Madam Speaker, we are back this evening to try to get to the truth behind why the Prime Minister, who once held NSICOP, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, in such high esteem, has suddenly changed his tune. The Prime Minister had once said he thought NSICOP was well-suited to examine foreign interference in Canada's democracy and our democratic institutions, but that does not seem to be the case anymore. What was the reason for the change in the Prime Minister's glowing support for NSICOP? What brought about this change? Could it have been a release of an NSICOP report that shed some light on the willingness of some members of the Liberal Party to accept political and financial benefits from foreign sources, most notably from agents of the Chinese government?
I had asked thePrime Minister if he still felt that “Canadians need to have faith in their institutions and deserve answers and transparency”, his words; or, had his party's Beijing masters intervened and indicated a need for a reversal in that faith?
In the reply to my question the Minister of Public Safety had the audacity to suggest I was making things up. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is not me saying these things. The minister notes that NSICOP, the Hogue commission and even national media have done some deep digging to get to the bottom of foreign interference. The truth is that the Liberal government does not want what has been uncovered to come to light and, perhaps most important, it does not want Canadians to know about it. After all, if everything is going so well in the government's eyes, why is it that the Canadian people are still in the dark about the so-called “11”? Why are these people not arrested and why are they not before a court?
There are laws in the Criminal Code that address treasonous acts. Subsection 46(2), paragraphs (c), (d) and (e) to be precise, sets out what constitutes the act of treason and it is quite clear. Subsection 46(2) states:
Every one commits treason who, in Canada,...
(c) conspires with any person to commit high treason or to do anything mentioned in paragraph (a);
(d) forms an intention to do anything that is high treason or that is mentioned in paragraph (a) and manifests that intention by an overt act; or
(e) conspires with any person to do anything mentioned in paragraph (b) or forms an intention to do anything mentioned in paragraph (b) and manifests that intention by an overt act.
Additionally, subsection 46(4) notes:
Where it is treason to conspire with any person, the act of conspiring is an overt act of treason.
Therefore, how is it that those unnamed 11 people are able to evade our laws, our courts and our justice system? Who are these special 11 people benefiting from the Liberal government's tacit if not implicit protection? Why does Canada even have treason laws if the government of the day decides by itself to suspend the use of these laws?
For some time now, Canada's democracy has been under attack by authoritarian regimes and chief among these is the People's Republic of China. I hosted a press conference earlier today where I was joined by three leading experts on foreign interference. We wanted to address a question that many Canadians have been asking: Who are the parliamentarians who have been identified in that confidential NSICOP report? How can Canada have an election if Canadians do not know whether the people they are voting for have their best interests at heart? Some observers may also wonder if the current government is serving another master.
Now, nearly every opposition party leader has called for release of the names of the parliamentarians identified in the NSICOP report, but the Liberal government still refuses to do so. Why is that? Why will the government not come clean to Canadians, and defend our democracy?