There are certain agencies that are identified with promoting interests that favour greater engagement between Canada and China. For example, the Canada China Business Council, the Asia Pacific Foundation, and the China Institute at the University of Alberta are all institutions that enjoy funding, some of them from Chinese sources. In fact, the China Institute at the University of Alberta received 10 years of sustaining funding from a Chinese billionaire who is vice-chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. The University of Alberta will not say how much money or the terms of that funding, but one gets the feeling that if the University of Alberta's China Institute produced a report that was supportive of this bill, that funding might terminate.
You have these very complicated relationships and interactions between people in the government and these agencies that are troubling to me. Senator Woo, for example, was associated with the Asia Pacific Foundation for quite a long time and continues to support their purposes in Canada. I can think of three ambassadors who are working in China trade. I don't think there's any harm in my mentioning John McCallum as someone who has been highly regarded by China, because the Chinese have said that in as many words. I believe they've referred to him as the “son of China”. There are others whose relationship I feel a little bit uncomfortable about. We have some cabinet ministers who are also working on things relating to China, which then causes me to wonder how they were performing when they were in a position of public trust.
Because we don't have this commissioner set up yet, all of it is just smoke and mirrors. I can't condemn people. I think that if anybody was doing anything illegal, our RCMP would be pursuing it. However, I just feel that there does seem to be a lot of Chinese influence in our country, which is why we have the commission going. We need to root it out.
This legislation is particularly important in trying to maintain our security and sovereignty against a foreign threat.