Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the member for Kings—Hants.
I would like to start off by indicating something very clearly. When one thinks of foreign interference into elections, it is really important that we understand and appreciate that this is not something new. It is something that has been taking place for many years now. In fact, to try to give a false impression that the Government of Canada has not been taking actions on this particular issue is just wrong. There have been a number of actions this government has taken on this issue for years now.
If one were to contrast that to the Conservative Party, one would find that even today's leader of the Conservative Party of Canada chose to do nothing when he was the minister of democratic reform and at that time there was foreign interference into elections.
It is interesting listening to the member who spoke just prior to me, who talked about wanting Katie Telford before committee. Today's leader of the Conservative Party of Canada argued, a number of years ago, that it is about ministerial accountability and that the chief of staff, or the political people the member today called for to come before committee, should not be coming before committee; it should be the ministers. That is exactly what the current leader of the Conservative Party was arguing just a few years back while he was the minister.
As a government, to be crystal clear, we have been very much active on the issue of foreign interference into elections. I want to start off my comments by reading a quote, as others have done. This comes from a CTV News article, which reads:
The U.S. Ambassador to Canada says the question of whether or not foreign election interference is happening is less important than whether it’s been successful, and he hasn’t seen any proof that alleged interference attempts by China in Canada’s elections have managed to affect the results.
David Cohen told CTV...in an interview airing Sunday, his many years of political experience have led to his developing a “certain level of skepticism and thick skin,” and an “assumption” that both [and I want to emphasize this] China and Russia have been interfering in the elections of several countries [not just Canada] for years.
“I almost think it's not even worth asking the question about whether there's interference,” he said. “I think the better question is: what is the interference targeting? Has it had any impact? Has it had any effect?
“I've seen nothing that anyone's reported or that anyone has said that’s been able to disclose any impact from any alleged interference by the Chinese in the last couple of Canadian elections.... I think the Chinese and the Russians have been at this for a long time,” he also said.
People will ask why I am citing the American ambassador. Let us look at the type of accountability we have witnessed here in Canada on this very issue. Canadians and parliamentarians have already heard on this matter from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Communications Security Establishment, the national security and intelligence adviser to the Prime Minister and the security and intelligence threats to elections task force, not to mention Elections Canada itself.
All the organizations I just listed off have testified that our elections were safe and that Canadians and Canadians alone determined their outcomes.
The Conservatives will cite certain things and are very selective in not including the many professionals, apolitical individuals, who have been clear that the outcome of the election was not impacted by foreign interference. The Conservatives know this, but they intentionally disregard it because they would rather ratchet up the rhetoric.
We have seen the rhetoric coming from the Conservatives. I would argue that they do it because this is an issue where they are more interested in raising money for their own coffers and using it as a fundraising tool. They do not have any solid ground for what they are arguing today. They say they want Katie Telford to come forward, but where was that argument when they were in government? Then, they argued for ministerial accountability, meaning that if we have something we want to question within a department, we can go to the minister. We have had a number of ministers appear as requested, and like the professional civil servants, they provided the necessary assurances to give a high level of comfort to Canadians, but that is not good enough.
It is interesting how the Conservatives like to mock the New Democrats. However, we can look at how the Conservatives have conned the Bloc, which has bought into what the Conservatives have been saying. In fact, they have even doubled down on the special rapporteur, who was appointed by Stephen Harper. He is an individual with impeccable credentials who fully understands what is at stake here. As members know, at least on the government side, and I would suggest and hope others, there is zero tolerance for foreign interference in elections. In investigating this matter, the special rapporteur can come back and say that there should be a public inquiry, and we will respect that.
The government has gone out of its way to accommodate our best interests in protecting elections from foreign interference. As I pointed out, we have seen this in many measures the government has taken over the years. We witnessed professional civil servants, who are apolitical, come and make it very clear that there was no impact on the outcome of the election.
We should be looking at our electoral system as one of those sacred pillars of Canadian society. The politicization we have witnessed coming from the Conservatives on this issue, for the sake of being able to raise funds, I find disrespectful. Our democracy is worth more than a fundraising letter.
I see my time has expired. Hopefully, I will get a question to expand on that.