefore, were not interested in dealing with this. It is becoming increasingly obvious that one of the reasons the Prime Minister did not deal with the perceived foreign influence of Beijing is that the Liberals stood to benefit from the influence. Therefore, when they say it is partisan interest that is driving this, that is precisely why they did not do anything.
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Madam Speaker, the question was this: Why should we care? We should care because we have something to lose. We have a delicately crafted democracy. It is not perfect, but we are proud of it and it is a democracy that we built together and one that we are proud of as Canadians. However, it is fragile. Threats to our democracy are real and they need to be treated as such.
We have heard stories over the last number of weeks about the intimidation tactics that Canadians from China and Canadians with family in China faced in the last election. We have had a member of the Liberal caucus leave the party among allegations that he was part of foreign interference by the Chinese Communist government. He stands accused of having a hand in delaying the return of Canadians held in China because it was politically valuable to the Liberal Party. Now, we have the Conservative MP for Wellington—Halton Hills reveal that he and his family were targets for the Chinese state interference in 2021.
Why, though, did the Government of China want to ensure that the Liberals won the last election and, in fact, the last two elections? Here is why. The Conservative stance on the Chinese Communist government was too principles-based and the resolve of our party was too strong to be advantageous to foreign interference. The Conservative position was in line with 53% of what Canadians believe, which is that the government's response to China in recent years has not been strong enough and that more needs to be done. In fact, a recent poll from the Angus Reid Institute shows that 69% of Canadians believe that the government is scared of standing up to China, including 91% of past Conservative voters, 62% of past NDP voters and 46% of those who have mistakenly voted for the Liberal Party at some point in their life.
Let us not overlook the recent activity with spy balloons that are in Canadian airspace and how our Prime Minister has little to say about the ongoing situation. We know that foreign interference can undermine the integrity of democratic processes, such as elections, by attempting to sway voters or influence political outcomes. We live in a country where corporations cannot legally provide any funding to political candidates. Individuals are limited to contributing $1,700 annually. The reason for this is to prevent our politicians from being bought off by the big money of special interest groups and wealthy individuals. Canadians themselves can only contribute $5,000 to their own campaigns and yet Liberals think that it is okay for the Trudeau Foundation to receive $200,000 from two businessmen identified as being linked to the Communist government in China. That is utter, absolute nonsense. For those listening at home, the House ethics committee is probing a $200,000 donation given to the charity by two men with links to the Chinese Communist government. The committee is deciding whether the donation was an attempt by Beijing to curry favour with the Prime Minister.
If we can just for one minute cut through the political rhetoric and admit to ourselves, like all Canadians already have, that we know this money was intended to buy favour with the Prime Minister, ignoring the reality would be willful blindness on all of our parts. We are sent here to represent our constituents, Canadians, but also to defend our Canadian democracy. If the members opposite need to wonder why they are here or why they cannot stand in their places and say that, when a foreign government that the Prime Minister admires so openly donates a six-figure sum to a foundation in the name of his father and run by his brother, it is at best inappropriate and at worst foreign interference.
This is not just any country getting uncomfortably close with our Prime Minister. It is among the worst in the world for a government's treatment of ethnic minorities, shown by its treatment of Uyghurs, Tibetans and Falun Gong practitioners. If at any point we want to see how far the Prime Minister's admiration of the Beijing leadership goes, we can just ask him to stand up for Uyghurs, Tibetans and Falun Gong practitioners in a meaningful way when meeting with Chinese leadership. He will not. He is afraid. He is afraid that he will offend the country he so admires.
The ruling of the Speaker of the House is an important first step, but now the committee needs to be allowed to do its job, which is a tall order with this government. It seems that whenever a committee is trying to do its duty for Canadians and thoroughly investigate or review bills, the Liberals and their NDP coalition partners find a way to strangle the committee and steamroll democracy.
Here is an example of that: I sit on the public safety committee, and we are currently reviewing Bill C-21, the firearms legislation. It has been in front of us for quite some time. When Canadians hear that we have been at this for months, it may seem slow, but in fact, we are simply doing a job of government. The government put the bill forward as a handgun bill and then, in a move that can only be seen as averting democratic process, stuffed the bill full of other unrelated amendments, completely changing the scope.
What happened when we brought this it up? It was steamrolled by the Chair in a unilateral decision that it was in order when, in fact, we know it was not. That was upheld again by the Liberal alliance when we challenged the Chair. The Liberals and the NDP are preparing to quash debate on that bill and limit the opposition on each of their amendments to five minutes per amendment and then force votes.
Over in the PMO, there is—
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- May/9/23 2:30:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we would think the illegal operation of foreign agents in this country would serve as a good enough reason for the Liberals to appropriately intervene. Instead, the public safety minister chooses to mislead Canadians by claiming that the RCMP has shut down all Beijing-backed police stations, when in reality, two Montreal groups under investigation for hosting these stations have not received any closure requests.
How much longer do Canadians need to wait before the government finally closes down these illegal Beijing-backed stations?
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- May/9/23 2:31:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, actions speak louder than words. Canadians deserve no less. The government's apathy concerning the threats of foreign interference continuously fails to protect Chinese Canadians across the country. We have had enough with the smoke and mirrors.
Last week, on this very same topic, the minister stressed the importance of communication and transparency in the House. It is time for the minister to demonstrate it and finally answer the question: When will the government close down all of the Beijing-backed police stations in Canada?
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- May/9/23 2:32:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it took two years for the government to do the right thing and expel the diplomat who was directly involved in interfering in our democracy and intimidating the family of a member of the House of Commons for a vote of his in the House of Commons. Meanwhile, the dictatorship in Beijing continues to operate illegal police stations in Canada, which are used to intimidate members of the Chinese diaspora community.
Are the Prime Minister and his public safety minister going to wait two years, or will they commit today to shutting down these foreign influence operations running out of these Beijing-backed police stations?
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- May/9/23 2:33:55 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what we would like is for the government to actually start doing the work. Yesterday, all members on that side, including the public safety minister and the Prime Minister, voted against a public inquiry. They voted against expelling a diplomat. They voted against a foreign agent registry. All of these tools can be used to protect members of the Chinese diaspora community from intimidation from the Communist dictatorship in Beijing. It is operating here on our soil, and the government has the ability to stop it.
We have a very simple question. The minister says that, if we ask the same question, we will get the same answer. We would like some action to go with it. Will they implement a foreign agent registry and shut down these Beijing-backed police stations?
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- May/9/23 2:59:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it did take two years. The Liberals do nothing about Chinese interference until it makes headlines. They were fine with holding a $1,500-a-head cocktail party fundraiser with Beijing's buddies. They were fine with connections between a Toronto Liberal MP and the Chinese government. They ignored threats against an opposition member. That had to make headlines before the government started behaving like a government should.
The Liberals have no interest in casting light on interference. They would rather keep it all hidden and hope the media does not try to ferret out the truth. When will there be an independent public inquiry?
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- May/9/23 9:31:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin my remarks this evening by thanking our Speaker for yesterday's ruling on the question of privilege from the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills.
This was an important moment and important decision because it brought into sharp focus the intimidation by foreign agents operating in Canada. Even tonight, the House, a day later, is still gripped by this decision. That is relevant to members who are participating here tonight and who have participated up until now on this question.
As a past member of the Canada-China special committee, I know from the evidence submitted to Parliament that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills is not the only Canadian to be targeted. At committee, we heard from Canadians, particularly from Canadians of Chinese ancestry, about tactics used by the Chinese Communist Party to intimidate and silence our democracy.
We have witnessed, over the past two decades, how Beijing's Communist Party revealed itself not only to be at odds with international laws and norms, but also be opposed to accountability, openness and even the basic rights of people, including mainland China's own citizens.
Like a few other members of Parliament, and many hundreds of thousands of Canadians, I have had the pleasure and privilege of living in Hong Kong. That territory is an amazing place. I was fortunate enough to be on hand for the handover from Britain's rule to the People's Republic of China on July 1, 1997. It was a heavy moment with feelings of both apprehension and opportunity.
Afterward, I visited Asia frequently once I returned to Canada a year later, and I have fond memories of both rural and urban mainland China, energetic Hong Kong and even remote Tibet.
Today, sadly, I would not travel to any part of mainland China. This saddens me because I have deep affection for the Chinese people. One cannot travel for days, weeks or months at a time and leave untouched by their hospitality, fondness for family, tradition and remarkable cuisine. I also deeply admire China's culture and long history of struggle, perseverance and many great accomplishments.
However, I know that travelling to mainland China is something I cannot do anymore because of my committee work in Parliament. Today, I am prohibited by Beijing from entering the country. I called for a free and democratic China, and because of that, I am in violation of Beijing's draconian national security law.
I uttered the words that I believe China would be better served by being democratic and by directly electing its leaders. I said these words on Canadian soil and in Parliament, yet the national security law, according to the regime in Beijing, applies anywhere around the world. By uttering those words, a call for democracy in China, I have broken that law. I view it as an immoral law, but as we saw with the two Michaels who were arrested and detained, that means nothing when faced with the dictators in Beijing.
I know that many members on this side of the chamber, and probably many who have served with the government since 2015, would have never believed that it could take the Government of Canada two years to expel a foreign diplomat sent here by Beijing's Communist Party who planned and executed an intimidation and harassment campaign against the family and loved ones of a fellow parliamentarian, our colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills.
It happened. This is a Liberal disgrace and it must be investigated. I want to take a moment to repeat some remarks from the member for Wellington—Halton Hills when he addressed the House last week and provided the basis for our ongoing debate.
The member noted that on March 6, 2012, our then Speaker rightly said:
Those who enter political life fully expect to be able to be held accountable for their actions to their constituents and to those who are concerned with the issues and initiatives they may advocate.
In a healthy democracy, vigorous debate on issues is encouraged. In fact, the rules and procedures of this House are drafted to allow for proponents and opponents to discuss, in a respectful manner, even the most difficult and sensitive of matters.
However, when duly elected members are personally threatened for their work in Parliament, whether introducing a bill, making a statement or casting a vote, this House must take the matter very seriously.
It is right for this to be debated, it is important that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs investigate and it is necessary that Parliament gets to the bottom of this and discovers the truth.
CSIS discovered, as reported by The Globe and Mail, that multiple members of Parliament have been targeted by Beijing's Communist Party. Indeed, this privilege motion we are debating is, as we see on our screens, “Intimidation campaign against members of Parliament.” Who would have thought such a debate would be necessary in Canada or that we would be tasked with discovering what happened?
Members of all parties in the House of Commons should be questioning why the government was so keen to permit a foreign diplomat sent here by Beijing to remain here and continue intimidating and threatening the family and loved ones of not only a parliamentarian but several parliamentarians it seems, as well as Canadians across this country.
Either the government takes prompt measures to uphold our rights and protect Canadians from harassment or foreign nations that wish to undermine us and do us harm will double down and threaten more and more Canadians, yet whenever it comes to issues relating to Beijing's Communist Party, the Prime Minister does not feel any urgency to act. He deflects, denies, blames and does nothing unless absolutely forced to by opposition parties and ultimately Canadian voters.
We see this with the Uyghur genocide recognition motion that the Prime Minister and his cabinet abstained from when the vote was held in this Parliament. We see this with the Winnipeg lab document leak motion the Prime Minister and his cabinet voted against and to this day is still buried. It is an issue meant to be resolved by a special working group of parliamentarians working with an oversight committee to release documents, but that has disappeared. It is one more issue the government prefers to sweep under the rug.
We see this with the Prime Minister and his decisions not to apologize for the comments made by several Liberals in this chamber that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills knew about the threats against his family and loved ones and did nothing. It is a disgraceful misrepresentation meant to obscure what had happened.
The government's response to these allegations in The Globe and Mail has been evasive and inconsistent, with simple questions about its knowledge of the situation going unanswered. This all raises additional concerns about transparency and accountability.
At first the government announced that anyone violating the Vienna convention would be expelled, so we waited. Days passed without new information or an expulsion. Later the Prime Minister claimed to be unaware of the allegations until they actually appeared in the newspaper, asserting the same applied to other executive branch members in his cabinet. He also mentioned that CSIS determined the issue was not significant enough to warrant escalation and still no expulsions took place.
The narrative shifted again when it was revealed that the security briefings did not even leave CSIS; they did not reach the national security adviser and other government departments, the government maintained, yet of course we discovered they had reached the highest echelons of the public service, and the government was somehow in the dark.
Despite no expulsions occurring, the government raised concerns about the possible consequences of expelling a People's Republic of China diplomat, leading to questions about its intentions and resolve. More false accusations were made against the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, with the Prime Minister participating in the attempts to undermine his credibility and the seriousness of the CSIS reports. It was all, and remains, a bloody mess.
For these reasons and others, it is imperative that Parliament explore the violation of our privileges and the threat of election interference through the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Leaving this to the government bench alone is, without question, the wrong move. The government simply cannot be trusted. It is why Conservatives also continue to call for an independent, public inquiry into Beijing's foreign interference in our elections.
There are so many inconsistencies that have surrounded the Liberal government's handling of the situation that it is right to question its judgment. For example, it is just not credible to believe that CSIS would brief the member for Wellington—Halton Hills on a serious issue of interference and intimidation without informing the national security apparatus and the political level of the current government. Of course, this was recently corroborated by Cherie Henderson, the assistant director for requirements at CSIS, who said, at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, “I can say that we definitely have seen specific cases of hostile activities of states against politicians. In those specific cases, we definitely brief our government on the challenges that are being faced.”
To be clear, the government's pattern of obfuscating information from parliamentarians has been evident in previous scandals, such as the SNC-Lavalin debacle, the WE Charity scandal, and, just last week, with the Trudeau Foundation. Why would anyone think this situation is any different?
The debate's significance lies in the need for the procedure and House affairs committee to address the issue, as well as the ethics committee's focus on foreign interference. Despite multiple committees investigating foreign interference, the government has not initiated an independent inquiry, and it should do so immediately. An independent public inquiry would help assess the impact of the Beijing Communist regime's interference in Canada.
Our former colleague Kenny Chiu has discussed the fear and intimidation tactics employed by Chinese mainland officials in Beijing, including misinformation and disinformation campaigns against members of the House during recent elections. Mehmet Tohti, a leading advocate for the human rights of Uyghur Muslims in Canada, shared his experience of Beijing Communist officials monitoring his calls to relatives in China in an attempt to intimidate him. There are still an unknown number of Chinese Communist Party police stations operating in Canada. These serve one purpose, and that is to intimidate citizens and landed immigrants who live here, in what should be a free and democratic Canada.
There is a pattern of pandering to Beijing, which appears to have begun when the Prime Minister won the Liberal Party leadership. A large donation was soon made to the Trudeau Foundation, and questions have arisen about the receipt issued for the donation. Parliamentary committees are studying that as well, urging the CRA to investigate that to get to the bottom of any undue influence on our democracy and the Prime Minister.
This pattern of influence must be investigated further, because it undermines democratic institutions, the electoral process, and, of course, faith in our democracy. At the same time, it is important to recognize that many Chinese Canadians live in our country in fear, and may not participate fully in the electoral process due to potential retribution.
That is where we are today. Our government and Prime Minister took two years to act and to expel a diplomat for meddling in Canada's democracy. Because the Liberals finally declared one diplomat from Communist China not welcome in this country, they think they should be congratulated, after waiting two years. The Liberals had ample evidence of Beijing's diplomats interfering in elections, particularly from its Toronto and Vancouver offices, yet, when questioned about this at the procedure and House affairs committee, the foreign affairs minister claimed there was no evidence. However, they did possess evidence about a foreign diplomat sent here by Beijing's Communist party, which had been known for two years.
The Liberals might claim that the information never made it to the Prime Minister's desk, and that is why we need an investigation to find out what happened. If that is true, that is still the government's responsibility. If the Liberal government is not capable of overseeing the security of this country, it should be held in contempt for its inability to govern well and responsibly.
It took a report from The Globe and Mail, and pressure from the opposition and Canadians at large, for the government to finally act. Why was there this long delay? It is unacceptable for Beijing diplomats to facilitate funding for political candidates, to target Conservative candidates, or any candidates for that matter, in this country, and then to boast about defeating disliked incumbent MPs. It is equally intolerable for them to organize illegal police stations to harass and intimidate Chinese Canadians, and to threaten MPs and their families.
Canada has a long-standing commitment to accountable government. We must uphold and preserve that. Canadians should be informed of the recent security lapses. Instead, the Prime Minister continues to put electoral decisions ahead of national security. This is the most serious failing of anyone who occupies the government benches under the Liberal government.
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- May/9/23 9:52:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member's point is spot-on. That is one of the benefits of having a proper public consultation. We would hear from the public, and more and more Canadians would come to realize that the primary target of mainland China, the Communist regime, has been Canadians of Chinese heritage. Those are the people who are not able to fulfill their democratic rights because of intimidation from police stations that operate here illegally, because of intimidation tactics from Beijing's diplomats.
I appreciate the question. It is a great point. We want to make sure this is about the regime in Beijing, and we will hear from Canadians of Chinese descent, who will reinforce the message that they, too, support democracy and freedoms that are the bedrock of this country.
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- May/9/23 9:54:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is a brief answer to that excellent question, which is to give them a platform to speak, to give Canadians who have faced intimidation and threats from Beijing a platform through Parliament and the Canadian government, and give them the opportunity to stand up and be heard. That would do more to help rectify the situation and correct the many errors that the government made.
We must not forget, and I will remind my colleagues, that the Liberal government actually sued the Speaker prior to the last election, to prevent information that the Canada-China committee had discovered, an outrageous move to protect itself and not ensure that Canadians had the truth.
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- May/9/23 9:57:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, to date that has not been the case. I have no problems doing my work in my riding.
That said, we can think of Kenny Chiu, a former member of the House of Commons who was targeted by Beijing's attacks. There are some very serious examples. Some members are no longer in this place because of the Communist Party's efforts to ensure that they lost their election and could no longer return to the House to defend their political ideas.
That is very serious. The government says that this did not influence the election, that it did not really change anything. However, some members are not here because of the Communists.
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- May/9/23 11:03:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, while I appreciate the member's question, I will just take the attention off of me because it is not about me. It is about Canadians. It is about the responsibility of the government to keep Canadians safe and secure. That is the foremost job of the government. That is prime.
The government has failed to do that by allowing Beijing to intimidate not only a member of this place but also many Canadians across the country. Furthermore, to intervene in our election process is absolutely wrong and should never be permitted.
The larger question here is what Canadians deserve, and Canadians deserve a public inquiry.
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- May/9/23 11:07:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague highlighted something really important and that is that the motion that was at hand had to do with calling what is happening to the Uyghur people within China, at the hands of Beijing, a genocide. This place passed a motion to that effect, which means the government has a responsibility to act, and it has not done so yet.
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- May/9/23 11:07:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Lethbridge for sharing her time with me and, of course, for her great words.
I would like to take some time this evening to comment on the point of privilege from my colleague, the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills. Let me start by expressing, not just for this House but for all Canadians, the admiration that I have for the hon. member. There is no finer gentleman to have ever graced these halls.
Last week, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills spoke in this House about the intimidation tactics of the People's Republic of China and how these tactics are being deployed against many Canadians of Chinese descent in diaspora communities across the country. That motion went further, emphasizing that such tactics have been widely reported and well established through House of Commons committee testimony. It was also reported by Canada's security establishments that families of members of Parliament had been subjected to an intimidation campaign orchestrated by various actors out of Beijing's consulate in Toronto.
The hon. member articulated the need to create a foreign agent registry, similar to the registries of Australia and the United States of America. Of course, with the myriad of intimidation infractions that the committee had heard about during previous elections, the member discussed the establishment of a national public inquiry on the matter of election interference in the name of Canadian sovereignty.
The next main point related to the unbelievable development that the People's Republic of China was operating police stations here on Canadian soil. The realization that this was only considered because we were alerted by the Americans does not really give us a strong sense that the Liberal government is on top of things. The final point was the need to expel all the diplomats from the People's Republic of China who were responsible for, and involved in, these affronts to Canadian democracy.
Much has been said of the interactions and interventions made by senior members of the Liberal Party in their attempt to sweep a serious international transgression under the rug once again. To put blame on the member for Wellington—Halton Hills was the lowest of lows. However, to his credit, at least one Liberal recognized that his usual partisanship was offside and apologized to the member. That was the member for Kingston and the Islands.
My educational background is in mathematics, science and agriculture. China's contribution to mathematics, science, engineering and health over the last 3,000 years has been phenomenal. Sadly, the 112 years that have elapsed since the creation of the PRC during the Chinese Revolution in 1911, and the subsequent fall to Communism of mainland China in 1949, have placed an iron grip on the once-proud Chinese people.
This closed society has taken away so many remnants of the past. Whether it was an array of binomial coefficients, the standard conversion of rotary and longitudinal motion, or ploughshares of malleable cast iron, China was the first of firsts. However, over the centuries, these contributions have become as much a surprise to the Chinese people as they are to westerners. The reason I mention this is that there is a definite distinction between the genius of the people of China and the oppressive Communist regime of the People's Republic of China.
How do we deal with a dictatorship that has used its massive authoritarian rule over its own people and then chooses to use the same tactics on other foreign nations? My feeling is that we stand up to them and do not back down. We have seen the consequences of capitulation around the world, whether they involve taking over such infrastructure as ports, exploiting foreign natural resources using child or slave labour, or de-engineering patented products to compete against original designers.
Such actions should not be rewarded. However, because China supplies us with many products, we tend to turn a blind eye to these transgressions. The most serious of these is their mocking of environmental standards as they flood the world with products; countries like Canada give them a pass while, sadly, treating them like a poor country cousin in need of charity. This current action is but one more transgression to which the free world must react.
We now know that CSIS was aware two years ago that family members of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills were being targeted by the Chinese Communist government because of his role as a member of Parliament. We know that there were election irregularities where members of the Chinese diaspora were being targeted and told not to vote for particular candidates during the last federal election. I know an amazing entrepreneur and community advocate of Chinese descent who was targeted in the last municipal election in my riding of Red Deer—Mountain View, where lies and disinformation were commonplace. It is a real problem.
Why must we address the actions against our esteemed colleague as a question of privilege? If we are weak when it comes to our actions, this will never end. Any one of us could be subject to these tactics. The results would be the silencing of the voice of the people. If our government does not take this seriously and chooses to minimize these actions because it has an affinity for the present Chinese government, whether out of admiration or fear of reprisal, then this truly becomes a question of privilege.
The Prime Minister, his cabinet and his Liberal caucus all need to take stock of their actions. The Prime Minister and cabinet chose to abstain on the question of Uyghur genocide by the Chinese government. He lectures Canadians as to the bar that the term “genocide” must reach to be accepted internationally while seeing no problem using such terminology against our own ancestors. Is that the real reason for abstaining, or was it fear of reprisal from a Chinese government that had helped fund certain pet Liberal projects? If the government is in any way compromised and is not taking actions because of that, we also have a serious problem.
Two years after the government became aware of an MP and his family being targeted, it took a full week for the government to do the bare minimum and do what it should have done long ago. This Beijing operative should have been ejected when his intimidation actions became known to the government. For the government to rise and oppose the Conservative motion that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills presented perhaps shows its unserious commitment to our democracy. This must never happen again.
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