- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 67%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $170,231.20
- Government Page
- May/8/24 9:58:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, earlier in this debate, I posed a question to the parliamentary secretary, and I was quite disturbed by the response. We all know governments make mistakes. Every government makes mistakes. I asked if he acknowledged that it was a mistake for the government to not inform members of Parliament that they had faced a cyber-attack from a foreign state. He said no, he did not think it was a mistake. He said that protocols and processes can change, but when I asked if it had been a mistake to not tell me and 17 other parliamentarians that we had been targeted by a foreign government, he said no, it was not. I find that very disturbing.
I hope we can work toward a consensus on how to move forward, but it should be acknowledged at a basic level that failure to inform parliamentarians about these threats to themselves, their cyber-presence and their offices is wrong and unacceptable. The government should be willing, at this point, now that it has been caught not sharing that information, to acknowledge that.
I would like to ask the NDP for its perspective. Does it think the government erred in not sharing this information?
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- Jan/31/24 7:52:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I wanted to raise a point of order at the earliest possible opportunity regarding the response I received to Question No. 2155, if you would allow me to briefly explain my concern about its accuracy and completeness.
My question was respecting development assistance projects in Israel and Palestinian territories and projects aimed at supporting Palestinian refugees in other countries. I asked for information about all projects since 2016. That includes all the organizations involved in delivering a project, with the clear implication of both implementing and sub-implementing partners. The initial response describes the fact that there are implementing and sub-implementing partners, which are screened. It says that all funding goes through trusted partner organizations.
Subsequently, in reviewing the list of projects, I found that none of the projects mentioned identify sub-implementing partners. They speak about the large organizations; for instance, they speak about $100 million going to UNRWA. However, they do not identify sub-implementing partners. The implication is that either there are none or the government did not wish to provide that information, despite the clear ordering of that information as part of Question No. 2155. That makes the response inaccurate and incomplete.
I do not know if the government is intentionally trying to hide information about the development assistance in this regard. However, in accordance with the Standing Orders, the government needs to provide a complete and accurate response.
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- May/15/23 5:36:50 p.m.
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- Re: Bill S-5
Madam Speaker, I think the member is onto something, that people should be able to access information about the risks the products present to them. I also wonder if we need to have a broader conversation about labelling and how that information is presented.
I can recall various debates where people wanted all kinds of information and more detailed labels, but that can present certain challenges and barriers when those labels are not read in detail anyway. Therefore, we would need to have a conversation about QR code labelling and other tools where people can access that information easily, but it does not require the constant reprinting of labels in response to new information. That is a broader conversation, but it is an important area to discuss.
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Mr. Speaker, I have just a simple question for the parliamentary secretary about the discussion around spreading misinformation and disinformation.
Is “spreading misinformation” simply a fancy way of saying “telling a lie”? Does it mean the same thing as telling a lie, or does it mean something different?
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- Feb/28/22 10:31:00 p.m.
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Madam Chair, it is a pleasure to work with my colleague on the foreign affairs committee, and it was a pleasure, in the previous Parliament, to work with him on the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations.
There has been a lot of discussion about the role of misinformation, and in particular there are concerns about RT. It is important to note some of the content we heard in the last Parliament. There are various so-called media outlets that are state-backed coming out of Russia and China that push misinformation and that also sometimes feature atrocities as part of their programming. There are instances, for example, of forced confessions and human rights abuses that are happening in the context of TV production, yet they are licensed to operate in Canada.
I wonder if the member could comment on the need, as many members have said, to address the issue of RT, but also to look across the board at state-backed misinformation and propaganda coming into Canada and whether those entities should have privileged access to our airwaves. Of course, they still exist on the Internet, but in my view they should not have the privilege of broadcasting licences and access to our airwaves.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for giving the calibre of speech that members of the House have come to expect from him, with many trumped-up comments. As a Conservative, I am not at all ashamed or embarrassed about the fact that our party champions freedom, freedom of speech and the freedom of individuals to make their own choices.
I want to ask the member a specific question about misinformation. We have heard a lot in this House today about RT and the problems with it, and I share those concerns. However, I have similar concerns about state-backed misinformation coming from news channels that are controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. We should not forget that the issue of state-backed misinformation, even of torture and forced confession happening on air, is not just an issue coming out of Russia. It is also an issue in China. Should we not be dealing with that as well?
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