SoVote

Mr. Yves-François Blanchet (Beloeil—Chambly, BQ)

May/8/24 3:06:45 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I just heard that we need to protect both official languages. Where does English need protecting? This summer in Montreal there is going to be the equivalent of a global conference of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie that will be chaired by his friend, who, by his own actions, is embarrassing us on the world stage. I think I get it: The Liberals are trying to have everyone believe that French is just fine in Quebec and there is no need to do anything to make Canada's anglophones happy.

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Context: House Hansard - 311 - May/8/24

Right Hon. Justin Trudeau (Prime Minister, Lib.)

May/8/24 3:07:21 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, we are the first federal government to recognize that we have a special responsibility to protect French in Quebec and to contribute to that protection. No other government has done that before. It is because we recognize that more needs to be done to protect French. Unlike the Bloc Québécois, we are not going to focus on what needs to be done in Quebec. We are going to keep protecting French in the entire country. We are going to do so in Acadia, in Ontario, in Manitoba, in the Far North, across the country—

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Context: House Hansard - 311 - May/8/24

Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Leader of the Opposition, CPC)

May/8/24 3:18:05 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, he is the one making cuts to Radio-Canada. He and his CEO are the ones who want the CBC to swallow up Radio-Canada. We are the ones who are going to protect Radio-Canada and, yes, we are going to get rid of the CBC's vast bureaucracy. Why does this Prime Minister keep defending big bonuses for the CBC's gigantic bureaucracy, which Canadians firmly oppose? Why not protect Radio-Canada services instead?

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Context: House Hansard - 311 - May/8/24

Mr. Garnett Genuis

May/8/24 8:54:36 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, there are two parts to what the member said. On the government's assertion that House of Commons officials were informed, what I can say is that there were 18 members of Parliament who were targeted by a foreign hacking attempt, which the Government of Canada knew about, and at no point, until the last few weeks, did the members of Parliament who were targeted find out about it. The government's defence is to say that it told some other people. That is great, but it did not tell the people who were affected. We had a right to know that we were being targeted by a foreign state, and it is not the responsibility of the House of Commons' IT department to be informing us about these security threats. It is the responsibility, I believe, of the government. What I can say for certain is that the government did not inform us, did not insist that we were informed and provided no assurance that we would get the information. That is fundamentally unacceptable. If I become aware of something that is very significant to the life of the member for Winnipeg North, and I do not tell him about it, but I go tell the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South about it, and then later it comes out that I did not provide this vital information, so I say, okay, I did not tell the person affected, but I told somebody else about it, I think we would all understand that this would be ridiculous. What was crucial here is that the 18 members of Parliament who were targeted by a foreign state did not receive information that the government had about threats to us. We could have used that information to protect ourselves and to challenge our system on further steps that needed to be taken to protect our—

316 words

Context: House Hansard - 311 - May/8/24

Mrs. Stephanie Kusie

May/8/24 10:23:29 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, this should have been handled years ago; the sooner it is handled, the better. I hope that, this time, something effective is done, something with teeth, that will actually protect not only the members of the House but also the citizens of Canada.

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Context: House Hansard - 311 - May/8/24

Mr. Tom Kmiec

May/8/24 11:01:12 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, the member for Edmonton Manning is absolutely correct. The message the government basically sends to the diaspora communities, to former political prisoners whom we meet with and to people in civic organizations in Canada is that they do not matter. They will not be protected by the government. It is a free-for-all, with foreign agents and foreign hacking. It is not just their physical health they have to worry about; it is also their digital health. The government will not protect parliamentarians, and the message it is sending is that people are on their own; this has been heard loud and clear. There is a lot of fear out there in the community. Conservatives do not have to raise anyone's anxiety. We are just raising voices and pointing out what has been done. The government had a moral and ethical responsibility to act and inform the 18 parliamentarians, and it failed to do so.

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