Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, colleagues, for taking the time. I know we've been in discussion for many hours.
At the crux of this, there are two things that really strike home for me.
I'd like to thank my colleague Ms. O'Connell. I'm a Jewish woman, and she really highlighted the impacts of misinformation and disinformation when they become the crucible for fostering and fomenting hate against the many communities that are a part of our diverse and inclusive Canada.
My colleague Mr. Fergus talked about the importance of being reasonable and the importance of measured and important discussions. We always have to remember why we are here. We are here to represent our communities. We are here to make sure that their voices are heard, that they have a sense of knowing we have their backs and that we will stand up for what is right.
What is right is that so many of us came from so many parts of the world to choose Canada because it is safe, it is a place of diversity and it is a democracy. Many of us came from different places, whether it's us or members of our families, who may be second-generation or third-generation Canadians, and we made a choice to be part of a country that is anchored in democratic principles. We have a sense of collective responsibility towards one another and our communities to ensure the institutions that were built.... We have the privilege and very acute and heavy responsibility to uphold the reflection of our communities and to uphold the principles we were put here to represent—those of our communities and our neighbourhoods.
Colleagues referenced the convoy of last year. They referenced several Conservative members who met with Christine Anderson from AfD, and my community members in York Centre were appalled by this. They were hurt last year. When I was walking through the convoy on a daily basis, I saw Jewish Stars of David as buttons. I saw swastikas flown. I know that, at the core, many of the speeches by the leadership of the convoy were really about marginalization and about distrust of minority and ethnic communities, which are part of the fabric of this country.
The fuel to the fire of the convoy, and what happened on January 6 the year prior, was really misinformation and disinformation spreading at warp speed. Where does it spread? It spreads online. It's the power of the platforms.
About 98% of Canadians are online on various platforms, and when we think of every age, every background and every community from coast to coast to coast, there's no doubt that digital platforms and social media platforms become lifelines for communication. They certainly were for many during the pandemic. They also keep our diverse communities informed and in touch with friends and family who live abroad. That's the nature of the world we live in today. It's also a place where misinformation and disinformation can fester, grow and create stereotypes, racist tropes and hatred toward communities. It moves at warp speed.
A perfect example of that was in a recent Toronto Star article. It said that concerns about foreign interference are based on speculative information. They're not based on facts. They're not based on clear markers of information that have been provided. It's a lot of talk, and it's moving at warp speed. I want to lean into what happens when misinformation and disinformation move at warp speed.
I've heard members of the Chinese community talk about the fear of anti-Asian hate against them, yet again. They just endured two years or more of that through the pandemic. We're now moving down into a rabbit hole rather than having constructive and clear discussions about how we ensure that all of our institutions are safe and secure and that Canadians know they are voting in a democratic process with as little influence as possible—or none, frankly.
We now have communities that are afraid of being questioned over their right to be here. I speak about that from a personal perspective. It's no secret that aside from being Jewish, I am Israeli, and I get accused of dual loyalties all the time as part of anti-Semitic tropes. It's one of the oldest forms of hate. We could go as far back as the Dreyfus trials, which were about dual loyalties.
Frankly, I cannot believe that in 2023, we are here, and this kind of hatred could potentially bubble to the surface. It already has for some communities, as Ms. O'Connell mentioned. Muslim communities, Jewish communities and many other communities are feeling marginalized and isolated right now because of the spread of misinformation and disinformation. This is no different.
Partisan foils are being thrown out without any sense of accountability by Conservatives in what they are putting into the Twitterverse and in how they speak. There's no apology either. I haven't heard the Leader of the Opposition be public and firm about members who dined with Christine Anderson. As a member of Parliament who represents a predominantly Jewish community, I find abhorrent and offensive, as do members of the Muslim community, her anti-Islam views, her Holocaust denial views and her lack of responsibility in understanding the facts of history.
We've seen the power of this in other forms. It was the Russian foreign minister who, in his disgusting justifications of the illegal war against Ukraine, claimed there were Nazis in Ukraine whom Russia was trying to foil, or that, alternatively, Russian soldiers will be enduring a Holocaust in fighting the war.
This kind of rhetoric, this type of use and abuse of language and this Holocaust denial seem to be free flowing through Twitter and other social media platforms. We see the same weaving and turning of language being used by colleagues across the way when it suits them, or they close their eyes to it when it suits them. Frankly, it doesn't suit Canadians. It doesn't suit our many communities, whether it be the Chinese community, the Muslim community, the Jewish community or any other community, to become weaponized by the type of partisan behaviour we're seeing from colleagues across the way. It makes me very sad.
When we talk about recreating trust, we must do it by what we model, what we do and the actions we take. To be fast and loose with language.... The Leader of the Opposition called NSICOP a secret committee, but it's far from being a secret committee. It was a committee put in place by this government, understanding full well that there are issues of national security impacting the daily lives of Canadians, whether they relate to espionage, cybersecurity, defending our borders or making sure we keep terrorism out.
I come from a country where terrorism is rife and where security is a paramount issue on a day-to-day basis. There's an understanding, at least where I come from, that there are things we can talk about with transparency but some things get talked about behind closed doors. In order for the good work to be done to protect state security, sometimes not everything can be public right away; it needs to be reviewed.
NSICOP was set up for exactly that purpose, and it's not a partisan committee by any sense of the imagination. It is a place where all members from every party are sworn in to have unfettered access to secure documents in this country to know what is happening in terms of surveillance and intelligence studies and to understand how we keep Canadians safe and keep our systems free of foreign interference.
There are no secrets in that committee. Everyone is free to ask the questions they need to ask. Everyone sees the same unredacted and clear documents they need to see so they can weigh in on some of the most serious matters of state security and safety. Sometimes that information can't come out right away, as it may be happening in real time. It may be that they are following a trail to understand where.... I lived overseas, and when tracking terrorist cells, it can take weeks, months or even years to understand the web of information that needs to be gathered to identify perpetrators and act proactively, either to prevent harm or to mitigate continued harm if some harm had been done already. How do we put cracks or a break into patterns of espionage and interference?
Some tell the public, really recklessly, that it is a secret committee and that only the Prime Minister can decide. Well, no, this is Parliament. We've all been elected to uphold the institutions of this place. Even Vern White, a former Conservative senator, acknowledged the fact that there's an entire structure around NSICOP to ensure the work being done there is done carefully and that it has the capacity to do important work, such as inquiring about and doing a study on foreign interference. To him, it's a good tool to use for this issue.
However, my Conservative colleagues continue to spread misinformation about this and to paint a picture of systems that, frankly, when they were in power.... When the leader was in power, he chose not to address this because it wasn't within his interests to do so. How denigrating is that? It wasn't in their interests to do this. As a governing minister, it wasn't in his interest.
Really? Our interests are the interests of Canadians. Our interest to uphold trust and a sense of belief that our institutions are free and clear of foreign interference, and to know that Canadians can choose their elected officials with their own convictions and without fear, intimidation, influence, misinformation and disinformation, is frankly an obligation. Each and every one us sitting in this Parliament has a role to play in ensuring that this system stays in place.
Time and time again, I see the Conservatives picking and choosing what works for them and what doesn't work. The Leader of the Opposition said so. He didn't work on this during his time because he chose not to.
I sit on the ethics committee, and the Conservatives, through Mr. Barrett, brought a motion there for a foreign interference study as well. Mr. Fergus, who is here, and I had lengthy discussions on it. Frankly, we weren't against doing the study. We said that would be fine. We just wanted to extend the scope. We wanted to make sure we weren't looking at just 2019 or 2021 but that we would go back, because we know this has been a growing issue for some time. It's no secret. The leader of the opposition said so himself. He knew about it; he just didn't deal with it. We decided to go back.
At this moment, it's about China. However, we also know there's foreign interference from other countries. While China may be the main perpetrator at this moment in time, we know that Russian foreign interference has had an impact, particularly when it came to U.S. elections. It spreads perniciously through these social media platforms at warp speed. It is difficult for us to track it, trace it and identify it.
That is why we have these discussions. As my colleague Mr. Fergus has said, they need to be responsible. They need to be reasonable. They need to take into account the real concerns that Canadians have and recognize that Canadians in this country come from everywhere. They come here with a sense that they've come to safety, that they've come to a place where they can participate openly in a democratic process that is fair and free. Then they see the language used by some of the members across the way, who describe this as secretive, as collusive, as evasive. I could go on. The point is, how are we building trust in Canadians?
I say this for all of us. I would caution my Conservative colleagues that it works both ways. It's not just about a Liberal government, and it's not just about members from the Bloc or the NDP. It is our Conservative colleagues as well. This type of mistrust gets sown equally among all politicians, among all parliamentarians, because it erodes trust in the system. I caution my colleagues about that, because they too are part of the system. However, they pick and choose when they are participants in it and when they are not.
We continue today to try to find the path forward on this motion, and if they are truly interested in working on behalf of Canadians to get to the bottom of this, I would remind them about my constituents in York Centre from the Chinese community who have come and asked me, “Do I belong here?” I would remind them of my own experience of being accused of having dual loyalties. I would remind them that we all have a responsibility, a deep and profound responsibility, to ensure that trust in our democratic institutions means that our communities can trust that the exploration and assessment of information in the work we do here in these committee rooms, whether it's at NSICOP, PROC or the ethics committee, is done in a way that gets to heart of the problem. The heart of this problem is the pernicious spread of misinformation and disinformation that is used to ratchet up emotions and ratchet up hate.
My colleague Mr. Fergus and I, when we were at the ethics committee, put forward a motion at one point, because we really did want to do an expansive study on foreign interference and go back. We wanted to include an amendment to the proposed study that would include the impacts of xenophobia and racism as a result of foreign interference. We actually had to wrestle and tug that out with colleagues across the way. For shame. We represent all of our communities here and a diverse and vibrant country with a strong democracy that we have a responsibility to uphold.
I would caution my colleagues across the way about the potential recklessness of using certain language or meeting with individuals who utilize that language, such as the member from the AfD, who quite a number of them felt comfortable dining with. Remember that we model what we see, and we know that Canadians are watching what we do. When they are so cavalier and so willing to use language that results in consequences that make our communities feel at risk, and when they say that it's done in the name of upholding our institutions without using the appropriate tools we have and are willing to discuss more, they are doing a gross disservice to Canadians, our democratic institutions and our systems.
I'll leave it there, Madam Chair. I've said my piece for the moment. I'm sure there are others who want time on the floor, so I will cede my time.