Public Safety Committee on Nov. 7th, 2024

[An hon. member]

Who's filibustering?

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

A Conservative member is heckling me, but the truth of the matter is that Conservatives brought forward a motion that deleted “India” in all future studies.

If that motion had India included as the main focus of the first study that we finished with Russian disinformation, I thought I could say that they want to make a longer-term plan of programming this committee. That wasn't the intent. They can't pull the wool over the eyes of Canadians as much as they want to try to. The intent was to deliberately avoid studying this issue, because Conservative Party politicians are involved in electoral interference by a foreign government or governments. In this case, it's government, as witnesses have said. Could it be governments? I don't know if Conservative members....

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Careful.

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

Let's not heckle.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Mr. Chahal has the floor.

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

We'll get ready. I guarantee my heckling will be far worse than yours.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Order.

That's my first order.

We're going to stop the cross-talk, and we're going to let Mr. Chahal speak, because he does have the floor.

Thank you.

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

Well, of course I expected to be heckled by members across the floor for speaking the truth here. I was told to be “careful”. What should I be careful of?

[An hon. member]

It sounds like a threat.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

It sounds like a threat.

You know what? I've been threatened my whole life by folks. I'm not going to back down from a threat.

What I am going to do is that I'm just stating here what our two witnesses stated at the one meeting I attended. We have another four meetings, and I don't even know if four meetings will get to where we're going, but I want to get to four at least.

I do appreciate Mr. MacGregor for realizing that the Conservative motion was a complete avoidance of studying India and for bringing forward an amendment, which we're discussing right now. I think that's what we need to do. I don't think this committee should be programming a motion when we have the study of Russian interference and disinformation, the study of electoral interference, which is in meeting two, and the criminal activities of agents of the Government of India under way, with the important auto theft study that we have also and needs to be completed.

I will take time to further reflect on this amendment, but on the amendments that may be brought forward, what are some proposed amendments that I would personally, without talking to my colleagues across the floor—and I'd love to collaboratively have a moment to speak with them to see if they're actually interested in moving the important work of this committee forward and what amendments could I support.

Now, six meetings, that's what we need to focus on. Could it be eight? Possibly, but I think we need to do our six before we think about maybe future meetings. That's what I'm thinking. I am open to other opportunities to hear from members in their debate on whether—and I hope Conservative members will provide a rationale on why—they believe excluding India was important for them in their motion, because that is what we're studying here today.

Will they provide that rationale or will they go down a different path? I don't know. However, as I conclude my remarks in a few minutes here, this is an issue of accountability and transparency, which members of the Conservative Party so often talk about in election campaigns: “We stand for accountability. We stand for transparency. The public should know.” The public should know. Where's the accountability when this committee had an approved motion that members agreed on? Where's the transparency to the public? Where's the honesty? I don't see their leader showing or displaying any of that, and I'm referring to Mr. Poilievre because he has not had a security clearance.

We are accountable to the electorate. I will be looking forward to going to the next election and standing and fighting on this issue and many others that are important to my community. I look forward to the Conservative Party candidates who are going to run against me, if one ever gets a nominator or if their leader appoints somebody, which probably is what will happen. That's their belief in democracy: picking and choosing who the candidates are across the country to avoid nomination battles. Because of interference...? I don't know. What are they worried about? Having a nomination meeting where people can debate issues publicly on the important foreign policy issues or important domestic issues...?

Conservatives never show up to debates as well. Yes, I remember that. In my last campaign, we had several debates, and the Conservative Party member opposite never showed up to a debate. I would love to debate, in my riding, my next opponent. I've also challenged certain Conservative Party members to run against me, if they believe that I'm not worthy of being the elected representative of the future riding of Calgary McKnight. I haven't heard from that member yet.

I'm also saying to members that I'm looking for competition. I thrive on it. I'm used to hearing Conservative members talking a big game, but I'm also looking for one to take the nomination and to run against me in a public open nomination fight that they will have in their own party. That's democracy. Hand-picking a candidate to run against someone, which we've seen in a number of ridings, or disqualifying candidates for having a difference of opinion is not democracy.

I want to thank members of this committee. I know I took a bit of time in the last meeting, and I am taking a few minutes in this meeting as well to collect my thoughts. I do have a lot more to say, Mr. Chair, and I thank you for taking the time to listen.

I know that as you're a member of the Sikh community, you will understand the deep concerns that I have and the concerns of the communities that we represent across Canada. I really hope that the Indian government takes action within its own country, in its own judicial system, against members of its country who have been involved in any sort of interference in Canada so that we can bring justice to the families who have lost loved ones, whether it was from the Sikh genocide in 1984 or whether it is to the family of Bhai Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who is asking for justice so that they could take action according to their democracy.

We as parliamentarians should take the appropriate action at this committee and in Parliament to ensure that we continue to protect Canadians and that we continue to bring forward recommendations and to bring improvements through the work of this study so that Canadians of all faiths, in all communities in this great nation of Canada, can feel safe. That can only be done if we go through these important studies. I look forward to supporting, potentially, the amendment.

I am going to reflect on some of the issues the clerk raised when he read out the original motion that Conservative members brought forward to exclude India in the study, and Mr. MacGregor brought forward the amendment to include it. I think I do have some further reflections, and Mr. Chair, I will want to be put back on the speaking list at some point. I will reflect in the meantime and will collect my thoughts to engage in further debate.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and congratulations on your first day as chair of this committee. I look forward to working with you and committee members as we move forward.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chahal, for your remarks.

Next on the speaking list is Ms. Dancho.

Go ahead, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and congratulations to you on your first day as chair of this committee. It's certainly a significant role, and we wish you the best of luck.

Also, on behalf of Conservative members, I wish Mr. McKinnon very well in his next chapter and appreciate his efforts on this committee.

I'm glad to speak to our Conservative motion. We really haven't had the opportunity to put any words on the record, I think, since we first moved it, so I appreciate being able to speak, Mr. Chair. Certainly, I worked diligently to craft that motion with my colleagues. Mr. Chair, you would have heard before you were in the role of chair that Conservatives have concerns that we don't have a schedule in this committee.

Previous iterations of this committee have had an agreed-upon schedule where we ensure that the motions are debated. Then we agree on what we're going to study and in what order. We have a situation at this committee that's been noted by a number of different parties: that there hasn't been consistency. For example, we don't officially know what we're studying on Thursday, or next Tuesday, or the Thursday after. That has been in discussion for a number of weeks, and we've been asking the chair, the former chair of this committee, to bring forward a calendar of events to anticipate things regarding what we've already passed. That was not done. Our thought process on this motion was to put forward sort of an order that we can agree to as a committee and have that debated to formalize what we're going to study.

As you'll recall, Mr. Chair, all parties agreed to a minimum of six meetings for the India study. The Russia study does not have any number of meetings, which is a bit unusual. It's not unprecedented, but it's a bit unusual certainly in my experience to have a study with no agreed-upon number of meetings. It's odd, and it doesn't allow us to make any definitive plans for future studies or issues. When we put together the motion in its original form, our aim was certainly to have a number of meetings, eight, on the Russia study. We thought that would make sense. That's a pretty standard, respectable, long study. Since we agreed to six on India and since I know the Liberals want to bring back the social media platforms.... They also want to summon—we, as a committee, want to summon, in fact—a number of other witnesses who have refused to come willingly on the Russia study. That's two more meetings; that's fair enough.

On India, we've had two meetings already, meaning we have four left. Because we've already agreed to six meetings on India, we didn't feel it was necessary to include it. Russia is specifically mentioned so that we can put a number on how long we want that study to be. Again, eight seems very reasonable. The India is six; that seems reasonable. Those are lengthy robust studies. That is the objective, first and foremost, of the first paragraph in the original motion.

I showed that original motion to my NDP and Bloc colleagues, and we had a good discussion about that. It was verbally implied and explicitly talked about that, of course, we'd finish India in the six we agreed to and that we'll do eight on Russia.

I do appreciate Mr. MacGregor's moving an amendment just to clarify on the India study. That has been a very robust study. I really appreciate the opportunity to hear from the CSIS director, the national security adviser and others, and we look forward to doing those six meetings, as agreed upon. If we want more, then, of course, we can do that. However, it certainly was not left out as a purposeful manoeuver of some kind. It was just that we've already agreed to six, so that doesn't need to be explicitly said in the motion. Russia does not have an agreed-upon number of meetings, so we have suggested eight.

Then, of course, we agreed as a committee.... Actually, the NDP brought forward a motion in essence about mental health and the impact of substance abuse and other things. We agree that's obviously a very important issue. There have been 40,000 people killed in Canada because of that, and it's really causing a lot of chaos, mayhem, crime and pain in vulnerable communities and to other innocent people in our cities and elsewhere. We agree very much that we should study that. He hadn't formally moved that motion, but he put it on notice a number of weeks ago. We do think that's something we can all agree to study as a committee. Really, the NDP wanted to move it for him because we know it was important to him.

Then, of course, the other motion mentioned in there to be included is the study that I brought forward to review and bring an expert testimony on violence against women and children, including sexual violence. For example, I'm sure everyone in this committee is aware—we all read the news—that just a few weeks ago a mother was murdered in front of her kids in broad daylight in a park not too far from here in Ottawa. It was presumably by her intimate partner, who just jumped out of a car, stabbed her repeatedly and slit her throat in front of her kids. Unfortunately, there's a lot of that going on in this country.

In fact, certain jurisdictions in Ontario specifically have declared femicide to be at a crisis level. I think one woman is murdered every two days in Canada. In some areas, it's even more. Obviously, that's a critical issue of public safety. We need to hear from police services across the country and others involved in that violence on how to prevent it and how to deal with the perpetrators to ensure that justice is brought to them.

In essence, that was the thought process behind this, Mr. Chair. It was an effort to bring forward a schedule and a recognition that we have agreed, as a committee, to study India for at least six meetings. We had not agreed on a number of meetings for Russia. We proposed eight and a number of other issues.

Oh, there's also the last one. My apologies. I forgot. The last part of that amendment was to bring back the ministers of public safety and immigration, which we'd agreed to as a committee, to answer on their investigation of that father-son duo who had come in through the immigration stream and were planning to do a terrorist attack in Toronto. Many have had concerns that it was on the Jewish community. As well, there was the Pakistani gentleman on a student visa here in Canada who was on his way to Brooklyn, New York, to murder Jews on the first anniversary of October 7.

We had agreed, again as a committee, to a lot of the things in this motion. The objective of this, which I wrote—unless other members want to call me a liar, which I welcome them to do and would be happy to address—was to set a calendar. We welcome debate on that and competing priorities and what have you, but certainly Conservatives have agreed to the India study. We've agreed to the Russia study. We've a lot to learn in those studies.

There are many members from particularly the Sikh community in my riding. I've consulted with them at length. I am very aware of how critical this issue is to that community, and frankly to all Canadians. The idea that a foreign government is looking to murder people on Canadian soil is just such an affront to our safety as Canadians but also our sovereignty. We've all put words on the record on that. To suggest that we don't want to study India is just patently false. There's a lot that's been said that I don't think really needs to be addressed from the Liberals, but that's certainly our intention with this motion. We hope we can get a real calendar together so that we can actually have a functioning committee.

I will say that it's been over a meeting and a half, Mr. Chair, that all of our work has been stopped because of this filibuster. I just find it odd that when an argument is being made about “we need to study this issue, we need to study that issue, but there's a filibuster going on”, from those making that claim, it just doesn't really hold water, obviously. If they want to study it, let's get to work. That's what we're trying to do. We very much support Mr. MacGregor's amendment in that regard.

I would also say that you are aware, Mr. Chair, that we had put forward a Standing Order 106(4) letter. It was recently just revealed in the news—it's shocking that we didn't learn about this sooner—that just under a year ago, there was an ISIS plot to bomb Parliament Hill, particularly a Jewish—

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

I have a point of order, Chair.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Go ahead, Ms. Damoff.

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

Thank you, Chair.

The 106(4) has nothing to do with the debate we're having right now.

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

I'll get to the point of why I mentioned it.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Sure. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, if I'm able to finish what I was saying, I'm talking about the 106(4) to make the point that we're not able to discuss any other issue at this committee if there's a filibuster going on and there are important issues. One of those is the news that there was a bombing plot on Parliament Hill. The leader of the Conservative Party was there. Our deputy leader was there. There were two Liberal members of Parliament. In fact, the former minister of public safety was at that gathering. A whole host of other innocent Canadians, particularly from the Jewish community, were there. It is shocking that it took parliamentarians 10 months to learn about what happened there. Why weren't we informed sooner?

With that, Mr. Chair, I would like to move a subamendment to the motion regarding this issue. If we look at the motion and the proposed amendment by the member from the NDP.... I'll read it out, and then I'll read out the subamendment, if that works. We'll ensure everybody has a copy of that, as well.

If the amendment by Mr. MacGregor passes, the motion would read as follows:

That, once the committee has concluded both the study on Russian interference and disinformation campaigns in Canada and the study on electoral interference and criminal activities in Canada by agents of the Government of India, the committee proceed to the following matters in order:

This is where the subamendment would come in, Mr. Chair. A new number 1 would be added. It would read as follows:

1) Given that recent court filings have revealed disturbing details about a thwarted ISIS linked bomb plot targeting Jewish Canadians on Parliament Hill, and given that hate crimes have increased 251% over the past nine years,

The committee immediately prioritize a study to investigate the dramatic rise in terrorist plots and acts of violence targeting Canada's Jewish community, including the thwarted terror attack on Parliament Hill; that the study be comprised of no less than six meetings; that the Minister of Public Safety, the Special Advisor on Jewish Community Relations and Antisemitism to the Prime Minister, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner, the Director of the Parliamentary Protective Service, the Director of Canadian Security Intelligence Service and other law enforcement officials, and civil society and academic organizations, including the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B'nai B'rith, be invited to testify as part of this study; and that the committee report its findings and recommendations to the House.

The purpose of moving this subamendment, Mr. Chair—

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

I'm sorry, but I have a point of order.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Ms. O'Connell, go ahead on your point of order.

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

I question whether that is actually a subamendment. It is a completely different topic from the motion itself. It is not in any part of the topic. There was no notice.

I would argue that it's not a subamendment.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Before that, Ms. Dancho, the clerk informs me that you can't bring this motion forward because you're in debate.

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

I believe I can bring forward a subamendment to an amendment.

If I may respond, as I have just outlined, as the writer of the original motion.... Perhaps others weren't listening. The purpose of the original motion is to set a schedule for this committee regarding its priorities. This is a priority for the Conservative Party. If it's not a priority for the Liberal Party, I welcome them to put that on the record. It certainly seems so, given they've been filibustering and trying to avoid the 106(4) about the potential.... The idea that there was almost a bombing on Parliament Hill...the Leader of the Opposition, many Jewish Canadians and others.... This is a series of thwarted terrorist attacks on the Jewish community, Mr. Chair.

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

I have a point of order, Chair.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Ms. Damoff, go ahead on your point of order.