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Decentralized Democracy

Member of Parliament

Hon. Mike Lake

  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Edmonton—Wetaskiwin
  • Alberta
  • Voting Attendance: 66%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $178,671.82

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 192 - May/8/23
Hon. Mike Lake
  • May/8/23 11:26:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the hope is that tomorrow, when people have had some more time maybe on the government side to think about what we are debating today, we will see some Liberal speakers stand up and share their own thoughts and share what they are hearing from constituents on the specifics of the motion. Again, I will remind the House that we had the motion today, and the Liberals voted against it. The Liberals voted against creating a foreign agent registry, establishing a national public inquiry, closing down the People's Republic of China-run police stations operating in Canada and expelling all of the People's Republic of China diplomats responsible. They voted against that today. Now we are discussing something very specific to the member of Parliament for Wellington—Halton Hills: “That the prima facie contempt concerning the intimidation campaign orchestrated by Wei Zhao against the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and other members be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.” I hope that when it comes to the debate on that issue tomorrow, we will get a chance to hear what Liberal members of Parliament think about this violation of parliamentary privilege. I will remind Liberal members, all members of the House and Canadians that when we are talking about parliamentary privilege, when we are talking about the privileges of a member being contravened in the way we are talking about here, we are not just talking about a member of Parliament from one political party, or even members of Parliament from all political parties. When the privileges of members of Parliament are contravened in that way, we are talking about the roots of our democracy. We are talking about the ability of that particular member of Parliament to serve his constituents. We can all, obviously, understand the importance of our constituents and our ability to serve democracy, serve our country, by coming here and debating important issues like this on behalf of our constituents. For doing that, the member for Wellington—Halton Hills was clearly threatened and intimidated and had his family threatened and intimidated. I would hope that all members of the House, regardless of party affiliation, can understand that, come to the House and debate that passionately, and hopefully vote in favour of ensuring that this gets a proper hearing at the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
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Context: House Hansard - 192 - May/8/23
Hon. Mike Lake (Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC)
  • May/8/23 11:06:03 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate tonight. I will start, as I did on Thursday, with an expression of solidarity with and admiration for our colleague in the House. I say “our colleague” and not “our Conservative colleague”. Our colleague is a member of Parliament, the member of Parliament for Wellington—Halton Hills, who has done great work representing his constituents and standing up for our country in the House for almost 20 years, so it is important to start there. Right now, and it might be lost on folks tuning in and wondering what we are talking about at this late hour, we are debating a motion that states, “That the prima facie contempt concerning the intimidation campaign orchestrated by Wei Zhao against the Member for Wellington—Halton Hills and other Members be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.” The Speaker ruled today, in his ruling on parliamentary privilege, that there was a contempt of Parliament. Now we are debating whether the House committee that studies these things would take this up. That is what we are debating today. I find it really interesting that almost no Liberals have actually spoken in the debate today, and when they have spoken, we have not known what their position is. No one has signalled what their individual position is or what the party position is. For the most part, when Liberals have gotten up and spoken, it has been to sow chaos, quite frankly, to raise random points of order and to weigh in in that way, not to contribute to the conversation in any way or to stand up for the privileges of a member, and therefore for the privileges of all members of the House of Commons. Today, as has been referenced several times in the House, we voted on a Conservative motion that we debated last Thursday. Interestingly, in a rare show of agreement, Conservative, Bloc, NDP and Green members voted together on what seemed like a very straightforward motion; it was very much common sense if people have been following what is going on. There is some preamble that lays out the situation. It is not overly political, and there are four main points. The motion is calling on the government to “(a) create a foreign agent registry similar to Australia and the United States of America”. That seems pretty reasonable right now. It continues with “(b) establish a national public inquiry on the matter of foreign election interference”. We have been talking about foreign election interference for some time, for months now, in the House. Next, it states, “(c) close down the People's Republic of China run police stations operating in Canada”. For most Canadians, hearing me say that will be alarming, because they would wonder how in the world any government would allow that to happen. The motion ends with “d) expel all of the People's Republic of China diplomats responsible for and involved in these affronts to Canadian democracy”. That is something that most Canadians would think would be common sense, and most Canadians, again, would be surprised to understand that the first such diplomat was expelled only today. That is what has led us to this point in the House. Thursday was interesting, because, as I mentioned, it would be surprising to most people that those were the four points that we passionately debated in the House. The government, like all members, was given notice that there was going to be a debate, so parties and individual members could get prepared for that debate and understand what their individual and party positions might be. I certainly came to the House expecting to have a passionate debate about something really important, but I expected that all members would rally together to understand the gravity of what we were talking about. Then we got to the House, and it was very clear that most of the members from most of the parties of the House came expecting to have that reasonable debate in the interest of Canadians, understanding the gravity of the situation. However, Liberal members came to the House with what seemed to be a coordinated strategy. There is no other explanation, because it seemed like a deliberate strategy to just cause chaos in the House. The Liberals have two parliamentary secretaries to the House leader. They are both very well known to members of the House, and both of them undertook a strategy, and it was a very clear strategy, to actually call into question the credibility of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills.
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