Mr. Speaker, the member who is heckling now does not know the content of those briefings, just as I do not know. I do not know, and the member should admit he does not know either.
It was on Monday that the Prime Minister found out about it, and he took immediate action. If we want to start to depoliticize, as some in the chamber are saying is so important for us to do, we need to look at what it is.
Do they support CSIS? Let us put it into perspective the work that CSIS does. Let me read from the CSIS report. It says:
In an increasingly dangerous and polarized world, Canada faces multiple threats to our security, sovereignty, national interests, and values. CSIS is committed to keeping Canada and Canadians safe from all threats to our national security.
In doing so, CSIS investigates activities that fall within the definition of threats to the security of Canada as outlined in the CSIS Act. Specifically, CSIS is authorized to investigate espionage and sabotage, foreign interference, terrorism and extremism, and subversion. Importantly, CSIS is prohibited from investigating lawful advocacy, protest or dissent—except when it is carried out in conjunction with activities that constitute a threat to the security of Canada.
This is what I really want to emphasize, just so that members have a sense of the reporting and how important it is that we have a protocol put in place. The report states, “In undertaking its work, CSIS reports on these threats by providing advice to the Government of Canada, including through the production of intelligence assessments and reports”, like the one I am citing right now. CSIS has produced over 2,500 intelligence reports. That is, I would argue, one of the reasons that it is CSIS's responsibility to recognize those issues that need to be elevated. It has a responsibility to all members of the House. If there are concerns in regard to their safety or something that it believes that a member should be aware of, it can have that consultation. I have never had that consultation. Maybe that is something that, as a standard rule, CSIS should provide in the future for all members of Parliament. I think it might be something worthwhile.
Every member has the opportunity to ensure that they have that discussion, and it is CSIS that determines what information it is prepared to release, whether to the individual in question or whether to someone higher up. Like the rest of the House, we just found out about the case regarding the particular member. The Prime Minister has now indicated that all cases, and I would assume that would include the 49 in 2022 that CSIS looked into, should be brought to the attention of the PMO. I see that as a tangible action, just like I see a tangible action where we have the Minister of Foreign Affairs now calling upon the ambassador to come before the government.
We constantly hear from the Conservatives, “Expel the diplomat, expel the diplomat.” They do not even know the content, yet they feel that they can be judge, jury and whatever else. They have made the determination. That could be the determination, but I do not know the facts. How could the opposition know the facts? Do they know something that we do not know? Maybe the members of the opposition should be a little more transparent. If they know something, they should tell us. All they are saying is that we must get rid of the diplomat. That could ultimately be the case, but I think we have to go through the process and have confidence in CSIS.
We can take a look at a government that has been proactive on the issue of political interference. In the days of Stephen Harper, not all of those days but a good number of them, I sat in opposition. What did Harper actually do? Let me tell members some of the things that the Government of Canada has done since we have been in government. We established a national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians. When we were in opposition, we called, virtually begged, for prime minister Harper to bring in that committee. We attempted to get that committee. It was one of the big pushes that we made.
Shortly after getting elected, we instituted that committee. The Conservatives even protested it for a while. There was about a year during which they would not even participate in the committee. What does that committee actually do? It would address the issues we are talking about today. The committee could actually have CSIS come before it and obligate CSIS to share the information. The individuals who sit on that committee are Conservatives, Bloc members, Liberals, NDP members, I believe, and members of the Senate. That is something that we put into place shortly after the election.
What about the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, again, bringing together an organization to ensure that there is a proper review in process to protect the integrity and the safety of our freedoms and our democracy? That is a substantial initiative by the government. We had a critical election incident public protocol put into place, with top civil servants, so if something does happen during an election, in terms of foreign interference, there is something tangible through the group that deals with security, intelligence and threats during elections.
We established the rapid response mechanism for sharing intelligence with our G7 partners. Because Canada has made significant progress, a lot of the knowledge that has been gathered to date is now being shared among our allied countries.
Those are some of the initiatives we have taken as a government, because we take the issue seriously. Let us compare that to Stephen Harper.
