Debates of Oct. 21st, 2024

RCMP Allegations Concerning Foreign Interference from the Government of India

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, many Canadians have brought forward concerns about the RSS. Fortunately, here in Canada, we have independent security agencies that go through a thorough analysis to do this. All this information has been forwarded to them.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the member who spoke before my hon. colleague did not answer the question I put to him. I would like to ask my question again in the hopes of getting an answer from his colleague from the Liberal Party.

We are talking about taking action against foreign interference, and we are talking about government responsibility in relation to this scourge. My question is about government responsibility. On November 18, 2020, the House passed a motion calling on the government to create a foreign agent registry. The federal government did not begin public consultations until March 2023, and Bill C‑70 was not introduced until 2024.

My question is very simple. Why did it take four years when everyone was aware of the problem?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, when it comes to the protection of Canadians, especially when it comes to foreign interference, I can assure the House that our government, from the day that we took office, has been very concerned with this and with taking the appropriate actions. We made sure we gave our security agencies the appropriate legal authority to take action to ensure these concerns would be addressed.

When it comes to the foreign registry and other issues, we want to make sure that they do get it right. When we put forward legislation or any type of strategy, we want to make sure that it would actually have the intended results. That is exactly what we did.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to ask a difficult question. I will try to put it concisely.

The worst act of terrorism on Canadian soil ever was, of course, June 23, 1985, with the bombing of Air India by a very far different diaspora group, the Khalistan Sikh extremists, who, of course, are at the opposite end of the political spectrum from Prime Minister Modi and his Hindu nationalist, very right-wing party.

Even so, there are now operatives of the current Indian government operating on Canadian soil in ways that have alarmed the RCMP sufficiently that we are investigating homicides. That is plural. Being from that part of the world, my hon. colleague certainly understands this issue far better than I do. What can we realistically do to establish good relations with India, an important country in the world, while protecting the lives of Canadians from any form of extremist or terrorist on our soil?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it does not matter who they are. If they commit any type of criminal activity or terrorism, our security agencies and the RCMP will find them and charge them. They will go to jail. That is what we always have to strive for.

When it comes to the actions that we can take, one is to send a message as parliamentarians by demonstrating to Canadians that all parliamentarians are united in this case. One of the things that was asked, as I said in my remarks, was for the leader of the Conservative Party to get that security clearance so he can make appropriate decisions on the information that he would learn, but he still refuses to get a security clearance.

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

Mr. Speaker, I echo many of the words the minister has put on the record. I appreciate and support what the minister is saying, and I hope that NSICOP takes this on as an issue in itself.

Can the minister just emphasize how important it is that the leader of the official opposition gets the security clearance?

[Harjit S. Sajjan, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would say it is an absolute no-brainer, or common sense, for all party leaders to have this security clearance to do the work they need to do. The community has been suffering for four decades with intimidations, and finally people are getting some relief. Their anxiety is still there, and we have to make sure that we keep them safe.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague from Kildonan—St. Paul.

The revelations that the RCMP presented to Canadians last Monday were absolutely shocking. I talked to a number of people across the country who were shocked at the idea that agents of the Government of India were not only involved in foreign interference but also going further than that, and that foreign interference included murder; extortion; use of organized crime, with some international crime syndicates and some here in Canada; intimidation of Canadians; and coercion of Canadians. It got to the point at which the RCMP had to essentially warn Canadians. It specifically warned 13 Canadians that their lives were in danger because of foreign interference. There were concerns that their lives were at risk because of actions that agents of the Government of India may take. This is a clear affront to our sovereignty as a nation. This threatens our democracy and threatens us as a country.

We must take steps to protect Canadians. We have to protect our sovereignty. We must protect our democracy. As well, we need to get answers for Canadians as to why this is happening and how this continues to happen. We need to take steps to stop foreign interference from all countries and, in this case, directly from India.

It is important that we, as parliamentarians, as well as the government, take national security seriously. We must take the threat of foreign interference very seriously.

The idea of foreign interference from India is not new. When I was younger, we would hear of people who had spoken up on human rights issues or other issues that the government of the day might not have agreed with. There would be concerns that they may not receive a visa to go back to India. That was the type of threat that we commonly heard previously. However, what the RCMP has uncovered now and the evidence it has of murder, extortion, coercion and the use of organized crime goes way beyond what we used to hear about before. It is at the point that, in the United States, a plot to murder an American was thwarted by U.S. authorities. U.S. security agencies were able to thwart that plot. Soon after that, arrests were made in the U.S. Unfortunately, we do not have that here.

The Prime Minister, at the Hogue commission, admitted that Canadian security agencies have known about foreign interference from India and that it has been committing foreign interference for years. The government has not taken appropriate steps to protect Canadians, even after a Canadian was assassinated on Canadian soil. Canadians continue to be under threat.

The fact is that, for a number of years, we have been attempting to bring solutions forward on foreign interference. It was our party that pushed for a foreign interference registry so that foreign agents would be registered. The Liberals rejected this, and the NDP supported them. Finally, after pressure from the Conservatives, we now have what is starting to become a foreign interference registry of agents to be registered to stop foreign interference.

Extortion is one method the RCMP has said agents of the Indian government are using to target Canadians. They are using international gangs. They are using and paying gangs here in Canada. One solution that we put forward was my private member's bill, Bill C-381. It is important that, as opposition members, we put solutions forward. The fact is that, right now in Canada, there is no minimum penalty for extortion, but with Bill C-381, anybody committing extortion would have received three years as a mandatory minimum sentence. It would have been four years if they committed that extortion with a firearm and five years if it was in relation to organized crime. That is precisely what we are talking about here today.

This is exactly what the RCMP has said is happening in this case: Through organized crime, Canadians are being extorted. However, the Liberals and the NDP voted against that bill. When we put solutions forward, unfortunately, the Liberals rejected those solutions. The fact of the matter is that Canada is now much more dangerous than it was nine years ago in every respect and in every category. Crime is up. Murders are up. It is less safe to be in Canada, and as we are finding out, foreign interference from India has gotten to an extreme level in which Canadians' lives are threatened. We have already seen that a Canadian has been assassinated because of it.

It is important, and it should be, for the government to take more and better actions to protect Canadians.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's work on the private member's bill. I would like to ask the member, though it is pretty easy to always make it someone else's issue, if it is important, when it comes to the sovereignty of our country and defending Canadians' rights and freedoms and their ability to exist in our country, that all parties take this work seriously. I believe that we are Canadians first. I was born and raised in the Waterloo region. I did not choose to be born there or to be Canadian. I did choose my political party, but today we are talking about the loss of a Canadian.

Does everyone have a responsibility, and can the hon. member please confirm why his leader chooses not to get his security clearance?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely imperative that we, as a House of Commons and as parliamentarians, bring forward solutions to help the situation. The hon. member appreciates the fact that I brought forward a private member's bill to address the very serious issue of extortion in Canada, but she and her party voted against that solution. It is one thing for them to say that we all need to work together and address something, but it is another thing to ignore those issues, ignore solutions and continue on the way they have been going on.

The issue of foreign interference from India is a very serious one, and the government needs to take it more seriously.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean asked Liberal members a question twice, and we did not get an answer. That is a bit awkward for me because I think he is raising an important point.

In 2020, the House adopted a motion to raise this issue and to call for a foreign agent registry because of foreign interference. The House called for that registry in November 2020. It is now 2024 and nothing has changed. Consultations began last year in 2023.

Does my colleague think it is right to take three or four years to react to a situation that requires an urgent decision and action? Does he think that is acceptable?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's question, and he is absolutely correct. The Liberals would not answer that question, and there is a reason for that: They do not take this issue seriously.

We, as a Conservative Party, have been asking for and presenting solutions, such as having a registry for foreign agents. That registry would have helped in this situation, but unfortunately, the Liberals did not bring that forward.

The member is correct in saying that there was a unanimous consent motion in the House of Commons to bring one forward, yet there was no solution by the Liberals. There is one now, but now they are saying that they are consulting. They do not take this issue seriously.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there was a time here in this place when different leaders of political parties could not get a security clearance. They were not allowed to, and they had to actually fight to be able to gain access to that; that changed. Now, the Conservative leader is fighting to stay away from that security clearance on this particular issue.

It has been standard practice to ensure that our democracy is protected by all Parliaments and all political parties via security clearance. Will the Conservatives go public with other issues that they will not get a security clearance on?

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Mr. Speaker, that absolutely does not make any sense because, when the RCMP discussed this issue with all Canadians on Monday, the Leader of the Opposition received a briefing from Nathalie Drouin, national security and intelligence adviser to the Prime Minister, the deputy minister of foreign affairs at Global Affairs Canada and the director of CSIS. All of them gave the Leader of the Opposition a briefing on this issue.

The only difference is that the Leader of the Opposition is the only leader who will not be gagged by the Prime Minister by taking that oath. The job of the Leader of the Opposition is to hold the government to account, and if he were to take that oath, he would not be able to do that.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise in the House among my colleagues and talk about this critical issue facing Canadians. I know many Canadians have been hearing about this over the past week; certainly, for this kind of news to break on a Thanksgiving Monday was quite unprecedented, so I am honoured to put some words on the record. Certainly, we are hearing about very serious allegations from the RCMP out of what has been tied to Indian government officials allegedly plotting to work with criminal entities in Canada to extort, coerce and murder people. They are connected to criminal entities in India. In fact, it has been alleged that a number of individuals have been murdered in Canada as a result of some of these outrageous affronts to our sovereignty.

As a result of these criminal activities, we have really had our whole system of government rocked, and a relationship that we thought was quite strong is now an issue of concern. That should concern everyone in this place because we need strong allies, friends and relationships internationally. It was disappointing to hear of these allegations. It was odd and very surprising to see the RCMP have this unprecedented press conference out of the blue on a Thanksgiving Monday. The RCMP officials, remarkably, said that about 13 individuals are currently in peril and that they did not feel that they could protect them with their own resources; therefore, they had to go public. It is quite unprecedented that we have come to such a point with foreign interference that the RCMP had to hold an emergency press conference to see if they could protect 13 individuals residing in Canada. It is really unbelievable, and it was quite shocking to be eating turkey dinner while learning about some of these details.

Interestingly, about a year ago, the Prime Minister got up in the House of Commons and also did something quite unprecedented: He made these ties, saying that there were some very serious allegations that an individual was murdered in Canada in connection to the Government of India. I do not believe any government, at least in recent history, has ever gotten up and done something like that: accuse a foreign government in that way. It was quite shocking.

What is really interesting is that this was about 13 months ago. We had the Prime Minister, the leader of the Liberal Party, taking this quite unprecedented action in the House of Commons. By calling out a country that is supposed to be our friend in such a way, he was in essence accusing it of murder. However, nothing really happened. Then, 13 months later, we have an unprecedented emergency RCMP announcement, and six diplomats from India are kicked out of Canada in quite a dramatic fashion. This is done because 13 individuals are in peril and many more have been intimidated or coerced.

I mention this to say that the Prime Minister's unprecedented action did not seem to deliver any real results to stop foreign interference. It did nothing to fix the problem; in fact, it got worse. That really speaks to his lack of ability to ensure foreign interference in this country is brought to a stop. Certainly, anyone in this country who is connected to these illegal, criminal and murderous actions needs to be held fully accountable, full stop. We cannot, as a country, allow anybody or any foreign country to come in and murder, coerce or extort our citizens or threaten to take visas away. We have heard a lot of this going on with China as well, with election interference. We also see Russian disinformation, as well as intimidation of Iranian Canadians from the IRGC.

It took the Liberal government about six years, I believe, of our calling for the Liberal government to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization. It took six years to ensure that standard in Canada to say that we would no longer engage and that this kind of foreign interference from Iran, for example, would no longer be allowed. It took many years for the Liberals to act on that.

However, we have heard more and more about foreign interference in the last number of years, while in fact what we have seen from the Prime Minister are his repeated denials that there has been an issue. We saw this almost every day, beginning when there was a CSIS leak to The Globe and Mail regarding Chinese election interference in Canadian elections. “Nothing to see here” was really the message of the day from the Liberal government. In fact, they were more concerned about the leaks.

It was very much the case that Conservatives had to drag this government kicking and screaming to an authentic, professional, robust public inquiry into foreign interference, which we are finally seeing now, run by Justice Hogue, but it took a very long time to get there, and a lot of effort from us, to hold the government accountable and have that type of inquiry.

Members will remember that there was a sort of “in between” period when the Prime Minister finally relented and decided to sort of do something about foreign interference. The Liberals had the David Johnston report, although it was found that he was quite close to Mr. Trudeau and was possibly not applying the most critical eye on what he may or may not have done on foreign interference, so that was in essence scrapped. Mr. Johnston quit midway through.

Then, finally, we got an authentic, professional, robust inquiry into foreign interference, but it took so long and so many leaks from CSIS to sound the alarm. In fact, if there had not been leaks from CSIS to The Globe and Mail, we would probably not even be here talking about foreign interference. They were the ones who blew the whistle because no one was listening to them. In fact, we have a lot of accounts of national security reports just not making it to the Prime Minister's desk. He was not reading them. This was not something that he was interested in.

In fact, I would draw members' attention to a number of the quite concerning comments in the official report from the NSICOP committee about how seriously our Prime Minister takes foreign interference and perhaps why we got here. For example, the NSICOP report said that:

Given the risks posed by foreign interference to Canada’s national security, the Committee expected the government to act. It was slow to do so.

It further stated that:

[The government] has yet to implement an effective response to foreign interference in democratic processes and institutions. This is despite a significant body of intelligence reporting, the completion of foundational policy work, public consultations and having been called to do so by this Committee.

I think Canadians should be concerned and I think that they are waking up to this. How did we get to a place where China, India, Iran, Russia and Pakistan are all just bullying Canada and intimidating our citizens and are allegedly connected to murder in some cases? This is very serious. How did we get here? Well, we have had the same Prime Minister for nine years, and it has never been worse. What does that say about his leadership?

As Canadians, we should be calling on our government. In fact, the Privy Council Office, when the Liberal Prime Minister first got elected in 2015, had a very official report called “Open and Accountable Government”. It explicitly says that national security and international affairs are explicitly the special responsibility of the Prime Minister.

What I have seen from this Prime Minister are excuses. I have seen him not wanting to talk about it and dragging his feet, whether it is on China, India, Russia, Iran, Pakistan or others, yet it is solely his “special responsibility” according to his own “Open and Accountable Government” report from 2015, the governing document that was going to be the one document that this government would turn to to show Canadians what the responsibilities of ministers and the Prime Minister are.

National security is his special responsibility and his special responsibility alone, yet here we are, so I would say that he has failed in fulfilling his special responsibility to ensure that foreign interference is stopped and that our citizens are protected.

It has come to a point where there are allegations that foreign countries are literally murdering people in this country. Mr. Nijjar was a citizen. What is happening is incredibly serious, and I appreciate that we have the opportunity to talk about it in this debate.

In my last minute, I want to say that what would be real leadership in this regard is this: We know there is this list of names that the Prime Minister seems to have weaponized at this foreign interference inquiry, which is very disappointing. He has turned it into a circus. Other countries hold members of Parliament and others accountable by releasing the names of those individuals who have been in connection with foreign governments and working to undermine them. We have seen this in the United Kingdom with Christine Lee named and shamed by the U.K. government. Why is it we cannot know the names of the individuals who have been candidates and former parliamentarians or current ones? What is the Liberal government trying to hide when it will not release them?

Things like that shed a real light and send a message to anyone looking to undermine Canada that we are going to find out what they are up to and who they are and that we will hold them accountable for it. That is what the government should be doing and what it failed to do for nine years. We are going to hold the government accountable for that.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are here this evening to talk about foreign interference, and the Prime Minister provided information last week about how Conservative members, former members or candidates allegedly had something to do with India's foreign interference. That is our understanding.

Now, the leader of the Conservative Party and member for Carleton is refusing to get his security clearance. I am not looking to cast stones. I just want to understand why he does not want to get it. If he is doing this as the Leader of the Opposition, will he do it as prime minister too? Will he refuse to receive sensitive information on the pretext that he could no longer talk about that issue in public? That is the reason he is giving for not getting his security clearance.

I see the Speaker signalling to me that my time is up. I get the impression that I am being given a lot less time than some other members. This is the second time this has happened.

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

Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, we have been very clear on this. We feel, as do others, that this security clearance would, in essence, be a gag order. It is very transparent, in fact, why the Prime Minister dropped this so-called bombshell and made a circus out of what was otherwise a very professional undertaking, the foreign interference inquiry. It is because his own caucus is looking to revolt. There has been an open rebellion within that caucus, and it came to a head this Wednesday. Of course, as I outlined in my remarks, there has been very much a failed record from the Prime Minister on preventing foreign interference.

I will conclude with this. It is from the longest-serving chief of staff in Canadian history, the right-hand woman to the Prime Minister. She said that receiving a briefing would prevent recipients from using the information “in any manner. Even where that is not the case, briefing political parties on sensitive intelligence regarding an MP could put the leader or representative of a political party in a tough position, because any decision affecting the MP might have to be made without giving them due process.”

She is saying it would gag them. We are saying it would gag us. We are not going to do that.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to challenge my hon. colleague on that last point, because we had former high-level CSIS executives saying, on the position the Leader of the Opposition is taking right now, that there is no reasonable justification for it.

We have Wesley Wark, who has advised both Liberal and Conservative governments, saying that it is nonsensical. We are not talking about a gag order here; we are talking about the ability of a leader to take action within his or her caucus. That is what it is all about.

If we do have members of Parliament who are compromised, leaders have an incredible amount of power in their caucus. They can prevent MPs from sitting on certain committees. They can prevent them from running again as members under a party banner.

Again, through you, why does the leader of the Conservative Party think he knows better than former CSIS executives?

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

Mr. Speaker, I have shared this with the NDP member. I find it interesting that the former leader of the NDP would agree with the leader of the Conservative Party that in essence it would be a gag order.

Again, there is a very political reason that the Liberals are doing this right now. What was interesting in that foreign interference inquiry is that the Liberal leader, as we already knew, later admitted on the record that of course there are members of the Liberals on that list. What has he done about it? He has really done nothing. In fact, he denied there was any issue at all, so I feel that if the New Democrats want something done on foreign interference, they should probably stop propping up a government that has done nothing about it for nine years.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Veterans Affairs and Associate Minister of National Defence]

Mr. Speaker, the member of Parliament said that nothing was done from September 18, when the Prime Minister announced these serious allegations. I think she is failing to remember that 22 people have been charged with extortion and eight charged for the murder of Mr. Nijjar and others.

Now we have an RCMP commissioner and the deputy commissioner stating that they have made numerous attempts and in fact actually showed the evidence. I do not know what more the Conservative opposition is expecting.

I would like to know why, when every other leader of this House, including the Green Party leader, the NDP leader and I believe the Bloc leader, have been able to see the evidence under oath, the Conservative Party leader will not take it?

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

Mr. Speaker, I think what I am expecting is what all Canadians are expecting, which is a leader who is going to make our country strong, a leader who is not going to have our country, after nine years, turn into a country that is being bullied by multiple foreign adversaries, and now friends, in fact.

That is the status quo under the Liberal government, which that member is a part of, a government that has allowed the country to become so weak that other countries have no problems waltzing in here and murdering citizens. That is the situation. Since the Prime Minister got up in the House 13 months ago, it has come to the point that the RCMP had to announce, on Thanksgiving weekend, that 13 more individuals are in peril.

I would say that this is a failed record.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry about earlier. I know that you are fair. I did not mean to criticize you. I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Montcalm.

The consequences of foreign interference are quite real. They are real for security, for democracy and for the well-being of our communities.

Last March, the foreign interference commission heard testimony from several representatives of various communities about the impact that foreign interference can have on the lives of members of their diaspora. These representatives voiced their concerns about the authoritarian regimes that they said had the power to ruin their lives and the lives of their families.

For example, the Russian Canadian Democratic Alliance testified that many Russians in Canada have parents or other family members who stayed behind in Russia. The organization said that Russian diplomats in Canada were using video surveillance and social media to identify people protesting against Moscow.

One human rights activist said that members of the Iranian community in Canada wear masks, sunglasses and hats at protests so they cannot be identified. According to some sources, when activists travel to Iran, their cell phones are confiscated. They are persecuted and interrogated, and they fear for the well-being of their families, who are also pressured and interrogated.

Reports from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, also showed that China targeted the members of Parliament who sponsored a motion to recognize the genocide of the Uyghurs, a motion to which I moved an amendment that was adopted. A representative from the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project stated that Beijing is engaged in a systematic campaign of repression against this community. I am very familiar with the Uyghur community. Their word can be trusted. Uyghur Canadians have said that they could not share news of a joyful occasion with their family back home because communication had been blocked. He added that some Uyghurs in Canada do not even know if their family members are still alive or if they have died.

Other diaspora communities on Canadian soil have the same concerns. I am thinking, for example, of the Hong Kong, Tibetan and Taiwanese diaspora communities.

I asked my Liberal colleague a question earlier, but no one was able to give me an answer. On November 18, 2020, the House of Commons adopted a motion calling on the government to create a foreign agent registry. That was on November 18, 2020. The federal government did not begin public consultations on the creation of a foreign agent registry until March 2023. When I am told that these things take time because they are bills that have a real impact on people's lives, that is not true. The government did not start drafting a bill. It started the consultations in 2023, even though the motion was adopted in the fall of 2020. At that point, foreign interference had been known to be a problem for a long time, and yet the government still dragged its feet on this issue.

It is worth noting that the government did everything in its power to avoid a public inquiry into foreign interference in the election. As members will recall, it denied our requests over and over. After several months of the opposition hounding the government and the public losing all confidence in the so-called special rapporteur, the Liberal government was forced to give in and open a public inquiry. It took time. I even held a press conference with representatives from all the communities targeted by the Chinese Communist regime. We had Tibetans, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese people and Uyghurs there with us. Three days later, the special rapporteur decided to resign and a public inquiry was launched.

That inquiry is how we learned that although the member for Don Valley North initially claimed to know nothing about the help he illegally received from China during his nomination, he actually knew more than he publicly let on.

After denying the problem of foreign interference for years, delaying the public inquiry into foreign interference and then also delaying the implementation of a foreign agent registry, as suggested by my colleague, the member for Trois-Rivières, the Canadian government finally seems to recognize the problem. Yes, I did say “seems to”.

The Bloc Québécois thinks it was appropriate to expel the Indian diplomats identified by the RCMP as having played a role in the attacks on Canadian citizens. Nonetheless, I want to note that, today, we are seeing the extent to which foreign actors feel they can act with impunity in Canada. It is the detrimental consequence of successive governments, Conservative and Liberal alike, deciding to turn a blind eye for commercial or electoral reasons. The negligence of consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments has led foreign states to believe they are free to attack Canadian sovereignty and democracy.

On October 14, the RCMP confirmed that India was behind the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in British Columbia on June 18, 2023. Diplomats from the Indian high commission allegedly hired criminals to assassinate this Sikh opponent. According to the available information, the Indian high commission was engaged in other clandestine activities, including intelligence gathering for the Indian government.

When Parliament resumed in the fall of 2023, the federal government finally reacted to the Indian government's interference when the Prime Minister publicly accused India of murdering Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. However, he did that without having any real plan for what to do next, particularly in terms of Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy.

Many people, including the Bloc Québécois, are wondering about the Prime Minister of Canada's highly questionable choice to level allegations against India the first day Parliament resumed in September 2023, but that is not surprising. The Canadian government does not seem to have a plan when it comes to foreign affairs or international relations in general. My colleague, the member for Montarville, has been disheartened to see this day after day, week after week, month after month, in short, since our work resumed in the House of Commons.

Most of the time, as parliamentarians, we get a sense that this government is making up its approach to foreign affairs as it goes. Back in 2015, members will recall, the Prime Minister said “Canada is back” in reference to Canada's place in the world. I think it would have been more appropriate to say that “Canada is in the back”. That is where we are today. We are in the back, unable to keep up.

We got proof positive of that today. A Quebec sovereigntist was the one who said it: Canada absolutely must get back to being a serious player on the international stage. As I said earlier, the foreign interference problem is nothing new. It has been out in the open for a long time, yet successive governments have really dragged their feet.

The first victims of this foreign interference are not necessarily Canada's democratic institutions. It is possible, but the very first victims of foreign interference are often opponents who sought refuge in Canada and in Quebec. They are people who thought they were safe. Now, they look at what is going on, watch the news, read the newspapers and they see foreign powers doing as they please on Canadian soil, even attacking foreign nationals who came here looking for a safe haven.

Some of my Uyghur friends used to ask me if I feared for my safety because I was banned from China as a result of my work with the Uyghurs. I have never feared for my safety, and I never would. I am a Canadian parliamentarian; they are not crazy enough to come after me. However, it is different for the people I work with such as the Uyghurs, people from Hong Kong, Tibet, Taiwan and so on. These people have family back in China. The Uyghurs are just one example. They are the brave ones. They are scared witless because they have family members who are stuck over there.

Today, when they turn on the TV, read the newspaper or listen to the radio, they learn that Canada is allowing foreign agents within its borders. Imagine how painful it must be, how frightened people in these situations must be. It is scary, what we put them through.

It is absolutely necessary that we have this debate tonight. The government needs to wake up and understand what foreign interference is. Yes, foreign interference in our elections is harmful, but the primary victims are real people. These are men, women and children who fear for their own safety and for the safety of their families. This government needs to wake up. The Conservatives need to act responsibly and in a non-partisan manner. This needs to be resolved.

When Quebec becomes a country, it will look to Canada as an example of what not to do as a country on the international stage.

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

Mr. Speaker, I completely agree with the comment my colleague from Lac-Saint-Jean made when he asked a Conservative member a question. He asked why the hon. leader of the official opposition refused to get his security clearance. I agree with him.

As the member for Edmonton Mill Woods said, the leader of the Conservative Party received a briefing. That is true.

I got the briefing and I asked if the leader of the Conservative Party was able to get the same briefing. They said no, they could not give him as many details as they gave me because he does not have his clearance.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, that is a legitimate question.

The leader of the official opposition aspires to be the prime minister of Canada. Today, he is telling us that he does not want to get his security clearance or see the documents because it would prevent him from speaking publicly about the issue.

Is he saying that, if he ever becomes the prime minister of Canada, he will refuse to see sensitive information because he is afraid that he will not be able to speak publicly about that issue? That does not make any sense. If he does not want to get his security clearance, then he should come up with a better reason than that. The reason that he is giving right now is not a good one.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his advocacy on this important issue. I think we agree on many aspects of this.

I would like to hear the member's position in regard to the fact that we are finally having this debate today. It has been on the minds of so many individuals across the country, particularly Sikh and Muslim communities as they have been dealing with and raising the alarm of foreign interference for a very long time in Canada. We are finally getting to a position where we can do things, like ban the RSS.

Is that something the member would support?