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: 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: 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.