- Member of Parliament
- Liberal
- Scarborough—Guildwood
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 62%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $111,926.23
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I appreciate this opportunity to address the fall economic statement.
Recently, I had the honour and privilege to go to Washington with the defence committee. My friend from Calgary Rocky Ridge was also on the trip. I want to thank the ambassador publicly for her contributions to the utility of our trip. We could not have been treated better. We went to the Wilson Center, the Pentagon, the Atlantic Institute, and other places. With respect to defence contacts, Washington is, frankly, the centre of the geopolitical universe.
In addition to chairing the defence committee, I also co-chair the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, which harkens back to the times of Roosevelt and Mackenzie King. I want to assure hon. members that I was not chairing the board at that time, but can expect some push-back from the member for Kingston and the Islands on that. It is an opportunity, on an annual basis, for our respective militaries to exchange public policy issues, in particular, to update their own military policies. The American government has just updated its military policy and the Canadian government is about to update its “Strong, Secure, Engaged” policy, because, frankly, the threat environment has changed dramatically in the last 12 months.
Members may wonder why I would start a speech about the fall economic statement by referring to defence. Over the course of these many meetings, I started to joke that we really should rename the defence committee to the defence, trade and commerce committee, because the threats that Canada and other western nations are facing are not merely threats that relate to what we would describe as security and military threats. Rather, they are societal, economic and business threats, which are in fact far more insidious and multi-faceted than stand-alone military and security threats.
It was clear when we arrived in Washington that the Americans regard China as what is called a pacing threat. A pacing threat is a threat to which we have to maintain our technological military superiority. They clearly regard Russia as an acute threat, one that can literally do damage, but it does not penetrate into the threat analysis in the same way as does China. The pacing threat that China is creates a grey zone of conflict. This is where it relates to our fall economic statement, because in the grey zone of conflict, there is an economics challenge, a business challenge, a democracy challenge, an intellectual property challenge, a rule of law challenge, and we could isolate many more.
The PRC uses all of these areas of access points to undermine the very fabric of our society, to steal when it is appropriate to steal, to loot when it is appropriate to loot, to sow disinformation when it is appropriate to sow disinformation. Anything of any value gets returned to Beijing one way or another, which in turn takes those intellectual, scientific and technological advantages that we currently enjoy and uses them against our western society.
Those who briefed us expressed a real worry that we need to keep ahead. A cold war mentality is setting in, but unlike the Cold War mentality of the mutually assured destruction that existed between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. in times past, it is a top-to-bottom, layer-by-layer contest over anything of any value in western societies. There is a huge advantage for the Communist Party of China, because it is a closed society. Ours are relatively open societies, and the contest is heavily weighted in favour of a closed society that has a unitary view of dominance at all costs and wishes to turn us all into vassal states.
In sharing our intellectual resources, we will see our universities are relatively open. The concept in western society is that we share knowledge with a view to building knowledge, and the real question is whether we can actually continue that. The argument, if one was looking at this from a threat analysis standpoint, is that we cannot.
We have a patent regime that exists to protect investor and property rights. Again, a society that routinely abuses the patents that exist and takes no responsibility to compensate the creator is a system that may not continue to be able to exist.
Further, we have open real estate markets. We have heard a lot about the cost of living. What is, in part, driving the cost of living are massive infusions of monies from abroad, somewhat from China in particular, which drives up the prices of housing. In turn, that makes housing unaffordable to our own population and distorts our entire market system. That cannot continue.
We have an open investor system in mines and minerals. Again, we cannot allow state-owned enterprises to own critical minerals and critical mines.
We have an open democracy. We cannot continue with the misinformation and voter influence campaigns that are run from the People's Republic of China. When we hear the threat analysis from the people in the Pentagon and leading thinkers in all of these institutions, we realize all these layers of threat are significant to our way of life and significant to the prosperity that, frankly, is reflected in our fall economic statement.
These are just a few examples of the layered threats that go from a traditional military threat right through to abuse of our democracy.
I looked at the fall economic statement and compared it to the Parliamentary Budget Officer's view of the same set of numbers. Frankly, there is not a great deal of difference between the two. Occasionally the government is a bit more optimistic than the PBO and on occasion the PBO is a bit more optimistic than the government, but on several layers we are necessarily simply going to need to adjust.
Capital flows from the PRC are going to need to be restricted, and these capital flows will need to be replaced internally or from abroad, probably primarily from the U.S. In fact, the United States military has set up a fund, where it is available to invest in various technologies but also various mines and minerals that will be needed to keep ahead of a pacing threat.
I have a relative, for instance, who works at a leading research company, and the Department of Defense is actually one of the significant investors in that company. Rare earth minerals require a lot of capital and are critical to the 21st century economy. They are also critical to weapons technology.
Canada is treated as a domestic supplier for defence procurement. We will start to draw down on that status much more vigorously as we reshore, we nearshore and friend-shore critical investments.
I see that Madam Speaker is hinting that my time might be finished, so I will end here.
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- May/12/22 4:43:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is an attractive idea. It has been pursued in other countries. In principle, I would support it. I do not know how it would play out in practice.
While I am on my feet, I would like to talk about the north and the critical importance that the rangers play in the assertion of our sovereignty in the north. It is not only a military establishing of presence, but also the building of the infrastructure in the north in order to facilitate the extension of our sovereignty. The biggest challenge to our sovereignty is the government of China.
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- Feb/19/22 3:24:30 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I usually start by saying that I am thankful for the opportunity to speak here. However, it is the first time in 24 years that I needed a police escort to enter this chamber, and it is likely that all of us will need police escorts to exit this chamber. That is the state of emergency affairs in Ottawa as we speak.
Sedition, by definition, is “conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state”. Emergency, by definition, is “a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action.” There is a further definition in the Emergencies Act that largely supports this notion:
threatens the ability of the Government of Canada to preserve...sovereignty [and] security
Over the last three weeks, we have seen a ragtag convoy of truckers, apparently here to protest mandates, morph into an anarchistic challenge to legitimate authority, seriously impairing the life, economic well-being and safety of Canadians from coast to coast: from Ottawa to the Ambassador Bridge, to the Ambassador Bridge times two and times three, to Toronto protests, to Quebec protests, to the Blue Water Bridge, to the Emerson, Manitoba, closures, to the Coutts, Alberta, closure and to closures in British Columbia. There has been billions of dollars's worth of economic disruptions and broken supply chains. Citizens have been rendered hopeless and fearful. Citizen have been threatening each other and threatening to take the law into their own hands in the face of police impotence or their refusal to act.
I do not know what else we could possibly want before declaring a state of national emergency, with the possible exception of violence in the streets. Some seem to think that should be part of the debate and is a necessary precondition. It is also equally clear some insurrectionists would be pleased if that happened, if anarchy and lawlessness prevailed and legitimate authority were undermined. All the while, these “brave anarchists” are hiding behind children in bouncy castles and waving Canadians flags, sometimes right side up and sometimes not.
The protest has migrated from misguided complaints about mandates to sedition. Most of the mandates are from provincial authorities and are being cautiously lifted with the guidance of public health authorities. The blockade, if it was ever about mandates in the first place, should be in provincial capitals. The sole mandate within the federal jurisdiction is at the border and can only be lifted in conjunction with the American government. They should take their protest to Washington, assuming they can get across the border.
What is this seditious blockade really about? I am sure members have heard about campaigns of misinformation and disinformation. As my hon. friend mentioned in his speech, at the public safety committee and the defence committee we heard a lot of testimony about misinformation and disinformation campaigns by state and non-state actors. I do not have any personal or direct evidence of the attempted destabilization of a G7 NATO country in opposition to Russia on the verge of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but I have to think that works to the advantage of President Putin. Any destabilization effort that erodes national consensus works to the advantage of our two major adversaries, China and Russia.
Russian TV has been promoting alternative theories of the utility of vaccines and paranoid theories about implanting chips. It also questions the effectiveness of mandates, sowing doubts in the minds of those looking to express their frustration and anger. At this point, it is directed at Parliament, the government and the Prime Minister.
The evidence of non-state actors is a bit more clear. Funding from the U.S. is blatantly obvious and is from sources in the U.S. associated with the most odious elements of American society. The Conservatives have been saying for weeks that all we need to do is talk to these people, so I started returning telephone calls and responding to emails. I cannot help but observe that I have become quite popular in Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec. All of these non-constituents want to help me vote for my constituents. Just today, we received 1,300 emails, and we had 600 the day before.
To these non-constituents, I offer an insincere apology for ignoring them. My constituents, on the other hand, I do not ignore, and have not for nine elections and 24 years. There is more of a mix among those who want me to vote against the legislation, and they are more vociferous this week. However, last week others wanted me to end it. The conversations with those who want me to vote against the bill exhibit a belligerence, coupled with a substantial amount of misinformation and disinformation, that makes one despair.
When the conversation starts with, “I have never voted for you and I never will”, we know we are off to a bad start. For nine elections and 24 years, there must have been a great deal of frustration for this individual caller. When the conversation is peppered with the Prime Minister's last name in conjunction with what the Speaker would rule to be unparliamentary language, all seemingly starting with the same letter, we know the conversation is not going to go well. Also, trying to carry on a conversation with a blowing horn from an 18-wheeler in the background is indeed an impediment to civilized discourse.
What is so discouraging when we get through all of this is the dissonance of fact. Minimal understanding of civics and science must be the basis for civilized discourse, but the “alternative facts” narrative, perpetrated by that notorious Trump acolyte, has taken hold here. That is ultimately what is so discouraging. By one means or another, this insurrection will end, but the damage to political discourse will linger. It is difficult to have conversations with horns blaring, engines revving, diesel fumes in the air, a commitment to alternative facts and certain politicians giving aid and comfort to sedition.
I therefore support, wholeheartedly, this initiative as a measured, scaled, charter-consistent response to the blatant disregard for the rule of law. If revocation of licences, revocation of insurance and freezing of bank accounts will not do it, I support the police cordoning off areas and arresting those who refuse to leave, which they are doing as we speak. I have been very impressed by the measured and careful response of the police in the last couple of days.
I condemn the lawless thugs hiding behind children. I condemn violence. This legislation should serve as a warning to lawless brigands, especially to the organizers, both foreign and domestic. We are a nation where the rule of law prevails in all matters. This misinformation and disinformation campaign, whether from foreign or domestic sources, is deeply settled in the minds of these insurrectionists, who see conspiracies everywhere and seem to be incapable of adjusting deeply held preconceptions of certain basic facts. It takes us, as a nation, into a very dark place.
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