QUESTION PERIOD — Foreign Affairs
Election Integrity
March 9, 2023
Government leader, why is the Prime Minister completely incapable of coming clean with Canadians and telling us the truth? Whether it is reporters or parliamentarians, no one is getting a straight answer from him. Global News reports that the foreign intelligence assessment branch of the Prime Minister’s own department, leader, the Privy Council Office, prepared a special report in January 2022 intended for the Prime Minister and senior PMO staff. It stated:
A large clandestine transfer of funds earmarked for the federal election from the PRC Consulate in Toronto was transferred to an elected provincial government official via a staff member of a 2019 federal candidate.
Yesterday, in the other place, the Prime Minister was asked repeatedly about this. He did everything but answer the questions. Why not, leader? Why can he not come out and tell us the truth?
Thank you for your question. I think the assumption behind your question, though, is misleading. I won’t repeat everything that I said yesterday.
The Prime Minister and the government have put into place a number of measures to address the situation of not only what has happened in the past, but also how we can protect ourselves in the future. That includes the reference to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, or NSICOP, which I understand is accepted; and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, or NSIRA, which will set its own mandate and scope of study; the appointment of a special rapporteur; the launch of public consultations to guide the creation of a foreign influence transparency registry, the establishment of the national counter foreign interference coordinator; and Public Safety Canada will coordinate our efforts to combat foreign interference.
These processes are the appropriate ones given the sensitivity and classified nature of the information that’s relevant to these issues. The leaking of information — to which reference was made yesterday, and is rampant throughout the media — is not the way for a responsible parliament to deal with these issues.
Well, of course, my question was why didn’t he answer the questions not what is he doing on the side, but you mentioned the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, or NSICOP. Another document provided to Global News was an unredacted copy of an August 2019 report prepared by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.
This committee reports directly to the Prime Minister, and he and his office approve redactions or edits to their reports before they are made public. By the way, leader, this is a committee that the Prime Minister has been bragging about that all registered, recognized parties are part of. Ironically, he is failing to appoint somebody from the official opposition in the Senate to that committee but appoints supposedly independent senators and not somebody from the Conservative Party of Canada.
I am curious about that, leader, why is that not happening?
My question is — and I will continue with this — Global News says that this report:
. . . offered several examples of alleged Chinese election interference from 2015 to 2018 that involved the targeting and funding of candidates.
The Prime Minister would have seen this report, leader. He saw it and did nothing about it. I have to wonder if he wants the leaks of both this report and the Privy Council Office, or PCO, report investigated the same way that he wants the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, whistle-blowers hunted down.
Leader, you said this committee would get to the bottom of this in a responsible and prudent way. Maybe we need to have a Conservative on the committee from the Senate. That might help us.
How is a secret committee whose reports the Prime Minister already ignores going to do that?
The position of the government is clear. It has confidence in the committee of parliamentarians. It welcomes the work that it did. As I said, I commend to all senators that report on foreign interference. He continues to have confidence in the members who represent all parties.
It will —
Some of —
— fall upon us as parliamentarians to assess the quality of the work that is done through all of the processes that I underlined.
I do want to also underline the fact that much of what is being reported in the media comes from anonymous, leaked sources which I regret seems to be a currency in this debate. We, as Canadians and as parliamentarians, should be careful to applaud and approve the leaking of classified information by those who take oaths to preserve it.
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?
Well, you have certainly included various measures in your question. The consultation is one of a suite of measures that I have already announced, and it’s the position of the government that this combination of measures is going to address the problem in the most appropriate way.
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.
Thank you for your question. I respect, and the government respects, the work of public bills in the Senate.
As you know — and, indeed, it is a position that your leader has taken with me and which I accept and respect — the negotiation on the passage of non-government bills is left to the leaders of the parliamentary groups and is not the responsibility of the Government Representative Office.
