Debates of May 8th, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. member withdrew his comment. I would like to invite the hon. member for Saskatoon—University to do the same.

[Corey Tochor, Conservative, Saskatoon—University, SK]

Madam Speaker, I withdraw my comment.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

Perfect.

The hon. parliamentary secretary can proceed.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I listened to what the member across the way actually said as he addressed this issue. That is why I started off by saying that as a government we take this issue very seriously, and our actions over the years clearly demonstrate that.

On the other hand, it appears that we have a Conservative member trying to use this issue to make it look as if the government did not fulfill its responsibility. From his seat, he says that we did not. The Conservatives are trying to make it more political. That just reinforces what we just listened to in the member's presentation. He said, for example, that foreign governments around the world do not want the Conservatives in government here but want the Liberals in government, implying that this is the reason why we get foreign interference.

At the end of the day, foreign interference is not new. This has been happening for a number of years already. Truth be known, Stephen Harper was the prime minister when it was first raised in an official fashion in the form of a report. The current leader of the Conservative Party was a part of that government. What did they do to deal with international foreign interference? I will tell the House: absolutely nothing. They chose to ignore the issue of foreign interference. Even though they were aware of it, they made a decision not to take any action to protect Canada's democracy from the things that were taking place.

This is not just about China. The Conservative Party consistently brings up China. China is not alone. There are other countries out there that are players, in regard to foreign interference. That is one of the reasons why we have taken many actions, such as having a special individual brought to the House to investigate and report back, to ultimately having a public investigation into the matter with a report back. We have had numerous debates on this issue. We have had standing committees deal with the issue in many different ways, even with regard to the issue the member brought forward. I did not know about the existence of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China until that issue was brought up in the form of a matter of privilege. I took the member at his word when he raised that issue. I know members of the Liberal caucus also did, because we even had two of our members, from what I can recall, who also stood up to express their concerns.

I would think that all members would be concerned about any form of foreign interference into Canada. I would think that it would cross all political lines that have been drawn here in the House of Commons. However, I can tell colleagues that I have not witnessed that, based on the questioning on the issue and the manner in which the Conservatives are more determined to try to portray a government that is not taking action than to try to depoliticize the issue and recognize it for what it is, and ultimately come up with ideas and thoughts about how we can actually prevent it.

I listened to the Speaker's ruling. I had provided a comment before, when the member first brought forward the issue, and the Speaker came back and made reference to it. Here is what the Speaker said, in terms of what I reported representing the government:

The parliamentary secretary to the government House leader mentioned that the Communications Security Establishment, CSE, was advised by the FBI on June 29, 2022, of cyber-threats targeting Canadian parliamentarians who are members of the IPAC. Citing the separation between the executive and legislative branches of government, he noted that the CSE believed it appropriate to share all relevant technical information with security officials of the House of Commons and Senate administrations for their action. This was done on June 30, 2022.

That is what I had said in addressing the issue. The Speaker went on to say:

The parliamentary secretary also pointed out that, given the evolution of security procedures and in consideration of the concerns of members, a ministerial directive was issued in May 2023 requiring the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, to inform parliamentarians of threats to their security where possible. He concluded by stating that, had the threat occurred following the imposition of the ministerial directive, security agencies would have proactively informed the affected members of the situation.

That is very clear. The House of Commons was in fact provided notification back in June 2022. When the issue of foreign interference came to the floor, and after a great deal of discussions and thoughts, there was a very clear directive given to security agencies in terms of informing members of Parliament. We changed, in part, the process. The members know that.

There is no doubt, if we continue with some of the reports in regard to the People's Republic of China interfering in the work of parliamentarians and the impact not only of China but of other countries in the world, that we have to work collectively.

When we had the heated discussions and debates over the foreign interference allegations that were taking place in the last election, we had many independent agencies say that it did not affect the outcome of the election. It is important to make reference to that.

At the end of the day, the Conservatives, who chose to do nothing years prior, now believe that we, as a government, should have taken more action, when in fact we had already started that shortly after being elected in 2015 in changes to the Canada Elections Act. We recognize how important it is to protect our democratic system. We have seen legislative measures and policy directives to ensure there is a higher sense of security.

When I was first elected, in the eighties, the Internet, at least in the way we see it today or have witnessed it in the last 20 years, did not exist. It did not exist to the degree to which does today, and not to the degree to which we have the types of computer hacks and the malicious software that are out there. Today, sadly, with things such as AI, we do have to be on guard and look at ways we can protect the integrity of our system.

Let us remember that as things change, there is a need for change in policy. I saw that in the Speaker's ruling, where, again, he stated, “In accordance with the processes in place at the time, the House Administration was advised by relevant Canadian security agencies of the risks associated with potential attacks and appropriate measures were taken to ensure they would not impact our systems, more specifically our parliamentary network.”

We had a system in place. The Speaker said, “It is important to reiterate that the House of Commons cybersecurity system in place were successful in preventing a breach and negatively impacting the members' ability to conduct their day-to-day business with their parliamentary email accounts.”

If the Conservative Party really wants to be able to deal with the issue at hand, I would suggest its members need to dial down the politicization of the issue and stop trying to blame the government for not taking actions that the Conservatives believe in, when in fact we have taken tangible actions to protect the interests of our democracy and the rights of individual members. That is what we have consistently seen.

I do not get the opportunity to attend very many standing committee meetings, but I often hear feedback, and that feedback is not very positive, even on issues of questions of privilege. Often in committees, filibustering takes place. I suspect that what we are going to see is as it should be. Let us give the benefit of the doubt and say the Conservatives are going to change their ways and recognize this is important, this institution is important and it is important we work collectively at making a positive difference in supporting individual members and our rights to protect the institution.

I suspect it will be going to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, and I support its going to PROC. At the end of the day, I hope the Conservative membership on the committee will dial down on the partisanship and the rhetoric they constantly use on the issue in the name of trying to do the right thing, and look at ways in which we can improve the system. Things change.

Conservatives talk about our P9 accounts. Parliamentarians also have other types of accounts. There are many different ways in which foreign interference can take place, as was pointed out. This is happening around the world, not just in Canada. It has happened in some countries a whole lot more than in Canada, as has been cited, whether in the United States or the United Kingdom. We are one of the Five Eyes countries, and I think we should be looking at ways in which democracies around the world can protect the integrity of the principles of democracy.

In order for Canada to be able to step up to the plate, it would be nice if we had all political parties of the House of Commons onside, as opposed to trying to make it look as if there were some sort of institutional problem that we cannot overcome, or that our government has been negligent on—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

We have to go to questions and comments.

The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member opposite does seem to be inherently uncomfortable with the idea of members of the opposition's criticizing the government. If we are going to talk about preserving our democracy and our democratic values, maybe a good place to start is to say that it is legitimate, normal and right for the opposition to challenge the government over its failures. I do not really care what the member thinks of my motives, but I am going to continue to do my job in the House, the job of standing up for our country, for our freedoms and for our sovereignty.

The fundamental point here is that the hon. member is not willing to admit that something wrong happened. That is a big problem. The government had information that was crucial to our national security and to the personal security of individual members of Parliament. The government chose to sit on that information. It would show a lot more humility and maturity for the member to simply acknowledge that this was a mistake. The information should have been shared, and it was not.

Will the hon. member acknowledge that the government erred in not sharing information with members of Parliament that was extremely important to our national security, to their personal security and to their ability to do the job as members of Parliament? Would he not expect to be informed if the shoe were—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Alexandra Mendes]

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, let me be very clear: No, the government did not err. The member should read the statement from the Speaker.

One has to take a look at the process in time. It is interesting. Here is the difference. I asked the member a question, and what did he do? He avoided the important part of the question when I told him to tell me something about the association. Did the member know anything about it? Were there any other parliamentarians who talked about it? He avoided that aspect of the question. He asked me a question; I gave him a direct answer.

The challenge for the Conservative Party is that, at the end of the day, Conservatives see this as a political shot at the government, even if it is justified, or not. In this case, it is a “not”.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am rather surprised at what my colleague is saying. I just want to give a little reminder. Two years ago, his Prime Minister and the entire cabinet were saying that there was no problem with interference. In the end, because of pressure from all sides, the government appointed a special rapporteur, David Johnston, who tabled a report that nobody was happy with. Now, we have Marie-Josée Hogue, who seems to be doing a great job.

Could I remind him that what is being said right now is that interference is one of the biggest strategic threats to national security?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, I very much can recall the debate regarding the special rapporteur who was appointed, an incredible Canadian. There are members who decided to throw that particular individual under the bus.

At the end of the day, I can say that, as a government, it was great to see political parties come together to agree to a new name, someone who would ultimately provide a report. I would hope that members of all political parties will support that particular report.

At the end of the day, I believe that the government, virtually from day one, has been taking proactive steps, legislative measures in particular, to ensure that our democracy is healthy. I only wish it had started when Stephen Harper was the prime minister, but he chose to do nothing.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I always listen attentively to my colleague. I think, in this case, it is very clear, as we have seen with Justice Hogue's preliminary report, which points very clearly to some things. There is a real shortcoming in terms of how the government and past governments have dealt with the information around foreign interference. We have seen repeatedly, from the 2019 election and the 2021 election, that information was not communicated to candidates. In this case, addressed in the question of privilege, information was not communicated to members of Parliament.

There is a lack of protocols and a lack of organization, not necessarily around the obtaining of the information but in actually communicating that information to people who might be impacted. This may be members of Parliament or, as we saw in election campaigns, candidates. We need to ensure that action is taken to prevent further interference of this type. Whether the foreign government is Chinese, Indian, Russian or Iranian, we have certainly seen enough examples to know that we need to put protocols in place and we need to put in place an action plan.

My question to my colleague is very simple: Why has the government not moved to put into place that action plan and those protocols so that the information is communicated and members of Parliament do not find out from a Globe and Mail article information that should have been given to them years ago?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as you would be aware, the government has put in some new protocols and ministerial directives to ensure that members will find out when something of this nature occurs.

I am going to refer all members to what you said, as the Speaker, in regard to the issue at hand: “In accordance with the processes in place at the time, the House administration was advised by relevant Canadian security agencies of the risk associated with potential attacks and appropriate measures were taken to ensure that they would not impact our system, more specifically our parliamentary network.” You went on to say, “It is important to reiterate that the House of Commons cybersecurity systems in place were successful in preventing a breach and negatively impacting the members’ ability to conduct their day-to-day business with their parliamentary email accounts.”

I see that as a positive thing. We have to put it in the perspective of time, in 2022. The directives that we are talking about, where we made the changes, were after that. At the time, the process was in place and it was administered.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I just want to follow up on my colleague's question to the member. I want to be absolutely clear that the member does not believe that the government should have informed members who had their emails, their personal correspondence, hacked by a foreign power. Is that the member's testimony?

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, this is not a court of law, and the member might want to be a criminal lawyer at some point in time. I can tell the member that at the end of the day, there was a process in place. It was followed. The integrity of the system was maintained. From my personal perspective, I believe that, as parliamentarians, we all have a role to dial down the politicization and the politics that the Conservatives want to dial up. Let us work together on how we can ensure that. Foreign interference is not going away, and there are ways it could expand.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am rising for the first time in the course of the debate around the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan's question of privilege. I know it is going to PROC. I have been listening to the debate tonight.

I hope I can do this without sounding too schoolmarmish, which is one of my worst failings. I think that if we could all just think about us as Canadians dealing with foreign interference, as the Speaker and as the parliamentary secretary said, this is fairly novel.

I put my brain back to when I first started thinking about foreign interference in politics. It was during the election when Hillary Clinton, in the United States, was running against Donald Trump. Her operative said, “That was a story planted by the Russians.” I am a big fan of Hillary Clinton, and my first thought was, “That was overreaching. She is sounding a bit nuts. Who would think that could be true?” We now all know it was exactly true, and we now all know that Canada is not immune. There are many countries that may want to do this.

I would just ask members, when we debate, not to impugn each others' motives across party lines, but to assume we are all in this together, we want to get to the bottom of it and we want better protocols to protect our democracy.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I like what the leader of the Green Party has said, and that is why I say that we need to dial it down.

Canada is not alone. Foreign interference happens all around the world, and I think that we can demonstrate leadership in the world by taking a positive, united front in dealing with this particular issue.

Response to Order Paper Question No. 2221

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I regret to interrupt this debate, but I believe I have a matter that is pressing and important, which I need to bring to your attention at the earliest opportunity.

It relates to an answer I received through an inquiry of ministry, Question No. 2221, in which I partially ask for information from the Canada Revenue Agency. The question I asked reads:

With regard to the Canada Revenue Agency and the Canada Child Benefit (CCB), broken down by year for each of the last five years: (a) what was the total number of overpayments that were (i) assessed, (ii) collected from taxpayers who received overpayments following or due to death of a child; and (b) what is the amount of money represented by the overpayments [thereto]?

The answer I received, and I will just skip right to the important part, is from the minister herself. It reads:

For these reasons, the CRA is unable to respond in the manner requested to Part (a)(ii) and Part (b) (i.e., the amount of money represented by the overpayments...following or due to death of a child).

Quite clearly, the minister has said that the government and her department do not have that information.

In the budget, the government decided to provide a grace period for parents who have lost a child in terms of collecting child care benefit clawbacks, which is a very compassionate move that I support. It is the reason I asked the Order Paper question in the first place. However, yesterday, at committee, we learned from an official at finance, Mr. Pierre Leblanc, a very accomplished individual, a man who I believe is always forthright when he appears in front of committee, that the government had suggested in the budget that this measure would cost $15 million. It was a very specific number.

I wondered how the government arrived at the costing for that $15 million, because the CRA had said that it was not sure how many parents had their child care benefits clawed back, according to the Order Paper answer I received. This is a brief snippet of the interaction I had with Mr. Leblanc.

I said, “I think there are officials from CRA here today. I'm very interested in the measure with respect to the grace period for child care benefits for six months, after the unfortunate death of a child. There's a very specific number for the costing of $15 million. I'm curious as to how the number was arrived at. Is the Department of Finance relying on CRA data in order to provide a costing for this measure? Specifically, I want to know whether the Department of Finance received from CRA data in order to come up with the $15 million estimate.”

Mr. Leblanc said, “Mr. Chair, I thank the member for his question. The answer is yes. We receive, as part of our ongoing responsibility for advising policy on the Canada child benefit, detailed administrative data on who receives the Canada child benefit. One of the pieces of information we receive as part of that is eligible children who have passed away during the year.”

The last part of Mr. Leblanc's answer was, “I mean, that's where you get the number of about 1,500 children per year. Basically, using the average Canada child benefit amount, that's how we arrive at the $15 million over the five-year period.”

As I say, I believe this civil servant to be a very accomplished individual and to be very truthful in his answer, and I appreciate his openness and transparency. However, it exposes, yet again, perhaps on purpose or maybe by omission, a minister who has potentially misled the chamber and myself.

In terms of some supporting arguments to support my claim, I would refer to the Hansard of December 16, 1980, at page 5797, where the Speaker says:

While it is correct to say that the government is not required by our rules to answer written or oral questions, it would be bold to suggest that no circumstances could ever exist for a prima facie question of privilege to be made where there was a deliberate attempt to deny answers to an hon. member....

My last recommendation for you, Mr. Speaker, to consider, which I think is quite an analogous situation to the one we have here today, is from December 6, 1978. The Speaker ruled in favour of a prima facie question of privilege after the member for Northumberland—Durham raised a question of privilege on a charge that he had been deliberately misled by the former Solicitor General.

Bosc and Gagnon begins, “Acting on behalf of a constituent who suspected that his mail had been tampered with,” and I will skip along to the relevant points. It reads:

[The Solicitor General said] the RCMP did not intercept the private mail of anyone. However, on November 1, 1978, in testimony before the McDonald Commission, the former commissioner of the RCMP stated that they did indeed intercept mail on a very restricted basis...

Here we have, once again, as has been mentioned in a question of privilege by my hon. colleague from Calgary Nose Hill, a deliberate or potentially deliberate attempt by the government to frustrate the ability of members of this place to get factual information with which we are trying to make policy to improve the lives of Canadians. I think this is very concerning.

This is not the first Order Paper question through which I believe I have received a misleading and inadequate response. However, it is a question that I am now bringing to you in order for you to do some additional research. I am happy to provide these documents. The transcript is not yet posted from committee yesterday, but it will be soon.

I certainly appreciate your willingness to allow me to make this point on a question of privilege at the earliest opportunity. However, it yet again underscores that there seems to be an attempt to not provide information to members of this chamber with fairly factual questions for which we know there is answers. The wonderful civil servant has admitted that they had the data I was actually trying to get, because I wanted to propose a similar policy position.

I hope you take this matter very seriously. I appreciate your indulgence here this evening. If I am successful, I hope that you will consider sending this matter to the procedure and House affairs committee.

[The Speaker, Greg Fergus]

I thank the hon. member for Simcoe North for raising this question of privilege. I would appreciate it if he could share all documents and, of course, the Chair will endeavour to secure all the information to make a proper assessment and come back to the member on this question of privilege. I will take it under advisement.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by saying that we see this matter, this question of privilege and the motion before the House of Commons as important. We will therefore support this motion so that it can be adopted as quickly as possible and this whole matter, this question of privilege, can be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs as quickly as possible.

It is a well-known fact that foreign interference matters to us. The member for Burnaby South, the member for Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie and the entire NDP caucus moved a motion a year ago. The House of Commons voted on a motion of non-confidence in the special rapporteur who had been appointed by the Prime Minister to look into the issue of foreign interference. The NDP moved the motion, which was adopted by four out of five parties. While we had great confidence in Mr. Johnston as an individual, we did not have confidence in his role as special rapporteur. One week after the adoption of that NDP motion of non-confidence in the position of special rapporteur, Mr. Johnston resigned.

The parties then began the negotiations that led to the Hogue commission. Justice Hogue has done a lot of work. She has already produced her interim report, which was released last week. We know a few important things about it that I think are related to this question of privilege. One thing that she mentioned is that we know who some of the foreign government agencies are.

Even more importantly, the interim report indicates that there were two problems. The intelligence disclosed to the government was not communicated properly to the affected candidates or MPs in either the 2019 or 2021 elections. What does that mean? The NDP thinks that we need to quickly implement protocols setting out how to communicate this type of information. We also need to make decisions to prevent this sort of thing from happening again.

As Justice Hogue mentioned, there is no doubt that this did not change the outcome of the 2019 and 2021 elections. The reality, however, is that the possibility of foreign interference is becoming more and more critical. If we want to ensure that future elections are not affected and that our work in the House is not influenced by foreign interference, then we need to implement protocols. The secret intelligence that is shared with the government needs to be communicated to affected individuals. We must also make absolutely certain that measures are taken to prevent these attempts at foreign interference from succeeding.

For all these reasons, we support this motion. This motion speaks to the fact that there was an attempt to influence or affect 18 members through cyber-attacks. This information was never communicated to the affected members. That is worrisome. As we can see, the motion is coming from both sides of the House. There is the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, of course, but there is also the member for Scarborough—Guildwood and the member for Humber River—Black Creek, who intervened on this matter.

Members on both sides of the House have pointed out the problem, which is that we do not know what intelligence has been shared with the government but not communicated to members.

For all these reasons, we have to act quickly. If I am saying today that we need a protocol, and if the Hogue commission's preliminary report already shows that something needs to be done, then we have to take action. We have to ensure that incidents like these do not happen again. The matter has to be referred to the procedure and House affairs committee quickly.

I know that we will be discussing and debating the topic this evening. All of the parties already seem to support the motion. I do not think that we need to delay the adoption of this motion unnecessarily. I think we need to adopt it, unanimously if possible, and refer it right away to the procedure and House affairs committee, which is already equipped to deal with the matter.

Before the Hogue commission was created, the NDP moved motions at the procedure and House affairs committee. These motions were subsequently adopted by the House of Commons. That shows that the committee is already well equipped to take control of what happens next, make recommendations and inform the House of Commons of the actions that should be taken.

Yes, this work will be done in parallel. We already have the Hogue commission, which will also present recommendations and actions to be taken by the government, election officials and anyone else who cares about national security and the importance of maintaining or preserving our democracy. Of course, it is important that we take these actions. That is why I strongly suggest that tonight, between now and midnight, we adopt the motion unanimously and immediately refer it to the procedure and House affairs committee.

We have a situation where 18 parliamentarians suffered a cyber-attack. As was mentioned, they were not successful. Actions were taken by the House administration, which is important, but the Hogue commission's interim report has come out. Members will recall how the NDP presented the motion that led to the special rapporteur receiving from the House of Commons a polite refusal of the position of special rapporteur. New Democrats expressed non-confidence in the creation of the position of special rapporteur. We believed a public inquiry was absolutely needed and presented that motion on the floor of the House of Commons about a year ago. I think it was 50 weeks ago today that we moved that motion in the House. Four of the five parties, three of the four recognized parties and the non-recognized party, in the House of Commons voted for that motion.

David Johnston, to his credit, as we know he is respectful of democracy, saw that expression of non-confidence in the position of special rapporteur. It was not an expression of non-confidence in him. He is a man who has always served the country and worked hard to do everything he can for this country, but New Democrats expressed non-confidence in the position of special rapporteur. A week later, Mr. Johnston stepped down from that position, and the negotiations began to put in place the Hogue commission. Justice Hogue has been working very hard and very diligently to put forward the recommendations, which we should be getting at the end of the year.

However, what is clear from her report, and what is also clear from this question of privilege today, is that the government is privy to information that is not being effectively communicated. It was not effectively communicated in the 2019 or 2021 elections. It was not communicated to either members of Parliament or candidates who were involved. That is very clear.

It is clear from the Hogue commission that that occurred when we see this question of privilege where 18 members of Parliament were targeted by a cyber-attack, yet the government did not choose to inform them. In fact, it was a newspaper article that informed them. The FBI informed the government, and the government did not pass that information on.

We can say that we were lucky that the cyber-attack against those members of Parliament failed because of measures that were taken, but that still begs the question of why the government did not communicate that information. That has been a consistent theme from the 2019 election and the 2021 election, and now in the case of this question of privilege. We need to have protocols in place. We have called, as well, for the government to put in place a foreign agent registry. There seem to be some moves in that regard. That is important.

The government must put in place protocols about how to communicate information, including sensitive intelligence information, so that the process is clear prior to the next election. In that way, we can make sure we will not have the kind of foreign interference that may have failed in 2019 and 2021, but could be successful the next time if we do not take measures to prevent it. The government needs to do work on its side. The Hogue commission will be offering that full range of recommendations. That is very important as well, but PROC has been well equipped to handle this kind of work. The PROC report, which the NDP moved motions on and brought forward to the House, was endorsed by the House of Commons a little over a year ago. It was the first in-depth reaction to the potential for foreign interference in this country, as a result of which, this motion was rapidly moved.

This evening, as we have done a round of speeches, I do not think we need to spend a lot of time talking about this. We need action. That means referring this rapidly to PROC. We can do that this evening. We can choose, by unanimous consent, to adopt it on division, so that this matter will be referred promptly to procedure and House affairs. Certainly, my recommendation to the House is that we proceed rapidly on this, that we move quickly to actually have the procedure and House affairs committee respond to the seriousness of this question of privilege and then move to get the recommendations that will lead to action.

We have limited time. The official date of the next election, as members will recall, is the fall of 2025. This is a minority Parliament. It could happen before then. It is incredibly important. All of the actions need to be taken. That is why we suggested that the deadline for the Hogue commission report should be by the end of this year, so that we would have the time to implement all of the recommendations, and have the time as well to implement recommendations that may come out of procedure and House affairs following this question of privilege and the motion that refers the question of privilege to procedure and House affairs. We cannot delay. We cannot dilly-dally. We cannot spend a lot of time talking about it. We need action.

I will close, even though there is more time to speak, because I believe it is important to get to a resolution on this. I will close by suggesting to all members of the House that tonight we refer this to the procedure and House affairs committee, either on division or by unanimous consent. We can refer it to PROC and, tomorrow morning, let the committee get to work on the important work of responding to this question of privilege and looking at why the government did not inform those members of Parliament and what the procedure and protocol should be next time, if there is a next time, which is likely, so those members of Parliament can be fully informed. We could then take the appropriate actions to stop any future attempts at foreign subversion or foreign interference in our electoral process.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Speaker, earlier in this debate, I posed a question to the parliamentary secretary, and I was quite disturbed by the response. We all know governments make mistakes. Every government makes mistakes. I asked if he acknowledged that it was a mistake for the government to not inform members of Parliament that they had faced a cyber-attack from a foreign state. He said no, he did not think it was a mistake. He said that protocols and processes can change, but when I asked if it had been a mistake to not tell me and 17 other parliamentarians that we had been targeted by a foreign government, he said no, it was not. I find that very disturbing.

I hope we can work toward a consensus on how to move forward, but it should be acknowledged at a basic level that failure to inform parliamentarians about these threats to themselves, their cyber-presence and their offices is wrong and unacceptable. The government should be willing, at this point, now that it has been caught not sharing that information, to acknowledge that.

I would like to ask the NDP for its perspective. Does it think the government erred in not sharing this information?

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I do not always agree with my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, but I do in this case. It was an error, and it is not just an error I recognize personally. It is also very clearly coming from the Hogue commission's preliminary report that it was an error. The government has not been good at communicating information, whether it is to candidates in an electoral forum or to members of Parliament who are doing their jobs.

There is no doubt. I understand parliamentary secretaries perhaps get their fingers rapped if they admit to the government making an error. There is no question here that there was an error made and the members of Parliament were not informed. It is fair to say there is a consensus on this. The members of Parliament who are involved in this particular question of privilege include members of both the Conservative and Liberal parties.

The member for Scarborough—Guildwood and the member for Humber River—Black Creek have both indicated that they were very concerned about not being informed about this information. I do not even think that is a question of debate. I do not think it is a question of opinion.

There is a systematic pattern of the government erring in how it potentially gets information to candidates during an election or to members of Parliament. That needs to change. That is why we need to refer this to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to come up with protocols and suggestions for action.

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

Mr. Speaker, we in the Bloc Québécois believe that any form of intimidation of elected officials, especially when it comes from outside the country, is absolutely unacceptable. We are concerned about practices like the ones we just learned about this evening from my Conservative colleague, and of course we denounce them.

In such circumstances, we also believe that when elected officials are the target of these kinds of attacks by foreign entities, they should be informed. That goes without saying. We find it hard to understand why it was decided not to inform these elected officials. We see this as a basic step that should be taken automatically. That is why we believe that the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs should look into this issue.

That being said, I would like to respond to my NDP colleague's speech. I would like to point out that it has been over a year since we started talking about the issue of foreign interference in this Parliament with increasing frequency. We used to talk about it less. Every time we raised the issue, the Liberal government would tell us to move along, that there was nothing to see. That is pretty much what we were told every time. However, we always seemed to find something in the end.

Does my colleague find that this type of situation inspires him to trust in a government that often tells us that there is nothing to see when there is indeed something to see? It is worrisome to me.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for the question. It is precisely for that reason that the NDP moved the motion that led to the public inquiry into foreign interference. The Hogue commission is the result of the NDP's initiative in Parliament.

We believe that we should act in the national interest and think first about how to do everything we can to prevent foreign interference in our politics, in our democracy and in our elections. We have taken all these steps. We have documented all the work that we have done because we truly believe that we have to do everything we can.

Now, there are people who make comments and say that there is nothing to see. Maybe there is nothing to see except if we take action. If we put in place every possible measure to prevent foreign interference, we will secure Canadian democracy for years to come. I am not one of those who believe that there is nothing we can do about it. There are many things we can do and it starts tonight with referring the motion to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is important to recognize that foreign interference is nothing new. It has been happening now since 2010-11, when the first report came out. It is not just in Canada. It is happening around the world, and it is not just China that is involved in this foreign interference. We should all, collectively, look at ways to protect the interests of our democracy and the Five Eyes countries, and take a dialed-down approach.

Let it go to the PROC committee and see if it can come up with something that will reinforce Canada's leadership role in the world in dealing with foreign interference. Canada can play a stronger role on that front, but it is more powerful if we work together.

I am wondering if the member could provide his thoughts on that issue.