Debates of March 20th, 2023

Opposition Motion—Instruction to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like to remind my colleagues to be careful with papers near the microphones, as it is bad for the interpreters' ears. They mentioned it during the last speech.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

That is a very good point. The microphones are on our desks. If papers or phones are put near the microphones, it gives the interpreters trouble.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear that Liberal members will be voting against the motion. It is not clear what NDP members will be doing, so I hope to convince them to support the motion with my speech.

The motion in front of us concerns all members of the House and all parties, including the NDP. In fact, as The Globe and Mail recently reported, former NDP MP Kennedy Stewart was the target of Beijing's interference in the Vancouver mayoral race.

Foreign interference is a serious threat. It is a national threat. It threatens our economy, social cohesion, long-term prosperity and the fundamental rights and freedoms of Canadians. It threatens all parties and all candidates. That is the written assessment of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS. The people engaged in foreign interference are with the government of the People's Republic of China.

The PRC is interfering in our elections and in our candidate nominations through tactics like illegally and covertly funnelling money to political parties and candidates. That, too, is the assessment of CSIS. Both assessments, that foreign interference is a serious national threat and that the PRC is behind these threats, did not come to light because the government was transparent about what was going on. They came to light because brave public servants concerned about a serious national threat to the security of Canada decided to blow the whistle and to work with investigative journalists to make these assessments public.

They came to light through reports in The Globe and Mail, Global News and other news outlets, and all along the way the Prime Minister has refused to be accountable and to answer questions. Initially, he dismissed the news reports. When that did not work, he changed tactics. He suggested that critics were fomenting anti-Asian racism. He tried going after the whistle-blowers by suggesting that they were the real threat to national security. He tried obfuscation.

For example, last month, in response to a Globe and Mail story about how Beijing uses tactics like undeclared cash donations and illegally reimbursing donors, he said, “there are so many inaccuracies in those leaks”. The next day, he backtracked and said that he was not referring to the Globe and Mail story but to comments made two months earlier by his national security adviser, Jody Thomas.

His office has tried to block the procedure and House affairs committee from further investigating this matter through a filibuster that goes on as we speak. When all of that did not work, he tried to bury the whole thing in process. He announced he is referring the matter to two government committees, and he is appointing an independent rapporteur to make recommendations about a public inquiry.

The Prime Minister has refused to answer basic questions. We still do not know the details of which candidates were targeted in the last two election campaigns and who exactly was involved. Most importantly, we do not know the answer to the following questions: What did the Prime Minister know? When did he know it? What did he do about it? Why is the Prime Minister so reluctant to release this information? Only the Prime Minister can authorize the release of this information. We need to know why he has been reluctant to release it and why he is not heeding the advice of intelligence experts to release it.

That brings us to the motion in front of us today. We need to hear from the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Katie Telford, and others enumerated in the motion. We need answers to questions, and here is why: Translating intelligence into evidence for a prosecution is often very difficult, but one tool governments can use when intelligence cannot be translated into evidence is sunlight and transparency. Sunlight and transparency would reveal the details of foreign interference threat activities, so that the Canadian public is made aware of these activities so that citizens, parties and candidates can make informed decisions about what is going on.

However, citizens, parties and candidates cannot make informed decisions if they do not know what is going on and if they do not know the details of foreign interference threat activities. They cannot make decisions about which donors and donations to reject or about which volunteers they will allow to work on their election campaigns if they do not know who exactly is involved with these foreign interference threat activities.

This practice of using sunlight and transparency to counter malevolent threats from foreign actors is exactly what CSIS has been advising the Prime Minister to do. It is written right in its top secret briefing note that was released to the procedure and House affairs committee before Christmas. It is the best practice of the Five Eyes intelligence allies. It is why, last year, MI5 went public about a PRC agent in the U.K. Parliament, Christine Lee. MI5 informed the Speaker about this individual and the threat, and in turn, the Speaker emailed the entire House of Commons with this individual's name, identifying her as a security threat. Members took appropriate action, cut off contact with this individual, and the integrity of the U.K. Parliament was protected. Sunlight and transparency worked, and the integrity of U.K.'s democracy was ensured.

However, unlike the U.K. government, this government is failing to heed the advice of its intelligence experts, failing to be transparent and failing to use sunlight to ensure that the details of these threat activities are made public. For a government that came to office promising to heed the advice of experts, this is truly puzzling.

We need answers now. We cannot wait for a year or more of a public inquiry before we get answers. We need to know before the next election so that parties and candidates can be equipped with the facts to protect themselves against the kind of foreign interference that we saw in the last two election campaigns. That is why this motion today should be adopted by the House. Then Katie Telford and the others enumerated in the motion would be called in front of committee to testify, give answers and tell us exactly what is going on so we can protect ourselves from foreign interference.

Some have suggested that, by raising the issue of Beijing's foreign interference, we are somehow fomenting anti-Asian racism. This is a facile argument, and I say that as someone who knows what it is like to be the target of anti-Asian racism.

I was born in this country in 1971 with the last name Chong to a Chinese immigrant father. This was a time in our country's history when there were not very many non-whites in this country, and when we had only recently opened up our immigrant system to non-whites. Attitudes regarding Canadians of non-white origins were very different than they are today. Therefore, I take exception when the Prime Minister suggests that those asking legitimate questions about Beijing's foreign interference in our democracy are somehow responsible for fomenting anti-Asian racism. Frankly, as the first MP of Chinese descent elected to the House of Commons from the province of Ontario, it is beyond the pale.

It is bigots who are responsible for fomenting anti-Asian racism, not those who, in good faith, are raising real concerns about Beijing's meddling in our democracy. It is bigots who are taking advantage of Beijing's threats to our democracy to foment this anti-Asian racism, just like they did when the global pandemic was under way.

We must counter both anti-Asian racism and the very real threats that Beijing is presenting to our cherished democracy. To do one and not the other is either to abandon our fellow Canadians to racism or it is to ignore the very real threat that Beijing presents to this democracy that we all own. We cannot allow either anti-Asian racism or Beijing's threats to our democracy to stand.

I will close by saying this: CSIS has assessed that Beijing's interference in our democracy is a serious national threat. It is for that reason that I implore all members of the House, particularly members of the NDP, to vote for this motion so we can get to the bottom of this matter and shed some light on what exactly is going on.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of partisan jabbing back and forth, but I do want to ask a sincere question.

The member mentioned MI5. That security intelligence agency, on the basis of information that must have become overwhelming, made a decision to go to the Speaker of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom to present those allegations moving forward. However, we talked a little bit today about the idea of evidence and intelligence gathering and actual strong, demonstrable evidence that something is indeed true. I am curious, because the member is quite involved in these types of matters in Canada, what that process would look like.

Is CSIS allowed to perhaps come to the Speaker of this House of Commons and be able to do that if, on a balance probabilities, it felt the evidence was strong enough that it could do what happened in the United Kingdom? If not, is that something the member would perhaps like to see moving forward, or perhaps something the special rapporteur could recommend for all of us as parliamentarians to make sure that those agencies have that ability, without undermining the intelligence work that goes on, to actually gather the said information?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is a great BBC article on the case of Christine Lee, dated July 19, 2022, entitled, “Why did MI5 name Christine Lee as an ‘agent of influence’?” I encourage the member and others to read that article because it explains the tactics behind MI5 going public with this information.

To answer his question, at the end of the day, CSIS cannot go public with any information to the Speaker of the House of Commons, to individual members of Parliament or to political parties or candidates without the express authorization of the Prime Minister. What has been happening is that the Prime Minister has refused to grant this authorization for CSIS to go public with the details of these foreign interference threat activities. That is why it is so critically important that we use the tools of this House and its committees to compel testimony from individuals like Ms. Telford and others and get them to answer questions about what exactly is going on. We can then heed the advice of Five Eyes intelligence experts to use sunlight and transparency to publicly reveal the details of what is going on.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I recently met with researchers from the Université de Sherbrooke who have been working on the issues of cyber-violence and cybercrime. They informed me that Canada is lagging behind Europe and Australia on this issue. That is what concerns me. This is not about political partisanship. These academic researchers have done some serious research, and they were sounding the alarm by warning me of the dangers.

That being said, I am concerned that a study with so many witnesses and so many meetings is just a way to try to cloud the issue. Let me explain. I saw this when the Standing Committee on National Defence conducted a study on sexual assault in the Canadian Armed Forces. What the Liberals did was an affront to democracy. They filibustered to keep us from investigating sexual assault in the Canadian Armed Forces and producing a report.

We saw the same thing again last week. The Liberals filibustered so that we could not get to the bottom of the issue of Chinese interference. I am worried that they are trying to cloud the issue.

Why not simply propose an independent public inquiry and insist that the government respond to this request from all of the opposition parties?

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. I think that Beijing poses a real threat to our post-secondary institutions.

CSIS has identified that Beijing is a threat in five areas of research and development. It is a threat to our national security and a threat to our intellectual property in the five areas of clean tech, artificial intelligence, biopharma, 5G telecommunications and quantum computing. However, the government has failed to take action to protect the post-secondary research institutions that my hon. colleague referred to. It has failed to provide a directive ordering the CIHR, the CFI, the SSHRC and NSERC, the four granting councils, to ban funding in partnership with entities in the People's Republic of China in these five sensitive areas. That is why we have been lax in protecting our national security.

More broadly, the government has failed to step up when it comes to protecting the cybersecurity of Canadians. In the last election, we saw the case of candidate Kenny Chiu, who was the subject of a volume of disinformation that Global Affairs Canada's G7 rapid response mechanism was tracking. The SITE task force failed to release this disinformation during the election to ensure that Kenny Chiu at least had a fighting chance to counter it.

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

Mr. Speaker, tomorrow, the House of Commons will see a very important vote. It is one that will show Canadians whether the New Democratic Party of Canada is an opposition party that believes in its role to hold the government, the Liberal Party, accountable for its actions, or if the NDP is just a sidekick to the Liberal government that will do whatever it can to uphold the government and support it in its cover-up of getting to the truth on the Beijing interference in our elections. That is what at stake with the vote tomorrow.

The stakes are so high, in fact, that just breaking on the news, there are whispers that the Liberals may make tomorrow a confidence vote. That is how desperate the government is to cover up the truth. That is the latest on the news. That may be happening tomorrow to force the NDP's hand. If the Liberals lose that vote, we will have an election in this country. That is how desperate the Liberals are to make sure we do not get to the truth. I implore the NDP to fulfill its duty as an opposition party and hold the Liberal government accountable, no matter what the consequences are tomorrow. That is what its duty to Canadians is. That is what its members were elected to do.

What are we debating today? In essence, it is a motion to compel a number of key government witnesses from the Liberals to come to committee, face accountability and be transparent on what they knew, what the Prime Minister knew, when he knew it and what he did or did not do about about this political interference campaign from Beijing. The number one person on that list is the Prime Minister's long-time chief of staff, who is arguably one of the most powerful women in this country. Her name is Katie Telford.

Katie Telford has been the right-hand person to the Prime Minister since he started his political career. All through his election as a Liberal leader in 2013, and through his winning election campaigns in 2015, 2019 and 2021. She has been his ultimate gatekeeper, which is what a chief of staff is, for all of that time. She has been front and centre, a key operator, in every one of his election victories. As chief of staff, she would have had access to every top-level, classified briefing. She is the one who decides the political filter of messaging that goes out and the information that gets to the Prime Minister.

I cannot stress enough how important a chief of staff is to the Prime Minister. In fact, I think she has been the longest reigning chief of staff to a prime minister in Canadian history. It shows how influential she is and has been, both in the Liberal wins and within all the ongoings of the Liberal government in the last eight years. She has come to committee before on two occasions. It makes sense. She is such a powerful figure who is wielding so much power in our democracy. Sometimes she will have to come to committee, be held accountable and answer the questions of elected officials.

For some reason, the Liberals are so desperate to stop her from coming to committee that they may be threatening a confidence vote tomorrow. For weeks, they have blocked at the committee a motion to bring her forward. That is why we are here debating it because we were able to bring it to the House for official debate today and a vote tomorrow. It really begs the question why they are so desperate to keep her from coming to committee.

What does she know? What does she know that the Liberals do not want Canadians to know? If she is not hiding anything, there would be no problem. She has come to committee twice and frankly, left relatively unscathed. She is a smooth, intelligent operator. If she has got nothing to hide, she can easily come, fulfill her democratic duty to be held accountable as a powerful woman in this administration and answer our questions as the elected officials. It is not a lot to ask given what is at stake.

I would like to go over what we are talking about and why it is so important. Conservatives had been asking questions, particularly of the Prime Minister, for a number of months regarding election interference from Beijing. However, it was only about a month ago that The Globe and Mail and some of the most prominent journalists in the country, Robert Fife and Steven Chase, broke a groundbreaking story about leaked CSIS documents, which is our spy and intelligence service. It is basically Canada's equivalent of the CIA. There were leaked documents from it. Someone blew the whistle and gave this to Robert Fife and Steven Chase.

In those documents, they found that “China employed a sophisticated strategy to disrupt Canada's democracy in the 2021 federal election campaign as Chinese diplomats and their proxies backed the re-election of [the] Liberals”. The article goes on to say, “Drawn from a series of CSIS intelligence-gather operations, the documents illustrate how an orchestrated machine was operating in Canada with two primary aims: to ensure that a minority Liberal government was returned in 2021, and that certain Conservative candidates identified by China were defeated.”

This is what our head spy and intelligence service has written. It is fairly significant. We would think that the government would move heaven and earth to open the box and tell Canadians what it knows and what it has done about it, which amounts to really nothing at this point.

It goes on to say, “The classified reports viewed by The Globe reveal that China’s former consul-general in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, boasted in 2021 about how she helped defeat two Conservative MPs.”

We have a diplomat from Beijing bragging about how she helped defeat two of my colleagues, but the Liberal government says there will be no public inquiry. It says that we do not need that, and we do not need the powerful woman who was likely briefed about this to come forward and answer our questions. No, there is nothing to see here.

The article in The Globe and Mail also said:

Most important, the intelligence reports show that Beijing was determined that the Conservatives did not win. China employed disinformation campaigns and proxies connected to Chinese-Canadian organizations in Vancouver and the GTA...to voice opposition to the Conservatives and favour the [Prime Minister's] Liberals.

It went on to say:

CSIS also explained how Chinese diplomats conduct foreign interference operations in support of political candidates and elected officials. Tactics include undeclared cash donations [which are very illegal in Canada]...or having business owners hire international Chinese students and “assign them to volunteer in electoral campaigns on a full-time basis.”

That is also very illegal, and these are clear violations of the democratic rules we have set for our elections.

Lastly, The Globe and Mail also reported:

China appears to have targeted [the Liberal Prime Minister] in a foreign influence operation after he became Liberal Leader in 2013, according to a national security source who said Beijing’s plan involved donating a significant sum of money to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.

Notably, that was $200,000. More than that, the Trudeau Foundation has since returned the money. It has been a couple of years that it has had it, but now that we know all this information, the foundation has returned it. Still, there is nothing to see here and no need for a public inquiry or to engage in the committee process and have the chief of staff of the Prime Minister come to testify.

It is important that we acknowledge something in this debate: Why would Beijing want to go through all this effort to interfere in a civic election, as recently seen in reports on this impacting Vancouver, as well as provincially and federally? Why would China be doing all this work? It wants the Canadian government to be sympathetic and supportive of its various agendas, and some of them are extremely serious and counter to everything we believe as Canadians.

For example, China wants Canada to accept its claim on Taiwan to annex it by force. It also wants us to accept its draconian 2020 national security law on Hong Kong. It wants us to look the other way with what it is doing in Tibet and its militarization of the South China Sea and sweeping maritime claims in the region. China wants us to do nothing about the fact that it actively threatened Chinese Canadians on Canadian soil, using covert so-called police stations that are operating completely illegally and in violation of our sovereignty. If one does not pay any attention to that, it will help one get elected. At least, that is what is being reported; we could find out more about this if there were a public inquiry and we heard from the most powerful Liberal woman in the country, Katie Telford.

I want to conclude with something I found quite moving. Recently, the person who blew the lid off this, who is the whistle-blower from CSIS, wrote in The Globe and Mail. I will conclude with a quote from him about why he would do this. Why would he risk his reputation and going to prison? It would be very severe, if it were ever revealed who he is, what would happen to him. He said:

When I first became aware of the significance of the threat posed by outside interference to our democratic institutions, I worked—as have many unnamed and tireless colleagues—to equip our leaders with the knowledge and the tools needed to take action against it. Months passed, and then years. The threat grew in urgency; serious action remained unforthcoming. I endeavoured, alone and with others, to raise concerns about this threat directly to those in a position to hold our top officials to account. Regrettably, those individuals were unable to do so.

In conclusion, he said:

In the time that passed, another federal election had come and gone, the threat of interference had grown, and it had become increasingly clear that no serious action was being considered. Worse still, evidence of senior public officials ignoring interference was beginning to mount.

Those are the words of a very patriotic Canadian. I applaud that individual for coming forward when nothing was being done, despite repeated alarms being sounded, by the Liberal government and by the hard-working CSIS individuals to inform them. I support this member, and I ask the NDP to do its duty and vote for our motion tomorrow.

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

Mr. Speaker, it may be that the Green caucus is the only one here prepared to say it has not decided how it is going to vote. There are many good and compelling reasons to want some sunshine and daylight on this matter, but the part that makes me not want to vote for the motion is the excessive hyperbole and partisanship and some of the cheap shots at people like David Johnston and at the Trudeau Foundation, calling it Chinese-funded. This sort of thing drives away independent-minded and really committed Canadians.

Would the hon. member help me understand how we can approach this issue in committee without it becoming toxic?

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

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate very much the member and her style. I know it is quite different from that of some of the other members of the House, and I can respect that.

At committee, I too act as someone who brings people together. I do understand that. In fact, the opposition parties in many regards have worked together. However, when it comes down to the most important witness in Canada coming forward to tell us what she knows, one opposition party is not acting like an opposition party. It is acting like a sidekick to prop up a government that is trying to cover up what it knows, when it knew it and what it did or did not do about it.

On Mr. Johnston, I will say that certainly during his time as Governor General he was very well respected. He is an eminent Canadian in many ways. However, because part of this public inquiry would have to investigate what the Liberal leader knew, I do not believe this individual is the right choice if we look at his record. He is a member of the Trudeau Foundation, for example. He aids in appointing board members and crafting its bylaws. He was also the commissioner of the leaders' debates in 2019, which appointed the WE co-founder Craig Kielburger to the advisory board of that commission. Also, under his leadership, CBC's Rosemary Barton was selected, and then she later sued the Conservative Party in that election.

I can go on and on, but I am certainly not taking anything away from his time as Governor General. By all accounts, he did an amazing job. Is he the right person to put the Prime Minister under immense scrutiny when he called him a lifelong friend? I would say no.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Mr. Speaker, despite months and months of railing against coalitions, now the Conservatives are asking for support from the NDP. However, I digress.

I want to emphasize that the NDP was the first party to openly come out and say a public inquiry is absolutely necessary. We were the first ones to push that. It was the Conservatives after that who said it would be great. It is not that we disagree that there absolutely needs to be a public inquiry.

We all know the dangers of misinformation. The member put a lot of emphasis on the rumours that this is a confidence vote. Does the member have documentation or proof that she could bring forward and table on this confidence vote, or is this simply meant to play into the hyperbole the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands was mentioning before?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a lot of respect for the member opposite.

This is from the Canadian press. It is a mainstream news headline: “Liberals float possibility of making motion on foreign interference a confidence vote”. She can look that up herself and judge if she thinks the news is spreading misinformation or not.

I have an issue with the opening part of her question. She mentioned that the Conservatives are asking for the support of the NDP. It is not us asking for it. It is the Canadian people who care about upholding our democratic institutions. They deserve to know about this from the most powerful Liberal woman in the country, who was side by side with the Liberal Prime Minister for every single one of his election wins, who would have been briefed by CSIS multiple times about this and who would have held all the information for the Prime Minister and advised him on how to act.

The Conservatives should not have to ask the New Democrats to do the democratic duty they were elected to do on behalf of Canadians as an opposition party and hold the Liberals accountable. We are not asking them. It is their duty to Canadians.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are here to debate and shed light on something. The member is telling us that the government is going to turn this into a confidence vote. Quite honestly, I did not hear the Prime Minister or the government say that.

Is it not blackmail to put a gun to our heads and threaten the House with an election if we do not vote with the Conservatives? That is blackmail.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a sort of figurative gun to our head. We are going to vote either way, come hell or high water. We will go to an election any day. We welcome that, if that is what happens. If the government has lost the vote of this duly elected House of Commons, we will go to an election. That will not stop us, and I do not believe it will stop the Bloc, either, from voting to hold the Liberals accountable. That is why we are here. No one will hold a gun to our head, figuratively of course, on this. Rest assured that we will stand up here and vote tomorrow and do our duty to hold the Liberals accountable.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

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.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Madam Speaker, I have a very simple question, and I would ask my colleague to answer yes or no. It is a question so clear that even Stéphane Dion would be satisfied. Is the vote on this motion, which will take place tomorrow, a vote of confidence?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, it is a vote all of us should be taking very seriously. At the end of the day, I would argue there is a choice. Does the member believe in the civil servants and the security measures in place that provide assurances to Canadians? Does the member believe that the special rapporteur has the integrity to come back to give a recommendation?

We can at least wait until we see the recommendation, wait until we see the report. There is all sorts of opportunity, and I hope members will take it seriously.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Madam Speaker, my Bloc colleague had an exceptionally simple question. Instead of getting a simple answer, we got a word salad. Therefore, I will ask again. Is tomorrow's vote going to be a confidence vote? Yes or no is the only thing the member needs to answer.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I think the member needs to take a look in the mirror and reflect on what the Conservative Party is doing on the issue. The member previous said that it does not matter what anyone else does. The Conservative Party has taken a position, and it is a solid whipped position from the Conservative Party.

We do not need to take lectures on understanding and appreciating the importance of the vote. Canadians have indicated that this is a serious issue, and that is why we are treating it as that. It is a very serious issue.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Speaker, in response to the question asked by my colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, the member asked if we believe in the measures that have been put into place since the events.

I would like to ask him if he believes in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS. It has approached the government time and time again, and time and time again, the government has simply done nothing.

Does the member believe in CSIS?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I have a tremendous amount of respect for our civil service, which is why I listed off the many agencies and groups that are there to ensure Canadians can have confidence. They can have confidence because it is very clear that nothing ultimately impacted the outcome of the elections.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Madam Speaker, I have two process questions for the member.

The actions of committees are independent. Should the House be involved in making decisions on who is invited, and where the committees do their work? There is also this place, a place of partisan debate, where we make points politically versus looking at the overall outcomes.

There is, in one case, an independent committee with its studies. In the other case, there is an independent inquiry into how democracy is being protected in Canada. How important it is to keep distinguished the different roles of the different groups within the House.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am going to address the PROC committee, which is dealing with this. A lot depends on the makeup of the committee and the real agenda of the committee membership. I would have loved to have seen a committee that said, “Look, it is not only China. Russia and other countries are trying to have electoral interference here in Canada and in other countries”.

As a committee, it could maybe conduct a more general study on such an important issue. I am sure that would go a long way in providing some wonderful recommendations for the future.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Madam Speaker, often Liberal members get criticized for not answering questions. I am going to ask the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader the simple question for a third time.

NDP members last week supported the idea of having the Prime Minister's chief of staff and key witnesses testify in committee on what they knew and how they knew it when it came to Beijing's election interference. Suddenly, they are wavering. Can the member answer the question with a yes or a no? Have they made the vote tomorrow a confidence matter? For the third time, is it yes or no?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member is obviously very curious. He might want to ask individuals in the House leadership. I am not the government whip. I would suggest that the vote tomorrow is going to be important.