Madam Speaker, I apologize. I was not referring to him. I was talking about the Prime Minister. I am sorry and I will never do that again, unless I make a mistake.
Now let us talk about Chinese interference. Chinese interference is very serious. It poses a threat to democracy. According to the intelligence services, it is the greatest known threat to Canada. This is very serious. It seems to me that the guardian of democracy in Canada is the Prime Minister. It is up to him to ensure that we have a healthy democracy. This guy was democratically elected, so I think it would be in his interest to try to protect our democracy.
This all began in the fall of 2022. Honestly, there are so many elements to Chinese interference, but I will focus on the most important ones. I will address all of them and try to find the common threads, in other words, the same issues that keep coming up over and over again. Members will see where I am going with this.
In the fall, we read in the papers that China had interfered in 11 ridings in 2019. We asked the Prime Minister what was going on. He said that he had no idea, that he had never heard anything about it. When we asked again, he compared us to Trump, of all people. I cannot say we were happy about being compared to Trump. The Prime Minister accused the opposition of saying that the elections were not legitimate, despite the fact that no one in the opposition had said anything of the sort. That made us angry.
We answered that we were not saying that the Liberals had not won the election, but that we simply wanted to know what happened in 11 ridings. The Prime Minister told us that he had no knowledge of this. Right after that, he went to the G20. I can still see it. He told us he did not know what was happening, but at the G20, he ran after Xi Jinping to talk to him, as if he had no one else to talk to. He spoke to Xi Jinping for so long that Xi got fed up. The Prime Minister told us that he had talked to Xi about interference.
However, he had told us that he had no knowledge of any of this and that the election results were not illegitimate. Why did he talk to the president about interference? That is the first problem. Was he joking? Is the Prime Minister a joker? Perhaps he is.
There was also interference in 2021. I would like to remind the House that this is a minority government. According to the final polls, it was a close race. The Chinese interfered in 11 or 15 ridings in 2019. Since then, they must have practised and gotten better at it, because they may have interfered in up to 15 or 20 ridings. It does not take a PhD in math to understand that, if someone can influence the election results in 10 or 15 ridings where the Liberals and Conservatives are neck and neck, that could mean victory or defeat for one of the parties. It could determine which party forms government. This is no laughing matter.
We know that the Chinese government is fond of the Liberals. It likes them. It believes it could get close to the Liberals without much trouble. It would prefer a minority Liberal government. The Chinese government is not as fond of the Conservatives. It is a well-known fact. This is troubling.
We told the Prime Minister that the issue had to be dealt with before the next election. We have a minority government, which means that an election could be called at any time. We need to resolve this problem quickly to make sure that the dice are not loaded when the next election happens. That will take intelligent action.
Then we learned that, in 2021, the member for Don Valley North apparently spoke to the Chinese consulate and even asked them not to free the two Michaels, so as not to favour the Conservative Party. It is not always easy to grasp all the arguments in this affair. It is about as easy as eating an apple through a tennis racquet. I do not really understand it, but, in any case, that is what happened. Obviously, the Prime Minister says that he was unaware. The Liberal member for Don Valley North is now an independent member, despite the fact that he had the Prime Minister’s support. It is troubling.
Then there is the Trudeau Foundation debacle, and that is a real circus.
If anyone thinks they understand something about the Trudeau Foundation, it is because someone explained it wrong. It is complicated, so we are looking into that. Apparently, in 2016, the Chinese government donated $140,000 to the Trudeau Foundation.
The Prime Minister says that he has not had anything to do with the foundation for 10 years. That is another joke. He is a real card. He says that neither he nor his office has had anything to do with the foundation.
Then again, his brother is involved in the foundation. In 2016, the Prime Minister’s Office called the foundation about the Chinese donation. After that, the Prime Minister asked Morris Rosenberg, the former CEO of the Trudeau Foundation, to look into the matter and determine whether there had been any Chinese interference. In Mr. Rosenberg’s massive report, there are four lines about Chinese interference and that is to say that there is none. The Prime Minister then asked David Johnston to act as special rapporteur so he could decide on whether there is a need for an independent public inquiry. Mr. Johnston told him that that was a big ask, that he was not sure he could answer right away, and that he would study the situation for two months. It is like Rodin’s The Thinker: everyone is waiting.
While we are waiting, other things are happening. All of these people are from the Trudeau Foundation. The Prime Minister goes to spend Christmas with a friend who is involved in the Trudeau Foundation. His office also hosted the Trudeau Foundation.
Do they take me for a fool? The Prime Minister says that he has not had anything to do with the foundation for 10 years. He keeps repeating it. The members of his government keep repeating it. The government House leader rises and says that he has not had anything to do with the foundation for 10 years. Does he believe that? The Liberals are in trouble. They believe that guy, when everyone knows that it is all complete nonsense, and it just goes on and on.
The latest news is about the police stations. There are two in Quebec. That is new. The Minister of Public Safety was very serious last week when he said that they had been closed. We called, and they are still open.
How can he not know that? Before saying something, he should check it. He is a minister. He also has a team. If he does not have time to check, he can ask his friend to call and find out.
They are still open. It is troubling. One of these police stations is five minutes away by bike in my riding. I will say it again, this is troubling.
Here is the cherry on the sundae. Now I come to the present day. Two years ago, the hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills and his family received threats. Once again, the Prime Minister says he was unaware. Jody Thomas, his national security adviser, said she was aware, but he was not. Is he telling jokes, or is he a little lost? I am putting it extremely politely, but that is what we must ask ourselves.
Now, we have a member who was threatened by the Chinese government because he voted against its wishes. We do not care about its wishes. It did not elect us.
I just said that. The Prime Minister will never be able to say that the hon. member for La Prairie may have been threatened. We do not know. The hon. member for Wellington—Halton Hills was threatened two years ago, but we did not find out about it until this week. The government still says it was unaware.
I swear that if I were the prime minister of Canada, which will never happen, but let us just pretend for a moment, and I found out that a member had been threatened, I would be throwing the diplomat out five seconds later. It would not take me five weeks or five days. In just five seconds, he would be out on his ear.
If the Prime Minister had learned about this right away, he could have thrown him out and told him to beat it. Instead, he procrastinated. The Liberals got together to figure out what they should do. The Prime Minister knew two years ago, the rascal.
He knew two years ago. Now they are getting together to figure out what they should do. The opposition demanded that this person be ejected. They said that they could not do that and that it is no easy thing to expel an ambassador.
Finally, yesterday, they bought themselves a spine and announced they would be throwing him out. Now they are patting themselves on the back like they are heroes.
We do not believe that. Are any other members of the House being threatened by China? We do not know. It is troubling. It is very troubling.
Members of the House and their families may be under threat. The Prime Minister may know this is happening, but he will not say. The Prime Minister is a cross between Ulysses and Pontius Pilate. Happy the man who, like Ulysses, has travelled well.
There is one thing this Prime Minister likes. He likes to travel. Last weekend, when he was in front of the Liberals, he was happy because he was travelling to see the King—