Thank you, Chair.
I'll just preface my comments by reiterating what I said earlier. I think we have very good options before us as a committee. I don't believe anybody is presenting any motions in bad faith or with bad intent. I believe that we have to make the best decision possible as committee members as to what this very busy, very important committee ought to be studying as a matter of priority, and triage accordingly.
We here on the Conservative side, I think, will continue making that case for as long as it takes. We believe that foreign interference is one of what I would consider to be three matters that are being discussed, notwithstanding the subamendment portion of a debate that we're in.
Two of the three matters that we could proceed with deal with foreign interference. In continuation from what happened in the discussion from last Tuesday, we now have a prima facie case on a question of privilege, which always ends up at this committee. It has now been unanimously adopted by the House by all political parties, yet here we are, unable to agree that it's the matter that we should be discussing based upon the finding in the House.
My colleagues, Mr. Cooper, Mr. Duncan and Mr. Berthold, have all moved motions to adjourn the debate on the current motion so that we can proceed either to a discussion or to pursue discussing another motion to discuss the pressing matter from the House.
I just want to remind colleagues that we have spent a lot of time talking about foreign interference. We have a public inquiry, yet here we are again with new revelations in the media and new information about the PRC's continued interference. Frankly, it's what I would construe to be aggressive behaviour, not only towards the democratic institutions, such as our federal elections process, but now also in the form of what I would consider to be personal attacks against members of the House of Commons and Senate.
I presume that every member here operates in good conscience and in good faith, but to know that my emails, my personal devices, my iPad and my computer have been the target of a cyber-attack, or could have been....
So far, we know of only 18. I'll remind colleagues that when we first started hearing about foreign interference from China, we heard about potentially one or two people who might have been affected in nominations. Then it grew to 11 people who might have been unduly influenced during nomination processes, with funding bankrolled by the PRC for multiple political parties, my party included. Now we're up to 18 parliamentarians, members of the House of Commons and Senate, and anything that we have started to do doesn't appear to be dissuading the People's Republic of China.
We've been talking about this issue for quite some time. We finally have a piece of legislation dealing with what I would consider to be a portion of the broader conversation about Chinese interference in our institutions.
My opinion and advice to colleagues would be, given the fact that it is now May.... We have five more weeks after this week, once we return from the May long weekend break next week. I wish you all safe travels, good health, rest and recuperation. We'll come back for five weeks. It will be, as we all know, a challenging and trying time, because the weather will be good, there will be other things that we'd rather go do, and we'll be feisty.
If the last 18 years are any indication of what's going to happen in the next five weeks, I can predict that this will be the case, and that's fine. I don't take it personally, and I don't think any of us should take these things personally. That's just the adversarial nature of our system. That's why I'm concerned. I'm not just concerned for the sake of my own colleagues, Mr. Genuis and Mr. Chong. I'm concerned for all of you. You're all my fellow citizens.
Well, Mr. Desilets, I'm not trying to impugn anything, but you might disagree with that. While we disagree or have an adversarial system, you're all my fellow citizens, and I want you all to have the same protection and be afforded the same ability to carry out your duties. Whether I agree with what you have to say or not, we all have the right to say it without intimidation and without being put in a vulnerable position because we have not done an adequate job as a Parliament or as a government of addressing what is becoming a clear pattern of a clear threat from a clear source.
We have five weeks left after the break. We'll adjourn, and then we'll come back. At best we'll have one full parliamentary cycle, because, if we do have an election in October 2025, if this Parliament goes to the end, I doubt we'll be returning in September of next year. We'll go right into the writ period.
Basically, as a committee, we have one full calendar year plus five weeks to study, make recommendations and have the government respond to those recommendations, hopefully, if necessary, through any legislative changes that might be required. Then we'll have those laws passed in both chambers and have royal assent prior to the next election for the betterment of the integrity of our elections and for the betterment of the ability of our agencies to protect us, not only as candidates but also as parliamentarians in the interim.
That's not a long timeline. The question, as I see it, is what our priority will be. Is there any bad issue before us? No. All of them are worthy of discussion and consideration—all of them.
Which one could we do the most good with, and which one is most important? I would say that the issue of significant national interest, in this case, is the ruling of the prima facie case of members' privileges, as determined by the Speaker and by the rest of our colleagues in the House. It's seemingly supported, as I didn't see anybody speaking against this notion from any political party in the debates that took place last night or this morning. Frankly, I'm flabbergasted that this doesn't automatically position this issue as a priority for this committee to study and examine. We're going to continue, I believe, to make that case.
On the matter of the motion, the amendment and the subamendment before us, we have many things that I believe we need to revisit in the ongoing foreign interference study and in our electoral systems. Madam Justice Hogue's interim report has given us many things that we could continue to talk about, not the least of which are numerous contradictions of evidence and testimony that this committee heard, which was contradicted by evidence and preliminary findings by Madam Justice Hogue.
We have what I believe is a fairly legitimate allegation. We have a breach in the law when it comes to the secrets that ought to have been kept for those who are entitled to secret briefings from our intelligence officials, who have allegedly passed that secret information on to a candidate for, I believe, Don Valley North.
I think it needs to be fleshed out to determine what exactly happened there. Many members of Parliament of this committee made vehement arguments that we as members of Parliament at this committee ought not to have access to classified or secret information. Numerous attempts for us to request documents to be scrutinized by our parliamentary law clerk and then distributed to members of this committee have been defeated time and again by the Liberal and NDP members of this committee. Now, however, we have an example of somebody who ought not to have had that information, notwithstanding that the media, which seems to still have access to more information and documents than I do as a duly elected member of Parliament in this place.... Now we have a very credible scenario in which, I guess, it's not okay for members of Parliament to request this classified information through the eyes of our parliamentary law clerk, but it's completely okay to pass this information on, if you're the governing party, to one of your candidates in an election.
It seems to be a bit of a double standard, and I think we need to get to the bottom of that. Madam Justice Hogue has written in her report that there seems to be a clear communications issue, not only among the government, the decision-makers and those who work in the bureaucracy, but also among our various departments. There certainly are a lot of questions still surrounding what the bar is, not only for alerting members of Parliament and candidates but also for when the public is notified about foreign interference. Had the government done its job and had we had the right protocols in place, I believe my former colleague Kenny Chiu might still be here as a member of Parliament in this place.
What consequence have we demonstrated to the People's Republic of China as a response? A lot of hemming and hawing, a lot of obfuscation, a lot of blocking, hiding and covering up of information through the foreign interference and matter of privilege for Mr. Chong to date. Here we are, as Conservatives at least, wanting to continue on to discuss now the new outstanding matters in foreign interference. I can tell you that I'm here in good faith to make good recommendations, hopeful recommendations, wise recommendations to a government that I believe should be taking this issue much more seriously than it currently is.
Then, between Tuesday and today, as a matter of fact, in the time that this committee has started, since 11 o'clock this morning, moments after this committee started or continued its deliberations, the House adopted the notion and motion that there is another breach of privilege. A prima facie case has been made. Arguments have been made by members from all parties—all parties—that the People's Republic of China, the communist regime there, is personally going after members of the House of Commons and the Senate.
If you don't think that's serious, well, I know what's on my phone. I'm assuming we all know what's on our phones and what's on our computers, but if they can get to us, they can get to anybody in this country. They can get to our families. They can get to our staff. They can infiltrate our political headquarters. Their prime directive, in my opinion, is to create mistrust in electoral results and to create disunity and disharmony in the social fabric of our country. I think all of us would agree that it's something we would want to prevent and avoid, which is why I believe we should act in unity and unison in addressing this issue at this committee.
This is the committee that deals with these questions of privilege. While we are free to set our own priorities, I think it behooves us to take more seriously and as a higher matter of priority a question of a privilege that's referred to us by the House, and to remind colleagues once again of the timelines. If we're going to properly study this and discuss the witness list on the notice of motion that my colleague Mr. Cooper has put before this committee, I would love to hear about any other witnesses that my colleagues from other political parties would have, to say who ought to be summoned to the committee to testify and to find out why. Again, we're in a scenario where it took two years. It's unthinkable to me that a member of Parliament or a senator, their office staff or their family members would be subject to cyber-attacks and not be told.
I would just implore you, colleagues: This is a matter on which we have to defend each other, defend our institutions and defend our nation, frankly, from a very nefarious, very troublesome and, to this date, apparently, a very effective foreign government that's acting very adversarially and even confrontationally to our nation.
I don't know if this threat is coming right out of Beijing on a daily basis. I don't know if it's asymmetric. I don't know if there are elements of our own society here that are sympathetic. I still, to this day, am not clear, in spite of all the meetings we've had, dealing with the question of privilege for our colleague Mr. Chong and the yet unfinished broader study of foreign interference in our elections and of the depth of interference more broadly from various sources, particularly the People's Republic of China.
We have an opportunity as a committee, in a moment of unity for the sake of our country, for the sake of each other as members of Parliament, because only we—it doesn't matter what political party you get elected under the banner of—truly understand what this job is about. We have an opportunity to do the right thing, in my opinion, and not only defend our nation but defend each other and get to the bottom of how what I would consider to be an egregious scenario has happened. We need to make good and wise recommendations to the government to ensure that these things don't happen again.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll cede my time and ask to be put back on the bottom of the list.