44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 31, 2023 02:00PM
- May/31/23 2:24:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as you well know, it is completely unacceptable for a foreign government, especially the government of China or others, to interfere in the lives and concerns of Canadians, whether in relation to our citizens, our democracy, our educational establishments or our government institutions. We will continue to ensure that protecting Canadians is a priority. The RCMP is currently following up on all of these police stations.
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- May/31/23 2:25:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition knows full well that the RCMP is conducting investigations and taking action against these illegal acts in Canada.
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- May/31/23 2:25:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said, the RCMP has been tasked with conducting the necessary investigations and laying charges in due course against those attempting to interfere in our democracy. If the Leader of the Opposition is so curious about the details of foreign interference, then he should accept the briefing that has been offered to him by the intelligence services. Then he would no longer not know the details and he could learn about the serious issue of foreign interference. I encourage the Leader of the Opposition to get informed.
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- May/31/23 2:27:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as Canadians well know, the government takes extremely seriously the issue of foreign interference and has done so since 2015, when we brought in significant measures to counter foreign interference. We continue to do so. The RCMP is quite rightly charged with the responsibility for investigating and following up on these reports of Beijing-funded police stations but, indeed, if the Leader of the Opposition is so—
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- May/31/23 2:28:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if the Leader of the Opposition continues to have questions on foreign interference, as many Canadians do, I would suggest that he actually take our security agencies up on the offer they have made to him of being briefed on all the intelligence related to foreign interference. That way, he does not have to hide behind, to quote the report on this, “a veil of ignorance”, and he can actually work from the facts.
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- May/31/23 2:29:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if the Leader of the Opposition were to take this issue of foreign interference seriously as an issue facing diaspora communities and Chinese Canadians, he would be interested in actually understanding the facts around foreign interference. Instead, he chooses to play partisan games. He chooses to make personal attacks against a former governor general instead of actually accepting the need to take this issue seriously. He knows full well that the RCMP's responsibility is to do these investigations and make arrests, and they are actually following up on that.
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- May/31/23 2:30:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, like the leader of the Conservative Party, the leader of the Bloc Québécois is choosing not to look at the facts. He is choosing not to consult the information at his disposal.
We may not agree on the best way to defend our democracy, but we cannot disagree on facts. He is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
That is why we offered him a briefing on confidential information, but he refused. He prefers to make uninformed attacks rather than understanding the real facts in order to take this issue seriously.
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- May/31/23 2:32:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we just heard directly from the Bloc Québécois leader that he is choosing not to learn the facts.
He complains about a culture of secrecy. He feels frustrated at the confidential information that our security agencies—
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- May/31/23 2:32:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Québécois leader is complaining in an extremely partisan manner about a culture of secrecy. As he is well aware, the fact is that our security intelligence agencies must operate in different ways to protect Canadians, especially when it comes to a foreign force like China.
He is choosing to remain in the dark. He refuses to accept the confidential information we are prepared to share with him so that he can contribute to this debate in a sensible and responsible way in the House—
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- May/31/23 2:33:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, like the Conservative Party leader, the leader of the Bloc Québécois would rather hide behind a veil of ignorance than understand the impact of the situation.
Obviously, he is just playing partisan games. We take the matter of foreign interference seriously and we hope that others will too.
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- May/31/23 2:34:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will do one better than a former CSIS agent. Current leadership across our intelligence agencies and across the public service continues to say that the best way to move forward is not with a public inquiry, which would have to happen behind closed doors. Many who testified at committees expressed that perspective. To remove it from the political realm, we asked an unimpeachable man of integrity, a former governor general selected by Stephen Harper, to look into these matters deeply and to make a determination as to whether a public inquiry was the right mechanism. He said—
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- May/31/23 2:36:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, foreign interference is an extremely serious, fundamental issue for our democracy and our institutions.
That is why we implemented a number of measures, including committees of parliamentarians, expert committees, such as the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, a process during the election campaign and an independent expert responsible for assessing everything that we are doing and making recommendations. He found that the 2019 and 2021 elections were not compromised and he will continue his work.
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- May/31/23 2:37:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition knows full well that it is not up to the police officers to direct the police in their operations. However, we have ensured that the RCMP is following up and investigating this foreign interference and these Chinese police stations.
In the meantime, the leader of the Conservative Party chooses to remain ignorant and refuses to accept briefings on the facts in the matter of Chinese interference. He made that choice because he wants to continue to make unfounded partisan attacks.
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- May/31/23 2:38:40 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are in fact creating this foreign agent registry because it is the responsible thing to do.
However, the reality is that the opposition leader's decision to refuse access to the intelligence and briefings needed to get to the bottom of foreign interference demonstrates that he does not want to fix this problem. He does not want to defend the interests of the Chinese communities exploited and attacked by Beijing. The only thing he is interested in is making partisan attacks and continuing his personal attacks.
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- May/31/23 2:40:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, any serious politician in this place should understand how the Security of Information Act actually works, particularly someone who has sat in cabinet and who was Canada's minister of elections.
The reality is that if the member opposite does not understand how the Security of Information Act works, we would be happy to provide a briefing to him from officials to explain the Security of Information Act, so he can understand that it would be okay for him to take a briefing on the facts of foreign interference and so he can be better informed in his questions and his challenges to government.
The reality—
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- May/31/23 2:41:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, hiding behind “a veil of ignorance” is very characteristic for a leader who has no interest—
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- May/31/23 2:42:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, hiding behind “a veil of ignorance” is very characteristic for a leader who has no interest in actual facts. There is nothing stopping him right now from getting cleared, briefed, and disagreeing with the former governor general's conclusions if he so chooses, regardless of his opinions. He is entitled to those. He is not entitled to his own facts.
Please, I really encourage the Leader of the Opposition to get briefed—
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- May/31/23 2:43:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, while the Leader of the Opposition continues with his personal and partisan attacks, we are going to continue to—
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- May/31/23 2:44:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, once again, we see that the Leader of the Opposition, on this very serious issue, has not nothing to offer other than partisan attacks and personal attacks, rather than actually dealing with the substance of this serious issue.
To deal with the substance of this serious issue, we have directed intelligence agencies to offer him secure briefings so that he can understand the facts underlying both the former governor general's report and the issue of foreign interference. He has simply refused because he does not want anything, like facts in particular, to get in the way of a good partisan argument.
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- May/31/23 2:45:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition has made several comments about how Canadians are entitled to all the facts. However, he understands very well, or he should understand, that members of the armed forces and the intelligence services are working in incredibly complex and difficult situations that make them vulnerable in foreign countries in order to keep Canadians safe. They conduct investigations to uncover the secrets of countries that would do us harm.
The idea that he does not understand how much we, as members of the House and as Canadians, need to protect those who serve Canada in this regard is—
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