Public Safety Committee on Nov. 21st, 2024

[Lauren Southern]

Yes. I wouldn't have worked for them if I'd known where the money was coming from.

[Salma Zahid, Liberal, Scarborough Centre, ON]

I'll pass my time to Ms. O'Connell.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I move to resume debate on the amendment to the motion proposed by Mr. Morantz.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

We have a motion on the floor to resume debate.

I'm looking around the room. Do we have UC?

No. I'm seeing the shaking of heads.

Do you want a recorded vote?

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

Yes, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Okay, we'll have a recorded vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

We will resume debate on the amendment.

Before that, I'm wondering if we can relieve Ms. Southern from committee.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Thank you.

Ms. Southern, you're free to go.

[Lauren Southern]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Are there other speakers? I'm seeing Mr. Lloyd.

There's a point of clarification from Mr. Johns.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Chair, when we adjourn debate, do we not go back to the original speaking order? That would mean I should be up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Okay, go ahead, Mr. Johns.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

I'll let Ms. O'Connell speak first. I think that would be the best thing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Sure.

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

I'm not speaking about the amendment. We're good with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

If we go back to the original speaking order, it would be Mr. Lloyd, and then Mr. Johns.

Mr. Lloyd.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to get back to this issue, as well.

I have concerns about the amendment that was put forward, because of the removal of.... As I said earlier, I don't think it is even in scope, although the committee has made its ruling that it is. I'm concerned that we're not prioritizing this study to investigate the rise in terrorist plots and acts of violence targeting Canada's Jewish community, especially considering that we were told about a thwarted terrorist attack that was to occur on Parliament Hill, where my colleague Marty—who's sitting next to me today—was present, along with the leader of the official opposition and numerous other members of Parliament, not to mention the hundreds of members of the Jewish community and allies who showed up on Parliament Hill. Not prioritizing that is sending a pretty strong statement.

I'm also very concerned that we're not including the Minister of Public Safety in this, or the special adviser to the Prime Minister on Jewish community relations and anti-Semitism. I think a lot of Canadians, particularly members of the Jewish community, would like to hear from their special adviser on anti-Semitism, considering this attack was undoubtedly fuelled and motivated by deeply held hatred and anti-Semitism. I'm very unhappy to see that this has been removed.

Also, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and other law enforcement officials are being removed. I have a lot of concerns. I think Canadians want to hear from CSIS on this. There were a lot of Canadians, members of the Jewish community and even colleagues of mine who said, “Why did we have to learn about this from a news release?” People who were there weren't even informed. They had to find out about it from the news. I think that's very concerning, as well.

I noted something positive about this. The original Liberal motion that was read into the record by Ms. Damoff earlier sought to exclude members of the Jewish community, including the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and B'nai Brith. I would not have, in any way, wanted to support a motion by the Liberals that sought to exclude members of the Jewish community—particularly these two organizations—from presenting to this committee and speaking on this. I am glad to see, though, that in the amendment they put forward, they haven't tried to exclude the Jewish community by removing that, despite the fact that they sought to remove others from this. There's a bit of good mixed in with the bad here.

Obviously, there are a great number of criminal and public security issues in this country. They're all very important. They're particularly important to the communities they impact. However, I'm very concerned that the government is expanding the scope of this study on such a level that it undermines the value of specifically investigating the rise of anti-Semitic hate in this country and this foiled, ISIS-inspired bomb attack on Parliament Hill.

I'm not sure why Minecraft, Reddit and Snapchat are included in there. There are other organizations. I'm not sure if there's some direct connection between those and the attack. I don't know whether the Liberals have some information we don't, but it appears to me that there could be other, very valuable witnesses included in this. Perhaps Minecraft isn't the best witness to talk about a study on anti-Semitism and a bomb attack on Parliament Hill. However, I'm happy to be told that, perhaps, Minecraft had significant involvement in a terror attack on Parliament Hill. Otherwise, if there is no evidence that these social media companies are somehow involved in this, I would suggest that the Liberals who proposed this amendment are trying to undermine this study and blow it wide open so that we have useless meetings that don't get to the heart of the issue.

I think witnesses who would be very useful to have at those meetings are the special adviser to the Prime Minister on Jewish community relations and anti-Semitism, the Minister of Public Safety and the deputy minister, and CSIS.

I find it astounding that this government does not want to hear from its own officials, its own minister and our own security services, but they want to hear from Snapchat, Reddit, Minecraft and I don't even know what this Roblox is. It sounds like a toy that my kids might play with.

I'm just absolutely shocked that they are actively trying to prevent us from hearing from government officials, because that's really what we're here to do in committee. It's to hold government to account. That's what Parliament is all about. If we're not hearing from government, then we're not doing our jobs. I guess the government MPs on this committee feel that it's their role to shield the Minister of Public Safety and shield bureaucrats and civil servants of this government.

That's not the proper role of parliamentarians. It's to hold government to account and get the truth, so that Canadians can get the truth about what happened. I know that all Canadians are very concerned about the threat of an attack on Parliament Hill, which is the heart of our democracy in this country. The fact that it was allegedly youth who sought to perpetrate this attack is very disturbing.

We had an extensive study at this committee on ideologically motivated violent extremism. The fact that we're seeing this happen and that in this case—I want to be very mindful because I know there are some continuing issues with this—youth were allegedly involved in this, I find that very concerning.

With that, I just want to make it clear that I will not be supporting this amendment to the motion, for the reasons that I put forward.

I'll cede the floor to the next speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Thank you, Mr. Lloyd.

The next speaker is Mr. Johns.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know it's been a long meeting. Even with the fact that we started late, it feels like a very long meeting. I know you're dealing with many different difficult issues here at this committee. I'm here replacing Mr. MacGregor.

Just hearing right now the conversations and the thoughts of my colleagues, there are lots of different ways to move forward. I think there are opportunities for collaboration on the content of it. Ms. Damoff has some ideas. We certainly have some ideas on how we'd like to proceed, but we're two minutes from 5:30 p.m. and this meeting was supposed to finish at 5:30 p.m. A lot of MPs need to catch flights to get back to their ridings to serve their constituents, Mr. Chair.

I would like to—

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

I'm sorry. Just to clarify, Mr. Johns, the meeting will end at 5:56 p.m., because we started late.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Well, I don't think we're going to see a resolution to this today. I don't forecast that we're going to resolve this in the next 15 or 20 minutes. I think there needs to be some work done outside of this committee meeting.

Given that it's 5:30 p.m. and, again, a lot of MPs have flights to catch to get back to their ridings, I'm going to move that we adjourn the meeting and come back to this on Tuesday.

I move to adjourn the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

There's a motion to adjourn. I'm seeing nods. I'm seeing nays as well, so we'll go to a vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

The motion passes.

Just before I hit the gavel, very quickly, the committee asked me last time for a bit of a calendar. I don't have a calendar, but I have a notice. On Tuesday, I'd like to return to the auto theft study that Madame Michaud brought forward on that very important topic. We can wrap that up on Tuesday, and then on Thursday we'll resume the study on the foreign interference from India.

Madame Michaud.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Chair, I'm glad you're proposing that we wrap up our car-theft study. That won't take much time.

However, pursuant to the motion that we adopted earlier today regarding a study on the border situation and the government's plan to address an influx of migrants, the committee should give priority to that study. Consequently, I wonder when we'll be starting it, since the motion states that it's a priority and therefore takes precedence over other studies.

I would just like you to clarify your opinion on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Thank you.

I see your hand is raised, Ms. O'Connell.

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

I don't have an issue with that. I think we need time to contact the witnesses and schedule them, but we can have that conversation to schedule timing. I recognize that it's a priority.