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Michael Cooper

Member of Parliament
Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council
Conservative

St. Albert—Edmonton
Alberta
Voting Attendance: 68%
Expenses Last Quarter: $119,185.60

Government Page

May/8/23 6:04:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member does raise a point, but I would submit that, under the government, the pendulum is way over on the other side: no transparency and no sunlight. The advice of CSIS to the Prime Minister has been that in order to combat foreign interference, there needs to be transparency and sunlight. We have a situation so serious that a member of Parliament was being intimidated because of a position they took in this House and how they voted, and that their family was being threatened and sanctioned, potentially in Hong Kong, by an accredited diplomat in Canada. The member for Wellington—Halton Hills should have been made aware of it, the Canadian public should have been made aware of it and the Beijing diplomat should have been sent back to Beijing then, not two years after the fact.

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Context: House Hansard - 165 - Mar/7/23

Mr. Michael Cooper (St. Albert—Edmonton, CPC)

Mar/7/23 2:52:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what the Prime Minister announced yesterday is nothing more than a smokescreen with no transparency. Indeed, the only thing that is transparent is the transparent attempt by the Liberals to cover up what the Prime Minister knows about Beijing's election interference. Consistent with this, today at committee the Liberals are filibustering to block the Prime Minister's chief of staff from having to testify. Why? What is he so afraid of? What does he have to hide?

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Context: House Hansard - 165 - Mar/7/23

Mr. Michael Cooper (St. Albert—Edmonton, CPC)

Mar/7/23 2:50:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, instead of following the advice of CSIS to provide transparency and sunlight when it comes to Beijing's election interference, the Prime Minister announced what amounts to a cover-up: a secret committee with secret evidence and secret conclusions redacted by the PMO, all to bury the truth. There is no transparency, no sunlight and total secrecy. What does the Prime Minister have to hide?

67 words

Context: House Hansard - 147 - Dec/13/22

Mr. Michael Cooper (St. Albert—Edmonton, CPC)

Dec/13/22 6:43:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canadians deserve transparency from the government when it comes to Beijing's interference in our elections. That is precisely the advice that the government received from CSIS. It stated that the government's policy in response to foreign interference be guided by transparency and sunlight, and that foreign interference be made known to the public. The approach of the Liberal government has been to do precisely the opposite of what CSIS has advised. It has been anything but transparent when it comes to the reported vast campaign of interference in the 2019 election by Beijing. The Prime Minister and ministers, for weeks, have refused to answer basic questions about what they know about this interference. More than that, they have acted as though there is nothing to see and that there is nothing to be concerned about, except we know that is not true. There is indeed plenty to be concerned about from just the very limited disclosure that the procedure and House affairs committee has received, which is undertaking hearings around Beijing's 2019 election interference. For example, a daily foreign intelligence brief dated February 21, 2020, prepared by the intelligence assessment secretariat of the PCO, which was disclosed to our committee yesterday and is heavily redacted, states, “Investigations into activities linked to the Canadian federal election in 2019, reveal an active foreign interference (FI) network”. An active foreign interference network is hardly something to be brushed under the rug, yet when I asked the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Minister of Foreign Affairs today at committee, they provided nothing in the way of an answer with respect to what they know about this active foreign interference network from Beijing involved in the 2019 election campaign. Then there is a briefing to the Prime Minister from CSIS, in which there is a subheading referencing politicians and riding associations that have been targeted by foreign interference. Today when I asked the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs about who the politicians and the riding associations were that had been targeted by foreign interference, his response was as if it was a figment of my imagination, when in fact it is in a CSIS document to the Prime Minister. When will the Liberals finally take the advice of CSIS, be transparent and tell Canadians what they know about Beijing's campaign interference, what they know about the active foreign interference network in the 2019 election campaign and which riding associations and politicians have been targeted by foreign interference?

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Member of the Joint Interparliamentary Council

Michael Cooper