Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, it is hard for me to give a specific answer to that question, because we are not presently in government and I do not have access to that information, unfortunately. The minister should sit down with frontline CBSA officers and, obviously, the head of the CBSA, to talk about what resources and tools they actually need to start blocking these cargo container shipments. Ninety-eight per…
Read full speech →Oral Questions
Mr. Speaker, the motion in front of the House today orders the Prime Minister's chief of staff to testify about Beijing's foreign interference in front of committee. It is clear the government will be voting against the motion, but the government and its party cannot carry the House alone. It is not clear whether its confidence and supply partner, the NDP, will be voting for or against the motion.…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I think that Beijing poses a real threat to our post-secondary institutions. CSIS has identified that Beijing is a threat in five areas of research and development. It is a threat to our national security and a threat to our intellectual property in the five areas of clean tech, artificial intelligence, biopharma, 5G telecommunications and quantu…
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Mr. Speaker, there is a great BBC article on the case of Christine Lee, dated July 19, 2022, entitled, “Why did MI5 name Christine Lee as an ‘agent of influence’?” I encourage the member and others to read that article because it explains the tactics behind MI5 going public with this information. To answer his question, at the end of the day, CSIS cannot go public with any information to the Speak…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Mr. Speaker, it is clear that Liberal members will be voting against the motion. It is not clear what NDP members will be doing, so I hope to convince them to support the motion with my speech. The motion in front of us concerns all members of the House and all parties, including the NDP. In fact, as The Globe and Mail recently reported, former NDP MP Kennedy Stewart was the target of Beijing's in…
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Mr. Speaker, last month, on February 23, the Prime Minister said in response to the Globe story about how Beijing used undeclared cash donations and illegally reimbursed donors that “there are so many inaccuracies in those leaks.” The next day, he backtracked and said that he was not referring to the Globe story, but to some comments made two months earlier by his national security advisor Jody Th…
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Mr. Speaker, in 2019, the Globe reported the PMO pressed the justice minister to intervene in SNC Lavalin's criminal prosecution. The Prime Minister responded by saying, “The allegations in the Globe story this morning are false.” The allegations were later found to be true by the Ethics Commissioner, and the Prime Minister knew it. The Globe has reported that CSIS documents show Beijing uses tact…
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Mr. Speaker, Beijing's foreign interference is a serious threat, a national threat. It threatens the integrity of democratic institutions, social cohesion, the economy, long-term prosperity and fundamental rights and freedoms, but the government has not treated this threat seriously. It has hidden behind all sorts of excuses and accusations, like anti-Asian racism. Now it is hiding behind a secret…
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Mr. Speaker, if the government treated the threat seriously, it would listen to the advice of CSIS. CSIS has said that an effective way to counter foreign interference is through sunlight and transparency, to build resilience by informing Canadians about interference threat activities. The government has done the opposite. First it hid behind excuses and accusations, and then it hid behind a secre…
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Mr. Speaker, they concluded overall that they were free and fair. Last election, the G7 rapid response mechanism in Global Affairs Canada tracked Chinese Communist Party interference targeting candidates like Kenny Chiu. Despite Global Affairs tracking interference in real time during the election, nothing was done. Kenny Chiu was not informed. Clearly, the critical election incident protocol did …
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, for years, CSIS has assessed that Beijing's foreign interference “can pose serious threats” to the security of Canada. CSIS tracked this interference and brought it to the attention of the Prime Minister, as have others, like Global Affairs Canada's G7 rapid response mechanism. CSIS advised the Prime Minister that “Canada can make use of a policy that is grounded in transparency and s…
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Mr. Speaker, for years, CSIS has tracked Beijing's foreign interference and has said, “foreign interference is a serious threat to the security of Canada.” For years, CSIS has advised the Prime Minister that “Canada can make use of a policy that is grounded in transparency and sunlight in order to highlight the point that foreign interference should be exposed to the public.” Will the Prime Minist…
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Mr. Speaker, the violations of our airspace and sovereignty over the past couple weeks should be a wake-up call. Over the last eight years, the government has had ample warning from our intelligence agencies and our military, and despite these warnings, Canada is vulnerable. It is vulnerable because the government has failed to counter foreign interference, stop funding of Beijing's military resea…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, I wonder if the member would comment on the following. He has said that foreign investment has plummeted during the time of government, while at the same time acquisitions by state-owned and state-controlled enterprises have gone through without review. That has resulted in something that was best captured in last week's Globe and Mail article titled, “The growing threat of a low-wa…
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Mr. Speaker, last weekend, Canadians watched as Beijing's spy balloon drifted over North America. For years, the government has supported research with China's military, despite the advice of CSIS against doing so since 2018. It admitted Beijing's military scientists into the Winnipeg lab. It is also funding research with Beijing's military university in areas like quantum cryptography, photonics …
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Mr. Speaker, Beijing's military is threatening Taiwan and harassing neighbours from India to Japan. Beijing's military has a university, the National University of Defence Technology, whose motto is “strengthen the armed forces”. That is why this university was blacklisted by the Obama administration in 2015. The minister's guidelines on Canada's research and national security clearly are not work…
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Madam Speaker, since 2017, Canadian diplomats and their families who were posted to Havana, Cuba, have complained of suffering from unexplained illness. Despite the Prime Minister saying he takes this “very, very seriously”, this has dragged on for years without a resolution. Last month the government appointed Justice Cromwell to mediate for the families but not the diplomats. Is the government g…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Madam Speaker, Montrealer Sarah Kazemi, national wrestling champion Navid Afkari, 176 people including 55 Canadians on flight 752, Kurdish Iranian Mahsa Amini, and so many more have been killed by a murderous regime. Now Mohsen Shekari has been executed, in the first execution by hanging, for simply participating in recent protests in Iran, for simply exercising his universal and fundamental human…
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Mr. Speaker, the Indo-Pacific strategy says, with respect to Beijing, that the government will push back “against any form of foreign interference on Canadian soil”. It is time to put those words into action. Today we learned about another two illegal police stations being operated by Beijing on Canadian soil, on top of the three we learned about last October. When will the government put the word…
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Mr. Speaker, intelligence experts here and in the Five Eyes are saying that the best way to combat foreign interference is transparency and sunshine, to go public with information. That is why last summer the U.K. government and MI5 went public about a Beijing agent in the U.K. Parliament, Christine Lee. She was publicly named and so were the MPs who were the target of her donations. Those MPs too…
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Mr. Speaker, CSIS advised the Prime Minister in its top secret briefing note that the way to combat foreign interference was through “a policy that is grounded in transparency and sunlight in order to highlight the point that [foreign interference] should be exposed to the public”. Why are the Prime Minister and the government not heeding this advice? Why are they not going public and telling Cana…
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Mr. Speaker, CSIS also said in those briefings that the government's response to foreign interference should be “grounded in transparency and sunlight” so that foreign interference is “exposed to the public”. The government's response to our legitimate questions has been anything but; it has stonewalled us for weeks. Commissioner Lucki said yesterday that the RCMP has investigations into broad for…
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Mr. Speaker, the government is not answering our very legitimate questions. We know the Prime Minister has been briefed at least three times about foreign interference since the 2019 election. In the briefings, CSIS mentioned Beijing’s foreign interference and also mentioned politicians and riding associations being targeted. I have a simple question. Was the Prime Minister told about Beijing targ…
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Mr. Speaker, our questions are not about the overall integrity of the 2019 and 2021 elections, nor questioning whether overall our elections are free and fair. We are asking who knew what, when, about Beijing's interference in our elections. The Prime Minister said, in response to questions, “I do not have any information, nor have I been briefed on any federal candidates receiving any money from …
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Mr. Speaker, “The allegations in the Globe story are false.” That is what the Prime Minister's response was to the Globe report that he interfered in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. “I do not have any information, nor have I been briefed on any federal candidates receiving any money from China.” That was the Prime Minister's response to the Global News report. The Prime Minister sows doub…
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Mr. Speaker, the 2011 election was free and fair, but that did not prevent an investigation from taking place about the Guelph robocall scandal. Yesterday, the Prime Minister also said, “I have asked my officials to examine these media reports and give all possible answers—everything they can—to the parliamentary committee that’s looking into this.” Will the government assure the House that the pr…
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Mr. Speaker, Global News reported on November 7 that the Prime Minister had been briefed last January about federal candidates receiving money from Beijing. We started asking questions a week later, on November 14, but it took until yesterday, November 20, for the Prime Minister to say, “I do not have any information, nor have I been briefed, on any federal candidates receiving any money from Chin…
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, this past week, Germany inaugurated its first liquefied natural gas terminal. Germany started construction after the war in Ukraine began on February 24 to get off Russian gas. Before Russia's war on Ukraine, Germany had no LNG terminals. It took Germany 194 days to approve and build this new LNG terminal in the North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven. It took 194 days, and four more are on t…
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Mr. Speaker, we have been asking for years for a plan from the government to combat Beijing's meddling in our democracy, but it has failed to act, and now we have a situation where candidates are receiving illicit funds from Beijing funnelled through its Toronto consulate. Canadians deserve answers. Who are these candidates? Are they members of the House? Are they going to be candidates in the nex…
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Mr. Speaker, the government is refusing to answer a very simple question: Who are the 11 election candidates who, in the 2019 election, received hundreds of thousands of dollars funnelled by Beijing through its Toronto consulate? Yesterday, the Prime Minister talked to President Xi about these 11 candidates, but the government and the Prime Minister have yet to tell the House who these 11 candidat…
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The government is right, Mr. Speaker, that this is not a partisan issue. Both Liberal and Conservative candidates are implicated in receiving these illegal funds, but we need public answers in the House so that investigations can be launched by parties on both sides of the aisle, by Elections Canada and by other relevant authorities. Who are the 11 election candidates who received these illegal mo…
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Mr. Speaker, the government has an opportunity to answer a question that I asked twice yesterday. This is a serious matter in the public interest that requires an answer. Who are the 11 election candidates who received hundreds of thousands of dollars funnelled through Beijing's consulate in Toronto in the 2019 election?
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Mr. Speaker, that is an appalling answer. It is the government that allowed People's Liberation Army scientists of the People's Republic of China into a top-level lab in this country against the government's own security protocols and in threat to the Five Eyes alliance. We are talking about payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars to election candidates. We are talking about Beijing putting a…
Read full speech →Statements By Members
Mr. Speaker, recent reports that Beijing interfered in our democracy are deeply troubling. It is clear Beijing spread disinformation through proxies in the last 2021 election campaign. It is also clear in recently unsealed indictments in U.S. court that Beijing's agents are operating freely here on Canadian soil, coercing members of the Chinese community. Recent reports have also revealed the pres…
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Mr. Speaker, it is clear that Beijing interfered in last year's 2021 election. Beijing’s ambassador to Canada commented critically and publicly during that election campaign and Beijing spread disinformation through proxies on Chinese-language social media platforms. Last week we found out that Beijing also interfered in the 2019 election. We found out that the Prime Minister was told months ago, …
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, $6,739 will be the heat bill facing a typical family using oil heat in rural Ontario and rural Atlantic Canada this coming winter. That is frightening. They have no alternative. There is no natural gas. Electric resistance heating is just as expensive, and heat pumps will not work at -20°C in homes built before the 1980s, whether they are ground source or air source pumps. We asked th…
Read full speech →Government Orders
Madam Speaker, one of the things we can do to help disparity in this country is to reduce the tax burden on the most vulnerable households, many of whom live in rural Atlantic Canada and rural Ontario, many of them in older housing stock that was built before 1980 that are facing extraordinarily high heating bills this winter. I think that would be a good place to start, and I encourage all member…
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Louis-Saint-Laurent. The government is completely out of touch, and I do not say that lightly. There is a crisis unfolding in rural parts of our country, in Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland, a real crisis, a crisis the government is ignoring. Here is the crisis. Ten per cent of Canadians heat t…
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My apologies, Madam Speaker. I got caught up in the moment and I made a mistake. I withdraw that. I want to quote from this article, because it is damning. It reads: But all of Canada’s peers in the Group of Seven, or G-7, have managed to achieve economic growth while simultaneously cutting emissions, and Canada’s environmental commissioner says the country is struggling to bend the emissions curv…
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Madam Speaker, what I proposed in 2016 was, in fact, a revenue negative carbon tax. I even said at the time that I did not support this government's carbon tax quite simply because it is revenue positive. Not all of the money is returned to taxpayers. The government has used it for a plethora of programs that are not working. In fact, the government admits it itself. It says that 20% of households…
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I disagree with her. The carbon tax already applies to petroleum products for households and consumers in Ontario and other parts of our country. The carbon tax is already in place and the figures I quoted were not for the increase that is slated to come in on April 1 of next year. They are for the carbon tax that is already in place and has be…
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Mr. Speaker, the government's priorities are descending into farce. It will not allow U.S. officers into Canada to reopen NEXUS offices even though we have an agreement and the United States is an ally. Meanwhile, Iranian officers freely come to this country to intimidate Canadians because it will not list the IRGC, and now we find out that police officers from the People's Republic of China are o…
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Mr. Speaker, on January 8, 2020, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down a civilian airline, flight 752, killing 55 Canadian citizens and 30 residents of this country. My question for the Prime Minister is very simple: Does he believe that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is a terrorist organization, yes or no?
Read full speech →Statements by Members
Mr. Speaker, the Iranian regime is a brutal regime. It killed Montrealer Zahra Kazemi, executed Navid Afkari, imprisoned Nasrin Sotoudeh and supports terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. That is why, in June of 2018, this House adopted a motion calling on the government to list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code of Canada. The government, incl…
Read full speech →Private Members' Business
Mr. Speaker, food unites us. Food brings us together. It is particularly important during these times of division and strife around the world. Everyone loves food, including things like poutine, tourtière and Lac‑Saint‑Jean blueberries. Everyone loves food and we all love Canadian food, like tourtière, poutine, Malpeque oysters or maple syrup with pancakes and peameal bacon. We all love butter tar…
Read full speech →Routine Proceedings
Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague and friend from Windsor West, in southwestern Ontario, for his question. We have worked on a number of things in this House together over the years. My colleague is exactly right. It is not just the contributions we have had in building civil society and democratic capacity in Ukraine. It is also contributions we have made in building the capacity of the Ukrainian…
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Mr. Speaker, the referenda Russia conducted in Ukraine were a sham. The referenda held in the four eastern oblasts of Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia were a sham. First, they were only conducted in parts of those four eastern oblasts because Russian military forces only control parts of those four eastern oblasts. Second, these referenda were held under force and duress. Voters were coe…
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Mr. Speaker, with respect, I disagree with the government's decision on the gas turbines. To be frank, both the Republic of Germany and Canada were duped by the Russians in being convinced to waive the sanctions to send the gas turbines back to Gazprom. The fact is that since the decision has been taken, Russia has proven the point. NATO has concluded that Russia was behind the sabotage of the Nor…
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Bloc Québécois for her question. In my opinion, diplomacy does not work with Russia. The only approach that works with Vladimir Putin is military action. That is clear. We used a lot of diplomacy before the war in Ukraine, but that did not work. Now, we are in a situation where military intervention is the only way to convince the Russians to end the war …
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Mr. Speaker, the government is completely out of touch. Emissions have risen each and every year that the government has been in power, except for the year of the pandemic, when it shut everything down. A third of Atlantic Canadians heat with oil, as do over a million Ontarians and 10% of Canadian households. When will the government do what other G7 governments have done and provide relief on fue…
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