QUESTION PERIOD — Public Safety
Foreign Interference
May 3, 2023
My question again is for the Liberal government leader.
Leader, in a meeting yesterday afternoon, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, confirmed to Michael Chong that he and his family were targeted by the Communist regime in Beijing after he sponsored a motion in the other place condemning the Uighur genocide.
CSIS also confirmed the name of the People’s Republic of China, or PRC, diplomat involved, who, by all accounts, is still permitted by the Trudeau government to work in Beijing’s Toronto consulate. The CSIS official told Mr. Chong that he was authorized to read from the report The Globe and Mail revealed on Monday, “because it relates to a threat to you and your family.”
CSIS was authorized to provide this information by either the Prime Minister or Minister Mendicino. Why was this authorization given only yesterday and not two years ago?
Thank you for your question.
As we now know, and as the Prime Minister has stated, the Prime Minister only recently learned of the specifics of the use of the case of Member of Parliament Michael Chong. He was asked in the other place when he was briefed. He said he received a briefing from the top security officials as soon as he heard of this.
As you would expect, matters of national security and intelligence are delicate matters, one that this government takes seriously.
Earlier today, the Prime Minister was asked whether information pertaining to Member of Parliament Chong was briefed up to him from CSIS. He answered that it was not. CSIS officials had made the determination that it wasn’t something that needed to be raised to a higher level because it wasn’t a significant enough concern in their judgment.
Upon learning of this, the Prime Minister did a number of things, colleagues. First, he scheduled a meeting between Mr. Chong, his National Security and Intelligence Advisor, Jody Thomas, and the head of CSIS, David Vigneault.
The Prime Minister is also now taking steps that will ensure that he receives more detailed briefings by our security officials in the future, and the government is in the process of issuing a direction to this effect.
Here I’m going to quote from the Prime Minister in his statements today. He said:
Going forward, we’re making it very, very clear to CSIS and all our intelligence officials that when there are concerns that talk specifically about any MP, particularly about their family, those need to be elevated.
Even if CSIS doesn’t feel that it’s a sufficient level of concern for them to take more direct action, we still need to know about it at the upper government level.
Colleagues, remember, the CSIS director briefs the Prime Minister and ministers at their own discretion on issues of the day. But as the Prime Minister stated this morning, and as I repeat, he has instructed CSIS to lower that threshold so he will be given a fuller picture at an earlier time.
I hope that answers your question.
Clearly, leader, again the Prime Minister’s answers are in direct contradiction to what his own chief of staff said at committee meetings. “The Prime Minister,” she said, “is always informed.”
The Prime Minister is always looking for someone else to blame for his failures, and then, going forward, he will make changes. He blames whistle-blowers. Now he is blaming CSIS. He blames political polarization. He and you blame the opposition. He never wants the transparency that a public inquiry would provide.
I ask everyone who may be watching this today, especially all honourable senators in this chamber: How would you feel if threats were made against your family, and your government knew about it but kept it from you? Today it is Michael Chong, but one day it could be any one of us. You would be outraged. I certainly would be.
Do you want answers? Do you want better than the answers given so far? So does the opposition.
I have two questions, leader. Are there any other parliamentarians or their families under threat from Beijing? If a whistle-blower hadn’t given those documents to The Globe and Mail, Mr. Chong would still be in the dark about Beijing’s threats to his own family. Is that not right, leader?
I have no information that other members of Parliament have been targeted.
With regard to the statement in your question, which clearly ignored my answer, I will repeat my answer from the first question. The Prime Minister did not know of the threats against Mr. Chong until he was so advised recently. The Prime Minister has made that clear. Therefore, the government did not fail to take action. The government did not know until it was so advised.
The action that the government is taking, as I have said and as the Prime Minister has said, is to insist that its security agencies, which are the ones to choose what to brief up to the Prime Minister, do so now under any circumstances where a member of Parliament or their family are targeted.
Government leader, while some members even in this chamber might feel uncomfortable when we ask questions about illegal police stations in Canada and foreign interference and intimidation of Canadians of Chinese descent — not because it is actually happening on our very soil; they are uncomfortable because we are even asking the question — the Trudeau government is doing absolutely nothing to combat foreign interference and to defend Canadians of Chinese descent from intimidation. On the contrary, we have members of this very institution, every time we ask a question, throwing up the accusation of racism, running interference for those very authoritarian regimes. We are not going to stop asking those questions. It does not matter if you are a member of Parliament or an ordinary Canadian citizen of whatever diaspora community; you deserve to feel safe in this country.
My series of questions are simple, and I will be clear. When will your government finally shut down the police stations in this country that are being run by the Beijing regime? When will your government expel the diplomats who are running this operation? When will your government put into place a foreign registry to combat foreign interference? When will your government call a public inquiry to deal with all of these allegations that are coming out on a weekly basis? When?
I will answer your questions. I will answer them right away and then I will comment on your opening remarks.
As I mentioned yesterday, investigations continue to be under way by the RCMP. Those investigations are ongoing. When they are concluded, and action is taken, it will be made public.
Similar answer with regard to the issue of the diplomat to whom you made reference. That is a matter that the government is dealing with. It is a matter of their prerogative. They are analyzing it. Announcements will be made when they are made.
With regard to the foreign registry, consultations, as you know, are under way. Announcements will be made when decisions are taken, as will a decision on a public inquiry when we hear from the Special Rapporteur, the Right Honourable David Johnston.
I want to make it clear that I am not uncomfortable at all — and I do not purport to speak for other senators — when you ask questions about matters as important as foreign interference in our democratic institutions. I have said time and again these are serious matters that deserve to be treated seriously and responsibly.
If you ask me if I am uncomfortable with how you ask the questions, the assumptions that you package into your questions, the disrespect that you show for our institutions, that is another matter, which we can discuss on another occasion.
With regard to the other assertion in the preamble to your question — “When will the government do something and why is it not doing anything?” — I have repeated on many occasions, but I guess, since this is Question Period, I am going to give you the answer yet again, because it is clearly not being registered or taken into consideration. The Government of Canada is doing a great deal to combat the serious problem of foreign interference. It is investing serious money into combatting foreign interference, including the creation of a national counter-foreign interference office in the Department of Public Safety and providing nearly $50 million to the RCMP to combat harassment of Canadians who are targeted by hostile actors.
It has mandated NSICOP, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, to continue its work in assessing the state of foreign interference in our federal electoral processes.
The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, NSIRA, will set its own mandate and scope for its study of the forty-third and forty-fourth parliamentary elections in regard to foreign interference. Their findings will be reported to Parliament.
I will not have to repeat, yet again, the appointment of the Special Rapporteur, whom I shall continue to name as the Right Honourable David Johnston, not the “made-up Special Rapporteur.”
You are going to lecture us about respecting this institution — someone the Constitution calls upon to serve as a government leader and does not want to call himself what the Constitution demands him to be in this chamber? You are going to lecture us about respect for the institution? Please.
I just did.
I know you just did, but you should look in the mirror long and hard. Start answering some of our questions and stop calling into question our respect for this institution. That will be a starting point on behalf of this government.
Second, do you know the kind of respect you have for this institution, where we have information from CSIS itself that a member of Parliament and his family were targeted by an authoritarian regime two years ago, and he just sat down yesterday with CSIS to get that information, once we know that information was shared with the Prime Minister’s Office? And the only thing that we can understand are two possibilities: blatant partisanship — “We’ll just ignore it” — or incompetence on the part of this Prime Minister. It is high time that he takes some responsibility for his incompetence.
I will ask the question again: When will you call a public inquiry? When will you put into place a foreign registry, for which our party has been calling for three years? Even by your speed, you should be able to get that done in three years. Only then can you start lecturing us about respect of Parliament and this institution.
The question still stands: When will you take action? Enough rhetoric.
Senator Housakos, I answered each and every one of your questions. I stand by everything I said in my answers to you.
Let me be clear, colleagues. I will be very brief because, honestly, this is not the highest and best use of our time in this chamber. I’m not talking about Question Period, colleagues; I’m talking about having to repeat myself time and again.
I was appointed by the Prime Minister of Canada, in a letter dated January 23, 2020, as Leader of the Government. That was the first sentence of the letter. I would be happy to table the letter or send it to all of you. It makes great reading. The second sentence said, “You are to style yourself as ‘Government Representative.’”
From day one, for every single day, I have styled myself as Government Representative. But I have performed the functions, under the Parliament of Canada Act, as the Leader of the Government even though I have nobody to lead, hence the way in which I present myself.
With all due respect, Senator Housakos, it is not I who is not showing respect for the institutions of this place. Nor is it respect for the institutions, when I provide an answer and quote the Prime Minister’s direct answers to the direct questions, to hear members opposite mumbling — I hope it was not picked up in Hansard — and saying things that are distinctly unparliamentary.
