Well, some could say she lied, and that's certainly an approach that you can take. However, the most glaring example was that she was adamant a year ago that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reads ferocious amounts of material, voluminous amounts of material. Everything that is put in front of him he reads, and he follows up. He takes his job as Prime Minister seriously, and he takes the job of Canada's national security seriously. What an absolute joke that is when you heard from the Prime Minister himself yesterday that he's too busy to read. He's too busy to read confidential briefs from CSIS that highlight incidents that could compromise our national security, the fairness of elections and the integrity of nominations. He's too busy to read that himself. He wants his yes-men and yes-women to do a summary for him. That is a very damning, conflicting piece of evidence, Mr. Chair.
Now we hear that there was a top Liberal staffer, who reported directly to the Prime Minister, who leaked classified, sensitive information compromising, as Mr. Cooper has indicated, the CSIS investigation. There is clearly an offence for that type of activity. Section 4 of the Security of Information Act spells it out in plain language that a person who holds confidential information and shares it with another individual—in this case, the member for Don Valley North—has committed an offence under that act. Section 27 outlines the punishment for that act.
What my colleague Mr. Cooper talked about was the indictable phase of the prosecution of that offence. It's actually a hybrid offence. You can proceed by indictment or summary conviction, but given that the limitation period for prosecuting by summary conviction has long passed, it has to be indictable. This person has a high probability not only of being convicted, but of spending the next decade in federal prison. That's how serious this matter is.
In the last six to twelve months, Mr. Chair, with all the scandals and all the rotten corruption from this Liberal government.... At one point I was sitting on four or five committees at the same time just keeping track of all the scandals. I remarked to myself, imagine all the referrals that the RCMP is getting just from the actions of this Prime Minister and his government and the federal public service. I just spoke to my friend Mr. Cooper, and I said I often wake up at night just thinking about all of the scandals and all of the potential investigations.
We finally had an opportunity, not too long ago, to question the commissioner of the RCMP regarding the SNC-Lavalin scandal. The only thing that I could conclude from that, notwithstanding their strong proclamations that nobody is above the law, including the Prime Minister.... The evidence was there. The evidence was very clear, based on the information that they had available from the Ethics Commissioner, that Justin Trudeau did commit the offence of obstruction of justice by attempting to interfere in the decision-making of his then attorney general.
The only thing I could conclude, like many Canadians reviewing that exchange, was that there was indeed a two-tier level of justice. Now, I'm hoping that the RCMP are watching this, following along with the inquiry, reading the press and gaining some suspicion. To launch any police investigation, Mr. Chair, there has to be some suspicion. To lay a criminal charge under the Security of Information Act is a low threshold. Does the RCMP have reasonable and probable grounds—a very low standard—to prove beyond a reasonable doubt for conviction purposes and to believe that a top Liberal insider, a political staffer who reports directly to Justin Trudeau, leaked highly sensitive, classified information from CSIS?
I think, based on the evidence we have heard in this inquiry, that threshold has easily been met, so I would hope, given their reservations that no prime minister in the history of this country has ever been charged with a criminal offence, that they cast aside their reservations and their political reluctance to look at the Prime Minister as a suspect worthy of criminal prosecution and go after the sole person who is responsible for this leak.
My colleague Mr. Cooper stood up yesterday in the House, during QP, and quite pointedly asked the question that Canadians deserve to know and that all parliamentarians deserve to know: Who was that person? The parliamentary secretary stood up, completely ignored that question and talked about, as many Liberal members have talked about, how they respect the inquiry and welcome the inquiry. Again, that was not being completely truthful and honest with Canadians. They knew there was something to hide. They knew there was a smoking gun, and here it is. This is worthy of a full-blown investigation, Mr. Chair, and that is why I very proudly support this motion.
Before I give up the floor, I am asking for a brief amendment to the motion. There is a reference to a Mathieu Lafrance in the motion. Where his name is referenced, the amendment should read, “Senior Liberal staffer who received CSIS briefing, Mathieu Lafrance”.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.