Senator Plett: In fact, you didn’t explain it, and although Senator Omidvar usually sits on our side of the chamber, the last time I looked, she wasn’t a member of the opposition.

Leader, in October at a protest here in Ottawa following the murder of Mahsa Amini by Iran’s morality police, the Prime Minister said:

We will stand with you. I march with you. I will hold hands with you. We will continue to stand with this beautiful community —

— but we won’t support them in a vote.

This Sunday, another large rally is scheduled to take place on Parliament Hill. Canadians will once again take to the streets in the hopes that the Trudeau government — and maybe Senator Gold — will hear them and list the IRGC as a terrorist entity.

Leader, doesn’t the vote last night sum up the Trudeau government in a nutshell? Offer to hold hands during a protest, vote against a motion in the Senate and then do absolutely nothing?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): My question again today is for Trudeau’s government leader in the Senate and it has to do with a vote last night, leader, on Motion No. 102, which was brought forward by Senator Omidvar. It’s a short motion, so I’ll put it on the record:

That, given reports of human rights abuses, repression and executions of its citizens, particularly women, in Iran by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Senate call upon the government to immediately designate the IRGC as a terrorist entity.

Leader, instead of allowing this motion to pass with the support of the entire Senate, you called out, “On division,” which means the motion passed but not unanimously.

Senator Gold, could you explain why you were opposed to this motion? Does it mean that it is the position of the Trudeau government to never list the IRGC as a terrorist entity?

Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Leader, the Prime Minister’s made-up Special Rapporteur confirmed multiple times yesterday that his report on Beijing’s interference was based on incomplete information. Before a House committee, he admitted that he didn’t have the intelligence that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, provided to former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole. He said, “The evidence that we had before us . . . was what was available to us at that time.”

He later told the CBC, “The amount of information available was an ocean and we saw a very large lake.”

Leader, who chose the CSIS information that the rapporteur based his report on? Also, since the rapporteur admits he didn’t see everything, what value is the report, other than to serve as another cover-up for the Prime Minister and his government?