Hon. Leo Housakos: Senator Gold, yesterday, in the U.S., three men were convicted of various charges relating to “Operation Fox Hunt,” which is a concerted effort by Beijing to threaten and intimidate expats living abroad in order to get them to return to mainland China to be dealt with by the authoritarian regime for speaking or acting out against them. All three men were accused of taking part in scare tactics aimed at a former Chinese official who was quietly living in New Jersey, and Beijing wanted him back.

These same operations are occurring right here in Canada. They are often facilitated through illegal police stations that Beijing is operating throughout our country. While the U.S. is busy prosecuting foreign agents responsible for terrorizing innocent people on American soil on behalf of maligned foreign regimes, we’re trying to figure out whether the minister responsible knows his left hand from his right.

Has the minister figured it out yet, government leader, and does he know whether the illegal police stations operating here in Canada are finally shut down? Why did Minister Mendicino mislead Parliament a number of weeks ago when he claimed that all operating stations in this country had been shut down? What happened?

Senator Housakos: We know the RCMP has confirmed that they exist in Canada, and we know from the RCMP that the investigations are ongoing. That’s not the question. Why doesn’t the minister know that the RCMP, which is under his responsibility, is operating and investigating while he’s saying to the House, “No, they’ve already been shut down”? That’s the problem with Minister Mendicino; he doesn’t know what is happening in his own ministry.

And while we have the Australians, the Americans and the U.K. taking seriously transnational repression and taking action, in this government we see a minister and a government that isn’t taking the same approach of seriousness and action.

Just over a year ago, I had Minister Mendicino right on the floor of the Senate Chamber recognizing the merits of a foreign registry, saying he would do something and put one into place — over a year ago. A year later, he’s still in the consultative stage. We’re still waiting for when it’s going to happen.

The question is one I’ve asked many times, and I know you’re tired of it. I’ve asked many times because we don’t get a concrete answer. The question is this: Will the minister and your government make sure a foreign registry will be put into place before the next new government of Pierre Poilievre is sworn in?

Hon. Leo Housakos: My question is for the government leader, Senator Gold. It is astonishing how little the Trudeau government has done in dealing with foreign interference. Yesterday, this parliamentary chamber had the Minister of Public Safety before us, and, even more astonishingly, when asked two simple questions of when we will have Beijing’s illegal police stations closed down and what date we will have a foreign registry put into place, he could not give this parliamentary chamber an answer. It is unbelievable, government leader.

I will simplify the question for you because I know this government has a hard time with targets. I will allow you to answer broadly. Can you please tell this chamber when you will have these illegal Beijing police stations shut down, and when we will have a foreign registry put into place? You do not have to give me an exact date, but can you please give the Senate of Canada what month and what year?

Senator Housakos: Leader, everything that you just highlighted was nothing more than navel-gazing. The minister was here yesterday and, yes, he confirmed that there were RCMP investigations ongoing into the illegal Beijing place stations — the same minister who many weeks ago got up in the House of Commons and said to parliamentarians and Canadians that they were all shut down. That is contempt of Parliament. Either he misled Canadians when he said they were all shut down or he intentionally lied. I would hate to believe it was the latter.

Government leader, the truth of the matter is that we have a government that, outside of anything more than discussions, has not taken action. Now we have the minister himself come before Parliament, and he cannot answer a simple question and has actually been caught in the mistruths that he has perpetuated. First he says they were all shut down, and now we find out that they were not shut down. Now we have a vote in the Parliament of Canada asking for this fake rapporteur to step down in a democratic vote, and this rapporteur and the government refuse to respect the democratic will of the House of Commons. Do you call that democracy, and do you call that respect for our institutions of Parliament?

Hon. Leo Housakos: Minister, it’s clear that the way I measure progress on foreign interference and the way you measure progress are very different. The truth of the matter is there is a piece of legislation in this chamber — a chamber that is filled with government appointees. You know that if there were a political will to move that legislation to committee, review it, amend it and get it back to the House, it could be done very quickly.

This is just another example of why the government is dragging its feet when it comes to foreign interference.

I will ask two simple questions, which reiterate the fact that the government is dragging its feet. When will the illegal Beijing police stations operating in Canada, confirmed by the RCMP, be shut down? By what date will we have a foreign registry put in place in this country? Hopefully, it is before the end of 2023.

Hon. Leo Housakos: Minister, here we are again, the exact same spot as one year ago. I asked you then about my bill for a foreign agent registry. You said it was a good idea, but clearly you kicked the can down the road. I suspect, minister, we will be here again next year this time still kicking this can down the road given the fact that you committed to tabling legislation only in the fall.

You claimed months ago that the RCMP had shut down illegal People’s Republic of China police stations in Canada. Two stations in Montreal actually remain open, and we now know they received funding from your own government. Why were we led to believe those stations had been shut down? Did the RCMP lie to you, minister, or did you take creative licence with the truth? Is it incompetence on behalf of the RCMP or does the incompetence lie with you?

Hon. Leo Housakos: My question is for the government leader in the Senate.

Government leader, this weekend we had Justin Trudeau’s Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino admit in a televised interview that there are new, illegal Chinese Communist Party, or CCP, police stations operating in Canada and intimidating Canadian citizens. Of course, honourable senators, to no one’s surprise, he vowed that the RCMP will shut them down immediately. The problem, of course, government leader, is that only a few weeks ago he rose in the House of Commons and said publicly that they have already been shut down. Now we know through media information that there are two illegal CCP police stations that have been operating for years in our own city.

The question is as follows: When the minister rose in the House of Commons, was he just displaying his and the government’s complete and utter incompetence regarding foreign interference, or was it a question of misleading the Canadian public?

Here is my question more specifically so that there is no ambiguity: When will the Trudeau government and Minister Mendicino shut down, once and for all, these illegal CCP police stations — and, if not, why not?

Senator Housakos: Yes, you have been clear; the government has been clear. We are going to continue to investigate. We are going to continue to have special or regular rapporteurs, or hire people from the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation to write reports.

At the end of the day, we have had no action. It has been months that we have had these illegal CCP police stations operating on Canadian soil.

We have also seen the government take two years to address the issue of a member of Parliament — him and his family — being threatened by CCP foreign interference. Your government took no action whatsoever. It took two years before we actually expelled somebody who was involved directly in that particular threat.

The questions I have are very simple: How much longer before our government shuts these down? How much longer will it take before the government holds the people responsible for these operations to account, and has them meet the full force of Canadian law? At the end of the day, that’s the only time when we can say the government is serious — when we shut them down, and when those responsible for this illegal operation on Canadian soil face the full force of Canadian law.

Hon. Leo Housakos: My question is for the government leader in the Senate. We just found out yesterday that Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino — who helps Canadians sleep so comfortably at night — has announced that this country is not going to see a foreign influence registry before next fall.

This is another example — despite the urgency by both the public and the media — of so many cases where we currently see our national security has been compromised, yet your government continues to vacillate on this issue and bury its head in the sand, always taking an extraordinary amount of time to respond to the globe’s biggest bully: the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing.

Why is the government so reticent in taking a hard stand to protect Canadians of Chinese descent, as well as so many other Canadians of the diaspora who are being intimidated and threatened?

Why doesn’t your government embrace Bill S-237 — a private member’s bill that has been lingering in this house for 15 months? Take the bill, mould it, send it to committee, build in the elements that the government wants and expedite it out of this chamber, which the government can do quickly, given the fact that the majority of senators here continuously vote for what they wish. Get it over to the House, where there is a political will to deal with this. Why are we waiting until next fall? What is going on?

Senator Housakos: Government leader, both in the other chamber and in this chamber, it has been now six years that we’ve been asking about this issue of foreign interference. Semblances of this bill have been tabled back in 2019 by MP Kenny Chiu in the House of Commons. I tabled this bill now 14 months ago. That is a long time. The minister now, for a number of months, has been talking about publicly consulting. What do they need to consult on? We know what needs to be addressed, and this is a potential tool that can be put in place quickly.

Senator Housakos: Government leader, both in the other chamber and in this chamber, it has been now six years that we’ve been asking about this issue of foreign interference. Semblances of this bill have been tabled back in 2019 by MP Kenny Chiu in the House of Commons. I tabled this bill now 14 months ago. That is a long time. The minister now, for a number of months, has been talking about publicly consulting. What do they need to consult on? We know what needs to be addressed, and this is a potential tool that can be put in place quickly.

Our American allies have done it. Our allies in the U.K. have done it. Our allies in Australia have done it. Why can’t this government do simple things that the public is calling for, that the opposition is calling for and that can take a couple of months to do?

Senator Housakos: Government leader, both in the other chamber and in this chamber, it has been now six years that we’ve been asking about this issue of foreign interference. Semblances of this bill have been tabled back in 2019 by MP Kenny Chiu in the House of Commons. I tabled this bill now 14 months ago. That is a long time. The minister now, for a number of months, has been talking about publicly consulting. What do they need to consult on? We know what needs to be addressed, and this is a potential tool that can be put in place quickly.

Our American allies have done it. Our allies in the U.K. have done it. Our allies in Australia have done it. Why can’t this government do simple things that the public is calling for, that the opposition is calling for and that can take a couple of months to do?

Hon. Leo Housakos: Government leader, while some members even in this chamber might feel uncomfortable when we ask questions about illegal police stations in Canada and foreign interference and intimidation of Canadians of Chinese descent — not because it is actually happening on our very soil; they are uncomfortable because we are even asking the question — the Trudeau government is doing absolutely nothing to combat foreign interference and to defend Canadians of Chinese descent from intimidation. On the contrary, we have members of this very institution, every time we ask a question, throwing up the accusation of racism, running interference for those very authoritarian regimes. We are not going to stop asking those questions. It does not matter if you are a member of Parliament or an ordinary Canadian citizen of whatever diaspora community; you deserve to feel safe in this country.

My series of questions are simple, and I will be clear. When will your government finally shut down the police stations in this country that are being run by the Beijing regime? When will your government expel the diplomats who are running this operation? When will your government put into place a foreign registry to combat foreign interference? When will your government call a public inquiry to deal with all of these allegations that are coming out on a weekly basis? When?

Senator Housakos: I know you just did, but you should look in the mirror long and hard. Start answering some of our questions and stop calling into question our respect for this institution. That will be a starting point on behalf of this government.

Second, do you know the kind of respect you have for this institution, where we have information from CSIS itself that a member of Parliament and his family were targeted by an authoritarian regime two years ago, and he just sat down yesterday with CSIS to get that information, once we know that information was shared with the Prime Minister’s Office? And the only thing that we can understand are two possibilities: blatant partisanship — “We’ll just ignore it” — or incompetence on the part of this Prime Minister. It is high time that he takes some responsibility for his incompetence.

I will ask the question again: When will you call a public inquiry? When will you put into place a foreign registry, for which our party has been calling for three years? Even by your speed, you should be able to get that done in three years. Only then can you start lecturing us about respect of Parliament and this institution.

The question still stands: When will you take action? Enough rhetoric.

Senator Housakos: You are going to lecture us about respecting this institution — someone the Constitution calls upon to serve as a government leader and does not want to call himself what the Constitution demands him to be in this chamber? You are going to lecture us about respect for the institution? Please.

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: Will there be any point in investigating?

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?

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: 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?

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.