Mr. Speaker, I am rising on a question of privilege, further to the notice that I gave earlier today concerning revelations published in The Globe and Mail yesterday. These concern efforts by a diplomat of the People's Republic of China, accredited by the Government of Canada, to target me and my family as a consequence of my February 22, 2021 vote on the Conservative opposition day motion, which I moved, condemning the government of the People's Republic of China and its treatment of the Uyghur minority as a genocide.
House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, states, at pages 107 to 108, “In order to fulfill their parliamentary duties, Members should be able to go about their parliamentary business undisturbed.... Any form of intimidation of a Member with respect to the Member’s actions during a proceeding in Parliament could amount to contempt.” This is long-standing and well-established procedure and principle of the law of parliamentary privilege, tracing its roots back to an April 12, 1733 resolution of the British House of Commons, which states, “That the assaulting, insulting, or menacing of any member of this House in his coming to or going from the House or upon the account of his behaviour in Parliament is a high infringement of the privilege of this House, a most outrageous and dangerous violation of the rights of Parliament and an high crime and misdemeanour.”
To be clear, this privilege is not being asserted, nor do I assert it today, against any Canadian who exercises his or her fundamental democratic right to enter into political debate and criticize elected members of the House for the stands they take. Joseph Maingot, at page 235 of Parliamentary Privilege in Canada, second edition, articulates the appropriate balance between free debate and intimidation and coercion. He states:
All interferences with Members' privileges of freedom of speech, such as editorials and other public comment, are not breaches of privilege, even though they influence the conduct of Members in their parliamentary work. Accordingly, not every action by an outside body that may influence the conduct of a Member of Parliament as such could now be regarded as a breach of privilege, even if it were calculated and intended to bring pressure on the Member to take or to refrain from taking a particular course. But any attempt by improper means to influence or obstruct a Member in his parliamentary work may constitute contempt. What constitutes an improper means of interfering with Members' parliamentary work is always a question depending on the facts of each case.
Here are the facts of the present case. Yesterday's Globe and Mail reported that the government of the People's Republic of China “sees Canada as a ‘high-priority target’ and employs ‘incentives and punishment’ as part of a vast influence network directed at legislators, business executives and diaspora communities in this country, according to a top secret intelligence assessment from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service”. Later on in the report, Robert Fife and Steven Chase write:
The report, People's Republic of China Foreign Interference in Canada: A Critical National Security Threat, lists several examples of Chinese influence operations aimed at the opposition Conservative Party.
It says CSIS reporting from 2021 indicates that China's intelligence agency, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), ‘has taken specific actions to target Canadian MPs’ who are linked to the February 2021 parliamentary motion condemning Beijing's oppression of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities. The motion, which passed, declared China's conduct to amount to genocide.
The spy agency said an MSS officer sought information on an unnamed Canadian MP's relatives ‘who may be located in the PRC, for further potential sanctions.’ This effort, the CSIS report said, ‘is almost certainly meant to make an example of this MP and deter others from taking anti-PRC positions.’
A national-security source, whom the Globe is not naming because they risk prosecution under the Security of Information Act, said the MP targeted was Conservative MP [my name] and that Zhao Wei, a Chinese diplomat in Canada, was working on this matter.
The motion in question was a Conservative motion that I introduced and moved in the House and that was adopted on February 22, 2021. Despite knowing about this intimidation operation involving a diplomat approved by the Government of Canada for two years, the government did not inform me that a diplomat was targeting my family, nor did the government take any action to expel the diplomat responsible for orchestrating this intimidation campaign. In fact, Mr. Wei Zhao continues to have the government's authorization to be and work in Canada with immunity, on behalf of Beijing's government. Frankly, I think this demonstrates a complete lack of common decency and leadership. Indeed, not a single Beijing diplomat has been expelled by the government since the news of Beijing's foreign interference threat activities started to be reported a couple of years ago. Nonetheless, the fact remains that this intimidation operation was launched and was in direct consequence of my motion in the House concerning the treatment of Uyghurs. These are the facts.
Bosc and Gagnon, at page 109, observe that, “In order to find a prima facie breach of privilege, the Speaker must be satisfied that there is evidence to support the Member’s claim that he or she has been impeded in the performance of his or her parliamentary functions and that the matter is directly related to a proceeding in Parliament.” A “proceeding in Parliament” is a technical term for which Bosc and Gagnon, at page 90, refer to two definitions, one from the United Kingdom's Erskine May and the other from Australia's Parliamentary Privileges Act, 1987.
May's definition, taken from page 235 of the 24th edition of A Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings and Usage of Parliament, states that “An individual Member takes part in a proceeding usually by speech, but also by various recognised forms of formal action, such as voting, giving notice of a motion, or presenting a petition or report from a committee, most of such actions being time-saving substitutes for speaking.” The Australian statutory definition, meanwhile, contains the expression “all words spoken and acts done in the course of, or for purposes of or incidental to, the transacting of the business of a House or of a committee”.
A long line of precedents affirm the right of members to go about their parliamentary duties free of intimidation. Speaker Lamoureux, on September 19, 1973, said, at page 6709 of the Debates, that he had “no hesitation in reaffirming the principle that parliamentary privilege includes the right of a member to discharge his responsibilities as a member of the House free from threats or attempts at intimidation.” On May 1, 1986, Speaker Bosley held, at page 12847 of the Debates, “If an Hon. Member is impeded or obstructed in the performance of his or her parliamentary duties through threats, intimidation, bribery attempts or other improper behaviour, such a case would fall within the limits of parliamentary privilege.” Subsequently, Speaker Parent, on March 24, 1994, commented, at page 2706 of the Debates, “Threats of blackmail or intimidation of a member of Parliament should never be taken lightly. When such occurs, the very essence of free speech is undermined. Without the guarantee of freedom of speech, no member of Parliament can do his duty as is expected.”
More recently, on March 6, 2012, a prima facie contempt was found, arising from an intimidation campaign of YouTube videos from the Internet, by hacking collective Anonymous, largely targeting a former colleague and his family members as a consequence of legislation this colleague tabled in the House. In so ruling, the Speaker said, at page 5834 of the Debates:
Those who enter political life fully expect to be able to be held accountable for their actions to their constituents and to those who are concerned with the issues and initiatives they may advocate.
In a healthy democracy, vigorous debate on issues is encouraged. In fact, the rules and procedures of this House are drafted to allow for proponents and opponents to discuss, in a respectful manner, even the most difficult and sensitive of matters.
However, when duly elected members are personally threatened for their work in Parliament, whether introducing a bill, making a statement or casting a vote, this House must take the matter very seriously.
I would echo those words, “this House must take the matter very seriously.”
While I am speaking of my own situation today, I am far from alone in experiencing Beijing's foreign interference threat activities. Debates inside and outside of this House since November have been dominated by a succession of breathtaking disclosures from our national security experts, revealed by multiple media outlets. These have shown a concerted and organized campaign by Beijing's Communist government to manipulate Canadian politics and the proceedings of this House in favour of that government's positions. Equally concerning has been the Canadian government's failure to do anything to curb it.
The latest report in The Globe and Mail demonstrates that this scourge of foreign interference threat activities directed at members of this House is not limited to elections, party nominations or diaspora communities. This nefarious campaign's reach into parliamentary proceedings is a new fact, but it is one that we should not be too surprised about.
Just as it is a novel concern in this recently surfaced story, which is still unravelling, and for this House generally to consider interference and intimidation by foreign state actors, that is not a procedural impediment to the Speaker finding a prima facie case of contempt here. On this particular point, Bosc and Gagnon comment, at page 81:
The House of Commons enjoys very wide latitude in maintaining its dignity and authority through the exercise of its contempt power. In other words, the House may consider any misconduct to be contempt and may deal with it accordingly.... This area of parliamentary law is therefore extremely fluid and most valuable for the Commons to be able to meet novel situations.
They add, at page 112:
It is impossible to codify all incidents which might be interpreted as matters of obstruction, interference, molestation or intimidation and, as such, constitute prima facie cases of privilege.
Before closing, I would like to add one final point. Our authorities refer to the need for questions of privilege to be raised at the earliest opportunity in the House. While the Globe and Mail report was published yesterday morning, this afternoon is the first opportunity I have had to raise this point of privilege. In fact, this afternoon is the first time I have been up in the House since the report was published in The Globe and Mail.
In addition, I had to reflect on, and seek counsel about, the best way to move forward regarding these concerns, as the Speaker is aware. In addition, I confirmed the serious, grave details in The Globe and Mail report, including that an individual in Canada, Mr. Wei Zhao, who is accredited by the Government of Canada, was involved in conducting these intimidation operations.
I trust that, under the circumstances, the Speaker would not impose the narrowest possible interpretation to “the earliest opportunity to raise this in the House” so as to deny me the opportunity to raise this very important matter of foreign intimidation operations directed at elected members of Parliament. That is because it has become even clearer in the last 24 hours that members of Parliament, certainly opposition members, and Canadians at large cannot rely upon the Government of Canada, the executive branch of our system, to discharge its role as the defender of the realm.
That is why Parliament, and this House in particular, must vindicate its own authority and protect our interests and those of the members of this place when those interests are under threat, as we now see them to be.
Mr. Speaker, I plead to you to see that it now falls to you, as the guardian of our rights and privileges, to send a clear and unambiguous signal that this sort of conduct on the part of the People's Republic of China is simply unacceptable. Should you agree, Mr. Speaker, I would be prepared to move the appropriate motion at the appropriate time.
