SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

René Villemure

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of Parliament
  • Bloc Québécois
  • Trois-Rivières
  • Quebec
  • Voting Attendance: 63%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $100,349.98

  • Government Page
  • May/29/24 5:58:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Barrie—Innisfil, with whom it is always a pleasure to work. I have to say that I was not aware of the details of how the motion was drafted. I have read it, but I was not involved in its creation. However, it is essential that this legislation come into force before the next election. That is why we are prepared to put a lot of energy into it and put other projects on hold in order to move forward and be there. Yes, the law must be implemented before the next election.
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  • May/6/24 2:55:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Hogue commission report also exposes the Prime Minister's and the Liberal Party's irresponsible attitude toward Chinese interference. The report confirms that as early as 2019, the Prime Minister was duly informed of irregularities in the nomination in Don Valley North. The report specifies, on page 137, the Prime Minister's reasons for not withdrawing his candidate from the election. Among the reasons, we learned that “the [Liberal Party] expected to win [Don Valley North]”. In other words, the Prime Minister does not care if there is interference as long as the Liberal Party is winning. Should democracy come before partisanship?
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  • Nov/7/23 12:21:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my brilliant colleague from Berthier—Maskinongé for his always relevant questions. I will keep his sister-in-law Carole in my thoughts. Being there for people is a good thing. It is the essence of an MP's job. Our constituents delegated responsibility to us so that we could act for them in Parliament. We have to be there for our constituents. We have to be there for the public. Electoral considerations will never be entirely absent, of course. However, electoral considerations should be front and centre during election campaigns, not during a session, when we should be there to help the less fortunate and, as my colleague who spoke before me was saying, to reconcile social and economic justice.
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  • Jun/1/23 2:46:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my democracy is suffering, and I hope that I will not get an answer that I have already heard. I want to come back to what we learned the day before yesterday about the member for Durham. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service informed him that he was the target of a disinformation campaign by Chinese authorities during the 2021 election. That is important. We are talking about the leader of the opposition at the time, someone who could have legitimately expected to become prime minister, someone who was the leader of the party that got the most votes in 2021. We are not talking about just anyone. The interference is not targeting the government. It is targeting our democracy as a whole. We are all concerned, and we are all calling for a public inquiry. What will the government do?
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  • May/30/23 2:37:38 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, since we found out that there was Chinese interference in the election process, the government has been acting as though it is in charge of elections. It is acting as though Parliament does not have a say and democracy falls under the exclusive authority of the Prime Minister. It is pretty crazy that the majority of parliamentarians elected by the majority of the population have less clout than an unelected rapporteur, a friend of the Prime Minister who was appointed by the Prime Minister and reports to the Prime Minister. Will the Prime Minister finally launch an independent public commission of inquiry, as the majority of elected members of the House are asking him to do?
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  • Mar/21/23 2:43:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, knowing that China interfered significantly in the last two elections, the Prime Minister has threatened to trigger another election with a confidence vote. Before the details of China's interference tactics could even be investigated, before the electoral system could even be strengthened to counteract these illegal practices, the Prime Minister threatened to trigger another election, even if it means that Beijing can resort to the same strategy a third time in a row, scoring a hat trick. When will we finally get an independent public commission of inquiry?
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  • Mar/21/23 2:41:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the debate over Chinese interference in our democracy demonstrates the Prime Minister's systematic and long-standing lack of ethics. He floated the threat of a confidence vote to keep his chief of staff, Katie Telford, from having to appear. In other words, he actually threatened to force an election, all to avoid telling the truth about information he has had for a very long time about Chinese interference. What is it that the Prime Minister wants to keep Ms. Telford from admitting to, so much so that he would consider bringing down his own government?
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  • Feb/17/23 11:56:10 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, China's election interference is a threat to democracy that neither partisanship nor denial will help vanquish. We must all work to make elections impervious to foreign manipulation. The problem is, the government is hiding the truth from people. Not only was it aware of what was going on, but it discussed the matter with allied countries. Not only did it know candidates had received illegal contributions, but it knew which candidates and even refunded the money. When will the government understand that it cannot overcome Chinese interference by being as opaque as China?
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  • Feb/17/23 11:54:49 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, a report from The Globe and Mail laid bare the full extent of China's interference in the 2021 federal election. According to the article, secret services carried out a major operation involving illegal campaign contributions and media manipulation. This is extremely worrisome, but it would be a mistake to challenge the legitimacy of the election and merely consider it a partisan issue. The real issue is how easy it was for these foreign actors to manipulate our elections. This needs to be addressed transparently, but the government has been denying there was any interference and hiding the truth for months. Quebeckers want to know whether the government is ever going to take this threat seriously.
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