First of all, I would like to say that it is important that we know what the vote is on before we vote, that is to say are we voting about the words “notamment“ and “particularly”. There is a very important nuance here.
Secondly, I want to correct something. The Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs was seized with an emergency motion on the 2019 general election in the wake of revelations made by Global News on November 7th. We have been given permission to undertake a study on the election, that is to say the 2019 election, with four supplementary meetings.
At first blush, it seems to me that it would be absolutely relevant that your committee looks at the 2021 general election and what happened between the 2019 and 2021 elections, especially as the mandate of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics is to scrutinize at the behaviour of elected and non‑elected government officials in light of the revelations made about 2019, i.e., alleged corruption and influence in the offices of MPs.
We have to ask ourselves a very important ethical question: what will we do if we learn that an MP's office was infiltrated by a foreign agent, such as one from Beijing's communist regime? Actually, we learned that in January last that MI5, which is the British equivalent of our Canadian Security Intelligence Service, had publicly identified an agent working for the communist regime of Beijing, and had informed the office where that person was working that the agent had provided financial support to candidates and MPs and that she had worked with them on certain files.
I just wanted to highlight that fact, given that I am a member of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs of the House of Commons. Our study is focused on the 2019 general election. I thought you should know, as you have warmly welcomed me here at your meeting today.
Thank you.