Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate the motion my colleague has moved. I think it highlights something that has been, shall we say, referenced and insinuated, and I'm glad that we're able to talk about it very directly.
I want to back up for a brief moment. One of the challenges that exist in talking about election interference and some of the very troubling circumstances, whether it be the Hogue report, which certainly was very enlightening, or the circumstances around other examples of election interference, is when the Prime Minister makes a declaration saying that there wasn't an issue with either the 2019 election or the 2021 election and that their integrity was preserved, etc. Something that has failed to be acknowledged is that it is, interestingly, a very American type of statement, because it speaks not to our system but rather to a system that is so often reflected in the narrative that defines much of the political commentary in Canada. That's because there is not one election in Canada.
In the case of the current and previous two Parliaments, there were 338 separate elections. We don't elect a president. We don't elect a prime minister. It may be a shock to those who are listening that I would make a statement like that. However, it is by convention that the prime minister is the leader of the government. There's a host of history as to why that's the case, and there have been constitutional challenges, but it's more or less the evolution of 800 or so years of Westminster-style democracy.
What is deeply troubling, and the reason I want to highlight a few of those specific things, is that we have a statement that there wasn't interference in the election. Well, let's look at some of the rules surrounding what an election is. There are the financial rules. All of us around this table, as members of Parliament and as those who have been involved in the process of running in an election, would have had our names on a ballot once, at the very least, and some of us more than that. Whether we were successful or unsuccessful, we would understand some of the dynamics around finances and the rules around advertising and the various.... We've talked fairly at length about some of those things.
I think one of the intricacies of our system that needs to be highlighted in the context of what we are talking about here is the need to understand an election race in the context of a larger general election. That's why they're called general elections in Canada. There is a dissolving of Parliament, and there cease to be members of Parliament. That Parliament literally ceases to exist. In fact, the constitutional clarity around that is pretty direct.
For any of us who have been in that circumstance, we understand that there are changes that do, in fact, take place. Then, in the case of the current Parliament and the previous two, there are 338 elections that take place to elect members to create a Parliament. Then there are some nuances around by-elections, when somebody either resigns or passes away, as we've seen tragically. There have been a number of those circumstances over the last number of Parliaments. Those dynamics exist.
I think it was absolutely irresponsible of our Prime Minister to make such a definitive statement that was simply not true. The Hogue inquiry made that point explicitly clear. I'll get into a few of the specifics and highlight some of the frustrations that certainly I and many of my constituents, who reach out to me on a regular basis, have when it comes to how the Prime Minister approaches things that would put his political circumstances at risk versus those of his adversaries. I'll get to that in a few minutes.
It needs to be highlighted—and for all those watching, I would emphasize this—that when one of those 338 elections is called into question, it causes questions to be asked about the entire system.
Now, the allegations have been very clearly articulated. My colleague Mr. Brock did a good job of outlining that in the constituency of Steveston—Richmond East, but there are a number of other circumstances. Parliament is an interesting place. You get to know people. I know, having gotten to know Mr. Chiu over the time he served as an MP, including hearing from him how his stance to protect democracy was weaponized against him by malicious forces. However, there were a number of other examples.
Can one definitively point to a specific instance and say that was the turning point? It would be incredibly difficult. Quite frankly, it would be irresponsible to do so, in the same way that it would be irresponsible to claim that there was no influence.
Therein lies the key, Chair. We have to take seriously these allegations, because when one vote is compromised, it calls into question the entire system. I think—