Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay

[An Act Respecting Cyber Security, October 3rd, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, it is important for the economy as a whole, especially in today's world. That said, there are some important privacy considerations at stake. That about sums up my remarks. Yes, doing this is essential, but not at any cost. I think that is my speech in a nutshell.

[An Act Respecting Cyber Security, October 3rd, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I do not disagree with my colleague on that. I think this will likely come up in committee. As soon as we start hearing from witnesses, some will say that they agree with the idea, but that they need more time and a transition plan.

Needless to say, no one can argue against virtue and common sense. That is why it is hard to disagree with what my colleague said.

[An Act Respecting Cyber Security, October 3rd, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of positive elements in the bill. One example is that it enacts the new critical cyber systems protection act. Another is the impact that amending the Telecommunications Act to add promotion of security could have.

However, what is being proposed may also have an impact on provincial infrastructure, such as Hydro-Québec, and we are worried about that encroachment.

As I said, I have no problem with the objective of what is being put in place. However, we must keep an eye on areas of overreach, which should be limited and more strictly controlled. I am confident that our colleagues on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security will be able to do a good job on this.

[An Act Respecting Cyber Security, October 3rd, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in the House today to speak to this issue. In fact, I spoke to the previous version of the bill, Bill C‑26, in the last Parliament. It is easy to get lost in all these “C” bills.

Since the elements of Bill C‑8 are absolutely identical to those in the previous version, our hopes and fears are exactly the same as well. I could copy and paste what I said last time. Having said that, I am still going to make an attempt at originality today.

I think there is consensus in the House that the goal is so fundamental and that this issue of cybersecurity is so important that it goes without saying we need to give Bill C‑8 a chance at second reading.

The bill will then be studied in committee, where we will have the opportunity to examine it in greater depth. We all agree that this bill is filled with good intentions. However, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so who knows what else we might find in there. That is often the case with this type of bill. There are issues, and the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has raised some concerns, as have we, while still agreeing with the bill's objective.

I want to start by talking about the objective of the bill. Everyone agrees that cybersecurity is a major issue, including for everyone here in Parliament. In a few days, on October 21, it will be six years since I became a member of Parliament here in the House. I have lost count of the number of emails I have received warning of cyber-attacks. We already know that cyberspace is at the heart of economic and geopolitical warfare in this increasingly dangerous world. Some would say that cyber-attacks are better than military attacks, but unfortunately, they are not mutually exclusive.

Let us look at several examples to show that this issue is not just theoretical. Let us remember that, in 2020, Parliament adopted a motion to force the government to make a decision regarding Huawei and Chinese interference in general. The federal government recently banned Huawei from the 5G network after years of dithering and warnings from intelligence services.

Let us briefly review what the 5G network is to help us understand why there is a clear need for legislation in this area. The 5G network is a new telecommunications technology with bandwidth that is 10 to 100 times greater than that of the current LTE networks. The technology stands out for more than just its speed. It stands out for its extremely low latency, which is the time it takes for one computer to communicate with another and receive a response. This opens the door to many possibilities in different areas, but to achieve such performance, 5G uses a multitude of pathways. To simplify, let us say that something that is sent from Montreal to a computer in Paris could have a portion pass through New York, another through London, another through Barcelona, and so forth. That is the interconnected world we live in today. This makes the technology particularly vulnerable because it becomes difficult to track the path that the data takes.

Huawei has already been implicated in a scandal involving China spying on the African Union headquarters. I do not know if anyone remembers that, but it is extremely worrying. In 2012, China gave the African Union a fully equipped ultramodern building. China told the African Union that it could get set up, that the networks, computers and telecommunications systems would be provided by Beijing. In 2017, after a few years of operation, African computer scientists realized that the servers were sending out huge amounts of data at night, when nobody was working in the building. It was odd. They wondered why that was happening.

They discovered that the data was going to servers in China that were being used to spy on political leaders and staff. As it turned out, Huawei was the main supplier of the network infrastructure. Microphones were discovered in the walls and tables.

In 2017, China adopted a new national intelligence law where all Chinese companies are obligated to contribute to Chinese intelligence work, be it military or civilian intelligence. A company could be told to spy on behalf of another Chinese company to give China an advantage on the world stage.

China has always denied that its companies had to engage in espionage in foreign countries. Western intelligence agencies, however, say otherwise, and also agree that Chinese laws apply abroad. In any case, we know that China's large companies have close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese military and the Chinese government, and that all four have an extremely incestuous relationship with Beijing.

In any case, any company that shows the slightest defiance toward the Chinese Communist Party has no chance of prospering. China, of course, is not a market economy. It is a highly controlled and centralized economy even though, on paper, private companies have officially existed in areas known as special economic zones since the death of Mao Zedong, undergoing constant expansion ever since. For a while, it was thought that China would evolve into a market economy, but that has obviously not turned out to be the case.

For all of these reasons, experts are leery of using Chinese equipment in critical infrastructure such as telecommunications infrastructure. Digital technology played a key role in the so-called new silk roads strategy, launched by the Chinese regime in Beijing.

Once again, the British felt that the risk could be mitigated by not using Chinese equipment in certain specific areas, such as the military and embassies. These are such strategic areas that the British excluded them. However, they have since reconsidered their position and banned the company altogether in 2023.

The U.S. intelligence agency, the CIA, and the Canadian criminal intelligence agency, CSIS, believe that the threat is too great and that the company should be banned, just as the Canadian government recently banned Huawei's 5G technology. The United States has banned Huawei from developing 5G technology in the United States and is pushing for its NATO allies to follow suit, which Australia, New Zealand and now Britain have done.

It is important to note that Huawei was way ahead of the game in terms of developing 5G technology, which prompted many companies, including Canadian companies, to consider using Huawei equipment. Since then, many other companies, such as Nokia, Ericsson and Samsung, have caught up. This means there are more options on the market today, and the Canadian telecommunications industry has shifted away from Huawei services to develop 5G technology. Therefore, it is entirely possible. We are not that dependent on what China has to offer.

In addition, countries such as Australia and New Zealand have denied Chinese companies access to 5G technology development, even though these countries are much more dependent on China than Canada is. Justin Trudeau's government could not make up its mind for the longest time, but it finally woke up. Things started to move. The same is true when it comes to concerns about TikTok. The government is concerned that China could be using certain apps to steal information, and rightly so. As we have seen, China is the queen of data collection.

This bill obviously seeks to address a very real problem, to ward off these potential cyber-attacks, but we are concerned about interference from Ottawa. The Privacy Commissioner asked whether there was any evidence that this bill, which does not clearly rule out the possibility of tracking old emails or searches, would not infringe on the most fundamental aspects of people's privacy. The answer is in the question, in that we should likely clarify things and include more specifics to reassure people who may be concerned about their privacy. Right now, there is no evidence to show that the bill will not infringe on privacy, and we certainly do not have any guarantees that it will not.

That is why it is imperative that the committee conduct a thorough study, that we do the study right, that we hear from witnesses and experts. In any case, some of the work was done during the study of the previous version of the bill, Bill C‑26. Unfortunately, that study was not very reassuring. We need to amend the current bill to ensure that Ottawa is not able to infringe on people's privacy.

[Forestry Industry, October 2nd, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, Trump keeps handing the Prime Minister one defeat after another.

Today, there are new tariffs on lumber. Yesterday, we learned that a new deal could allow more American milk to cross the border. Last summer, the Prime Minister decided to sacrifice the digital services tax that web giants were supposed to pay. It is one defeat after another, and Quebec's forests, milk and culture are taking the brunt of the damage.

Could the Prime Minister finally stand up for Quebec's economy?

[Forestry Industry, October 2nd, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, once again, there are new tariffs affecting our forestry industry. Washington announced an additional 10% tariff on our softwood lumber, which was already subject to tariffs of 35%. This is not all. Donald Trump also announced tariffs of 25% on our wood products, like cabinets. Meanwhile, the assistance announced by Ottawa in August is still not available. It is one defeat after another for the Prime Minister, our self-proclaimed saviour.

Could the saviour start by saving our lumber industry?

[Combatting Hate Act, October 1st, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from Saskatoon West seems very committed to individual rights, but he also seems aware of the need to tackle genuine hate speech. Does he find it acceptable that the Criminal Code includes a religious exemption allowing hate speech as long as it is based on a sacred text?

[Combatting Hate Act, October 1st, 2025]

Madam Speaker, since we are talking about hate speech, I would like to ask my colleague whether he agrees with this religious exemption.

Does he agree that certain elements of the Criminal Code can be recognized as hate speech, but that, as long as such speech is religiously motivated, it can be exempted, risk free? Does my colleague think that makes sense?

[Strong Borders Act, September 17th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I am going to pick up where my colleague's response left off, when she mentioned the need to listen to the experts. I liked her speech. As I understand it, however, the New Democrats are going to vote against the bill. We are going to vote for it, but with the aim of dissecting it in committee. We will listen to the experts and the affected groups. Then, if necessary, we will vote against the bill or try to amend it. That may be where our positions on this matter diverge.

That said, is my colleague not concerned that the Liberals are trying to introduce an overly fast-tracked procedure that would stop us from doing our job and scrutinizing this bill?

[Strong Borders Act, September 17th, 2025]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to hear that our colleague is as keen as we are to ensure the government takes a serious and thorough approach to the committee process. We do not want it to pull a fast one, as they say. We have to be able to examine every line of these 130 pages, down to the last comma, with experts and affected groups.

Now, could my colleague elaborate on his concerns about rights and freedoms and privacy? He spoke about it a bit, but I would like him to elaborate on that.