Countering Foreign Interference Act  Mr. Speaker, I note that part 4 of the bill provides for the creation of a commissioner. That commissioner would be situated within the machinery of government, within the Department of Public Safety Canada, and would be appointed at the advice of the Prime Minister. An amendment that would perhaps strengthen the independence of that office would be to appoint the commissioner after the Prime Minister has consulted with leaders of the recognized parties in the House of Commons and the Senate and after resolutions have been adopted by both the House and Senate.

Countering Foreign Interference Act  Mr. Speaker, there are measures in this bill that will give CSIS the power to disclose classified information to universities, municipalities and provinces to ensure that they have the information they need to protect their interests. We support this measure. We think it is very important to give our national security agencies the power to do that.

Countering Foreign Interference Act  Mr. Speaker, my father came here in 1952 from Hong Kong as a Chinese immigrant, several years after the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. However, even though that legislation had been repealed, the sentiments that underpinned it still remained in Canada. We have to be acutely sensitive to diaspora communities.

Countering Foreign Interference Act  Mr. Speaker, I believe if you seek it, you will find unanimous consent for me to split my time with the member for St. Albert—Edmonton.

Countering Foreign Interference Act  Mr. Speaker, Canadians expect their institutions to protect them from the malign threat activities of authoritarian states. Canadians expect the whole of the Government of Canada, including its intelligence agencies and law enforcement, to protect our elections and democratic institutions from the coercive, clandestine and corrupt foreign interference threat activities of authoritarian states.

Countering Foreign Interference Act  Mr. Speaker, part 2 of the bill would amend the Criminal Code to broaden the scope of the sabotage offence to include essential infrastructure such as transportation, information and telecommunication technology, water and waste water, energy, utilities, health care, food supply, government operations and financial infrastructure.

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, I think that we need a full range of tools, which is what experts have been telling the government. The government needs to implement a full range of tools to counter these foreign interference threat operations, and one of the tools that it needs to start using, which it is not very good at, is sunlight and transparency.

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for all the work she has done on countering PRC foreign interference. It has been very constructive. The member rightfully points out that Justice Hogue found that the PRC interfered in the 2019 and 2021 elections. That is incontrovertible.

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, I think opposition parties in the House have been highly responsible in how we have handled the information on foreign interference threat activities that have come to our attention over the last two years. When these stories broke, they did not break because the government informed members of the House or the House's committees about these foreign interference threat activities.

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, I believe that Justice Hogue's initial report is a good start. She will present a second report in December of this year. I will continue working with the commission to ensure that the second report is very strong and contains solid recommendations for building a national security system that will protect our democratic institutions.

Privilege  Mr. Speaker, what we do in this place matters. This place is the only place at the federal level that is a democratic institution. This is Canada's democratic institution. The other place is not; it is appointed. The Prime Minister and his cabinet are not; they are appointed. In Canada, we do not elect governments.

Democratic Institutions  Mr. Speaker, on April 11, the Prime Minister said that “it wasn't simply, an overall the election was free and fair”, but that in “every single constituency election...election integrity held and it was free and fair.” Justice Hogue concluded otherwise. She concluded that well-grounded suspicions about PRC interference in Don Valley North “could...have impacted who was elected to Parliament.

Democratic Institutions  Mr. Speaker, I will tell the government what Justice Hogue concluded in Steveston—Richmond East. She found that “there are strong [indications] of PRC involvement and there is a reasonable possibility that these narratives could have impacted the result in this riding.” Again, the Prime Minister said, just several weeks ago, that in “every single constituency election...election integrity held and it was free and fair.”

Committees of the House  Mr. Speaker, I am rising to support concurrence of the 21st report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development, a report that touches on the human rights abuses in the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is a report that draws attention of these abuses to the government in the hope that the government would act.

Questions on the Order Paper  With regard to government information about the two Canadian Hells Angels named in an indictment in the United States: did the U.S. government notify the Canadian government of these two Canadians before the indictment was unsealed?