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: 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?

Senator Housakos: Government leader, this story was broadcast on the CBC. Your government should be aware. This is not the first time I have raised these questions on this chamber floor. We now know it’s been a number of months that the Chinese Beijing regime is operating police stations illegally on our territory. We now have concrete examples of individuals connected to the ayatollah and to the terrorist regime in Iran who are using Canada as a headquarters for them to do business.

Before Christmas, I asked you a question about a Russian oligarch connected to President Putin who is mining and doing business and extracting resources in Quebec — all of this without the Trudeau government taking any steps. And excuse me, but there have not been Magnitsky sanctions in any one of these instances that I have asked about. Now, government leader, is this Prime Minister Trudeau’s way of attracting more foreign investment into our country?

Senator Housakos: Senator Woo, my answer is very clear. If you have any organizations funded by Beijing that are active on Canadian soil, they are going to be obligated to register. Absolutely. That’s what this bill is saying. I’m not disagreeing with it. That’s really the objective of the bill at the end of the day. However, it doesn’t target Canadian-Chinese cultural organizations that are active on Canadian soil.

My point is exactly that. We do not need Beijing and their money in order to be infiltrating Canadian-Chinese cultural organizations. That is precisely part of the point and part of this exercise we’re going through. Beijing should be worrying about promoting their own cultural activities at home as we are preoccupied with promoting our own cultural and multicultural activities in Canada with our Canadian citizens. That’s really the objective of this bill. I don’t see where you’re lacking an answer to your question.

Senator Housakos: Any entity that is connected to this tyrannical regime in Beijing would be covered, yes. The answer is yes. I’m not hiding from that reality. If you have a Chinese, state-owned and operated institution in Canada, yes, it would fall under this bill, as it should.

Hon. Leo Housakos: My question is for the government leader in the Senate, Senator Gold. A couple of days ago, a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said her government was in discussions about boycotting the Beijing games because of the disappearance of tennis player Peng Shuai.

I’m perplexed as to why this decision was not taken much earlier, in light of the kidnapping of our two Michaels, or the genocide of the Uighur people, or the suspension of democracy and civil liberties in Hong Kong. But here we are.

My question is a simple one: Will the Trudeau government take action and boycott the Beijing Olympic Games, yes or no?