Senator Gold: Thank you for your question. As I have stated on many occasions, and I will repeat it again, it is the position of the government that the Special Rapporteur’s mandate has been discharged in an exemplary fashion with the publication of the report. The ongoing work that will follow the report is and will be to the benefit of Canadians and our security against foreign interference.

Senator Plett: The made-up Special Rapporteur’s statement defying the will of the House was clearly written before the votes were cast, just as his report was sent to translation before he even met with Erin O’Toole on who CSIS says was a target of Beijing’s interference. His statement yesterday said, “. . . my mandate comes from the government.” Exactly — that is what I’ve been saying all along, leader. That’s what we’ve been saying. He is not independent. He is an old Trudeau family friend and a member of the Trudeau Foundation. He was hired to help out the Prime Minister and his government in a made-up job. The Privy Council Office handles his media requests. He is not independent.

Leader, the very first words of the cover-up issued by the Special Rapporteur last week were this: “Our democracy is built on trust.” If the rapporteur and the Prime Minister can so easily dismiss the result of a democratic vote by elected members of the House of Commons, why should Canadians trust the Trudeau government about Beijing’s interference or, indeed, about anything else?