Adam Chambers

Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
Conservative

Simcoe North
Ontario
Voting Attendance: 68%
Expenses Last Quarter: $121,028.17

Government Page

Mr. Adam Chambers (Simcoe North, CPC)

May/8/23 9:16:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise, and it is always a pleasure to see you in the chair. I will ask for the Chair's indulgence for a brief 30 seconds, before I start my remarks on the substance at hand, to recognize the Ramara Chamber of Commerce, which held its annual AGM tonight, and to recognize some wonderful businesses and organizations in the community. Lagoon City Pier One Resort, the Ramara Public Library, Casino Rama, Ramara Quilting, Spray-Net Northern Ontario and Orillia & Lake Country Tourism are businesses and organizations in the Ramara region that have done a lot in the community. However, we are here to talk about a very serious issue, and that is the question of privilege raised by my colleague from Wellington—Halton Hills about potential threats and harassment that members of the House or their loved ones have been subjected to based on some of the actions taken in the House. One of the things we have actually lost in the debate, given everything that happened last week, is that the report out of CSIS allegedly refers to multiple members of Parliament, not just one member of Parliament. There may be members in more parties, and perhaps even in the governing party, who are asking themselves whether the government is taking the necessary actions to keep them and their families safe or to keep them free from intimidation and harassment. This is why the question of privilege is important to explore. It is also why all members of the House, in many of the speeches tonight, have indicated their support for the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to explore in greater detail the questions raised by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. I heard many great speeches here tonight, but the member for Scarborough—Guildwood also imparted some wisdom to us in terms of keeping some humility. There are lots of things about this situation that we do not know. There may be some things we will never be able to know because of national security, but it is the Prime Minister's job to set up the apparatus or machinery of government, to set in place a system through which the Prime Minister will be informed of the most serious matters. It is not a defence, in a Westminster parliamentary system, to put up a shield and say that one did not know about something. However, in the greater context, we have been losing this thing called “ministerial responsibility” over the last number of years. In parliamentary democracies, or in Westminster parliamentary systems, ministerial responsibility is very important. What we have seen recently from the government is that ministerial responsibility no longer exists. All one has to do is stand up in the chamber and say, “This result is unacceptable and we are working really hard to change it”, but I am not really sure we are getting the results we need or that there is accountability for actions of the government. Time and time again, unfortunately, it is the same playbook with the government. How many times have we heard, “The story in The Globe and Mail is false”, “The conversations never happened the way the Globe reported them”, or “We didn't know of that happening”? Then, when more information comes to light, the story changes to “Well, those might have occurred, but they didn't happen the way they were reported.” Then we learn a little more information and it is revealed that, actually, the issue in question did happen or the conversation did occur the way it was reported. Then, at the very end, time and time again we are told, “This has been a learning experience for all of us, and we will do better next time.” Let us just recap how we arrived here in just one week. On Monday, the government would not confirm when it had become aware of the allegations in The Globe and Mail. These are pretty simple questions. Either the government knew or it did not. It waited three days before acknowledging whether it knew and when it knew. I will note that not only is it a very simple question, but that the government confirmed, not in this chamber for Canadians, based on questions from parliamentarians, but in a scrum to the media. Why is it always that a simple question cannot get answered in the House, but government members will freely give some fact to the media when asked directly? On Monday, the government also said that any individual who contravenes the Vienna convention would be expelled. On Tuesday, there was no information given; there was no expulsion. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister said that he was unaware of the allegations until Monday, and that was the same for any of the other members of the executive branch. That was also the day when the Prime Minister said that the briefing note did not leave CSIS. “CSIS made the determination that it wasn't something that needed be raised to a higher level because it wasn't a significant enough concern.” There was still no expulsion. On Thursday, a really important day, the narrative began to change. The Prime Minister and senior government members appointed to senior parliamentary posts engaged in what anyone else would describe as gaslighting. In fact, they implied that it was the member for Wellington—Halton Hills who actually knew about these allegations two years ago from a briefing. We know that is categorically false. On Thursday, we also learned that in fact the alleged briefing document did, indeed, make its way out of CSIS and into the government apparatus. The national security adviser at the time received this note, as did other government departments. There was still no expulsion on Thursday, but the government summoned the ambassador to the People's Republic of China and asked what the consequences would be for expulsion. That is a little bit bizarre to me. How on one hand could the government take the position that there were actually no actions that rose to the level of expulsion but then ask what the consequences would be if an expulsion occurred? Was the government just trying to figure out the minimum that it could do to make this issue go away? Friday was a very important day as categorically false implications were made about the character and recollection of events by the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. The Prime Minister himself got in on the gaslighting game. “I was reassured to see that Mr. Chong received multiple briefings following the information collected by CSIS to ensure”—

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Member of Parliament

Adam Chambers