Senator Housakos: Senator Woo, there’s something in the Westminster system called parliamentary responsibility and accountability. You cannot say the elected house in our parliamentary system is irrelevant. Nobody will accept that. Your accountability, and mine, and that of everybody in this chamber comes through that elected house. At the end of the day, as we’ve always said, for this place to function, and as it has functioned, the opposition, as chosen by the people in an election, determines the party members in this chamber who represent the opposition; and the government’s side is chosen by the people in a general election who choose the governing side, including all of their appointees.

Again, the important question here is this: If you’re not accountable through a democratic process in the other chamber, to whom are you accountable?

Hon. Leo Housakos: Today, colleagues, the defence from the government leader is fake news — we cannot trust the Globe and Mail and we cannot trust legitimate news outlets. Interesting.

Hon. Leo Housakos: Today, colleagues, the defence from the government leader is fake news — we cannot trust the Globe and Mail and we cannot trust legitimate news outlets. Interesting.

Senator Gold, several times in your replies to our questions yesterday, you said that we need to get serious about allegations of dealing with foreign interference in our electoral system. I can assure you, Senator Gold, that we have been very serious and consistent in asking these questions for a very long time. It is time your government gets serious when it comes to dealing with foreign influence in our country and electoral system. We have had a Prime Minister in the last few days who has been flip-flopping his stories non-stop on all these allegations. He’s been vacillating, and we’ve seen no action whatsoever except for a number of stall tactics and trying to keep Canadians in the dark.

Now, all of a sudden, we have a special rapporteur who is going to solve the problem. Well, Senator Gold, we have an Ethics Commissioner right now advising that your cabinet ministers undergo specialized ethics training because his office is just too busy over at the other place. We have a record number of outside consultant contracts that your government has given out, and they’ve done that in the midst of a bloating civil service. In the meantime, your government cannot provide basic services. Now, he needs someone, of course, to advise him on how to deal with allegations of foreign interference on an election campaign where the allegations claim he participated with his party in that interference.

My question is about the Prime Minister regurgitating an announcement that they will hold public consultations in implementing a foreign agents registry — we’ve heard that now over the last few days. High time we do the right thing. The United Kingdom, the United States, Australia — they already have this legislation in place, government leader.

Public consultation by your government was announced more than a year ago that they were going to do this. Has a date been set for these consultations? No. Has the methodology been established? No. What steps have been taken to launch this public consultation? None.

The question is simple: What concrete action has been taken other than these announcements that have never been followed through on?

Senator Housakos: Government leader, as you likely know, your NDP coalition partner had this to say about Israel in its 2021 federal election platform:

Canada must play an active and constructive role in advancing peace, beginning by suspending arms sales to Israel until the end of the illegal occupation.

I guess this is the NDP-Liberal government’s position now, isn’t it, leader? Isn’t this why B’nai Brith shouldn’t expect any help from your government to remove a UN Human Rights Commission chair highly biased against the State of Israel?

Hon. Leo Housakos (Acting Leader of the Opposition): Honourable senators, my question is for the government leader in the Senate, Senator Gold. This is in relation to the ongoing review that the Trudeau government is conducting with regard to Huawei’s participation in Canada’s 5G network, particularly due to the fact that the government has been promising a decision as far back as September 2019. Actually, at the time, they promised they would give a decision before the 2019 election, and now two elections have come and gone and, unfortunately, we still don’t have an answer to that question.

Bell and Telus have recently been knocking on the door of the government looking for compensation with regard to Huawei equipment that they might be obligated to take out of the network. Recently there was a news story in the National Post that the government basically says it’s too early for them to comment on compensation, which again highlights the fact that this government isn’t dealing with their important issues regarding security.

Given the fact that the Five Eyes have taken clear action, given the fact of China’s behaviour towards the Michaels, given the fact of the Uighur genocide, given the fact of what’s going on in Hong Kong, when will the Trudeau government take a clear and unequivocal decision with regard to Huawei’s participation in Canada’s 5G, and why are they taking such a long time?