44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 9, 2023 10:00AM
- May/9/23 10:06:55 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today. I want to start by thanking you for your very important ruling on the matter of privilege raised by my colleague, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, a ruling in which you found a prima facie case of a breach of privilege and allowed the member to present his motion for this matter to be further studied at the procedure and House affairs committee. I want to put your ruling in some common language for the common people. I do not want to put words in your mouth, Mr. Speaker, but when I thought about it, I was reminded of the quote from the movie Network when the anchor said, “I’m as mad as [blank], and I’m not going to take this anymore!” That is how Canadians feel about what has happened with these allegations around foreign interference in our elections.
What a nightmare. One can imagine waking up one morning and reading in the paper that a foreign power is threatening one's family. I cannot imagine waking up, seeing that and knowing how I, or any member of this House, or any Canadian, might feel. The problem is that many Canadians are experiencing this. I will get to that in a minute.
Let us think about that. A foreign power decides it does not like how a high-profile elected politician voted in this House and makes it its mission to threaten and intimidate his family. I wish it was just something from a spy novel or a movie, but it is real. It actually happened and it is happening as we speak.
Those who are watching this broadcast right now might think that I am talking about the Prime Minister, but I am not. In fact, the Prime Minister abstained from the vote that triggered this whole matter, which is like not showing up to play with his team and then saying that because he was not there he is not to blame that they lost. I am not speaking of the Prime Minister or a cabinet minister, although they also abstained from the vote, or a member of the government or even a Liberal member; in fact, I am speaking about an opposition member. The member for Wellington—Halton Hills was sanctioned by Beijing for taking a moral stance and voting against genocide.
I want to take a moment to read from an article published on March 27, 2021, after this occurred. After the sanctions, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, said, like the mensch he is, that he was going to wear those sanctions “as a badge of honour.” That is leadership. That is not hiding, delaying or impeding the progress of this House in terms of passing laws that are important to Canadians. He stood up to the PRC, the Communist Party in China, and said that he was going to wear this as a badge of honour: in other words, that he was not going to allow it to intimidate him by doing this.
What were those sanctions? After the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, who is also our party's foreign affairs critic, voted on the motion, which I will get to in a minute, the sanctions were also placed on the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights, which concluded in October that China's treatment of its Uyghur population amounted to genocide. The Chinese Communist Party said that the individuals concerned are prohibited from entering the mainland, Hong Kong and Macao, and Chinese citizens and institutions are prohibited from doing business with the relevant individuals and having exchanges with the relevant entity.
Other members might have just said nothing. They might have said that they did not want to stir the pot any more than it has already been stirred. However, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills took a principled stand, and he said, to the Chinese Communist Party, that he was wearing it as a badge of honour. That is what leadership looks like.
When I was a young man, I would often tune into the proceedings in this place. I looked at the MPs debating and understood the high honour bestowed on those who put their names on a ballot and come to this place to make laws and shape the future of this great country. It is a high honour.
My favourite, Winston Churchill, said something that has been quoted many times in this House but it could never be quoted enough. He said that “democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms.” Our system is messy by design, chaotic, as members know, and at times descends into a serious state of disorder. Many people ask, “What are these guys doing? Why are they so critical of the government? Why do they not actually offer solutions?” Our debate can, at times, be furious in this place, but it is from the hot cauldron of debate that good policies and laws are created.
The reality is that we, in this party, are His Majesty's official loyal opposition. We believe that it is an act of loyalty to oppose the government. Consider what things are like in countries with no strong opposition that is free to be critical of the government. We need look no further than what Mr. Putin has done to his critics, like Alexei Navalny, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Sergei Magnitsky, or what China has done to its Uyghur population, to the Turkic Muslim population and to Hong Kong, and what it wants to do to Taiwan, to understand that in countries where opposition is silenced, terrible things happen.
That is what Beijing tried to do. It tried to silence this opposition through intimidation efforts against the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and his family, and to silence Chinese Canadians through ongoing intimidation and scare them into thinking that voting in Canada might be hazardous to their future. I will get into more of that in a moment.
This did not happen in China. This is happening right here, on Canadian soil. I am astounded at the lack of care, the lack of attention, the lack of interest by the government in dealing with this fact. I am going to talk a little more about that as well.
I just want to say, to Canadians of Chinese descent, Chinese Canadians who are watching this speech right now, that I want them to know that the Conservative Party of Canada stands with them. We will always stand with them. Just like my grandparents came here 100 years ago to avoid the pogroms in Ukraine perpetrated against Jewish communities, they came here to avoid the oppressive freedom-hating regime in Beijing. On behalf of all my colleagues, I want to thank them for being here and I want them to know that we will always stand up for their rights as citizens of this country.
So many stories have come out of this about Chinese communities in ridings across this country, where, as the leader spoke about in his speech yesterday, there is demonstrably lower voter turnout. Why is that? It is because, although the member for Wellington—Halton Hills has the ability to stand up in the House, on the biggest stage in this country, and defend himself, millions of Canadians who do not have that ability are suffering at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party in this country. The House needs to wake up and do something about it before it goes on any longer.
I say to the members of the Chinese community that they should always know that we will be with them and that they should never be afraid to go vote in this country. It is a great privilege. I can say, as someone who won by only 460 votes in the last campaign, that every vote counts. Their vote really matters, and that is what makes Canada such a great country. I want to thank the Chinese Canadian community for trusting our country to do the right thing, even if the government needs to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into doing the right thing by His Majesty's official and very loyal opposition.
With respect to the facts of the specific matter, the Prime Minister claims he did not know until last Monday about a Beijing operative's intimidating a sitting MP. He claims that he did not know about it, even though the intelligence report was in his office two years ago. It is hard to imagine. It was not just in his office; it was with his national security adviser, ironically. It was not with his chief of staff. It was not from someone else in the PMO; it was actually with a person who is responsible for advising the Prime Minister about national security threats. That is what the role of the national security adviser is.
This whole sordid affair reminds me of a Sherlock Holmes quote, “when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” We have a mystery here. The Prime Minister says that he would never deliberately keep such information from any member, and that it would be wrong to do so. I agree with him. It would be very wrong to do that. Therefore, for the moment, let us take him at his word. He says he did not know. That is something I can somewhat believe, because he does not seem to know much about what is going on in his office. He did not know that the Trudeau Foundation had a meeting in his office. He did not know that Beijing donated $140,000 to that very foundation. He did not know about an important intelligence report that his national security adviser was given two years ago. He did not know, even though Katie Telford, his chief of staff, said in committee that he reads everything and that nothing is kept from him.
How do we reconcile these things? There is something missing here when the Prime Minister says he did not know about this until a week ago, but his chief of staff says he is told everything and he reads everything. There is a disconnect here. That is why it is so important to pass this motion; we need to get these questions answered, and the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs is the right place to get to the bottom of all this. The bottom line is that we have a Prime Minister who does not know what is going on in his office. That should be a concern to every Canadian.
What is left? The report was in his office, but he never read it. The only thing really left to assume is incompetence and negligence. There it is. Option one is that he knew and is denying it; option two is that he did not know and is incompetent.
Two years ago, the government was briefed by our security agency, CSIS, which said that there was an ongoing intimidation campaign against the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. Why was this happening? It was because that member brought an important motion to the House. I thought it would be worth taking a moment to read that motion and bring us back in time to two years ago, the time of that vote, to understand what that important motion was speaking to. The motion said:
That,
(a) in the opinion of the House, the People's Republic of China has engaged in actions consistent with the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 260, commonly known as the “Genocide Convention”, including detention camps and measures intended to prevent births as it pertains to Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims; and
(b) given that (i) where possible, it has been the policy of the Government of Canada to act in concert with its allies when it comes to the recognition of a genocide, (ii) there is a bipartisan consensus in the United States where it has been the position of two consecutive administrations that Uyghur and other Turkic Muslims are being subjected to a genocide by the Government of the People's Republic of China, the House, therefore, recognize that a genocide is currently being carried out by the People's Republic of China against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims, call upon the International Olympic Committee to move the 2022 Olympic Games if the Chinese government continues this genocide and call on the government to officially adopt this position.
That was a very important motion. To put it in basic language, it was about calling out Beijing for committing genocide, the most heinous crime a government can commit against any people. We did the right thing, or most of us did. Conservatives voted for the motion, with the Bloc, the NDP and even some Liberal members, but there was one important Member of Parliament in the House who did not vote for it; it was the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister refused to recognize that there is a serious problem. Not only did he not vote for it, but he did not vote at all, which is even worse. It was a gutless move that left the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, a member of the opposition, to bear it, which is what I am trying to get across. In the aftermath, China banned him from entering the mainland, as we talked about, and it did something else: It threatened his family because of his motion and how he voted. Nothing is more important than our democracy, and that is underpinned by the privilege MPs have to speak their mind in this place and to vote how they choose.
There have been a lot of leaks about foreign interference since last fall. Intelligence officials, frustrated with the Prime Minister's actions, have taken to leaking information to The Globe and Mail. Each leak is like a bomb going off. First, there was the one about funding 11 candidates. Then came foreign police stations, and then there was the allegation that a Liberal member tried to get Beijing to hold the two Michaels longer for political reasons. Now we have this.
Canadians desperately want a public inquiry. Members want a public inquiry. What does the Prime Minister do? He drags his feet and appoints a “special rapporteur”, a term never used before, who happens to be a member of the Trudeau Foundation.
The Prime Minister looks weak, and I am sure Beijing thinks he is weak. In fact, I think this is pure Neville Chamberlain-level weakness and incompetence.
Finally, yesterday, after a week of questions and immense pressure from His Majesty's loyal opposition, the Prime Minister expelled the diplomat.
I just want to conclude by saying that it is time for the House to wake up from this nightmare. This country desperately needs a real leader who will stand up to tyrants and dictators without delay or hesitation, and bring home respect for Canada on the international stage. The member for Carleton would be that leader after the next election.
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- May/9/23 10:48:08 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we will depoliticize it when the government acts. This motion of privilege is not about that member. It is not about the member in question.
That member has gaslit Canadians into believing the member got a briefing two years ago. We can look into the parliamentary record to see it. He has disparaged the character of a member of the House.
He has said himself that an attack on any member of the House is an attack on all members, so he should think about that.
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- May/9/23 11:31:47 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my hon. friend from Cariboo—Prince George would know that my colleague from Kitchener Centre and I, the Green Party, supported the motion to ensure that the prima facie case of privilege that the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills advanced goes to committee for study, but there is one factual matter I want to probe a bit with him.
We know a lot of things about the circumstances here, and I have an open mind on whether the Prime Minister or the people near him in the PMO knew for two years. We do not know that. We know that CSIS wrote a report, we know that the national security advisers knew, but we do not know whether that information was communicated to the Prime Minister's Office and I am not prepared to make that assumption. With respect to the information going forward from CSIS or the national security adviser to the Prime Minister's Office, I find it entirely plausible that it did not pass it on. I would like to ask him if he does not think there is even a possibility that is the case.
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- May/9/23 5:21:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations, and I hope that if you seek it, you will find consent for the following motion:
That, notwithstanding any Standing Order, special order, or usual practice of the House, following the disposal of Government Business No. 25 later this day, the House shall resume consideration of the privilege motion standing in the name of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills.
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- May/9/23 8:57:49 p.m.
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Pursuant to order made earlier today, the House will resume consideration on the privilege motion in the name of Mr. Chong.
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- May/9/23 9:26:39 p.m.
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Uqaqtittiji, in my short political life, I have experienced two events where I felt that our democracy was under threat. The first time was the “freedom convoy” last winter and the second time was when there was a breach of privilege found. Both times, it has been frustrating to see such a lack of seriousness that the government has taken in responding to both of these events.
I wonder if the member could share with the House what signals that sends to the international community and how that puts Canada's democracy at risk.
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- May/9/23 10:36:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is a serious issue. I think everyone in this House is very concerned with this. We know this is a serious issue that keeps coming up again and again and again. What we need is transparency. Could the member talk about why a public inquiry is so important, even more so now as we discuss this matter of privilege?
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- May/9/23 10:53:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Red Deer—Mountain View.
Today, we are discussing this question of privilege. It is interesting that we use this term around privilege because the privilege that we speak of is for a member of this place to exist and do his job without any fear or intimidation from a foreign entity. That is the question of privilege. That seems like something we should be able to take for granted, something that we should just be able to count on, day in and day out, not only as members of this place but as members of the general Canadian public. Why should we be able to count on that? Why should that be our reality? It is because we belong to the country of Canada.
As citizens of this fine country, we should have a government in place that prioritizes the safety and security of Canadians. Why? Because the safety and security of Canadians is the foremost job of any government, no matter its political stripe. If it does not keep its citizens safe, if it does not secure our borders, which are not just land borders but borders as in the security and safety of persons, we have little else as a country.
Without safety and security being achieved, we are not able to pursue economic well-being or prosperity. We are not able to dream of a vibrant future and what is possible. We are not able to implement environmental policies. Without the very basics of safety and security it is impossible to be the prosperous nation that it should be. It is interesting that we are talking about this as if it is a privilege when in fact the safety and security of members of this place and all Canadians should simply be their right based on citizenship.
What prompted this debate today? It is because a member of this House, a colleague, has come under fear and intimidation from Beijing. We know about this because the government informed this member of Parliament, though it knew about it. We know about this because of a journalist who released the story. The journalist knew about it because of a brave whistle-blower who released CSIS documents into the hands of the media, and from the media into the public. That is what has allowed us to become aware of this.
As a side note what is interesting to me is that the Liberals just met this last weekend to talk about policy at a policy convention. During that convention they put forward a policy that would require journalists to give up their sources in order to be published online. If journalists chose not to give up their sources then they would not be publishable. That is a direct attack on the freedom of the press. That is a direct attack on journalistic independence. That is a direct attack, therefore, on Canadians because Canadians rely on journalists to tell stories. They rely on journalists to tell the truth, to reveal things that the government might want to hide or that other corrupt actors in this country might not want Canadians to know. When the government wants to hinder the ability of journalists to tell the stories that need to be told, that is very disconcerting not only to me as a member of this place but to Canadians at large because it concerns their freedom, their ability to access information that is then put at stake.
We are here today because we found out that this colleague of mine, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, was the target of intimidation tactics and threats, as well as his family. These attacks came from Beijing. We know that the Prime Minister knew about this two years ago. We know that because intelligence documents told us that, yet the Prime Minister chose to remain silent and did not give the member a heads-up. When did the member find out? The member just found out about a week ago, when a journalist gave him a call wanting him to comment on this news. We can imagine how shocked my colleague was finding this out from a journalist. As time has gone on, more of the story has been revealed. The reality is that we know this is not the whole of the story. We know that this is actually only one part of Beijing's larger interference plan, with silence and inaction by the government.
With regard to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, what might be the reason Beijing would target him? Well, we suspect it is because of a position he took on a motion that declared the Chinese government's attack against the Uyghur people, a minority group in China, a genocide. Members of this place voted for that motion, with the exception of cabinet. Cabinet stayed silent; they stayed mum. I wonder why they failed to take a stand for this repressed group.
When I say “repressed”, I do not mean a bit hard done by. When I talk about the Uyghur people of China, I am talking about a minority group that essentially lives in enslavement. They live in prison camps. I am talking about a group whose human spirit the Chinese government is looking to destroy. I am talking about a group that is forced into mass sterilization. That is genocide. I am talking about a group whose children are separated from their families. I am talking about a group that is physically tortured, mentally tortured and sexually abused. Women are raped. I am talking about all of this being done at the hands of Beijing while these individuals are huddle like cattle in these concentration camps, these encampments.
This place debated this motion, and out of that, my colleague, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills, took a very strong stance calling this oppression against the Uyghur people what it is: a genocide. Now, of course, from there these threats ensued.
Again, I come back to the fact that the government knew for two years that this was happening and said nothing. However, it gets worse, because it is not just my colleague who came under this pressure or these threats from Beijing. We know that many Canadians reported coming under similar sorts of threats.
We also know that Beijing donated $144,000 to the Trudeau Foundation. We know that the Prime Minister's brother, Mr. Alexandre Trudeau, to be clear, was the one who signed off on that donation, yet the Prime Minister claims to have no affiliation whatsoever.
Further to that, we know that the Prime Minister was actually briefed through our intelligence agency in this country with regard to Beijing's interference in our 2019 and 2021 elections. We know that money was filtered illegally from Beijing businesses into Liberal campaigns in Canada. We know, again based on CSIS documents, that it was the intent of the Beijing government to make sure the Liberals won the election.
I wonder why they would be silent. I wonder why they would do nothing. After all, it is the government's responsibility to keep Canadians safe and secure. However, members sat on their hands. Perhaps it was a $144,000 donation to the Trudeau Foundation. Perhaps it was the fact that Beijing was funnelling money into campaigns, hiring interns and putting them in campaign offices. Perhaps it was because Beijing was actively working to suppress candidates from other parties. Perhaps that is why the government forgot its first promise, which is to keep Canadians safe and secure and to make sure that the citizens of this great country are respected and that our democracy is upheld. Perhaps it was simply worth a piece of silver.
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- May/9/23 11:36:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to rise tonight in the House once again to represent the people of the North Okanagan—Shuswap.
I will also state that it is even more of an honour to rise on this occasion to speak on the important ruling of the matter of privilege raised by my colleague, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. In this ruling, the Speaker found a prima facie case of breach of privilege. It is an honour to stand here tonight and speak to defending our democracy in Canada, for Canada and for freedom and democracy everywhere.
I do not know if anyone in the House ever takes for granted the significance of our roles here to carry out the business of one of the freest countries in the world. I know that I never take it for granted; what an honour it is to defend our freedoms. They are the very reason we are here as elected representatives of the common people, freely elected through a democratic process and not appointed by a dictatorship.
We are here as elected representatives because the voters in our communities have entrusted us to carry out the democratic process without undue influence of money, undue influence of power and, especially, inappropriate influence or threats to our families. However, that is why we are here tonight, late at night, debating a point of privilege raised by one of us. A fellow parliamentarian was fairly elected through our democratic process, and this member has learned of alleged attempted influence on him through his family.
There was a report in The Globe and Mail on May 1. It claimed that there were CSIS documents from 2021 stating that the Communist government of China sees Canada as a prime target for interference. That report also stated that the family of the Conservative MP for Wellington—Halton Hills was targeted by a Chinese diplomat, Zhao Wei, because of how the hon. member had voted on a motion in the House.
The Prime Minister claimed that the note did not leave the CSIS office; top security officials have confirmed that this claim is false. The note was widely dispersed among government departments and the Prime Minister's national security adviser. In addition, The Canadian Press published a story earlier this week saying that, despite what the Minister of Public Safety claims, Chinese police stations are still operating in Quebec.
What is most troubling about this situation is that we, as elected members, continued to come to the House to work in our democratic process for almost two years after CSIS raised the alert about this foreign attack on our democracy. We believed that, in a democratic country, we were safe from intimidation as elected members. From this report and subsequent releases, we learned that the threats and intimidation occurred almost two years ago, and yet the member directly affected was not informed until he learned of it in the news, nor were the remainder of parliamentarians alerted to the threat.
These alleged threats to the family of a member do more than just influencing one member of the House. Any attack on one member is an attack on all members of the House, as well as an attack on the rule of law and on Canada's democracy overall.
I cannot imagine the stress that the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills must be going through knowing what has happened. Family is our sanctity. It should always be the reason for doing what is right. It should never be the reason for feeling threatened or pressured into doing something we know is wrong.
It has been two years since the government became aware that the MP and his family were being targeted by the regime in Beijing, and a full week after the information became public. We have learned now that the government has finally made the decision that should have been made on the day it found out about this attack on a member of the House of Commons.
It is unacceptable that the government has known that an MP and his family had been targeted by the Communist regime in Beijing for two years and it did not inform the member or the members in this House about the threats posed to that member's family. It is even further unacceptable that the government continued to provide diplomatic immunity for an agent of Beijing for two years after learning he was using his position to harass Canadians and their families.
Chinese Canadians and all Canadians across the country deserve to know that the government takes their safety and security seriously. While the government has finally taken action against the diplomat who threatened the member of Parliament, it has failed to shut down Beijing's police stations operating in Canada and failed to protect members of the community from harassment and intimidation. We know the government is slow to respond to threats to our security, and this must change. It took it years to respond to concern over Huawei's influence on the 5G network, something our allies had acted upon much earlier. The government lagged behind and, no doubt, caused concerns for our allies' joint security because of Canada's failure to act.
The fact that this interference ever occurred and it took this long to take action is proof of the government's incompetence in fulfilling its basic responsibility to protect Canadians. The government must take the other steps that the House voted on this week, including a public inquiry that will lay out what the government knew about Beijing's interference in our democratic process. This is the bare minimum it must do in order to restore any amount of trust from Canadians of any and all races, ethnic backgrounds, religions and spiritual beliefs so they will be free from undue foreign government interference. I fear for what could happen to us as Canadians and freedom across the world should the government fail to act.
It is very late and there may not be many people in this country watching at home right now, but my hope is that Canadians across the country will be watching and listening and will hold the government accountable, especially its leadership, for its actions and especially its inaction on issues like this that threaten Canada's security and the freedoms that people from around the world migrate to and aspire to. My hope is that Canadians and people around the world will be watching and will hold the government accountable.
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