Debates of Nov. 21st, 2024

Public Safety and National Security

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member for Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères is rising on a point of order.

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Madam Speaker, I just want to know if there is quorum in the House.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I will ask the clerk to count the members present.

And the count having been taken:

We now have quorum.

Resuming debate. The hon. member for Timmins—James Bay.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, I was speaking about the policies that we had in place up to the time of Brian Mulroney and Paul Martin, when we had investments in public housing. We were then told the great lie of Paul Martin, who delivered that lie with a straight face, that the private sector would step up and build all the housing we need. It did not happen and people began to fall through the cracks. How did that lead to where we are today? It was a slow-moving hurricane. Slowly, year by year, the housing crisis and the homeless crisis got worse, to the point we are at today, where 235,000 Canadians face homelessness.

That was the first part of the undermining of our communities. The second part was the opioid crisis. We know that it started with Purdue Pharma and the licensing of OxyContin, which was first licenced in the mid- to late 1990s in Canada, despite the fact that there was a massive increase in opioid per pill. It should have been in a restricted category but it was not. Why was OxyContin so key? It was not until about 2008 or 2009 that we began to see serious devastation in our communities. That was 10 years into the opioid crisis in Kentucky and West Virginia, with mass lawsuits being launched against the predatory practices of Purdue Pharma after its 10-year track record of abusing this supposed medicine.

The government at the time, under Stephen Harper, paid no attention to what was coming over the border. I remember that in 2008-09, people were beginning to get addicted. People going to the doctor because they had a wrist problem and people who went to the dentist for wisdom teeth were being given OxyContin. We began to see people becoming addicted who would never have been addicted before. People did not go on the streets and get heroin in our little communities, but they got OxyContin and became addicted. By the time the federal government stepped up and banned OxyContin, which was around 2011-12, we already had a massive problem of opioid addiction across demographics that had never suffered something like this before.

That is when fentanyl came in. I remember the very first fentanyl death in our region. I remember that young man; I remember his family. We were so unprepared, because, again, there was nobody at the federal government level at the time, under Stephen Harper, paying attention to what fentanyl was doing.

At this stage, we have had over 21,000 opioid deaths in just the last four years. It has cut through every community in our country. Every community has suffered. We have a rising homeless population and have a rising addiction problem. Fentanyl and the other drugs that come with it have created an incredibly destabilized situation at a time when government was walking away from mental health services and at a time when government was not there for the people who needed supports.

That leads us to the crisis of the abandonment of mental health and basic programs, the opioid crisis and the inability to get people into safe housing, many of them in the population aimed at by the gangs that have become increasingly violent and dangerous. We need a strategy that addresses this and we do not have a strategy. What we get from the Conservatives are bumper sticker slogans. They say they are going to fight the crime.

Then there is what we have heard again and again in testimony. Myron Demkiw, chief of police of the Toronto Police Service, talked about the need for safe supply and wraparound services. The member who lives in the big house Stornoway has been lighting gasoline fires all over the opioid crisis in all our communities, claiming that safe supply means the Prime Minister is giving out drugs on the street, which is an absolute falsehood. We do not need slogans and incendiary language. We need solutions. We need to keep people alive. That is number one. We also need to give the police the tools to go after predatory gangs.

Something that I have not heard from the Liberals is the ability to target the gangs who are coming in, and to get them out. It is certainly one of the issues that has been raised to me in the first nations communities of the north. People want the ability to police and protect their communities. When someone suddenly comes into a fly-in community, who has never been there before and is selling fentanyl, community leaders want the power to say, “Buddy, you are out the door; we are not even going to let you off the plane.”

In fly-in communities in the north, we can get on a plane to get into Fort Albany or Attawapiskat or Neskantaga with our bag, and we can be carrying as much fentanyl as we want. We cannot get on an Air Canada plane with a bag without being searched. What I have heard in Treaty 9 is that people want Transport Canada to give them the authority that if someone is flying into one of the fly-in communities they have to go through security searches so that they are not carrying guns and fentanyl. This is a straightforward thing. It is about keeping people safe.

I want to be able to go home to the communities that I represent and tell police officers who have done 35 years of service in small-town Canada that they can go home at the end of the day and be safe. I want to tell our frontline workers that when they go out on a call, they should not need a flak jacket; they should not need two OPP cruisers outside the door because there are predatory gangs who have taken over that housing complex. That is the reality in small-town Canada, and solutions are not being talked about; what is being talked about are the excuses.

One of the things that I find very concerning is that my Conservative colleagues' solutions only work if we all live by the fact of having no memory. I remember when Vic Toews was the minister of public safety. Some members may not remember Vic Toews. He was convicted of violating the Elections Canada Act. That is a black mark and Stephen Harper made him pretty much top of the justice department anyway. He brought in the legislation that was going to force telecoms to create backdoor routes into every Canadian cellphone so he could spy on them. The Conservatives accuse this Prime Minister of spying on Canadians. This Prime Minister is an absolute amateur compared to what Vic Toews was going to do, which was a total violation of civil liberties of every single Canadian so he could listen in on their phone calls. That same Vic Toews, of course, then was found guilty of breaking conflict of interest guidelines for hustling gigs for groups that were “seeking relief against a decision in which he had been involved as a minister of the Crown.” Let us talk about dodgy.

I mention Vic Toews because he also stood in the House one day and accused the opposition members that they were either on the Conservatives' side or the side of the child pornographers. This was at a time when he was cutting 1,100 jobs from border security. They were the people whose job it was to keep out fentanyl gangs, guns, predators and child pornographers. Let us remember that Jean-Pierre Fortin, who was the national president of the Customs and Immigration Union, stated that because of what the Harper government was doing on cutting border security, “more child pornography entering the country, more weapons, illegal drugs will pass through our borders, not to mention terrorists, and sexual predators and hardened criminals.” That does not fit on a bumper sticker, but that was the fact and that was the reality of what the current Liberal government inherited because of the Harper cuts. Vic Toews, at the time, said that was all fearmongering.

Vic Toews cut the intelligence unit on border security in half. How were we going to defend ourselves against international criminal gangs when he cut the intelligence service? He cut the sniffer-dog teams. That is a no-brainer. Sniffer-dog teams are not all that expensive, but sniffer-dog teams will tell us where the drugs are. Stephen Harper did not care. He fired those people because it was going to save some money.

Therefore, when the Conservatives say that they would get tough on the crime and they would take on the blah-blah, let us remember what they did. Let us remember how they cut the police crime prevention programs that helped communities support themselves so that they could keep the gangs out and support their communities.

Let us remember Tony Clement. There was $50 million in border security that he hoovered into his personal office to give out. What did he do?

He paid for a sunken boat. That was not a good use of money. There were the Muskoka gazebos; he was building gazebos all over the rural parts of his riding. He built a fake lake. Muskoka has the most beautiful lakes in the country, except for those in Timmins—James Bay. There was Tony Clement. The lakes were not good enough. He had to create a fake lake. I remember Steamboat Tony. He was another one who went down in ethical flames.

We are not even going to go through all the famous dark ethical violations of the Harper government. I mention Tony Clement because Stephen Harper thought it was a great idea to take money for border security to keep Canadians safe and give it to Tony Clement to buy sunken boats in Muskoka. Imagine what is going to happen under the guy who is living in Stornoway, if he ever gets in.

The other thing that I find really concerning is we have these serious issues of gun violence and gangs that we have to focus on. The Liberals have dropped the ball a thousand times on these issues. I want to be able to go home to Northern Ontario and tell our frontline workers and families who are suffering from addictions that they can be safe, and that our communities are never going to be bases for this kind of violence.

I cannot assure them of that now, and it worries me. It worries me when I have seen what is happening to communities that have always had each other's backs and have looked out for each other. Communities cannot do it on their own. If we talk to the municipalities anywhere in the north about the homeless crisis, they are going to say, “Where's the federal government?” When we talk to the communities about the opioid crisis, they are going to say that what the member who lives in Stornoway has been saying is like pouring gasoline on their efforts of keeping people alive.

If we talk to the police in Timmins or the OPP, they are going to say that we cannot arrest our way out of this crisis. It is complex. I am proud of the people on the front lines in my region, like the Mushkegowuk Fire Keepers who walk the streets of Timmins to keep people alive and safe. That is a program we initiated in Timmins—James Bay. It should be a national program, in the indigenous urban regions, people on the streets keeping people safe. They deserve better than this political Punch and Judy show.

Rather than talking about these issues, this morning the Conservatives were talking about Grandpa Bill's hunting rifle. That is a total falsehood. I am a gun owner. My wife is a gun owner. Imagine the member for Stornoway out in the bush. He is saying, “They're going after your turkey gun.” No, they are not.

The government is going after the assault weapons that have killed people. It is going to go after handguns that are coming over the border. In the latest falsehoods, from the guy who used pictures of Serbia and Malaysia as Canada, and hunters from Oklahoma, they said they were going to defend Pa and Joe Jr. going out with their orange hats. That is a total falsehood. We have freaking fentanyl gangs in our communities that need to be dealt with. The government is not going after Grandpa Joe.

That is the misinformation that is coming from the Conservatives. The Liberals, with their Punch and Judy show, do not even remember how to punch anymore. I need to be able to go home to our communities and say that we will keep people safe, we will keep families alive and we will restore balance with those wraparound services that the police have talked about.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague spoke about the Conservative record when it comes to crime in this country and the cuts that they made.

I am curious to know whether the member also shares my concerns about the Conservatives being disingenuous with this concurrence motion. This report is from 2022. Why did they wait two years? Is it the fact that they are not having any success at committee and would like the House to reprogram the schedule at committee? They do not want to talk about foreign interference with India, or the fact that their leader refuses to get a security clearance. They do not want the mayor of Brampton, Patrick Brown, who may answer questions about the Conservative leadership race, summoned.

Why did the Conservatives wait two years to bring forward this concurrence debate?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the fascinating things is that we have only one leader in the history of Canada who cannot get a national security clearance. If he could, he surely would, right? He surely would. This is a no-brainer, so what is it about him?

Then we start to find serious CSIS allegations about the interference in the leadership that brought down Erin O'Toole, who I actually think would have been a good prime minister, in order to get this guy into the role. On his job history, I am not going to say he worked at Dairy Queen because I have been called out for that. He may not have worked there. In my riding, if someone wants to volunteer at a lunch program, they have to get a security clearance.

If someone is under investigation for Chinese interference, for the Modi government interference, they are going to name, blame and shame and do everything else. The guy cannot get a security clearance, because if he could get a security clearance, he would have, so I want to know what is in the closet. I would like to get a peek in there. What is in the closet in Stornoway that he is hiding from?

[Greg McLean, Conservative, Calgary Centre, AB]

Mr. Speaker, the member is always entertaining, and he always gets to make up some of his facts. Let us talk about that. He is looking at the number of jobs that were cut from the CBSA by the previous Harper government, which cut 1,000 jobs from 14,000 to 13,000 and then put them right back to 14,000, where it continued until two years ago.

If the facts were on the table as opposed to the rhetoric, would he readjust his speech to actually say, yes, it has been this way since 2008 and that is the way it has continued and the way the government has continued, or would he continue with the nonsense rhetoric he is spewing in the House of Commons?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not take the personal attacks personally because I know the truth hurts. If one is a Conservative and faces the truth, it must be a shocking thing. If the goddess of truth came down painted purple and danced all over the desks of the backbench of the Conservatives for three straight weeks, none of them would notice, because they would not know what truth looks like.

Here is the issue: $50 million and Tony Clement for his Muskoka steak knives, for his gazebos. That was border security money. Those were facts, and did Tony get demoted? No, but I am not going to go into what brought down Tony Clement, just like I am not going to go into what brought down Vic Toews. Dean Del Mastro went to jail. He was the then prime minister's parliamentary secretary. They all thought it was great to cut money from keeping people safe in order to raise sunken boats in Muskoka and create fake lakes in one of the most beautiful, not as beautiful as Timmins—James Bay, places of lakes in Canada.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech, in which he talked about something that is indeed worrisome. We are once again taking a step backwards at a time when we are talking about the fact that a lot of guns and drugs are getting across the border and when we should be strengthening border measures. My colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia spoke at length about this in her speech.

Like my colleague, I commend Mr. Fortin, who I had the opportunity to meet many times when I was a political attaché and we worked together to fight the cuts to border services. That was when a Conservative government was making cuts, but the current Liberal government should be more concerned about what is happening at the border. We are talking about guns and tainted drugs. That is a big deal. We know that there is also another challenge on the horizon. I was interviewed about this last week, in fact. The mayors of the border towns are concerned about the migrants who are coming. They are worried.

What message are we sending when we cut border services at the very same time? I share my colleague's opinion, but I would like to know why, with all these challenges, we are still facing cuts when we should be investing more?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. Clearly, we need to protect our border. There are problems with street gangs, with illegal drugs. However, in light of Trump's election, it is critical that we protect our border and put a plan in place to protect Canadian values from the impacts of Mr. Trump and his negative approach.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, time and again, the hon. member rises to pay tribute to the constituents of Timmins—James Bay. He did that in his opening remarks, reflecting on the senseless gun violence in his community.

I will do the same today. On January 1, 2014, 10 years ago, Marley Rowe was murdered in a senseless act of violence. His mother, Sherri, his children, his brother, his family and extended community continue to grieve him.

However, in this discussion, the hon. member provided, for the first time, a compelling reason as to why we are dealing with the senseless rise in gun violence. The member talked about the social determinants of health. I referenced the work of Professor Dennis Raphael, who talked about housing, including health and mental health, income, education, employment and food security.

Could the hon. member talk about the continuum of the social determinants of health, which actively need to be addressed prior to any type of tough-on crime policy? We have seen that failed policy in the United States. Could he talk about the social determinants of health and how they impact violence in our communities?

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague represents the great city of Hamilton. My hometown is Cobalt, with just over 1,200 people. We see it in the microcosm.

I can name the young people who have died from violence or died from the violence of addictions. We just lost a beautiful young man who had been in my youth group. From day one, it felt like there was a black mark, because there were no supports. There were no supports for his family. There were no supports for him to get into proper training to raise his kids. These are the people who end up being victimized by predators. Any smart society would support them so that we could keep them safe. Once we keep them safe, we can keep the predators out.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about the mobile youth services team in my community of the Capital Regional District. This important program supports youth. It diverts youth from gang exploitation. The program has been doing incredible work in Victoria and the surrounding region.

Unfortunately, it has reached a crisis point. It is calling on the government for stable, five-year funding. Unfortunately, with a lack of leadership from the Liberal government, it means that the program has reduced its teams. It means that children who are at risk of gang exploitation are more vulnerable.

Could the member speak to the importance of the government stepping up and funding the teams on the ground that are going to address the intersecting crisis of homelessness, opioid addiction, the toxic drug supply and gang influence.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have such enormous respect for the work of the mobile youth services team in Victoria, like I have enormous respect for the Mushkegowuk Fire Keeper Patrol. We have asked the government to stop the blah blah and support the people who are keeping people alive. This is a no-brainer. Time and again, we hear the talk, but the government refuses to support those who do the work on the ground. We need to have that support. This is what keeps people alive and communities safe.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance]

Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

This December 6 will mark the 35th anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre in Montreal, a tragedy that forever marked my community. Fourteen women were brutally murdered with an assault weapon simply because they were women. This event remains a poignant reminder of the dangers posed by hatred, especially when coupled with easy access to firearms like the Ruger Mini-14, a semi-automatic weapon created for the battlefield, not for our streets.

As Quebec and the entire country prepare to commemorate this sombre anniversary, we must work to strengthen our gun control laws, our laws governing assault weapons and handguns. We should not be putting these weapons back on our streets, as Conservative members are incessantly calling for. I do not know about my colleagues, but I do not want an American-style gun culture and neither do the survivors or the PolyRemembers activists. I will continue to work with them every day to make sure of that.

Let us be very clear. There is still work to be done and I am determined to continue to do that work. We need to work for stronger gun control, not just to honour the memory of victims, but also to prevent other tragedies, like the one that occurred at École polytechnique, and to take real action to protect the lives and safety of all. That is our duty as a federal government. We do not want any more mass shootings.

I was born and grew up just a few blocks away from Polytechnique. The night that 14 women were gunned down, in 1989, I was just a little kid. I was waiting for my dad to come home and he did not. It was late and getting dark and I waited by the door. It was before everyone carried around cellphones. By the time he did get home, I saw the look on his face. He was there that night, outside Polytechnique, watching as bodies were taken into ambulances. When I asked why and how, no answer was forthcoming. What does one tell a little girl about a femicide?

When I was first elected, I promised my community I would make stronger gun control a priority in my work in Ottawa, and I did. Our government has since banned 1,500 models of assault weapons, including the gun that was used 35 years ago at Polytechnique. I support PolyRemembers' call to finish the job that was started.

Assault weapons belong on the battlefield, not on our streets, despite the fact the Conservatives are desperate to bring these guns back into our communities. By doing the gun lobby’s dirty work in Parliament, they show their true colours. They are weak on security and soft on crime.

They are also weak when it comes to securing our border, including by voting against more funds for border enforcement. Our police and border officials have been very clear on multiple occasions that the measures we implement to strengthen our border are key to keeping back the flow of illegal guns coming into our country. When the Conservatives talk about the importance of protecting our borders, they should remember that they cut funding for the borders when they were in power. Since then, our government has invested nearly $1.5 billion in border enforcement and security, as well as border policing.

We are investing in gang prevention strategies. We increased the RCMP's capacity to trace gun crimes and to build a national system that allows for the flagging of the illegal purchasing of firearms. We also provided the RCMP and our border agency, the CBSA, with additional resources at the border to target firearms smuggling and trafficking.

We have signed 82 agreements with municipalities and indigenous communities to stop gun violence before it starts and to help stem the flow of illegal guns crossing our borders.

Two years ago, we banned the importation, sale and purchase of handguns. That means handguns are not allowed through our borders. That means the law does not allow stores to sell handguns. It means people cannot go out and buy handguns. Handguns are not used for hunting; they are used against other people. They are getting into the hands of our young people through gangs. They are getting into the hands of people who are scared and feel they need to be packing one in order to feel safe.

Statistics show that the proliferation of guns does not make people more safe; it makes people less safe. Handguns are used in more than half of violent crimes involving firearms. The Conservatives like to talk about police, selectively quoting from some police unions, but we know that the head of the police chiefs has supported our gun control measures and our ban on the sale and importation of handguns.

I do not think we can close our eyes to the reality just south of our border. For the third year in a row, gun violence is the leading cause of death among children and teens in the United States. This is not the culture we want to import into Canada. As a mother, it is sickening to me to think that the Conservatives and the leader of the Conservative Party are promising to flood our streets with dangerous weapons.

In 2017, a man stormed the Quebec City mosque with a handgun. He took the lives of six innocent people and wounded five others. I had the opportunity to visit the mosque. Even many years later, the pain is still just as great, just as heavy.

We owe it to them to do everything in our power to prevent other horrors of this kind. That is why we banned the sale, purchase and importation of handguns across Canada. When I walk the streets of my community, when I am out and about in Côte-des-Neiges, mothers stop me and share their concerns with me. They are feeling the increase in gang and gun crime. They want to get more guns off our streets, not put them back on the streets, as the Conservative Party is asking every day and as the Conservative leader has promised to do if he is elected.

It is for the safety of our communities and the safety of our children that we are working for stronger gun control here in Canada.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have worked closely with the hon. member at committee studying the impacts of social disorder and disruption. I want to offer the member the opportunity to reflect on how the social determinants of health are required to help reduce criminality, reduce violence in our communities and help offset the impacts of the mental health crisis or drug use that, ultimately, fuel gun violence.

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have had the pleasure of working with the member opposite in committee and I know that he is committed to the safety and security of our young people.

I have witnessed the alarming rise in mental health issues, particularly among young Canadians. I have also seen, with my own eyes, that gang violence is on the rise in my community. One thing that I feel is so important about the Liberal government's strategy is that it involves both enforcement and prevention, and prevention is key.

In order to invest in our communities, we need to believe that government funding is appropriate for non-governmental organizations, for the organizations supporting our young people and that they are there for them in their time of need. I know we can count on the NDP's support in that regard.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the way I see things right now, they are not walking the talk. Let me explain. My colleague from Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia gave a speech earlier explaining all the work that has been done by the Standing Committee on Public Safety on the issue of better gun control and on Bill C-21. One problem with the buyback program is the definition issue.

My colleague clearly explained that there is something that is crucial. I will also address this issue when PolyRemembers appears before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women next week for a study on femicide. The Standing Committee on Public Safety made a rather important recommendation about enlisting a committee of independent experts to provide a more informed opinion to clearly define and determine which firearms should be prohibited and which are indeed used for hunting only. This will require people who are truly independent. My colleague has been waiting for such a committee to be set up for over a year and a half. She even sent the Minister of Public Safety some names of people who could join it. This is important. Right now, things are stuck and this definition is one of the reasons.

Can we get moving and take action?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, obviously, we still have work to do to finish what we started.

However, I would have liked the Bloc Québécois to stay strong when things got a little tough in committee. When we debated Bill C-21, the Bloc Québécois remained oddly silent, although we would have liked them to support the amendments we brought forward at the time.

I hope to be able to work with the Bloc Québécois and PolyRemembers. I heard that a meeting finally took place between the Bloc Québécois leader and PolyRemembers just today. I look forward to working closely with my colleagues.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we know that under the NDP-Liberal government there has been the decriminalization of hard drugs and there has been the proliferation of government-funded injection sites.

Can the member tell me the correlation between gang violence and the moves the government made in regard to drugs across this country, what the connection and the correlation is between violent gun-related crimes and the use of drugs in our country, which they have legalized?

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

Mr. Speaker, when we proposed funding programs that would prevent gang violence, the Conservatives voted against it. When we proposed other measures in order to ensure greater security in our communities, the Conservatives voted against them. Essentially, the Conservatives have voted even against investing in greater border security.

The Conservatives come today and talk about the importance of making our communities safer. I would invite them to stop speaking out of both sides of their mouth. If they believe in greater safety, then they should believe in keeping our borders secure. If they believe in greater safety, then they should believe in taking guns off our streets instead of putting them back on them.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. member for Shefford is rising on a point of order.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that my colleague's comments are a bit biased. I am surprised to hear her say that, because only a short while ago, members of her own party were recognizing the work—

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

That is a point of debate.

The hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Outremont for splitting her time with me. I appreciated her comments and what she has provided today in terms of the substance of the issue and the report, which is a very important report. She spoke very passionately about why that is and the deep connections the issue has to her community.

I am going to spend my time talking about why I think we are even debating the report today in the House. In order to do that, I have to set the context of what is currently going on at the public safety committee. Members of the committee, except for the Conservatives, are trying to undertake a study on foreign interference by Russia and India. The Conservatives on the committee have been using tactic after tactic, by introducing new motions or by filibustering at times, to prevent any study on foreign interference from occurring. They have been successful at times and unsuccessful at others.

What the Conservatives have done today is really interesting. The report was tabled in the House by the late Jim Carr, who was the chair of the committee at the time, on April 25, 2022, over two and a half years ago. What is even more remarkable is that it was not even a contentious report; the report was adopted by the public safety committee unanimously. Everybody agreed to it.

For those watching at home, I will say that reports are brought to this place and tabled all the time. Very rarely do they get brought into a motion of concurrence like this, but it is happening today. Anyone following the proceedings over the last couple of months would have noticed, quite frankly, that the Conservatives have been doing this a lot lately in order to just interject new ways to slow down Parliament and make it very difficult for it to function, if not bring it to a complete standstill.

What makes the matter interesting is that not only did the Conservatives use the concurrence motion to do this but they also brought a report that was introduced in the House over two and a half years ago and was voted on unanimously. Then they put forward an amendment that clearly they had no interest in when the report was tabled, because they would not have otherwise voted for the report unanimously.

I did challenge the individual who moved the amendment. In the amendment they brought in when they introduced this, they have added a whole list of things. First, they want to send the report back to committee, a unanimous report that was sent to the House two and a half years ago. They say they are not happy with it and they want the committee to look at it again.

The Conservatives want the committee to hold four more meetings, to bring the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs to committee and invite the Toronto Police Association, the Surrey police union, the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies and John Howard Society of Canada to attend. Why this is important is that an order of the House, which would be made through the motion, would direct the committee to do the work. The committee would then have to stop everything it is doing and undertake the direction of the House.

I bring colleagues back to how I set the stage at the beginning of my speech as to what is going on at the committee. The Conservatives cannot get away with what they are trying to do at committee by preventing the study on foreign interference, so they are now using an opportunity to amend a unanimous consent report from two and a half years ago to direct the committee to undertake new work, which would further delay the work it is supposed to be doing on looking into foreign interference.

We must ask this question: Why would the Conservatives dig up a two-and-a-half year-old report and put a huge amendment on it to force the committee to do all this work to avoid talking about foreign interference from India and Russia?

At the same time, the Leader of the Opposition refuses to get a security clearance. Every other leader of a political party of the House has a security clearance. They use the information they obtain when they get that security clearance to make sure they can keep their members safe, their party safe and all Canadians safe. The Leader of the Opposition is the only political party leader who refuses to even apply for a security clearance. Why is that? We also know that there have been reports that the Conservative leadership contest through which he was elected was interfered with by foreign agents.

This is what we know: We know that the Leader of the Opposition refuses to get a security clearance or even apply for it. We know that it is alleged that the Conservative Party was interfered with by foreign actors, and we know that the Conservative members on the public safety committee are willing to dig up a two-and-a half-year-old report that they voted on unanimously and moved massive amendments to, to force the committee to do new work so they can avoid continuing on with the study on foreign interference. I think I do not need to elaborate or to take any kind of liberties in terms of drawing a conclusion; most people can draw the conclusion on their own.

What is the Leader of the Opposition hiding? There is something in his past that he knows would prevent him from being able to get a security clearance, and Canadians have a right to know what that is, so I am very concerned not only with the lengths to which the Leader of the Opposition is going to hide whatever it is in his past, but also with the members of the public safety committee, because they are complicit when they help him do the work to hide it.

We should not be surprised by any of this, because the Conservatives are good soldiers, at least after they get caught, because we know that 18 or 19 of them were sending letters behind their leader's back to the government, looking for help. However, we do know, based on a recent report from November 20, that:

After two years of [the Leader of the Opposition] as their leader, many Conservative MPs say they are much less free now than they were before his arrival.

The man who promised during his leadership run to make Canada “the freest country in the world” maintains tight control over the actions of his caucus members....

Some elected officials feel they come to caucus—

and it is a Conservative MP who said this

— “to be told what to do and what to think”....

That is not freedom; that is the Leader of the Opposition's telling his MPs what to do, and only he gets to say. He is telling the four members who sit on the public safety committee to not let the study go forward on foreign interference as it relates to India and China. He does not want them to study the issue, because he is so afraid of what might come of it.

Conservatives, if they genuinely had nothing to hide and if they genuinely had an interest in protecting this country, would ensure that the study at the public safety committee can proceed so the truth can be found out so all Canadians can know what we are dealing with, especially as we approach an election.