Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to speak to some of the votes in the main estimates that we oppose. I will be speaking to the votes relating to foreign affairs, including $44 million for a transaction with a Chinese company.
First, however, I would like to talk about this government's relationship with China. Everyone knows that this Prime Minister has expressed his admiration for the Chinese communist system. In 2013 he even said, and I quote, “There is a level of admiration I actually have for China. Their basic dictatorship is actually allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime.” It was already clear, then, where our Prime Minister was headed and what he envisioned for Canada's relationship with China.
In committee today, we once again heard the rhetoric that Stephen Harper tried to build a relationship with China in 2008 and 2009. That is true, but it was a different time. That was nearly 12 years ago. Canada had a business relationship with China at the time, but there were some concerns. Also, China was different, so much so that, in his opening remarks before the Special Committee on Canada-China Relations, the Minister of Foreign Affairs made it clear that the China of 2020 is not the China of 2015, when this government came to power. He even clearly said that we needed to pay attention. Even the minister was sending the message in his speech before the committee that we have to be careful when it comes to China.
I will come back to the matter before us, the votes or expenditures that this government is asking us to approve. I will talk about one transaction between this government and CanSino Biologics, a Chinese company. The amount of $44 million was put on the line as part of an agreement with that company for the development of vaccines, even though the government knew that the company had direct ties to the Chinese communist regime. As the Minister of Foreign Affairs stated, the China of 2020 is not the China of years past. Once again the government decided to take $44 million of Canadian taxpayers' money for an agreement with a company that has direct ties to the Communist Party of China.
Last week, the media also revealed that the company's founding members had direct ties to the Communist Party of China and that Canadian researchers had been recruited by the Communist Party as part of the thousand talents program. This program was established to send information directly to the Chinese government. The Prime Minister knew how it worked and still went ahead with an agreement with CanSino Biologics using taxpayers' money, our money.
In the end, the Chinese government stole our intellectual property. Under this agreement, Canada had to transfer the intellectual property to CanSino Biologics, which then cancelled the agreement and kept the information. Once again, this is proof that we cannot trust the Chinese government. Of course that does not apply to the Chinese people. That is altogether different.
There are many examples of this with China. Everyone knows, and everyone talks about it. One example is Falun Gong practitioners. These people have been fighting non-stop to protect the Chinese people from ideological conversion, forced re-education, forced labour, torture and organ harvesting programs. Everyone is aware of this.
The problem with China is that it is such a big economic power that people are afraid to stand up to it. Just look at what the current Prime Minister said in 2013 about China. However, the opposition and the Conservative Party have a duty to say that enough is enough and we need to stand up to this.
I am going to speak about another recent relationship between the government and a company owned by the Chinese communist regime, Nuctech. The Canadian government, through the Canada Border Services Agency, signed an agreement for equipment, which has already taken effect. The government also recently gave this company a contract to install X-ray machines in our embassies around the world.
Some members opposite have started saying that those machines were not connected directly, that it was not dangerous and so on, but that is not the issue. The problem is that Nuctech is known worldwide for fraud and corruption. All sorts of measures have been taken against this company around the world. It works directly with the Chinese People's Liberation Army to conduct espionage.
Perhaps the machines intended for our embassies were not connected directly, but who is to say that someone could not enter an embassy somewhere in the world when the equipment needs maintenance and install an electronic device in the machine to transmit information?
The biggest problem is that the government is doing business with Nuctech, a security equipment company that operates around the world and whose only mission is to collect intelligence and transmit it to the head of the Chinese Communist Party. A $6.8-million contract was on the table. Without the work of the media and the opposition parties, the government would probably have sent $6.8 million to Nuctech, and that company's equipment would be in our embassies.
Security officials and agencies tell us this relationship needs to end. Everyone says so. Major changes need to be made to the way Canada buys equipment. The government must not give Canadian taxpayers' money to companies controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. That is all there is to it. It is not Conservative ideology. I think the Bloc Québécois agrees and the Liberals know it, but their hands are tied because their leader sees things differently. That is the Liberals' problem at the moment.
It is all there. We have damning evidence and security reports from all over. Even security agencies working for the government send briefings about this, and there are public reports about it all. I am not talking about state secrets. I am talking about public reports.
We therefore oppose this $44-million expenditure in this year's estimates, when hundreds of billions of dollars have already been spent to deal with COVID-19. At some point, it has to stop. Some might argue that $44 million is not much compared to billions, but it is still a lot of money. Did anyone think about how many taxpayers it takes to raise $44 million? A taxpayer who earns $50,000 a year pays $20,000 in taxes. It takes a lot of people, who are giving their money away for nothing.
As a final point, I would like to mention Huawei, which poses the same problem. For two years now we have been saying that this company must be banned from Canada's 5G network for the same reasons, namely, security and economic reasons. If China manages to steal our intellectual property, it is the whole of Canada that loses.
When we look at the facts and at how this works, it is obvious to us that the Prime Minister is saying yes and the Conservative opposition is saying no. It is as simple as that.
