Thank you, Madam Chair.
As I was saying, in budget 2022, our government also added several new measures. One was resources and a renewed commitment to expand the rapid response mechanism was made. One was enhancing our ability to look at “ongoing cyber-activities to protect...against disinformation”. There was a commitment to support research at public institutions on foreign election interference and resources provided to the Privy Council Office to “coordinate, develop and implement government-wide measures designed to combat disinformation and protect [Canadian] democracy.” Those are four more measures that were added in the last budget.
I don't know, again, how there's any factual accuracy to the points that the Conservative Party has been making over and over again, but it frustrates me, to be honest, Madam Chair. I'm very frustrated by the fact that they seem to want to misinform people. I don't know why they would want to claim things that are false about our government over and over again, when they know that the truth is we have a track record of developing all the systems, mechanisms and independent review processes, and improving them and adding more measures as they make sense, to continue to evolve our approach with the evolving threat environment.
Just as security professionals in this country have told us it is necessary, our government has done that. The former minister for democratic reform, now the leader of the official opposition, didn't do anything—literally nothing. I would challenge the members of the official opposition to point to something that their leader did when he was the minister for democratic reform.
Lastly, I want to talk about the Prime Minister's remarks quickly.
I think the significant actions that the Prime Minister laid out are very conducive to us continuing to evolve our comprehensive and whole-of-government approach to tackle foreign election interference. The first thing I noted in his remarks was that he basically asked Minister Leblanc to work on an implementation plan as quickly as possible.
He also talked about the importance of what was set up in 2017—I know MP O'Connell also spoke to it—which is NSICOP and how that's an appropriate mechanism for reviewing highly classified information related to national security.
Madam Chair, do you want me to continue until the meeting runs out? I'd like to start whenever we continue again. I'd like to have my name on the speakers list so I can continue speaking to this. I know members probably want to adjourn to go to question period soon.