Senator Housakos: Rapid decisions are welcome, but transparent, accountable decisions in Parliament are more welcome.

Senator Gold, we now know that another company that secured a contract with your government blew the whistle on the irregular practices associated with the GC Strategies and your government as early as September 2021. Why did your government ignore the warnings of these whistle-blowers and continue to outsource even more work to GC Strategies to the tune of an additional $17 million? Is that why your government also now refuses to cancel these unreasonable fines that were levied to Canadians through ArriveCAN? Is it because Liberal insiders just need to get paid?

Senator Housakos: No one is being held accountable, but we know there are all kinds of investigations because this whole thing stinks. Senator Gold, while we still have a lot to learn about the rot that is “ArriveScam,” one thing is abundantly clear: Hard‑working, law-abiding everyday Canadians are facing exorbitant fines associated with this get-rich scheme for Liberal insiders — Canadians like Mr. Milad, a local tailor here in Ottawa, who was returning home from visiting his family in the Middle East and will now have to close his shop to travel to Montreal for a court date, costing him tons of money, Senator Gold.

When will your government do the right thing — while these investigations continue — and at least cancel the outstanding ArriveCAN fines that Canadians are being saddled with?

Senator Housakos: You’re using an extreme case, Senator Woo. We’re not talking about holding accountable people who are promoting cultural exchanges. I can tell you that the Chinese community in Canada does not need any help from the Chinese republic in order to promote Chinese culture and Canadian-Chinese culture. They can do it on their own very well.

That is not at all the essence of this bill. The essence of this bill is very simple. When you have organizations that are funded directly by Beijing, which are here promoting the agenda of that tyrannical organization to government agencies, to our institutions — particularly in commerce, trade, science, technology, energy sectors — those are the ones that are of serious concern when it comes to dealing with this issue, Senator Woo.

Trying to muddy the waters and justify the unjustifiable isn’t right and isn’t appropriate.

Senator Housakos: I have looked at the Australian model. I find it is a lot more rigid than what we’re proposing over here. Again, I did not want to go outside of the realm of public office‑holders and public officials in this particular instance. I’m very cognizant of the fact that I don’t want to infringe upon the private life of corporations and other entities in Canada. There’s always a fine line. Is it something that we can look at? Do we want to strengthen it up to the point where we hold people accountable once they leave public office? I’m not averse to those kinds of suggestions, amendments and changes as we go along.

Clearly, we have a problem — based on the reports we’ve seen from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and our intelligence services — and we are being infiltrated at the highest levels in our institutions right now. This would be the first step, and as we go along we need to continue to be vigilant. As we also know, it doesn’t address cyber and social web influence, which is very powerful.

I think this is very concrete and specific. It deals with entities that are affiliated with these totalitarian regimes that are very often trying to influence our public institutions and our public Crown corporations in various other sectors.