Mr. Speaker, I would like to sincerely thank the constituents of Mégantic—L'Érable who did me the honour of once again electing me to represent them in this 43rd Parliament. Over the past few years, we have been able to work hand in hand, together, with people, organizations and elected officials in my riding. People wanted us to continue on with our work, and it is with pride that I will represent them once again during this term as the member for Mégantic—L'Érable.
I want to thank my small team—Isabelle, Hélène, Jessica and Gilles—who have supported me from the beginning and throughout the election campaign, as well as all the volunteers. I also want to thank my family, Caro and my children. When we are here, we are not with them, and it is a great sacrifice for our families to let someone go away for long stretches of time, as we do. We must be grateful to them for allowing us to do the work we love to do here in the House for the good of our ridings and for the good of all Canadians.
Today, on the first opposition day of the 43rd Parliament, the official opposition is introducing a very important motion about the current crisis with China. I want to talk about the Liberal government's failure to come up with a coherent plan in the previous Parliament to protect Canadian interests, including the welfare of our citizens, to protect our commercial interests and our national security interests, and to prepare for China's emerging role in world affairs. This failure is quite simply incomprehensible.
Canadians no longer have confidence in the Prime Minister when it comes to his performance on the world stage. Here is a little history to remind us why Canadians have lost confidence in this Prime Minister. We can all remember his famous and disastrous trip to India. Then there was a series of serious diplomatic incidents around the world, including those involving our main trading partner, the United States. Our Prime Minister is well known for putting his own personal brand, and that of his party, ahead of Canada's interests.
That attitude has isolated Canada at a time when our role as a country, as a member of NATO, of the G7, of NORAD and of the Five Eyes is more important and necessary than ever. Let us therefore take advantage of the fact that we have a minority government and hold the Prime Minister to account. We have wanted to hold him to account before. We have tried to get answers to these questions before. Unfortunately, the government turned a deaf ear and pretended there was no China crisis. The fact that we have a minority government finally gives us an opportunity to hold the Prime Minister to account and make sure the government takes this situation seriously from now on.
Our motion would create a special committee to resolve the current diplomatic dispute with China and develop a specialized, multidisciplinary approach to addressing the many bilateral challenges that characterize Canada-China relations.
We invite this committee to meet in the new year and fulfill all of its duties by June 2020. Already, the time between now and June 2020 is less time than it took the government across the aisle to acknowledge that there was even a crisis with China. The committee will therefore have until June 2020 to make its recommendations. It will have the authority to call experts, key witnesses, including the Prime Minister, our ambassador to China and other government ministers, to enable Parliament to carry out its democratic duty. That is very important.
We understand that in international relations, there are sensitive issues, some of which sometimes have to be discussed behind closed doors, such as all national security issues. That is why our motion gives the committee the power to meet in camera in order to protect sensitive information related to national security and consular cases that may be more complex.
Judging from the debate since this morning, it is clear that the government does not intend to support this motion. Clearly, the government is afraid of this special committee.
What is it afraid of? We do not know. However, this government claims to be transparent and open. Since the election on October 21, it has been repeating over and over again that it will work with the opposition parties. Today, we are proposing that the government take the first concrete step toward co-operation, to enable all parliamentarians in the House to study this difficult situation between Canada and China. Parliamentarians from all parties would be brought together in a special committee to come up with a real solution to this diplomatic crisis, which is getting worse every day. The government should welcome this proposal from the official opposition, because it will allow us to explore the essential elements of Canada-China relations, which are politically quite complex.
If the government opposes this modest proposal to create a committee to discuss it, it will just be admitting that it wants to avoid talking about how it handled the crisis in the previous Parliament. It would be ignoring its role as a minority government by not allowing Parliament to create a committee to study this relationship.
Clearly, the Liberals have been having a very hard time with China. The government's first mistake was appointing John McCallum, a former Liberal cabinet minister who was ousted from his role as minister and later ousted from his role as ambassador. He only made the relationship between Canada and the Chinese government worse. After that, the Prime Minister took months to appoint a new Canadian ambassador to China, which prevented us from working on our relationship with China for months.
Lastly, when China imposed unacceptable restrictions on Canadian agricultural products, a Liberal minister thought it was a good idea to go to China to promote Canadian investments in China. This government is mismanaging this whole affair and definitely lacks leadership and vision.
As a final point, I would like to talk about canola. For too long, this government denied the very existence of the Canadian canola crisis. It wonders why we are asking for a new committee. It is because we asked the Liberals to talk about canola over and over again in the previous Parliament. We asked for an emergency debate in the House a number of times, but the Liberals refused. We asked the minister to appear before the Standing Committee on International Trade, but they refused. We had to apply constant pressure day after day for them to agree. We never were able to discuss this at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. That is the reality.
If the government refuses to talk about the real facts, then it is only natural for the opposition to call for the appointment of a special committee to examine the Canada-China relationship so we can review all aspects and hear from every parliamentary group that has something to say about how this government might find a solution. It is clear that the Liberals do not have a solution and are not looking for one.
This special committee would help the government and allow parliamentarians from all parties to provide input on ways to help the government. What the Liberals do not realize is that our intention is to help canola producers and everyone who trades with China. Ultimately, that is what this type of committee should be used for, and it is our job to serve our constituents, our businesses and our farmers.
The time has come for the Prime Minister to take off his rose-coloured glasses and see the China crisis for what it is. He must live up to Canadian values, which are based on rights and freedoms. He must support the opposition motion, which seeks to get Canada out of this diplomatic crisis with China.