Thank you, Madam Chair.
What did Prime Minister Justin Trudeau know and when did he know it? What did Prime Minister Justin Trudeau do, or rather, what did he not do, when he learned about the many allegations of interference by China in Canada's democratic process? That is the basic question that requires a public inquiry. In fact, yesterday the Leader of the Conservative Party said as much.
Why? Because, as the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau is ultimately responsible to Canadians for all matters relating to national security and the respect of our democratic process. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the Prime Minister was briefed several times on foreign election interference by the Chinese communist regime, as we learned and as witnesses in the know and who were involved have confirmed, never once did the Prime Minister's Office feel it was necessary to share its concerns with the RCMP or CSIS. It was as if there was nothing unusual going on.
I would like to remind you that these are indeed serious allegations. There's talk of a clandestine network of 11 candidates who received financial support from the Chinese regime. There's talk of so-called volunteers who in actual fact were not volunteers and who were subsidized by people close to the Chinese regime to help candidates during the election campaign. There's talk of orchestrated campaigns to help elect a minority liberal government and defeat certain Conservative candidates.
Not a day goes by without new information appearing in the news or on social media about interference by the Chinese regime in our democratic process.
Today we learned that the amount of information and evidence needed to brief candidates on election interference by the Chinese regime was so significant that it was unlikely the threshold would ever be met.
Yet, the first thing the Prime Minister said in his defence was that all of the information was given to the panel charged with determining whether the election had been undermined by foreign interference, and that the panel had determined that there was no foreign election interference, and that the process unfolded as it should have. That's a fact: this is what we have heard from the Prime Minister from the outset. Incidentally, the Prime Minister himself struck the panel. That can mean many things and raises too many questions.
That is why my colleague's amendment is very relevant. You can't just let the government decide who will conduct the public inquiry, since the government is led by the Prime Minister, who is himself directly implicated in the many allegations reported by media, be it Global News or The Globe and Mail, other media or reporters' news feeds.
As well, we need to absolutely ensure that the public inquiry is done responsibly, of course, and that it focuses on all political parties. This is where I'd like to reach out to my NDP colleague, who pleaded for consensus and unanimity at the start of his presentation. The NDP said that the inquiry must absolutely be non-partisan, that we must absolutely be on the same page and send a unanimous message to the House of Commons and to the government that we are calling for an inquiry that is in line with what we are asking for. In its motion, however, the NDP is forgetting its own party. It doesn't want to hear from anyone from the NDP. It doesn't want the national inquiry to hear from people from the NDP.