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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 312

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 9, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 312 - May/9/24
Ms. Jenny Kwan (Vancouver East, NDP)
  • May/9/24 10:15:54 a.m.
  • Watch
Mr. Speaker, I am entering into this debate, and first of all I want to say I certainly support the privilege motion before us. The reality is that what we are learning and seeing is that foreign interference is real. It is happening right before our eyes. In fact, it has been happening for some time. Commissioner Hogue in her interim report indicated that in both the 2019 election and the 2021 election there had been foreign interference activities. What we learned as well is that those activities occur in a variety of formats. While I am shocked to learn that members of Parliament are being targeted this time through potential cyber-attacks, what we know is that foreign interference tactics have been used in a variety of ways. We know that the member for Wellington—Halton Hills was one of the first individuals for whom we learned that his family had been targeted. He learned this not because the government informed him in the proper format, but we learned it through leaks in the media. It was only because of the escalation of the situation that we were informed that we were also being targeted. I learned much later I am a target of Chinese foreign interference activities and have been for some time. I learned that, in fact, I would be an evergreen target, meaning I will forever be targeted, as I understand the situation. Now we learn that 18 other members of Parliament have been targeted with cyber-attacks. That is the reality. The public hearing the NDP has pushed for is so important and so significant. In the interim report, what we learned from some of the testimony was shocking to me. Kenny Chiu, the former member of Parliament for Steveston—Richmond East, was subject to foreign interference activities. We will never know whether those activities would have altered the outcome of the election in that particular riding, but notwithstanding, foreign interference activities were occurring, and even the government's agencies were observing this. They had this information. In fact in my case, in the 2021 election it was noted that the incident related to Vancouver East during the campaign, that campaign activity, is believed to may well have been a foreign interference activity from China. However, none of that information was communicated, not to me, not to Kenny Chiu and not to anybody, really. One has to wonder, when the government says it has set up teams of communication, different agencies charged with this work, why not one of them informed the people who were impacted the most. This is exactly the case here with 18 members of Parliament who are being impacted by cyber-attacks from China. One wonders how this is even possible. How is it that the government has multiple agencies and that the people impacted the most are not even informed? What is the purpose of foreign interference activities from China and other countries? They want to disrupt our democratic system. They want to send a message to those being targeted in one way or another. The commissioner noted in her report that the diaspora community is particularly vulnerable and targeted in that way, and yet what work is being done to protect the diaspora community? I do not see a whole lot of activities from the government side. Its communication system is a colossal failure in addressing the issue. Foreign interference activities, as I was mentioning, happen in a variety of different formats. I have to raise a question, as well, with respect to the threshold that the government sets internally, to determine what would require action. The threshold is set so high that virtually nothing will occur. Ministers testified about how high the threshold ought to be. One of the bars, I think, is set at whether or not the interference would change an election. If the bar is set at that level, does that mean to say that all the other activities that were occurring, which may not have changed an election outcome, did not occur? Does that mean to say that there is no foreign interference? Of course not. The question becomes this for the government: What action will it take to address foreign interference activities and to take them seriously enough to curb those activities and to send a clear message to the actors that this will not be tolerated by Canada? What action will be taken to safeguard those people who are being impacted? I am a member of Parliament. In many ways, those of us who are members of Parliament are, I would say, privileged people. We have, to some extent, some level of protection, but everyday people do not. They definitely need and deserve protection. I was at an event just this last weekend with Hong Kongers. There were many people there. It was a cultural event, a celebration of Hong Kongers' culture, their practices, their business smarts and their entrepreneurship. There were people from high school who had crocheted cool little items that they were putting on a table to sell. There were a variety of artisans putting their items forward. There were also people there who wore masks because they were worried about being targeted. In Canada, the government had much pressure put on it. There was my request for it to have a special immigration measure, a lifeboat scheme for Hong Kongers who are trying to escape the prosecution, the draconian national security law. Most recently, article 23 has been passed in Hong Kong, where there are escalating arbitrary detentions and arrests. Hong Kongers need the government to take action on a special immigration measure. So many Hong Kongers came to Canada needing to be able to find safety. They applied, under the special measure, for permanent residence. Initially the government processed those applications within six months. It is now up to 21 months. For some of the applicants, their study permits and work permits have already expired. People are in such fear about having to return to Hong Kong and then be out of status. Thank goodness the government finally made an announcement this week to extend the program. The government could have actually been even more efficient in that process and just automatically renewed the expiring work permits and study permits. Instead, it decided to make everybody go through yet another round of applications, spending scarce resources within IRCC instead of directing those resources into processing permanent residence applications in an expeditious fashion. That is typical; the government always finds some other way to be less efficient. I wanted to raise that point because of how important it is to ensure that Hong Kongers are able to get to a place of safety and not be sent back to Hong Kong. I want to turn back to the issue around foreign interference. As I was mentioning, there are a variety of different ways it can happen. In my case there was one particular event that occurred, that I am aware of, where I suspect that there were foreign interference activities, because the information that was provided does not add up. In this event, I made a complaint to Elections Canada. I informed CSIS. I reported it to the RCMP. I do not believe those agencies took the matter seriously. I do not think they investigated it seriously. Then, Elections Canada closed the case and deemed that there was no foreign interference, even though it did not follow the money and even though, in the background, I learned I am an evergreen target. We have learned in the media, and elsewhere, that there is a $250,000 slush fund that is put out there for foreign interference activities from China. How do the organizations know, without thoroughly investigating the matter, that there was no foreign interference in that instance? I know, most likely, that the incident in the 2021 election alone would not have altered the outcome of the election. I would still have been elected because I won by a very big margin. However, that is not the point, is it? The point is that I believe there were foreign interference activities, and we needed to thoroughly investigate the matter. The government has set up multiple agencies to look into these issues. When they learned of the issue, why did they not inform me, in real time, when it was happening? In the case of Kenny Chiu, a misinformation and disinformation campaign on WeChat was happening. He was not informed either. The agencies and the government were looking into foreign interference activities, and they knew. Did they do anything? Nope. If we juxtapose this to what was going on with the Prime Minister during that time, there was a disinformation campaign about him on Facebook. What did the government agencies do? They phoned Facebook about that disinformation campaign. What did Facebook do? It took it down. My point is this: Why should everybody not be treated equally? They are not, and that is the truth. We learned in the inquiry that perhaps in the case of WeChat, the government did not follow through on it because it was the Chinese Canadian community that was being impacted, as though somehow Chinese Canadians do not deserve the same protection against foreign interference activities. It is absolutely horrendous. I also want to raise a point for all members of Parliament in terms of potential impact. In her report, Justice Hogue indicated clearly that, with respect to foreign interference, there is a deep concern of the impact on elected officials. The report actually said that foreign interference actors undertake to target elected officials who speak out against certain foreign states such as China by deplatforming them, and there are also misinformation and disinformation campaigns. The goal, of course, is to undermine credibility, and that is what we saw in the last two elections. Of note, the commission said that part of the impact for elected officials, and part of the goal, is to potentially change behaviours and messages. I can not help but wonder this. In the House of Commons we know there are five poisons with China, one being the Uyghur genocide issue. The other is Taiwan's Falun Gong, and I can go on. However, let me focus on the Uyghur genocide issue for one minute. We had a vote in the House and some members of Parliament abstained from that vote. They were here prior to vote and participated, but when it came to the vote, they somehow magically disappeared. One of those actors is the member for Don Valley North. As it happens, on the matter related to the member for Don Valley North, the commissioner has some very damning findings with respect to that nomination. The Prime Minister said that he did not know about all of this. Let us pretend that is the case. Now that he does know, what action is he taking with respect to the finding of the commissioner, who said that foreign interference activities could have impacted its outcome of that nomination? If the Prime Minister believes there is nothing to see here, as he is continuing to say, then why is the member for Don Valley North not back in the Liberal caucus? Another thing that came out of the hearing that I found shocking is this. The Prime Minister was at the hearing and testified that he did not read documents that were classified top secret. What head of state does not read classified top secret documents that impact national security? That is weird. Let us put that aside for a minute. The Prime Minister said that he was not informed, with the exception that on that point he was contradicted by the director of CSIS, who said that, in fact, he and his staff were informed, that they were briefed. Magically, it seems like they do not know about it. There is much to be done. There is a big question, which is the premise of the inquiry, and that is, who knew what and when and what did the government do about it? I am still waiting for the final report to come out, and I am excited to receive it. The next phase of the inquiry will be very much focused on the impacts and issues related to that diaspora community, which did not get a chance to fully participate in phase one of the inquiry. Much work needs to be done, and there is no excuse for the government to not take the necessary actions to tackle foreign interference activities. We learned through the hearing that China is the most sophisticated country targeting us in Canada with foreign interference activities. We also learned through the hearing that all the other countries are onto it and are far more advanced in dealing with this issue, but Canada is not. For my colleagues, who have just learned they are being targeted, this is absolutely a question of privilege. We must study this issue, get to the bottom of it and be clear about what needs to be done and what actions need to be taken, because Canada's democratic process is in jeopardy. All 338 of us, and the work that we do, are in jeopardy. We cannot allow for any country to threaten us in that way. We must stand together, united in saying no to all foreign interference actors out there, that they will not be allowed to try to take us down. We must do that in the House of Commons.
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Context: House Hansard - 312 - May/9/24
Hon. Michael Chong
  • May/9/24 10:59:44 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I believe that Justice Hogue's initial report is a good start. She will present a second report in December of this year. I will continue working with the commission to ensure that the second report is very strong and contains solid recommendations for building a national security system that will protect our democratic institutions. I also agree that the government must act. The director of CSIS sounded the alarm in 2018 when he publicly announced that there was a national security problem here in Canada, specifically in relation to the People's Republic of China. That was six or seven years ago. The government dragged its feet over proposing a measure or taking action. As my hon. NDP colleague said, they took too long introducing a bill aimed at creating a registry of foreign agents. A lot more needs to be done, and I think that the government needs to do these things.
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