Thank you.
I want to thank you both for being here today.
On a point of clarification, I just looked at Ms. Khalid's travel claim for that trip. Her meals were $200 for her trip, which is quite a difference from the meals for the Conservative MPs who went to the U.K. The five of them spent what I would call truly lavishly, with a $6,200 dinner and a $600 bottle of champagne. Her meals for her whole trip didn't even cover the cost of one bottle of champagne.
On that, Conservative MP John Williamson's trip was sponsored by the Danube Institute. It's a right-wing Hungarian think tank. I did a quick check of their Twitter feed; they reposted one tweet that said, “Budapest is China's greatest friend within the EU....” There's another one that says, “Note that South Africa is undergoing a slow, steady, semi-genocidal purification of its white citizens.” This is the organization that paid for Mr. Williamson's travel to the U.K. At their $6,200 dinner, we don't know if there was lobbying of the MPs by this organization.
I completely agree with my colleague Mr. Green about putting sponsored travel onto the members' office budgets, but my concern is with the changing of the sponsored travel rules. Now sponsored travel can only be done by organizations that are not lobbying Canadian MPs. I'm quite concerned about foreign interference coming in here. You're going to have foreign entities like the Danube Institute sponsoring Canadian MPs not just as a way to get around our sponsored travel rules but also as a way to influence Canadian elected officials.
I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the dangers of foreign interference when it comes to these types of travel.