Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks for bringing this forward to the committee.
As my colleagues have already said, the news and allegations from the RCMP are certainly concerning, and I think this committee is the right place to be seized with that.
Furthermore, any interference from any country, including India, is entirely unacceptable and should be stopped. It is the government's first job to keep Canadian citizens safe from all of these foreign threats and the foreign interference that we know has been happening in the country for some time.
For nine years, the Liberal government has failed to keep Canadians safe and has failed to take national security and foreign interference seriously, and Canada has become a playground for these activities. We have heard that over and over again, and we hear it over and over again from experts. I suspect that the witnesses at this committee would not try to hide that. Canadians need to know what and when, and they need to know why it took so long for the government to act. This is just another example of the Prime Minister's failure on foreign interference.
We heard the Prime Minister at the commission admit that our intelligence agencies have been gathering this information for years, indicating that India had been committing foreign interference on Canadian soil, and it's very clear that the Prime Minister had done nothing about it. Even when provided the opportunity to do something about it and protect Canadians against extortion and the violent actions that the RCMP has brought to light that Indian officials have engaged in, they voted against Bill C-381, the protection against extortion act, in the House of Commons, which was brought forward by my colleague.
At every single juncture, the Prime Minister has not acted on the information that he has. I think this committee, and those watching this committee, should know that. His government stalled for years on the creation of a foreign influence registry, and it was only introduced as a result of Conservative pressure.
For those watching this at home, I hope this committee reveals the inaction of the Prime Minister over his years of knowing information and his continued inaction, as we heard about just this week, in letting Canada become a playground for foreign interference. That's on him.
I hope this committee gets to the bottom of all of this.
Thanks, Mr. Chair.