Hon. Leo Housakos: I would like the government leader to focus on today’s candle, and we’ll worry about Rapporteur Johnston for another time.

Back to MP Michael Chong, he and his family were targeted by the Beijing regime because he moved a motion in the House of Commons recognizing the Uighur genocide. A similar motion, sadly enough — it was a sad day in this institution when Trudeau-appointed senators defeated that motion.

Now, if Prime Minister Trudeau did not take action to protect Michael Chong because he is a Conservative and because of partisan reasons, that’s shameful. If it’s because of utter incompetence — as he hasn’t shown any ability to protect Canadians from foreign interference — that’s just as shameful.

Now that the Prime Minister has been called out by the media with concrete information, what does he do, colleagues? He calls for another investigation where now that everyone has resigned from the Trudeau Foundation, he is running out of people he can appoint to investigate all of his various failures. Who is he going to appoint now to investigate this particular failure? Will it be his mother or his brother? Or maybe, colleagues, he might appoint himself. I can just see it now: What did I know? When did I know it? Who told me? Why didn’t I do something about it?

Senator Housakos: They are very serious and they are endless. It seems like information is rolling out case after case about the Prime Minister himself neglecting to come clean and protect Canadians when it comes to foreign interference.

Contrary, again, to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s claim that all the illegal Beijing police stations in Canada have been shut down, yesterday we found out that’s not the case. We actually now have emboldened agents on behalf of Beijing who are coming out publicly stating they are still operating right here in our country in Montreal.

My question, Senator Gold, is a very simple one: When will those illegal police stations be shut down? When will the diplomat responsible for targeting Michael Chong and his family be expelled from our country? When will your government agree to a public inquiry when it comes to foreign interference? When will your government allow for a registry to be put in place, once and for all, identifying and registering agents who are interfering in our country? When will your government get serious about foreign interference by protecting Canadians who are being intimidated? When are we going to get action other than just rhetoric?

Senator Housakos: Will there be any point in investigating?

Hon. Leo Housakos: Government leader, our problem isn’t with the Speaker’s ruling in itself; our problem is that this government likes to bend the rules to meet their political narrative. All you have to do is take out a Liberal Party membership, and you can move time allocation, you can be the government leader as per the Constitution. Life moves on, and we don’t have to have these debates.

My question is for the Leader of the Government, which happens to be a Liberal government, but I digress. Last week, I raised my concern in this chamber about the troubling human rights situation in Turkey, in particular, the abduction, torture and detention by regime officials of eight Canadians. The Kaçmaz and Acar families, with whom I met personally last month, filed a submission with Global Affairs asking the Government of Canada to implement targeted sanctions on 12 Turkish officials responsible for gross violations of human rights committed against them and against their friend Gökhan Açikkollu, who was tortured to death in a Turkish prison around the same time. Senator Gold, can you please confirm to this chamber if the government intends to implement targeted sanctions on these 12 Turkish officials, and if not, why not?

Senator Housakos: Thank you, government leader, I will appreciate that. They’ve already filed this brief with Global Affairs Canada a number of weeks ago, and I think these Canadians of Turkish descent deserve an answer on these issues. We have an obligation.

Despite all the nice words from the current government in regards to human rights, we have a long list of inaction that illustrates a broader problem when it comes to our sanctions regimes. They’re used inconsistently and in a manner that is overtly politicized, in my opinion.

The Erdoğan regime has committed widespread and serious human rights violations for many years. Since 2016, it has detained over 300,000 people. Detainees were tortured and raped, and hundreds have died. The latest data from the UN Refugee Agency indicates that 1.3 million people have been forcibly displaced from Turkey, and over 4,000 of these refugees are living right here, thank God, in Canada. Yet the Government of Canada has failed to place a single Turkish official on the sanctions list. When will your government do the right thing, and when will we start using our sanctions tool box to protect the human rights of Canadians of Turkish descent?

Hon. Leo Housakos: Honourable colleagues, my question is for the Government Leader in the Senate. Senator Gold, although your government has been obfuscating when it comes to implementing a foreign agent registry, the Prime Minister recently tried to appear to support the idea, although at the same time cautioned that it would not be a silver bullet. It’s a pattern of this Prime Minister to talk out of both sides of his mouth.

Now, there is a member of your government tabling a petition in the House of Commons calling for the even near idea of a foreign agent registry to be scrapped altogether. The Prime Minister himself is now citing the internment of thousands of Japanese and Italian Canadians during World War II as an example of why the government is taking its time on this issue.

Senator Gold, we have heard those talking points before. We have heard those talking points from none other than Beijing, and its mouthpiece is right here in Canada. Not only does one thing not have anything to do with the other, but why is the Prime Minister resorting to tactics employed by the Communist thugs in Beijing to scare the very people he should be doing more to protect right here in Canada? Why is he doing their dirty work and their heavy lifting?

Senator Housakos: Senator Gold, when it comes to combatting foreign intimidation and interference here in Canada with a foreign agent registry, your government has been kicking that can down the road for quite some time.

Senator Housakos: Including with an often-repeated announcement of impending and upcoming public consultations.

I understand that online consultations are under way and that Minister Mendicino did meet with a group of people in British Columbia last week. Even then, members of the diaspora communities were afraid to be found out and to participate.

It doesn’t help when your government is raising the spectre of impending internment. It just completely creates an atmosphere of fear amongst Canadians in various diasporas.

Regardless, I’m looking for a straightforward answer here because surely they have a process in place, but my question is this: What happens after this consultative process wraps up on May 9? What are the next steps? Will you commit to tabling in this chamber before May 9 the actual steps that will be taken following consultations on the foreign agent registry and with a specific timeline?

Hon. Leo Housakos: My question is for the government leader in the Senate. Senator Gold, I want to take you back to a dinner I asked your predecessor about in November of 2016. None other than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the headliner, shall we say, at this intimate, cash-for-access dinner at the private Toronto residence of an individual with close ties to the communist regime in Beijing. Someone else with close ties to that regime was also in attendance — Mr. Zhang Bin. He’s important because he’s the one under whose name — or so we were told — a sizeable donation was made to the Trudeau Foundation just weeks following that infamous dinner.

As a foreign citizen, neither Mr. Zhang nor Beijing’s communist regime — or any other foreign entity — can make political donations in Canada. However, they seem to have found a way around those pesky Canadian electoral laws by essentially laundering such a donation through the foundation bearing the Prime Minister’s name. The Prime Minister claims he’s not involved in the foundation, but a lot of suspicions have arisen. It was actually the Prime Minister’s brother who signed and issued the receipt for what we now know was an illegal donation.

My question for you, Senator Gold, is this: Will the Prime Minister do the right thing and formally cease all involvement with the foundation, or will he continue to use it as a scheme to leverage for his government and for the electoral benefit of the Liberal Party of Canada?

Senator Housakos: The fact seems to contradict what the government is trying to articulate. At the end of the day, we’re talking about how the board of directors of the foundation resigned in unison. Clearly, there’s something there that draws suspicion. Furthermore, we have sources from the intelligence community that have actually gone public right now through the media and have said on many occasions they tried to inform the Prime Minister of egregious behaviour and direct threats to our democracy. There are reasons why we’re asking all these questions, Senator Gold.

Speaking of foreign money laundering, also at the same cash-for-access dinner with the Prime Minister was the founder of WealthONE Bank of Canada, which at the time was awaiting approval for federal regulators to begin operating in Canada as a domestic bank rather than as a foreign bank. Wouldn’t you know it, similar to the donation of the Trudeau Foundation, WealthONE magically received their long-awaited approval just a few short weeks after this particular dinner.

Senator Gold, fast forward to just a couple of months ago, and WealthONE Bank of Canada was slapped with almost $700,000 in fines by Canada’s anti-money-laundering watchdog, FINTRAC, or the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. FINTRAC cited numerous failures to comply with federal law designed to guard against terrorist financing. In response to questions about this, your government simply said that the matter was closed.

My question to you is this: What did the founder of WealthONE promise Justin Trudeau at this dinner that resulted not only in favourable regulation very quickly but, furthermore, the government turning a blind eye when it came to money laundering and simply saying the case was closed and not giving detailed answers? Is there another donation to the Trudeau Foundation that we should perhaps be investigating deeper?

Hon. Leo Housakos: It’s not we who are impugning the Prime Minister’s integrity, government leader; it’s his lack of action on a very serious subject that is calling into question his integrity and judgment.

Senator Gold, news broke yesterday that the FBI arrested two people who were operating a secret police station in New York City on behalf of the communist regime in Beijing. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the two individuals conspired to work as agents of the Chinese Communist Party and took orders from the regime in order to track down and silence Chinese dissidents living in the United States.

Senator Gold, we know that we have several of those clandestine police stations also operating right here in Canada in violation of Canadian sovereignty and Canadian law. As a matter of fact, one of the individuals arrested by the FBI yesterday had photos on his phone of one of those illegal stations operating right here in Canada.

Senator Gold, do we know if this individual was here in Canada? Has the RCMP taken steps to question this individual in connection to the stations in Canada? Also, can you tell me why no charges have been laid yet in any of these Canadian cases? Was anyone expelled from Canada as a result of our investigation? Have there been any consequences against the communist operatives who are undertaking similar efforts right here in Canada?

Senator Housakos: You are right, government leader: There were many questions in my question. The reason for that is because the questions keep piling up because we’re not getting any concrete answers, just like I didn’t get any in that answer just now.

Senator Gold, part of the allegations against the two individuals is that they targeted Falun Gong, for instance, by rounding up members of the Chinese diaspora and busing them to various locations to counter-protests for Falun Gong demonstrations, with the Chinese consulate paying each of those individuals $60.

That sounds eerily familiar to what is alleged to have taken place at a certain Liberal nomination meeting, doesn’t it?

Other allegations are the previously mentioned two operatives would track down Chinese dissidents living in the U.S. and threaten them and their families in order to force them to return to China to be arrested by communist authorities there. Again, that is exactly in line with what we’ve heard from Canadians of Chinese descent.

So why, Senator Gold, is your government not moving to do more to protect such people here in Canada? You say you don’t want the diaspora communities to feel afraid. The Prime Minister has said that on many occasions. They are already afraid, and your government is doing nothing about it. You’re more concerned about protecting the very people that Canadians of Chinese descent are afraid of.

When will this Prime Minister stop vacillating on the question of foreign influence from Beijing?

Hon. Leo Housakos: Government leader, let’s stay focused on the facts. You talk about all of the wonderful things this government has done with the economy. A few days ago in The New York Times, there was an article — written by our strongest friends and allies to the south — that gave a gold medal to Canada because the government has achieved some great things: We have become the world’s number one money-laundering nation in the world. Forty billion dollars per year is being laundered through Canada by criminal networks; oligarchs; terrorist organizations; and various other friends, families and agents of authoritarian regimes that are coming to influence our institutions and our nation. The new title for Canada, according to The New York Times, on March 25, is that we have become experts at “snow washing.”

Could you please answer me in simple English terms? What action, if any — I certainly haven’t seen any — has this government taken to mitigate this terrible activity that’s going on in our country?

Senator Housakos: You are absolutely right; it is a serious problem, government leader. The reality is that this government has done absolutely nothing, as I see from your answer.

All of these money-laundering operations are related to foreign interference. I have said it before, and I will say it again, this government has been completely ambivalent in addressing this particular serious issue.

In this chamber, we have Bill S-237 and Bill S-247 — calling for a foreign registry act. We’re calling to tighten up the Sergei Magnitsky law in order to go after friends and family who are doing this kind of money laundering on behalf of these regimes in our country, and your government has taken no mitigating action on this issue.

Senator Housakos: These announcements were made a year ago. This problem that has now arisen because of courage on the part of CSIS officials who obviously were exasperated by the Prime Minister — and they had to go to the media to get this out in the public — is that they have no faith in this government. There is a bill before this chamber that sets out the implementation of a foreign agent registry. It mirrors a bill that had been tabled in the other place in the previous Parliament and ignored then by the government as well.

Both were drafted with wide consultation from the diaspora and the very communities that are being intimidated. It has been a full year that this bill has been sitting here, and Mr. Trudeau, senators, could not be bothered to speak once on this issue. There has been one speech, no follow-up except procrastination on it. It is the job of parliamentarians to study such things. That is what the public expects us to do. It is our role and our obligation.

Why don’t we do our job? Why doesn’t your government embrace Bill S-237, send it to committee for study, for review and get it past this place quickly as we have done with other bills that we think are of public importance? We’ve seen how we come together quickly on issues of public importance and get bills over to the other side quickly. We can do that with Bill S-237 and get the ball rolling instead of wasting another year in consultations and maybe have another election before we get anything done.

Hon. Leo Housakos: Today, colleagues, the defence from the government leader is fake news — we cannot trust the Globe and Mail and we cannot trust legitimate news outlets. Interesting.

Hon. Leo Housakos: Today, colleagues, the defence from the government leader is fake news — we cannot trust the Globe and Mail and we cannot trust legitimate news outlets. Interesting.

Senator Gold, several times in your replies to our questions yesterday, you said that we need to get serious about allegations of dealing with foreign interference in our electoral system. I can assure you, Senator Gold, that we have been very serious and consistent in asking these questions for a very long time. It is time your government gets serious when it comes to dealing with foreign influence in our country and electoral system. We have had a Prime Minister in the last few days who has been flip-flopping his stories non-stop on all these allegations. He’s been vacillating, and we’ve seen no action whatsoever except for a number of stall tactics and trying to keep Canadians in the dark.

Now, all of a sudden, we have a special rapporteur who is going to solve the problem. Well, Senator Gold, we have an Ethics Commissioner right now advising that your cabinet ministers undergo specialized ethics training because his office is just too busy over at the other place. We have a record number of outside consultant contracts that your government has given out, and they’ve done that in the midst of a bloating civil service. In the meantime, your government cannot provide basic services. Now, he needs someone, of course, to advise him on how to deal with allegations of foreign interference on an election campaign where the allegations claim he participated with his party in that interference.

My question is about the Prime Minister regurgitating an announcement that they will hold public consultations in implementing a foreign agents registry — we’ve heard that now over the last few days. High time we do the right thing. The United Kingdom, the United States, Australia — they already have this legislation in place, government leader.

Public consultation by your government was announced more than a year ago that they were going to do this. Has a date been set for these consultations? No. Has the methodology been established? No. What steps have been taken to launch this public consultation? None.

The question is simple: What concrete action has been taken other than these announcements that have never been followed through on?

Senator Housakos: Senator Gold, what’s not responsible is a government that for eight years has done absolutely nothing to address foreign influence. We have a bill in this place calling for a foreign influence registry. It hasn’t moved an iota because independent senators don’t seem to be concerned about foreign influence.

Your government has done nothing and you have ignored calls from CSIS. Now we have the former director of CSIS, the former chief electoral officer and a democratic House of Commons parliamentary committee all requesting an independent public inquiry; and the Prime Minister continues to stall, and you’re lecturing us about partisan politics — please.

Senator Gold, what’s even worse about drawing conclusions that somehow we’re Americanizing our politics is that the funniest defence is you’re a bunch of racists because you care about the security of Canadians. That’s the best the Prime Minister has been able to give us.

At this time, the people most victimized and threatened by this foreign interference, people whose democratic rights are being trampled, are Chinese Canadians and other diaspora Canadians who are being influenced, cajoled and intimidated on our own Canadian soil, and they deserve better than that.

The defence of “It’s just partisan politics” just doesn’t cut it. Since you’re not going to recognize the Prime Minister lied about what he knew and when he knew it, will you at least recognize that he owes Canadians of the diaspora an apology for calling anyone who brings this issue up a racist, and he is doing harm by using such an important tool for political partisanship? When will he apologize to those Canadians?

Hon. Leo Housakos: Government leader, with all due respect, this is not about whether Justin Trudeau and his friends in Beijing succeeded in influencing the outcome of an election. In response to the talking points from Fred DeLorey and the government trying to justify a bank robbery, even though you didn’t walk away with the loot, it doesn’t mean you didn’t attempt to break the law.

When news first broke last fall that the Prime Minister had received warnings from our intelligence community about Beijing’s interference in Canada’s elections, he denied, denied and denied. But every day for the past few weeks as more details come to light about numerous reports about the Prime Minister and his staff, the deniability has become far less plausible.

One such report from came from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, and, as you know, that committee does not, unfortunately, report to Parliament. It reports directly to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has very recently acknowledged that he actually ignored their recommendation in regard to foreign interference. These are the facts.

Yet on Monday, included in a stall-tactic list announced by the Prime Minister, there it is — none other than the same committee to report back on the same matter to a Prime Minister who has been ignoring them. Senator Gold, after lying about what he knew and has now admitted — and yes, the Prime Minister has lied. In the beginning he said these were lies, reports not founded in facts. Well, the facts have proven contrary.

Now my question is a simple one: How can the Canadian public trust this Prime Minister after he has blatantly lied on this issue?

Hon. Leo Housakos: Government leader, I have frequently risen through the years to ask you, and your predecessor, regarding Minister Mélanie Joly’s electoral commitments in a number of elections and, actually, even in writing. She has committed in writing and promised the Canadian-Armenian community — on many occasions — to open up an embassy in Armenia. Despite the fact that your predecessor Senator Harder once said to me that electoral promises are not the basis upon which a government determines where they open up an embassy, in September, with great fanfare, we saw Prime Minister Trudeau, with great enthusiasm, announce to the community that he would be opening up an embassy in Armenia. Yet, just a couple of weeks ago, in the middle of the night, with a lot less fanfare and a lot less enthusiasm, the department announced that it won’t be an ambassador, and it won’t be an embassy; it will be a consul. There is a big difference.

Government leader, can you explain to us why is it that Prime Minister Trudeau continues to backtrack on promises made to the Canadian-Armenian community?

Senator Housakos: I appreciate that, government leader. I want to remind this chamber that in September when the Prime Minister made the announcement, it was on the day commemorating Armenia’s independence, and celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of diplomatic relations between Canada and Armenia. The Prime Minister, again with great fanfare, talked about how we need to strengthen people-to-people relationships, diplomatic relationships, economic relationships and so on and so forth between our two countries. But, again, we see that, when it counts, the Prime Minister says one thing and does another.

We see a pattern with this Trudeau government where their priority seems to be in making grand announcements and running victory laps — rather than taking action and getting things done. My question is very simple: Can we get a commitment from the government that they will honour their ongoing electoral promise and open up an embassy — and stop putting on a show and take action?