Thank you.
I want to thank my dear friend Ms. Romanado for the last speech. She used the term “secret handshake” when she was speaking French, and I've been desperately trying to remember what secret handshake is in French.
Our colleague Ms. Gaudreau can correct me.
I'm honoured to be attending the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs meeting today.
Kelly McCauley often says, “The mighty OGGO”, when he opens up meetings of our committee, but I think I can just as easily say, “The mighty PROC”, because the role that PROC plays is so important to everything done in the House of Commons. This is definitely one of the most important discussions that PROC has: the question of how to avoid, how to remedy and how to stand up against foreign interference in Canadian elections. There's nothing more sacred to a democracy than knowing that each and every Canadian citizen over 18 who's qualified has the ability to vote and that they are the ones who make the decisions as to who their 338 representatives in Parliament are.
As Ms. Romanado said, I also believe that parliamentarians can work together for the greater good. I've always believed that. I don't think that most issues should be partisan, and this issue is probably the furthest away from what should be partisan. This is such an important job the committee is doing today, despite, as I know, how frustrating it must be for people who have spent hour after hour listening to this debate. Sometimes it feels like you're talking past each other.
At the same time, you're figuring out what the role of PROC is going to be as a part of a greater effort to tackle foreign interference. NSICOP is no doubt going to play a part. I was incredibly proud when our government introduced the NSICOP committee of parliamentarians after the 2015 election. It was one of the campaign promises I talked a lot about because it's something that's being done and has been done for a very long time in the United States and in the U.K., where politicians have top secret clearances and they're truly able to have supervision over the intelligence services.
There has to be political accountability for the intelligence community, not just at the executive branch but also at the legislative branch. I know, having spoken to colleagues from all parties who have served on NSICOP, how valuable they feel that work is. I do believe that the mandate the Prime Minister has given NSICOP is incredibly important.
I also look at the enhanced role given to the intelligence community, the question of how we deal with the security of elections and the elections task force that was set up to deal with threats to the 2019 and 2021 elections, and the fact that parties were briefed by that group when necessary.
I think there's a lot that has been done, but there's still a lot more to do. NSICOP will play a role and no doubt PROC will play a role. The witnesses who have already come to PROC have made some important statements, and I think the amendment that is before the committee, the question of who to call as further witnesses.... I'll remind everyone the amendment is to invite the 2019 and 2021 national campaign directors of each recognized party in the House of Commons and the security-cleared party representatives to the security and intelligence threats to elections task force during the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, to come testify before the committee.
I believe it's very important that we meet with these witnesses. It's very important that we hear from representatives of each political party represented in the House, so not only representatives of the Liberals and the Conservatives, but also those from the NDP and the Bloc Québécois. It's really important that they appear before the committee, that they report what they've heard and that they make recommendations on how to improve the system in the future.
Perhaps it should include a clear duty to inform candidates in ridings where issues have been raised.
I think there's a lot that everybody here wants to do and accomplish when it comes to election interference. Again, I believe all parties want to see the greater good being done. Sometimes it's too bad that these debates go on and on, because, often, discussion among the parties, away from the cameras, would be more beneficial in trying to arrive at a solution where there is disagreement. However, I want to plead with my colleagues—when it comes to this issue—on two points that I think are very important, which my colleague Ms. Saks previously raised.
The first is the question that Canadians deserve to be able to believe in their election system. That doesn't mean we don't take the threat of foreign interference seriously. That doesn't mean we speak down the threat that exists, that we know exists and that has existed not only in the last couple of elections but also for many elections and cycles—not only from China but also from Russia, Iran and other foreign actors.
However, what we cannot do is make this into a political circus that causes Canadians not to believe in the fairness of their political system. We all saw what happened in the United States. We have all seen how one discredited former president has been able to convince millions and millions of Americans—indeed, the majority of people who support his party—that he won the 2020 election, which he lost by almost 10 million votes and by over 70 votes in the electoral college.
We have all heard of the court cases brought in the United States and the absurd claims that voting machines from Dominion changed votes from Trump to Biden, and that this company somehow developed their applications in Chavez's Venezuela, when nothing could be further from the truth. We heard allegations that, somehow, the machines didn't count ballots if they were made out to Trump; that people in Atlanta were stuffing ballots and only counting Biden ballots; that, somehow, something went wrong, because ballots were being counted after 11 p.m. or midnight of election night; and that mail-in ballots—which, by the way, were almost the totality of ballots in certain states that have gone to mail-in voting, many of which previously favoured Republicans—were somehow defective or tampered with.
It means that the words of politicians matter. We have to take this seriously and not overstate certain things. We have a right to be concerned. We have a right to fight for the integrity of elections, but we can't overstate facts to make Canadians believe that elections weren't fair or free, or that their votes didn't count. No evidence has come forward that allows people to make these general, absolute claims. Again, as we saw in the United States, when certain politicians make these claims, no matter how absurd they seem on their face....
We all knew the Democrats would use mail-in ballots more than the Republicans in the 2020 election. We knew it, because all polls showed that Democratic voters were more concerned about COVID and that Republicans were heavily influenced by Trump telling them not to vote mail-in. Therefore, we knew, in the states where election-day ballots were counted first, that a Trump lead would gradually go down, because the Democratic mail-in ballots and absentee ballots would be counted after the fact, such as in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia. We knew that, in other states, where they counted the mail-in ballots before election day, like Ohio, a Biden lead would eventually turn into Trump votes from election-day votes coming in and surpassing them.
There was nothing unpredictable about this. What is scary is that this one man's belief that he had a right to tell everybody who won the election, with no evidence, got into so many people's minds that they distrust the system. They distrust mail-in voting. As a result, there is a lack of confidence in the system, which is one of the fairest and freest systems in the entire world.
Whatever we think about the United States, it is one of the strongest democracies in the world. Its Constitution was even able to overcome an insurrection on January 6, 2021. It is our closest ally. We need to hope and pray that Americans believe in their election system, which is fair and free, in the same way that we want Canadians to continue to believe in our election system, which is fair and free.
This is why the work that PROC is doing here is so important. It's in order to make sure that we look at election interference while maintaining the confidence of Canadians in the integrity of our elections. This is the idea on which the permanent members of PROC and those who are replacing them can absolutely come together and arrive at a motion, whether taking this amendment or making a subamendment to this amendment, that everybody can agree to.
I want to give you an example of how politicians came together to support me on what was perhaps one of my worst days in Parliament, and it dealt with an issue like this one.
One day a few years ago, I believe it was 2017, I was accused, along with my colleague Michael Levitt, who used to represent York Centre, by a man who eventually ran for the leadership of the Green Party and came second. I will not give him the credit of mentioning his name, but he accused me and Michael Levitt of double loyalty, saying that we were more loyal to Israel than we were to Canada. There was no basis for this claim other than the fact that I and Michael Levitt supported the State of Israel, but it led to a flood of threats and nasty messages that I and my staff received that were hurtful, that were demeaning and that made me feel like nothing, like I didn't deserve to exist.
I fought back. I went back on social media and reminded everybody that this was a little bit crazy. I was born in Canada. I am a Canadian citizen only. I've never lived anywhere else in my life. My parents were born in Canada. They were Canadian citizens. They never lived anywhere else in their lives. My grandparents were born in Canada. They were Canadian citizens. They never lived anywhere else. My family has been in Canada since the 19th century. I've never lived in Israel. I've never been a citizen of Israel. The idea was far-fetched and with no basis, yet people believed it because it was said on social media.
We have to be so careful here not to accuse Canadians of double loyalty, because it is offensive not only to the elected officials who serve Canada and Parliament, no matter whether they're dual citizens, single citizens, born somewhere else or born, like me, here in Canada. It also hurts the many Canadians who identify with those ethnic groups that are being singled out in that way.
What happened at the time was that every leader of every party jumped in, stood up and supported me and Michael Levitt. Not only did the Prime Minister do it, but Andrew Scheer, the Conservative leader, did it. Jagmeet Singh, the NDP leader, did it, and Elizabeth May, the Green leader, did it as well. They all jumped in.
From the Bloc Québécois, my friend who represents the riding of Drummond also took part in the debate to defend me.
It meant the world to me when that happened, because it showed that, across political parties, Canadians and their leaders did not feel that such an allegation of dual loyalty was part of Canada's tradition, was part of Canada's politics or was any part of what any politician should go through in a democracy.
I plead with everybody, as we go through this debate and there are going to be a lot of discussions about China and Iran and other countries, that we make very clear that citizens of Canada who come from those countries are not the ones we are targeting when we talk about foreign governments meddling in elections. There cannot be one broad brush on any community. We have to be very careful about that, because there's nothing that makes someone feel less Canadian than when they're targeted in that way.
My colleague, Ms. Saks, dealt with it very eloquently, but I thought I would simply add a little bit about the personal experience that I had and the fear I have. This debate cannot disintegrate into blaming different cultural communities that live in this country that often feel stigmatized and vilified—
I'm sorry, Madam Chair. Am I supposed to stop? I see a microphone went on somewhere.