Hon. Leo Housakos: Senator Gold, yesterday, we heard scathing testimony in the House of Commons committee looking into the ArriveCAN outsourcing scam. The former director general of the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, accused his superior of lying to the committee, in particular about who made the decision to go with GC Strategies. He testified that he had recommended Deloitte, but he was told that they were put in the penalty box. He said he was told by his superior that the decision comes from above.

The only people, Senator Gold, that the director general’s superior has above are the President of the CBSA and the minister himself. Who of the two decided to bypass not just the hundreds of IT experts in the public service but also Deloitte in favour of whichever Liberal insiders lined their pockets through GC Strategies?

I’m sure we’re all concerned, senators, aren’t we?

Who gave the order, Senator Gold? Was it the President of the CBSA, or was it the minister? Who gave the order?

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?

Hon. Leo Housakos: My question is for the government leader. Yuesheng Wang, a researcher employed by Hydro-Québec, appeared in court in Longueuil yesterday, after being arrested on Monday by the RCMP, accused of economic espionage for the benefit of China. La Presse reported that Tina Zhu was there to support him.

Ms. Zhu said she was a representative of the Canada-China Friendship Promotion Association, an organization whose exact workings are nebulous. Ms. Zhu said she does not work for the Chinese government and that it’s a coincidence that she advocates for Chinese officials in Canada and peddles the same messages as Beijing.

A bill I introduced in the Senate last February, Bill-237, would have allowed us to determine whether Ms. Zhu is working for the Chinese government. Unfortunately, that bill was blocked by a senator appointed by the Trudeau government.

Senator Gold, why does the Trudeau government oppose Bill S-237 and the creation of a foreign influence registry? The provisions of that bill would easily apply to authoritarian countries such as China, Iran and Russia.