Public Safety Committee on Oct. 18th, 2024

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

I'll continue, Mr. Chair.

Hopefully, I'm not interrupted because I hurt feelings, but further to our leader's letter to Justin Trudeau:

Furthermore, my Chief of Staff has received classified briefings from the government. At no time has the government told me or my Chief of Staff of any current or former Conservative parliamentarian or candidate knowingly participating in foreign interference.

This is in stark contrast to what the Prime Minister has alleged and what we've heard Ms. May flip-flop on from when she said she took the briefing to now and to what the NDP is claiming.

Our leader goes on to say:

If Justin Trudeau has evidence to the contrary, he should share it with the public. Now that he has blurted it out in general terms at a commission of inquiry — he should release the facts. But he won't — because he is making it up.

and:

...Justin Trudeau is doing what he always does: he is lying. He is lying to distract from a Liberal caucus revolt—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Hallan, it is inappropriate parliamentary language to refer to a member as “lying”.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

I just want to get some clarification. I'm reading a letter that was sent to the Prime Minister—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

It's not acceptable.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Thank you. I'll retract “lying”, but I will say that what our leader is saying in general is that Justin Trudeau is misleading. It's “what he always does”. He is distracting “from a Liberal caucus revolt against his leadership and revelations he knowingly allowed Beijing to interfere and help him win two elections.”

Later the letter states:

It is beyond rich for Justin Trudeau to grandstand, given that the record now shows that he and his government, with all the benefits of government agencies, were repeatedly warned about foreign interference — including within the Liberal Party — and refused to act.

It is Justin Trudeau and his government who repeatedly claim that they just weren't aware of foreign interference happening right under their noses, despite a paper trail of warnings from officials.

It is Justin Trudeau's government which mysteriously sat on a CSIS surveillance warrant application for a Liberal power-broker for fifty-four days.

It is Justin Trudeau's party that willingly allowed the PRC consulate to bus in PRC international high school students to vote in the now infamous Han Dong nomination race.

It is Justin Trudeau who has ignored [our leader's] calls to release the names of Parliamentarians referenced in this spring's NSICOP report who have wittingly worked for the benefit of foreign governments against the interests of Canadians.

This is nothing but a cover-up.

Once again, Justin Trudeau, with the help of the NDP, is just trying to distract away from the pain, misery and foreign interference they have allowed in this country after nine years. This is nothing but politics for these people. This has nothing to do with the safety and security of Canadians or the democracy that we should be upholding. The sovereignty of Canada is not being upheld by these parties. It is only the Conservative Party that is asking for full transparency and for the names to be released.

That's what this is all about. We're calling the bluff of this costly coalition, this cover-up coalition, now. Just release the names. Release the names of those MPs who are not working in the best interests of Canadians. It is that simple.

There should be no excuse now. There should be no reason for anyone to doubt that any parliamentarian who is duly elected to the House of Commons is working in the best interests of Canadians.

I also want to mention that it's this Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who admitted at the public inquiry that there are Liberal names and names from every party.

Conservatives are not scared of the names being released. We're saying to release the names now. Only the Liberals and the NDP in their cover-up coalition are afraid.

What we want to know is this: What do they have to hide? What do they have to hide? They're scared to go to an election because they're scared of Canadians, but they are wilfully letting foreign interference, which includes threats, violence, extortion and even alleged murder, happen in this country to Canadians, all so they can cover up their incompetency. This is nine years of Justin Trudeau with the help of Jagmeet Singh.

I'll make it clear one more time: The common-sense Conservatives are asking for the names to be released immediately so that Canadians can feel safe once again on Canadian soil.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

We'll go now to Ms. May.

Ms. May, go ahead, please.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To my friends and colleagues around the table, I make it very clear to my friend from Kildonan—St. Paul and to Melissa Lantsman as well that I haven't changed my position at all.

I don't own any flip-flops. I don't flip-flop; I stand on principle. I was trained as a lawyer—I'm honoured to have been admitted to the bars of Nova Scotia and of Ontario—and so, when I went through the process of getting top secret security clearance, I was very mindful of what I could and couldn't say.

I was quite sure when David Johnston, as former special rapporteur, opened the door for the first time that leaders of opposition parties could seek top secret security clearance and potentially obtain it—you don't get it as a right—had something in my past been uncovered that would make me subject to blackmail or intimidation or to being compromised through any form of interference, then I wouldn't have obtained top secret security clearance. I would have been denied it.

Now, I go to the matter of, “Did my story change?” No, not one bit. I read the unredacted version of the report of the committee of parliamentarians.

I think it's important for me to explain to my colleagues how I navigated this: How do you obtain top secret security clearance, read information that must, by law, remain secret, and still talk about it? Well, the answer is that you're careful as you navigate, and so, before I spoke publicly, I shared with security agencies the notes that I planned to use in the press conference.

I want my colleagues around the table to know that some things I had intended to say, which I thought would be non-controversial and not reveal any secrets, included the exact number of people who were considered “witting” or “semi-witting”.

I repeat again that I do not believe any of our colleagues currently serving in Parliament, at least in terms of the report I read.... There may be other information, and certainly the Prime Minister had other kinds of briefings that I haven't, but based on the text of the report of the committee of parliamentarians, into which our colleagues from the Liberal Party, Bloc Québécois, NDP and Conservatives put an enormous amount of work.... Our colleagues read 33,000 pages of top secret security material and condensed it into a report that they could all stand behind, and then, with some deletions and other modifications to make it publicly accessible, it became public information.

I was able to read the report unredacted. I stand by every word I said, but before I said a word—because I wasn't gagged, clearly, and I was able to talk about it—I went through my notes with security experts to make sure I didn't inadvertently violate any laws of Canada or place at risk any of our intelligence assets.

To my colleagues around the table, I want you to know that I actually edited and changed what I was going to say in the press conference, not taking out names but even the number of people who might be considered “semi-witting” or in any way potentially compromised. That's to say again—I repeat—that to my knowledge, no one currently serving in Parliament, in the House of Commons, was compromised or is serving the interests of a foreign government.

There are some people who were referenced as “semi-witting”, but I was told clearly that even the number, the numerical categorization of how many people might fall into that category, could not be said publicly without placing at risk the lives of our intelligence assets around the world.

I want my colleagues to understand that this isn't a game. This isn't politics. I'm not playing games here. I'm telling you how it is when you navigate, with top secret security clearance, what you can say and what you can't say. The amendment to this motion to release all the names sounds grand if you operate in ignorance of the law and of how security and intelligence operatives and intelligence and security information gathering operates in the real world, where there are bad people. We have to be careful as members of Parliament not to allow political rhetoric to get in the way of what we do to serve Canadians.

I just wanted to clear that up. I hope it helps. We can't just say, “Release all the names” unless we're operating in ignorance of the ongoing knock-on effects that it could have in terms of endangering the lives of intelligence assets of Canada.

I navigated this as carefully as I could because I think it's really critical that Canadians know as much as we possibly can share without violating national security.

I think this committee is on a good path in choosing to have an investigation. Again, I do believe it's important to clear up any suggestion that foreign interference had an impact on the Conservative leadership race. That's an obvious point. That's already out there in public. That's on page 32 in paragraph 72 of the public version of the committee of parliamentarians' report. I think Mr. Poilievre would want to know exactly what is referenced there and get a top secret security clearance. Unless there's some reason he thinks he won't get it, I can't see any reason why he wouldn't want to obtain it.

I think I've made it clear and I think Mr. Singh as leader of the New Democratic Party has made it clear—Mr. Blanchet is still in the process of getting his top secret security clearance—that we believe we can serve the people of Canada and share the information that we can share without breaking the law and help all Canadians understand.

Again, I wrote each individual leader of all the parties in the House of Commons to please get top secret security clearance so that we can meet as a group, as a unified force, and tell foreign powers, whether Russia or the People's Republic of China or India or any of the sources of foreign interference, that we operate in Canada as a solid wall and we tell foreign powers, “We're not giving you space here. We unify. We pull together.” For that, it would certainly be helpful if all the leaders of all the federal political parties obtained top secret security clearance so that we could work together without the risk of violating the security establishment and the safety and security of non-Canadians somewhere else around the world who are sharing information with our operatives. Those people must not be placed at risk because of reckless political rhetoric here at home.

I do wish that this committee is able to continue on the study and that the accusations of one party versus another are kept to a bare minimum. I guess it's impossible to avoid it altogether, but I haven't changed my story—not one bit. I do believe you can have top secret security clearance and navigate that responsibility. It's an onerous responsibility to respect the security establishment of this country, navigate it and share with Canadians that we have, in terms of elected members of Parliament, not one person who has actively worked against the interests of Canada.

There is, as we said, the category that the committee used, and the language that they used, of “witting” or “semi-witting”. It's unusual language, but that's the language they used. There are some people in that category. On my reading of the unredacted version of the report, the MPs in the semi-witting or witting category have not committed acts that fall into the category of proactive betrayal of their country's interests. Those names, and even the number of people in that category, I have been warned by people in our security establishment must not be shared publicly. Therefore, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that we can taunt various people to just make it all public. I'm not hiding anything. I do my best to be transparent. That's why I'm grateful for the chance to take the floor again.

I hope that has helped clear things up. I do hope we can all be on the same side here of getting as much information as we can. We've moved from where we were when David Johnston was made special rapporteur with the concern of how much foreign interests had interfered in our elections. We're now looking at very clear accusations that the RCMP uncovered—a network of operatives reporting to a criminal element within India, operating on Canadian soil to endanger lives. They're very different categories of foreign interference. They all require deep respect and a degree of caution in how we go forward so that we don't betray any information that must be kept secure and secret in the interests of our ability to work with Five Eyes partners and be understood to be a country where secure and secret information remains respected and stays secure and secret.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. May.

We go now to Mr. Uppal, followed by Mr. MacGregor.

Mr. Uppal, go ahead.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I must say that this committee started off discussing a very serious issue of national security, an issue of protecting Canadians, an issue of addressing the very serious matter where RCMP made allegations of murder, extortion, organized crime, intimidation and coercion by agents of the Indian government. There was agreement by this committee to move forward and address that. It's unfortunate that we have now gone to a place where we are discussing and debating how the NDP and the Liberals are working together to cover up names of MPs—not wanting to release names of MPs—who have not been working in the best interests of Canadians.

Ms. May talked about how she cannot release those names and that she, in fact, cannot take any action based on the information that she has because she has taken that clearance and read the names. She has the information, but she cannot release the names. She cannot do anything with that information. That is particularly the point. Receiving a secret briefing would, according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's own chief of staff, Katie Telford, prevent a recipient from using the information in any manner. Essentially, the person who receives the briefing would not be able to use or do anything with that briefing. It is a gag order. It doesn't allow that person to take any action or discuss it with the information that they have.

Then she goes on to say, “Even where that it is not the case, briefing political parties on sensitive intelligence regarding an MP could put the leader or representative of a political party in a tough position, because any decision affecting the MP might have to be made without giving them due process.”

That is why the better situation would be for the Prime Minister.... He brought this up at the Hogue commission. He's the one who came out and said that, yes, there are Liberals and members of other parties on that list. He should bring that information forward. He should bring it publicly. He should release those names. In that way, political party leaders can take action as they see fit, based on those names, based on that information. Otherwise, as Ms. May herself has said, you cannot take any action. You cannot discuss those names, and you cannot release them.

For that reason, that is a better way to go. Within the CSIS Act, there actually is a provision to be able to give the leader of a party sensitive information, pertinent information, especially when it comes to the national security of the nation. All of that process is available. Justin Trudeau, as the Prime Minister, can give that information to any political leader, or he can release those names publicly. We would say that he release them publicly, because if there are members of Parliament who have been elected by Canadian citizens, by their electorate, and who are not working in the best interest of Canadians, then that information should be made public. That is the best way to deal with this. Canadians deserve to know who these people are.

Let's get back to the situation that we originally were dealing with. We were on foreign interference, and this is coming out of that. With regard to foreign interference, there are a number of steps that could have been taken to protect Canadians. It's unfortunate that we are now, on this very serious issue of foreign interference, discussing the NDP and the Liberals playing political games when we should be discussing how we can stop foreign interference. One of the very serious allegations that the RCMP has made against agents of the Indian government is that they were taking part in the extortion of Canadians.

We have heard in the last number of months, for over a year now, that very serious cases of extortion are happening across the country. There have been shootings at homes. Homes have been burnt down; over a dozen newly built homes in Edmonton were burnt down. There are businesses that have been shot at, some alleged to have been directed by international gangsters. These are issues that we should be looking at and should be debating.

I brought forward a private member's bill, Bill C-381, that would have given stricter penalties to anybody who takes part in extortion with mandatory minimum sentences to keep extortionists in jail longer. There would have been a minimum penalty of at least three years if somebody were to commit extortion; a four-year mandatory minimum sentence if somebody were to commit extortion using a firearm; and a five-year mandatory minimum sentence if someone were to commit extortion in connection with organized crime.

This links back to exactly what the RCMP has alleged: that agents of the Indian government are working with organized crime in Canada, particularly an organized crime unit out of India, the Bishnoi group, to extort Canadians here on Canadian soil. That last provision would aim to convict anyone who is involved in organized crime and extortion with a minimum of five years in jail.

Unfortunately, all of the NDP members in the House of Commons, as well as the Liberals, voted against that bill. It is unfortunate that when we talk in this place about protecting Canadians, taking steps to ensure that Canadians are kept safe and ensuring that Canadians are able to express themselves freely, to have political opinions that are different from others and to do so in a peaceful manner, and solutions come forward, the Liberals and the NDP do not take action. They did not vote in favour of that bill. They essentially are saying that they are fine with not keeping extortionists in jail longer. That, again, really speaks to how serious they are about addressing these issues. The issue that we are dealing with right now goes along in the same manner. We should be discussing ways of stopping foreign interference from any country, including India, and not looking at ways to make cheap political points, as they are doing right now.

On the issue of security clearance, the same day that the RCMP made these very serious allegations, the Leader of the Opposition, Pierre Poilievre, received a briefing from Canada's security agencies. He received all of the information. He got the same briefing that the leader of the NDP, Jagmeet Singh, got. Provisions are there to be able to give the Leader of the Opposition the information that is required without gagging him and without his not being able to speak about that information or take action against that information.

When it comes to the names of members of Parliament who have not been working in the interests of Canadians or have been colluding with a foreign nation, this is actually an issue that the Prime Minister brought up. I know the Liberal member was saying that we should not suggest that some members of Parliament in this place may be colluding with a foreign government or cast aspersions on other members of Parliament. It was actually the Prime Minister himself who did so. Those names can and should be released. Canadians deserve to know who those members of Parliament are. No other individual, including a party leader, just like Elizabeth May said, can release that information. Nobody else can do that, but the Prime Minister can.

If there are serious national security issues that the Leader of the Opposition should know, CSIS has the ability, within the CSIS Act, to provide that information to the Leader of the Opposition—the future prime minister—to ensure that he can take appropriate action.

Instead of going down this path of the NDP helping the Liberals cover up these names and getting together to make these cheap political points, I think this committee should continue with what we originally started off with, which is dealing with the very serious issues of foreign interference, of Canadians being assassinated—murdered—on Canadian soil, of extortion taking place across the country, of organized crime being used by a foreign government and of the intimidation and coercion of Canadians. This is a matter of our sovereignty and our democracy, and this committee now has—because of the NDP and the Liberals—turned to trying to make cheap political points. I suggest that we get back to the very important issues.

There are a number of questions that we have and should have as Canadians. If the RCMP alleges that a foreign gang is using gangsters in Canada and international gangsters to carry out extortion and the other organized crime, intimidation, then how is it that those Canadians, those people, are in Canada? Why are those people in Canada?

The RCMP statement reads, “Through our national taskforce and other investigative efforts, the RCMP has obtained evidence that demonstrates four very serious issues”. These are issues that we should be addressing here. One is “Violent extremism impacting both countries”. This is an issue that this committee should be looking into. There is also “Links tying agents of the Government of India (GOI) to homicides and violent acts” that are happening here in Canada. There is “The use of organized crime”—they actually named an international gang—“to create a perception of an unsafe environment targeting the South Asian Community in Canada”, and “Interference into democratic processes.”

It also says, “Investigations have revealed that Indian diplomats and consular officials based in Canada leveraged their official positions to engage in clandestine activities”. These are very serious issues.

I must say that these issues are very serious, but they are also ones that have been very difficult to speak to Canadians about. I had a number of phone calls from members of the Sikh community and others from across the country, but I also had to have conversations with my children. They're old enough now to hear about information and news, and they're also concerned about what's happening in our country. I talked to many Canadians who said that it's not the same country that they came to, a country that has that safety and security. After nine years of this government, we are not as safe as many people used to believe and not as safe as people were.

There are a number of ways that information can be shared in order to protect Canadians. What the Prime Minister wants to do is have our leader gagged, essentially, sworn into secrecy and provided some information but then not be able to talk about it, to tell Canadians about it or to take any action on it. CSIS already has ways of providing that information to the leader. In fact, the Treasury Board Secretariat's policy on government security has provisions through which they can provide that information to the leader. Cabinet ministers and, possibly, privy councillors can be provided that information. There is the NSICOP, a committee, that has been provided that information.

As I said before, there are the threat reduction measures, commonly known as TRMs, under section 12.1 of the CSIS Act. This information can be provided to the Leader of the Opposition to be able to take action as appropriate.

As for the names of MPs who have been possibly working or colluding with, knowing or unknowingly, and the leaders of the different parties...because there are Liberals on that list. I believe the Prime Minister also said members of the NDP. I know that he specifically mentioned Conservatives to make that political point, but there are Liberals on that list as well. The leaders of those parties, if that information is provided properly, can take action as they see fit. I also think the information should be provided publicly.

As I said, I think it's important that we get back to the very important issue of foreign interference in this country. Let's drop this attempt at making political points here in this committee and work at taking steps to protect Canadians.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

We will go now to Mr. MacGregor.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to take the opportunity to address a few of the points that my Conservative colleagues have made. I am going to do so in a respectful manner, and I'm not going to resort to petty insults.

First of all, I raise this point because, given Monday's revelations, I think it is incredibly important for Canada to show a united front, and right now we're at a stage where the only federal party leader who is refusing to get top security clearance is Mr. Poilievre of the Conservatives. This has gotten to a stage now where his continued refusal to get this clearance is raising far more questions than is necessary.

I don't know what his motives are. I know the Conservatives keep on talking about him being gagged. It certainly hasn't prevented our leader, Jagmeet Singh, from talking openly and frankly about this in a way that does not risk top security information. Perhaps, for Mr. Poilievre, ignorance is bliss. Perhaps it allows him to continue talking on Twitter and to Canadians about things he knows absolutely nothing about, and maybe he simply wants to have that freedom to keep on spouting off nonsense and remain in ignorance. I don't know; that's up to him.

He can still refuse to take the clearance. This is simply asking him to do so. He is not even named in the motion. It simply asks that all federal party leaders get the necessary security clearance levels so that we can take the necessary actions to protect Canadians.

I do want to address some of the points that my Conservative colleagues have been making about how this would prevent a party leader from taking action. I completely disagree with that, and here's why. We know that in political parties, the leader wields an enormous amount of power. The leader is able to determine who in caucus has what parliamentary roles. The leader is able to determine who gets to run under the party's banner in the next election. They have to sign the nomination papers. If Mr. Poilievre were to get this security clearance, and if he were to learn of certain individuals within his own party—I'm not singling out the Conservatives, because we've heard allegations about members in the Liberal Party—what it would allow him to do is to take the necessary internal actions to perhaps isolate those individuals and, if it's very serious, to prevent them from running as members of Parliament under the Conservative Party banner in the next election.

He could do all of that without having to breach the top security rules in place that prevent the divulgence of this information. It is false to claim that he can't take action when, in fact, he could. If there's a compromised member of Parliament or someone who goes over the threshold of suspicious activities on behalf of a foreign power, Mr. Poilievre could prevent that individual from running in the next election, and that would inoculate us against having that person in the House of Commons in the 45th Parliament. That is a direct action that the leader could take.

I also take issue with the way the Conservatives are trying to frame the NDP. There are two members of our caucus for whom this issue is deeply personal and who have been directly impacted by this—Jenny Kwan and Jagmeet Singh—so I take great issue with their saying that we are doing this for politics.

This is a serious and personal issue for our party. It has directly impacted the lives of two of our caucus members, and that needs to be underlined. Both China and India have directly impacted two of my fellow caucus members. This is a very serious issue for us, and it is an issue that our leader takes very seriously. That is why he took the appropriate steps to get his security clearance, which allows him to take actions that I may not be privy to, but I can operate knowing that the leader has the information he needs to govern his own caucus accordingly. That's what we're asking every party leader to do within their respective caucuses.

To show the Conservatives that I do support our in some way releasing these names...because the other thing I want to also put on point is that I've had many conversations with members of the security and intelligence community, both at committee and in private conversations. These are their words, not mine: There is a wide gulf between evidence and intelligence. This needs to be underlined. We can't just go about releasing the names without understanding that key point.

I don't want to repeat what Ms. May said, but there is a very real danger that we could compromise the way we got that information. What the Conservatives are essentially asking us to do with their amendment right now is to potentially put our own intelligence operatives at risk. I think, for anyone who sits on this committee, that is completely unacceptable.

Again, these are not my words. These are words coming directly from the intelligence and security community. Conservatives know this, because they have heard those exact same words from those members at this committee table and in conversations they've had in private with those individuals.

Mr. Chair, I am going to propose a subamendment to Mr. Lloyd's amendment to my motion. His amendment was tacked onto the end. It simply said, “that we release the names of all members of Parliament and all parliamentarians who are alleged to have interfered and knowingly colluded with foreign powers.”

My subamendment to this would read as follows: “that the government release the names of all members of Parliament and all parliamentarians who are alleged to have interfered and knowingly colluded with foreign powers while protecting national security and those who gathered the intelligence.”

Jenny Kwan and our leader has said it very much on the record that we would love for the Canadian public to know these names. I hate the fact that I have to serve in the House of Commons with this cloud of suspicion hanging over us. I think Canadians deserve to know. It caused a huge uproar when that NSICOP report was released in June, but we also have to respect the very real concerns that our intelligence community has repeatedly relayed to this committee and its members. I do believe that, if there is a way of publicly releasing these names, it needs to be done in a very careful fashion. It needs to be done in a way that is fully coordinated with our national security and intelligence partners on this file.

I am not going to support just simply releasing the names with no context, but I will support a non-political, professional way of releasing the names that has the full support of members of the RCMP and CSIS. If Conservative members are willing to publicly say that they support the important work of those agencies, I hope they will support this subamendment to their amendment.

I'll conclude there, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

We are substantially over time. Our resources run out at 11:30 a.m., so at this point I will suspend. We will resume this discussion on Tuesday.

The meeting is suspended.

[The meeting was adjourned at 11:25 a.m., Friday, October 18, 2024]

[The meeting resumed at 11:05 a.m., Tuesday, October 22, 2024]

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome back to meeting number 124 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. We are resuming our meeting of Friday, October 18, 2024.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format.

I would like to remind participants of the following points. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. All comments should be addressed through the chair. Please raise your hand if you wish to speak, whether participating in person or via Zoom. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can.

We are resuming debate on the subamendment by Mr. MacGregor to the amendment by Mr. Lloyd to the motion by Mr. MacGregor.

Since we have some people here who weren't present on Friday, I'll read the motion as it currently stands:

That, given the Royal Canadian Mounted Police report on violent criminal activities linked to agents of the Government of India from October 14, 2024, the Hogue Commission's identification of foreign interference activities by Russia, Pakistan, China, and Iran, and the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians' special report on Foreign Interference in Canada’s Democratic Processes and Institutions, the Chair reports to the House that the committee calls for all federal party leaders to apply for the appropriate security clearance level in the next 30 days in order to review classified information and take necessary actions to protect Canadians.

Mr. Lloyd moved an amendment to that motion, as follows: “that we release the names of all members of Parliament and all parliamentarians who are alleged to have interfered and knowingly colluded with foreign powers.”

Mr. MacGregor modified it with this subamendment: “that the government release the names of all members of Parliament and all parliamentarians who are alleged to have interfered and knowingly colluded with foreign powers while protecting national security and those who gathered the intelligence.”

That's where we stand. We're starting a new speakers list. We have Ms. Dancho, followed by Mr. Lloyd. We will be vigilant in looking for hands going up.

With that, we will pass the floor to Ms. Dancho.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this subamendment.

I will note, Mr. Chair, I find it a bit disconcerting that we're talking about this motion, amendment and subamendment, in general. Given that even just today, with the latest news on the India affair, it would appear that Canadian officials, for example.... This subamendment is interesting, because it talks about protecting national security, which is obviously important.

Today, we learned that it would appear that national security officials in Canada leaked information to The Washington Post that Canadians weren't made aware of. The Washington Post journalists apparently have a greater right to know information about this India issue than Canadians.

That is something we could get into if we were studying the motion we all agreed to, which was to review the India affair and bring in various deputy ministers, the CSIS director, the RCMP commissioner, a number of security officials and other experts to testify on some of the information they knew and when they knew it. Why is it that The Washington Post knew before Canadians?

There are a number of issues, even putting that aside, that could fill in many of the blanks on this important issue that many Canadians are seized with, particularly Canadians in the Indian and Sikh communities.

It's a bit disconcerting that we're seeing various parties playing politics with this issue. Our party's been very clear on where we stand on this motion, and that's not going to change. Certainly, I feel we could get back to the matter at hand. I believe all parties are interested in learning more, particularly in light of the breaking news today out of The Globe and Mail from Bob Fife.

Certainly, Mr. Chair, I think we should be moving on and getting back to the study at hand. In particular, if we were focusing on the study that we passed as a committee, we could be asking the commissioner today, “Why is it that we had to learn from The Washington Post that the killing of an individual in Winnipeg had been linked to the whole India affair, in general? Why is it that we had to learn it in American news, and that the RCMP didn't release that to the Canadian public?” I would like to know that, amongst other things. We could be doing that today.

Instead, we're going to be focusing on playing politics. Unfortunately, this motion is from the NDP, with presumably Liberal support. We've made our position very clear on this, and that's not going to change.

I'd ask the members of other parties to consider getting back to the matter at hand, so we can focus on the India affair. Certainly, Mr. Chair, it would be worthwhile for this committee to immediately take up that study. I don't believe we could get to that today, but I would assume that, on Thursday, you could do the work to have various witnesses come and testify.

If we're looking at this, I feel that the subamendment, in general.... Overall, I feel it is implied within it, but perhaps, in general, this motion was not moved in the best of faith. We've made our position clear, as I said. I do feel we could be focusing on the matter at hand. I believe all members of this committee are intelligent, can fight from their corners with respect and, certainly, have information to put on the record that would be of public interest on the India affair issue.

Mr. Chair, again, just waking up today and hearing repeatedly, for example, from the Prime Minister and others, that all of these issues are classified and we can't talk about them, it just seems.... I don't believe this is the first time, in fact, that we've seen various members of American news outlets in the United States get information before we get it. I believe you'll remember, Mr. Chair, when there was that issue of the Chinese spy balloon. American news had more information about what Canadian intelligence knew than the Canadians themselves. This isn't the first time we've seen issues like this.

When we're talking about protecting national security, I would wonder what processes were followed when The Washington Post journalists were entitled to some of this information, and we weren't. I think that is of interest to this committee, certainly, as the public safety and national security committee. It should be with haste that we have a number of these witnesses come to testify. Perhaps, we'll have them testify more than once, given the importance of this issue.

I know we'll go through this today, but we've made our position very clear on this matter. We do not feel that this motion reflects the best interests of the duties of the opposition to hold the government accountable. That is our position, and that's not going to change.

Again, I'd ask other parties to consider that. If we can get to work as soon as Thursday on questioning members of CSIS, the RCMP and others, that would be of great public benefit by further understanding the details of this India affair.

I'll leave it at that for now, and I ask that you put me back on the speaking list.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thanks, Ms. Dancho.

We'll go to Mr. Lloyd, please.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to echo the comments made by my colleague Ms. Dancho. They are very apt and disturbing.

Information was shared with a foreign media outlet, The Washington Post, before Canadians were made aware of the situation involving the allegations that a foreign government, in this case India, has been sponsoring acts of crime in our country, which is of concern to all Canadians as our sovereignty is impacted in this case.

I think that, if the allegations made by The Globe and Mail are true, then it illustrates a greater point that speaks to the subamendment my colleague Mr. MacGregor put forward. He talks about how the release of the names must only be done in accordance with national security. I'll say that, at all times in my original amendment, it's implied that we will not violate the safety of agents who are in the field in the release of any information.

However, with the addition of this subamendment, I have concerns. It's clear to me that we have a government that feels that it can leak information if it's to its own political benefit. Information gets shared with groups like The Washington Post. Information is being leaked, like the Prime Minister outrageously at the Hogue commission selectively saying that he has information related to Conservative parliamentarians. I think that people in the media and across the country have rightly denounced and criticized that as a blatant partisan act by the Prime Minister.

We know from security officials that foreign interference is a broad issue across this country. For the Prime Minister to try to weaponize information that he's privy to in a way that is vague really puts a cloud of suspicion over all members of Parliament. Frankly, I think it devolves this foreign interference debate into a partisan debate when it really doesn't need to be. We will call this out. We will hold this government accountable when they put their own partisan interests above the national security of our country.

We know that this is a Prime Minister who's facing an internal revolt. He's facing numerous pressures. He's attempting to distract in any way he can by outrageously using selective information curated solely to benefit himself politically and not to benefit the national security of our country.

I will note that this all could have been avoided. Our House leader, the Honourable Andrew Scheer.... In the wake of findings from the NSICOP report that there were members of Parliament who were compromised by foreign interference, Conservatives put forward a way that would respect our national security in a letter that was put forward to Parliament. It requested that the Hogue commission be given a broader set of powers and a broader mandate and receive the unredacted information needed in order to reveal, when possible, the names of members of Parliament or other parliamentarians, both current and former, who have been implicated in foreign interference.

I think it's only fair that those members of Parliament who are involved be notified about this. They're under a cloud of suspicion, and they need to have the ability to clear their names if they are innocent. Canadians need to be given a chance to, you know.... There will be an election by October 2025, guaranteed. Canadians need to know that the air needs to be cleared and that our Parliament is free from these serious allegations of foreign interference.

I'm sure that, if this Liberal government had its way, Canadians wouldn't even know that foreign interference was happening in this country. We saw the lengths that this government went to to hide this very serious information and the lengths it went to even to outright deny that foreign interference was happening.

In the case of Minister Blair, when he came to this committee in his role as Minister of Emergency Preparedness and answering for his tenure as Minister of Public Safety, he said they had received no evidence that there was foreign interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections. This was the Minister of Public Safety saying this in 2022, and we now know, from the Hogue commission and from information what's been shared in the public space, that there was indeed foreign interference that affected at least eight ridings in the 2021 election.

I feel very personally about this, because one of those members of Parliament was a good friend, Kenny Chiu, in Richmond. His name was slandered, and it was found to have been done by agents of a foreign government that was using its arm in Canada and numerous assets in Canada to spread falsehoods that Mr. Chiu, a man of Chinese descent himself, was attempting to create a foreign agent registry that was going to list all Canadians of Chinese descent. It's a patently ridiculous, absurd and ludicrous idea, yet, as we've seen with foreign misinformation and disinformation campaigns, a lie can spread around the world before the truth has a chance to tie its shoes. Kenny Chiu was a victim of that.

There were a number of other Conservative MPs in particular who, to the benefit of Liberal MPs in all of these cases, coincidentally, lost their elections because of this foreign interference. If it had not been for leaks from our national security apparatus and if it had not been for the work of the Hogue commission and enterprising journalists like Sam Cooper, Canadians would have never known about this serious threat to our country's national security. They would have never known the depths and the extent to which foreign powers, be they numerous, are attempting to influence our country, intimidate politicians and intimidate diaspora communities in our country so they don't participate in politics or they vote out of fear instead of in their own self-interest.

To see that be allowed to happen.... I saw a journalist tweet on X the other day that the Canada of 2015 seems so quaint now after nine years of this Liberal government. Certainly, we can't rule out foreign interference prior to 2015; however, the extent of the foreign interference that we've seen in the last nine years proliferating under this Liberal government is shocking.

If you took somebody who was here in 2015 and they could travel forward in time and they woke up in 2024, they'd be shocked at what has happened to their country—what has happened to our country—where not just one country but multiple countries with different complicated layers of intrigue are actively interfering in our democratic system and in our public debate, yet we have a government that said it wasn't even happening just a few short years ago.

We had here, previous to this motion coming forward, a motion to explore the very serious issue of foreign interference in relation to the alleged threats of India threatening Canadian citizens, particularly citizens of the Sikh community. These are very serious allegations, and the fact that we're not studying that right now, I think, is problematic.

I understand that we're dealing with a motion here today related to clearances. We have a Prime Minister who has access to this top secret information and has chosen to weaponize it for his own partisan ends and has, having had this information, failed to act for nine years.

In the case of one serious allegation involving a former Liberal member of Parliament, the Prime Minister, who had been fully briefed on the issues related to that member of Parliament, stood up in the House and said that he looks forward to welcoming him back to caucus in the future. For the Prime Minister, with the knowledge that he has, to make a claim like that is absolutely shocking.

It's only because this information has not been transparent or has not been shared and has been basically kept, keeping Canadians completely in the dark, that this has been allowed to continue. The government has been able to get away with the selective release of national security information for the purpose of keeping Canadians in the dark about their members of Parliament.

The fact is that there's been lots of talk about the importance of getting these security clearances. However, it's also been noted quite effectively that even with these security clearances, there is basically nothing that any member of Parliament can do to act on this. It's been said earlier that the names can't be revealed.

If a leader of a party were to get clearance and receive information that one of their members was compromised by a foreign state, they couldn't kick that member out of caucus because, if there was a risk, as has been said, that the information about that member had been gathered clandestinely by a member of our intelligence or our allies' intelligence, then it could compromise them.

I don't know what people expect when the Prime Minister, who has had this information for years—he's had this information for as long as he's been Prime Minister—failed to act in numerous cases within his own party. He has not removed a single member from his caucus. There was a member who left caucus voluntarily, but the Prime Minister has failed to act on these issues.

I don't know how they can expect any other leader in this Parliament to be able to act on this information, especially when this information was ostensibly supposed to be shared with the chief of staff of the Conservatives. They're being told that it's on a need-to-know basis. Well, I think the chief of staff needs to know. I think certainly the chief of staff to the Prime Minister knows this information. I know the chief of staff of the Conservative Party to be a man of honour and a man of integrity. I think that's entirely suitable.

What we will not accept is a situation where our leader, who has been fighting the fight on foreign interference publicly in the House of Commons, would in any way be restricted in his ability to hold this Liberal government to account.

We have Conservatives who are members of the NSICOP committee. We have a chief of staff who has top secret security clearance. We have all the tools that the government says we should have at our disposal, yet what I see here from the NDP and the Liberals is just a blatant attempt to prevent the Leader of the Opposition from doing his constitutionally mandated job, which is to hold this government accountable for its failures. I think one of its chief failures is going to be remembered as its lack of action on foreign interference, which has allowed us to get to this point today.

With that, I'd like to get back to the very important debate that we're having about India. I was really sad to see that we didn't receive unanimous consent in the House yesterday. I heard a Liberal member deny consent for starting a committee to deal with this very important issue.

With that, I would like to move a motion to adjourn, and I'd like a recorded vote, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Are we voting to adjourn debate on the motion?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

It was a motion to adjourn the meeting.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

No, it's to adjourn debate on....

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

That would then call a vote on the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

The motion is to adjourn debate on the subamendment.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Technically, I think the whole motion gets adjourned if there's a motion.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

No, we're on the subamendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We're on the subamendment, so we're going to take this as a motion to adjourn the subamendment.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I would maybe ask the clerk to clarify this: If you call a vote to adjourn debate, is that only debate on the subamendment or is that debate on the entire motion?