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Member of Parliament

James Bezan

  • Member of Parliament
  • Conservative
  • Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman
  • Manitoba
  • Voting Attendance: 67%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $140,796.07

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 191 - May/4/23
Mr. James Bezan (Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, CPC)
  • May/4/23 5:03:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am rising today in my role as the shadow minister for national defence for the official opposition. I agree with my colleague who just spoke that this is an issue that all members in this House should be engaged with. It is an issue that is definitely impacting each and everyone of us and our ability to represent our constituents without the fear of a foreign entity trying to intimidate us by threatening our families abroad. As everyone knows, I have been an incredibly outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation. I was in the original tranche of 13 members of Parliament and parliamentary Canadians who were sanctioned by Russia back in 2013. We are now witnessing a situation where one of our fellow colleagues, my friend, the member of Parliament for Wellington—Halton Hills, has been targeted by the Communist regime in Beijing and its foreign agents here in Canada, threatening him and his family back in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, what we see from the government is just dithering and delaying in the typical Liberal way when it comes down to doing things that are important to each and every Canadian. National security and national defence responsibilities are paramount to the Government of Canada, yet we see a government that has not taken this issue seriously. It knew for two years that there was a legitimate threat made against the family of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. We knew that the Communist regime in Beijing did not like the way he brought forward a motion to call out its activities against the Uyghur population in China as genocide, for which it decided to intimidate and sanction his family in Hong Kong. The motion we have before us today lays out a path for our House and the government to finally act. It would create a foreign agent registry, similar to what we see in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. I would say, with respect to all the comments coming from the other side during the debate earlier today claiming that as Conservatives we did not do anything, that it only became an issue toward the end of our time in government, and that our platform for the 2015 election campaign called for the need to establish a foreign agent registry. The second part of the motion calls for the establishment of a national public independent inquiry on the matter of foreign election interference, which we have been dealing with here now for several months once we found out that the Prime Minister had been briefed that seven MPs and their ridings had been targeted for foreign interference by the Communist regime in Beijing. Instead of having that independent public inquiry that the majority of members in this House have been asking for, the government went with a Liberal insider, someone who is a family friend of the Prime Minister's, with direct ties to the Trudeau Foundation, who is the former governor general David Johnston. Everyone is questioning the independent advice that will come from that process. That is why we need to move forward with a public inquiry to establish public confidence. The motion also calls for the government to shut down all of the People's Republic of China's police stations that are operating in Canada. We know there are a couple in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal that are still open to this day. They may be observed by the RCMP, but we know for a fact that operatives of the Communist Party of China are using their diplomatic immunity in those stations to intimidate Chinese Canadians. That has to stop now. Yesterday, the Falun Dafa, who are Falun Gong practitioners, were on the Hill standing for their rights and liberties that are being denied to them in mainland China, to stop the genocide against Falun Gong practitioners, and the illicit harvesting and trafficking of organs across the planet. Of course, the source of those organs are persecuted, executed and butchered Falun Gong practitioners. Why have they been targeted by the regime in Beijing? It is because they had the right to assembly, which was denied them. They had their faith, which was denied them. They could not even come together to practise a faith that promotes tolerance, truthfulness and compassion, which are the founding principles of the Falun Gong doctrine. The fourth and final part of this motion calls for the expulsion of all diplomats from the PRC who are responsible for the affront to all Canadians, including the member of Wellington—Halton Hills, for their attack on democracy and foreign interference right here Canada. Again, the government has made the argument that it cannot do it. However, I can tell members for a fact that, under Stephen Harper when the Conservatives were in government, we had a similar situation with the Iranian regime here in Canada where it was using its diplomats to target and intimidate the Iranian diaspora right here in Canada. What did we do? We expelled every single diplomat. They were declared persona non grata. We shut down its embassy here in Ottawa. We shut down its consulates in Toronto and Vancouver. Now we have its properties that we will hopefully be able to use to actually compensate the Iranian families here in Canada who lost loved ones on the Ukrainian International Airline Flight PS752, which was shot down as a terrorist act by the Iranian regime. Of course, we continue to fight in here on having the government honour the motion that was passed in 2018 to call the IRGC a terrorist organization and that this entity should not be allowed to operate in any way, shape or form in Canada. What we are living through right now is an affront to our democracy. It is an attack not just on the member for Wellington—Halton Hills but an attack on every single minister, every single member of Parliament and every single Canadian. If we are going to protect our democratic institutions, then we have to act now. Enough is enough. Yet, we have not seen a single diplomat from Beijing expelled by this government. We have not seen the government carry through on its promise to shut down the police stations that the PRC has opened across Canada. The government has not taken a single step forward in establishing a foreign agent registry. What we saw earlier today was disgusting when the member for Winnipeg North played the victim blame game and tried to blame the member for Wellington—Halton Hills for not doing anything on information that he never received two years ago. We know that this government received information from CSIS, and we know that the government did not act upon that intelligence. CSIS said that the family of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills was being threatened through information that it had gathered through signals intelligence, and yet the member for Winnipeg North stooped to a new low by trying to say that it was the fault of the member for Wellington—Halton Hills. That is ridiculous.
1197 words
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