SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 299

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 15, 2024 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 299 - Apr/15/24
Ms. Melissa Lantsman (Thornhill, CPC)
  • Apr/15/24 3:40:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise to speak to this important motion because of what we witnessed this weekend. There was the delay of the government to say anything at all on following our allies and at least condemning this in a reasonable amount of time. We did not see that. I ask members to imagine being part of a government that six years ago voted in favour of listing the IRGC, to imagine seeing what happened this weekend with 300 projectiles being fired directly on a democratic ally, to imagine being part of a government when the Saudis were better allies to our friend and democratic partner than the Government of Canada has been, and to imagine getting up in the House to say that the motion today is not an important motion to debate after witnessing 300 projectiles directly fired on a friend and democratic ally. Members do not have to imagine it. It just happened. There has been six years of foot-dragging. The question has been asked hundreds of times in the House as to what day and at what time the government is going to list and ban the IRGC terrorists, who are operating openly in our country. Today, in the House, the answer was exactly the same. The government is trying, consulting and working on it. This has been the answer for six years, yet the Prime Minister himself got up and voted to ban the IRGC. Today the mullahs in Iran and their proxies are fighting wars that kill Canadians. They killed hostages with Canadian citizenship. They killed 55 Canadians in the downing of flight PS752, 30 of whom were permanent residents. Since 2015, the government has done nothing but appease the mullahs in Iran. The Prime Minister himself met with the foreign minister, bowing his head in respect, in 2016, not even a year after the flight went down. It was absolutely disgusting to watch. There are communities all over the country that know that operatives of the regime openly spend money. They have blood money to buy homes and assets in this country. Their kids go to school at universities here. The flood gates are open. We know that they intimidate Canadians in every single neighbourhood. We know that the chief of police of Tehran worked out in at GoodLife Fitness in midtown Toronto. We know that senior members of the regime are eating steak dinners in fancy restaurants in Toronto openly, with impunity. This is after eight years of the government. The worst is what we saw in the streets of Toronto. At the very moment the projectile missiles fired on a democratic friend and ally, there was celebration and jubilation in the streets of our biggest cities. There was a failure to denounce that by a party that we know is capable of denouncing all kinds of protests in this country. If its members were at all concerned with the desecration of a statue in front of Parliament and said nothing about what has happening in our streets, the mobs of protesters with covered faces brandishing swastikas, I cannot help them. However, what we can do today, as a country, is to ban the open operations, the ability to raise money and organize, of the IRGC terrorists who live among us, and there are at least 700 who we know about in this country, yet we get the same answers over and again. The government has been asked no less than 100 times in the House, and the answer is always the same. They say that they take terrorism seriously, that they are working on it and that they are looking into it. It has been six years. If this weekend and the events from this weekend have not changed that answer, then we have a really big problem with the government. We have a really big problem with how it treats terrorism, how it treats national security in this country and how it treats the very communities who elect its members to come here. We also have a problem with members of Parliament from the other side, particularly the member of Parliament for Richmond Hill, who meets with agents of the IRGC in his office. It is open, and it is known. I will say it inside of the House and outside of the House. His community knows that, and it is shameful. The fact that the answer is the same today, that they are working on it or they are looking at different ways to do it, is absolutely shameful. The 700 IRGC agents we know about who we have living in this country, and there are potentially more, intimidate Canadians every single day. They intimidate Canadians in neighbourhoods right across the GTA and in North Vancouver. We hear them. Our own conversations with them happen sometimes with a blurred out background because they are so scared about making the call to somebody in government or their MP for help that they blur out the background. They sit in their car away from their home because they are terrified of the intimidation that they face here. There are thousands of Iranian Canadians, freedom-loving Iranian Canadians, who fled that regime to find safety and a better life here in Canada. Their expectation from their government is that they will be kept safe and free of intimidation, be able to go to school and to work, and be able to talk to their MP from their home without being terrified of being watched by the regime. That is what we are dealing with in Canada. That is what the community is dealing with in Canada. Those people have said so, and they continue to call on the government, after six years of it doing nothing to at least list these operatives as the terrorists they are. Today in Canada, they can raise money, have meetings and organize. This is the Islamic regime in Iran that has been fighting proxy wars against our ally until the direct attack on the weekend. This is the regime in Iran that has funded Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis. This is the most destabilizing force in all of the Middle East and one of the most destabilizing forces in the entire world. The very fact that the government answers the question in the same way today as it has for the last six years, and for two years before that, is a darn shame because there are people in this country who want to see the government take national security and terrorism seriously. It is about time that it do that. It is about time that it does that for every single freedom-loving Canadian who sees what is going on in their streets, where the progressive left has been co-opted by the Iranian regime with things like Al-Quds Day, which is funded entirely by the mullahs in Iran to destabilize our own streets here. It is unbelieve that the Liberals' answer after six years is exactly the same. They say, “We are working on it. We are going to do it. We have a tough sanctions regime on Iran.” They do not even know how many operatives are here. They do not know how many people they are going to put on their list because they do not have a list. If they did have a list, they would produce that list. It is a government that does not take terrorism seriously. It is a government that does not take national security seriously. Soon there will be a government that does, but until then, the Liberals can do one thing. They can ban the IRGC from organizing, from fundraising and from living freely here and intimidating our own citizens. That is what this motion calls on, and I hope the Liberals vote in favour of it.
1316 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
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