Motions
First up we have an Opposition Motion from Michael Cooper (Conservative, Alberta, St. Albert—Edmonton).
That, given that intimidation tactics of the People’s Republic of China are being deployed against many Canadians of Chinese descent in diaspora communities across the country, which are widely reported and well established through the House of Commons’ committee testimony and reports by Canada’s security establishment, including reports indicating that families of members of Parliament are subjected to an intimidation campaign orchestrated out of Beijing’s consulate in Toronto, the House call on the government to stop delaying and immediately:
- Create a foreign agent registry similar to Australia and the United States of America
- Establish a national public inquiry on the matter of foreign election interference
- Close down the People’s Republic of China run police stations operating in Canada
- Expel all of the People’s Republic of China diplomats responsible for and involved in these affronts to Canadian democracy
Now it does look like this was originally looked into by the Canada-China Relations Committee back in 2021 and their recommended response is that they aren’t sure if we should pursue something similar to what the US and Australia have made, or what it would look like in a Canadian context. The US version has been in place since 1938, so we can probably look and decide how effective it’s been. Note that the general goal for both is to have anyone acting on behalf of a foreign government in an attempt to influence politics and elections, except for those you’d expect to do so (such as diplomats), need to report on their activities. The regulations all involve punishing people who engage in activities that could impact politics without reporting on it, not on preventing any activity. (So using the current issue as an example, as long as the people accused of influencing the election report that they were working to promote their favoured candidates everything would be fine)
The Motion passed, 170 in favour and 150 against.
| Party | For | Against | Paired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | 0 | 149 | 2 |
| Conservative | 113 | 0 | 1 |
| Bloc Quebecois | 31 | 0 | 1 |
| NDP | 22 | 0 | 0 |
| Green Party | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Independent | 2 | 1 | 0 |
As a side note here I’m not really going to cover the reasons everyone votes the way they do because the format for Motions like this is a bit weird. None of the parties seem to have much in the way of prepared speeches regarding the Motion like they do for Bills, and at least with this one it’s just a lot of mudslinging.
There’s been a lot of debate on a Question of Privilege Motion by Michael Chong (Conservative, Ontario, Wellington—Halton Hills) over the last week:
That the prima facie contempt concerning the intimidation campaign orchestrated by Wei Zhao against the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and other members be referred to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.
So “prima facie contempt” basically means that the Speaker has decided that this is a serious enough issue to warrant immediate discussion. There’s been a lot of debate around whether or not this is even considered an issue of Privilege, and the Speaker finally came back with the ruling that the Speaker’s job isn’t to wait for evidence to be brought forward. Their job is to make decisions based on first impressions. In this particular case the argument was that the intimidation was made towards family members that were in China, and as such was outside of Canada’s jurisdiction and couldn’t be considered an issue of Privilege. The Speaker doesn’t know where the intimidation originated from or what form it took, they just know that it happened and it happening is enough to make it a priority.
As a quick note, a “Question of Privilege” is when an MP feels that their ability to do their job has been infringed upon in some way. In this case Michael would not have been able to properly represent his riding while his family is being threatened. This has also come up in cases such as a vote being held while the remote participation system wasn’t working right, preventing some politicians from being able to vote.
So this Motion is asking for the government’s delay in responding to the alleged campaign run by Wei Zhao to be sent to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to be looked into.
Mark Holland (Liberal, Ontario, Ajax) proposed a Motion to pause debate on this. As a Question of Privilege this overrides all other government business, but at the time Mark proposed this it was 3:15 on Tuesday and debating this was pretty much the only thing the House had done. (Note that they were there until midnight on Monday) The Motion passed with 175 in favour and 144 against.
| Party | For | Against | Paired |
|---|---|---|---|
| Liberal | 147 | 0 | 3 |
| Conservative | 0 | 113 | 1 |
| Bloc Quebecois | 0 | 29 | 2 |
| NDP | 25 | 0 | 0 |
| Green Party | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Independent | 1 | 2 | 0 |
We then finally had a vote on the Motion, which passed with everyone voting in favour of it.
Bill Updates
C-46 – The Cost of Living Relief Act, No. 3 – passed through the Senate without any change and was granted Royal Assent.
Closing Fun
And that’s about it for the week! I leave you all with another quote from our elected leaders!
What a clown
Kelly McCauley (Alberta, Edmonton West)