The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - April 20, 2023


Katie Telford answers questions regarding election interference


Episode Stats

Length

27 minutes

Words per Minute

128.6689

Word Count

3,583

Sentence Count

190

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

In this episode, Conservative MP Larry Brock talks about his role in questioning Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's chief of staff, Katie Telford, regarding allegations of Chinese election interference in the federal election campaign. Larry also discusses the impact of the committee's questioning of the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff on the Liberal team, Jody Thomas.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
00:00:07.740 host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton, Quartholakes, Brock with new content
00:00:11.540 for you every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time. We've got a zinger of a show lined up for
00:00:16.580 you today, so please like, comment, subscribe, and share this program. Great content on the way. And
00:00:23.540 of course, you can download it, listen to it on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play,
00:00:27.740 and Spotify, you name it, it is out there. We're going to bring back a guest you're well familiar
00:00:33.700 with, Larry Brock, Member of Parliament for Brantford-Brandt. Once again on the show, my
00:00:38.100 goodness, you have a lot to talk about. We have a lot to talk about with you. We saw your performance
00:00:43.640 last week in committee questioning Katie Telford, the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff regarding
00:00:48.780 alleged election interference from Beijing, and you did a bang-up job. So did the rest of the crew
00:00:54.940 who were firing away Katie Telford, some pretty tough questions, some pretty interesting developments
00:00:59.780 coming out of that as well. We'll talk about that in just a minute. But Larry, what are your
00:01:04.020 thoughts on your line of questioning when you had Katie Telford in the hot seat?
00:01:10.920 Well, I was the first Conservative member, Jamie, to ask questions, and I had a second opportunity
00:01:18.120 towards the latter end of the meeting. The first line of questioning was to really narrow down
00:01:26.920 as to what the Prime Minister knew, when he knew of it, and wherever possible to hammer down
00:01:35.000 the actual content of those particular briefings. So my first round consisted of trying to establish
00:01:43.520 that the Prime Minister reviewed a series of briefings from CSIS, Canada's National Spy Agency,
00:01:51.860 in the month of January 2022, which essentially outlined the number of candidates, the 11 candidates,
00:02:01.000 who have received clandestine funding directly from the Communist Party in China. And in typical
00:02:09.160 fashion, she could not get into specifics. But, you know, many members reminded her that we weren't
00:02:17.720 asking for specifics. We were simply asking for, did that particular meeting take place? Were you present
00:02:26.140 at that particular meeting? And what, if anything, was done? Now, it's interesting that literally two
00:02:34.540 hours, Jamie, before we started our questions of Katie Telford, that we received the undertaking
00:02:44.740 that Jody Thomas promised the committee back on March the 1st. She provided a number of undertakings
00:02:52.900 to give us some specifics as to the timing of meetings between the Prime Minister, briefings, I should say,
00:03:02.960 between the Prime Minister and our spy agencies, the briefings to cabinet briefings to ministers, briefings
00:03:12.300 to and meetings and political party representatives. What's interesting though, Jamie is March the 1st,
00:03:19.460 she gave an undertaking. The cover letter to this particular document is dated through a computer
00:03:28.080 search. It was timestamped as of April the 6th, which was last Thursday. So for whatever reason,
00:03:38.340 the Liberal Party, the witness Jody Thomas, Prime Minister's National Security Advisor, chose to sit on
00:03:48.180 this particular important document and literally giving us, the committee members, next to no notice
00:03:55.220 as to how we could utilize the document. So that, in my view, is indicative of the overall cover-up that
00:04:05.560 many members of the Liberal team, the Prime Minister himself, his ministers, his backbenchers,
00:04:12.760 and now staffers, are trying to protect the Prime Minister. What came out of our preparation
00:04:22.520 for this particular meeting, Jamie, was overwhelming evidence. Overwhelming evidence that has actually
00:04:32.120 been reviewed. It wasn't just an intelligence source. It wasn't just a conversation between
00:04:39.020 a whistleblower from CSIS, which I will elaborate on in a second, a whistleblower sharing details with
00:04:46.800 media. We were actually privy to documents prepared by the Privy Council Office that was delivered to our
00:04:56.580 committee, which is indicative of foreign election interference generally being on the radar map. And we had
00:05:06.620 evidence going back to 2017, that CSIS and other security agencies were continually bringing up this information to the
00:05:18.540 Prime Minister, which begs the question, what did he do with it? Well, the answer is he did nothing with it. Because the
00:05:27.680 material that we received, the material that was reviewed by the newspapers and the reporters,
00:05:37.680 clearly showed that there was an overall objective by Beijing. And that objective was to curry favor
00:05:46.080 with the Liberals to ensure a Liberal election in both 2019 and 2021. And that they would take active
00:05:56.080 interference steps to defeat certain conservatives, particularly of Asian nature, Asian background,
00:06:06.240 whose values and position with respect to China did not align with that of the Communist Party of China.
00:06:15.520 So what was frustrating for us, Jamie, frustrating for me is in the face of specific evidence
00:06:24.240 that the Privy Council Office had shared with us that Katie Telford, the second most powerful member of the Liberal
00:06:33.600 government, could not confirm even the existence of it, claiming again national security issues. Now, on that point,
00:06:43.680 it was interesting, the timing was interesting, that the CBC this morning released a report.
00:06:49.440 In the report, they spoke to a former intelligence expert by the name of Wesley Wark. He was the former
00:06:57.600 national security advisor to two former prime ministers, one a Liberal, one a Conservative prime minister.
00:07:05.840 And he was asked that specific question. If Katie Telford relies upon national security,
00:07:14.480 is that what this particular committee can expect? And he said, she would be able, this is a national security
00:07:22.480 advisor, the same sort of position that Jody Thomas has currently with the prime minister.
00:07:29.280 He confirmed that Katie Telford would be able to discuss the extent and timing of all briefings
00:07:38.560 given to the prime minister on allegations that Beijing tried to tilt the 2019 and 2021 elections
00:07:48.960 towards the Liberals. When that very point was brought out in a line of questioning between
00:07:56.720 our colleague Rachel Thomas and Miss Telford. Miss Telford did not give any credence
00:08:05.040 to that opinion and simply relied upon her talking points, which, in our view,
00:08:12.480 was indicative of a further cover up. Now, can I say definitively that we didn't get anywhere
00:08:21.360 over the two and a half plus hours? I can't say that because we went into this particular
00:08:28.560 committee hearing working under two different hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that the
00:08:38.400 prime minister did not receive any and all briefings, that they were selectively vetted, presumably by Katie
00:08:47.920 Telford or Jody Thomas, which could give credence support for the prime minister's assertion
00:08:57.360 that specifically he did not receive any specific information regarding the clandestine funding to
00:09:06.320 those 11 candidates, nine being liberal, two being conservative. And you know, Jamie, he's repeated that
00:09:13.680 numerous times inside the House, outside the chamber across this country. So interestingly, though,
00:09:21.600 she quashed Katie Telford quashed that hypothetical that hypothesis, and confirmed that there was nothing
00:09:30.160 and is nothing that she receives that she deliberately, intentionally or non-intentionally,
00:09:38.800 holds back from the prime minister. Everything gets transferred to the prime minister. The prime minister
00:09:45.920 reads everything that he receives by way of national security and intelligence matters. That is significant,
00:09:55.680 because that then gives credence to our second working hypothesis, that he has all along received
00:10:05.760 this information, some of which being very damning information regarding covert real attempts to influence
00:10:16.560 our past two elections. And he chose to do nothing, because by doing something,
00:10:23.760 he would have had to alert Canadians and Canadians could have resulted in a different outcome.
00:10:30.960 He did this to protect himself. He did this to protect the Liberal Party of Canada.
00:10:37.520 We also heard during that committee, our colleague Michael Cooper questioning Katie Telford, talking about
00:10:43.200 a email that Bob Soroya, the then member of parliament from Markham Unionville received. And it was from the
00:10:52.000 the consul in Toronto, I believe, basically inferring that after the 2021 election, Mr. Soroya, my seatmate for
00:11:01.120 the first few years after being elected first in 2015. And that's what we should also point out. Bob Soroya was
00:11:06.640 elected in 2015. If memory serves, they'll look over 50% of the vote in a red wave. That was when the Liberals took all of
00:11:15.280 Atlantic Canada, they took massive swaths in Ontario and elsewhere. When the Liberals were on the rise,
00:11:21.120 Bob Soroya still won with over 50% of the vote. And now there's evidence on the table that's showing that
00:11:30.480 Bob Soroya received a cryptic message from the consulate, I believe in Toronto, basically eluding
00:11:36.640 the fact that after that election in 2021, that he would be unemployed.
00:11:42.640 That is extremely disturbing evidence. And I hope that this is thoroughly investigated. I know that
00:11:50.880 Mr. Soroya will probably be sharing more details with the press in the next coming days. I know the
00:11:58.000 press wanted to give more details to that. But I don't think it's incumbent upon any of Mr. Soroya's
00:12:04.800 former colleagues or any members of the PROC committee to shed any further light on that,
00:12:11.600 because he is the person that's best suited to give the press the full facts. This needs to be
00:12:18.960 fully investigated by CSIS. If it already has not been, I wouldn't be surprised if CSIS is already
00:12:26.640 aware of this. There could be another report along those lines that, in fact, Mr. Soroya
00:12:34.560 has been impacted by foreign interference. These are issues that I was alive to approximately two
00:12:41.680 weeks ago, when I had the opportunity at the ethics committee to sub for one of our colleagues, Jamie,
00:12:48.480 and Kenny Chu, along with former CSIS officials, testified at that committee. And one of the questions I
00:12:58.160 asked Mr. Chu was whether his experience at the hands of Beijing's interference abroad and locally in his
00:13:10.480 riding was similarly felt by our former colleague Alice Wong in the Lower Mainland area and Bob Soroya.
00:13:19.920 And he said, absolutely. Without getting into details, Jamie, he said, absolutely. They experienced
00:13:26.720 the same sort of issues. They were receiving the same sort of feedback at the doors, that they were
00:13:34.560 a person not to be trusted by their constituency. And this was all because of the misinformation campaign
00:13:43.040 that local officials working with Beijing were trying to do to disrupt, obviously, the outcome.
00:13:50.640 So if on this one path, we have Justin Trudeau being briefed about potential election interference and basically doing
00:14:00.880 nothing about it. On the parallel side, you have, as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, the entire board at the
00:14:10.400 Trudeau Foundation resigning over some pretty questionable donations, potentially from a few agents stemming from Beijing
00:14:19.280 and looking at this article here from the press, talking about the foundation's board members, which, of course, as mentioned, just all resigned.
00:14:28.560 We're trying to track down that donation, that 140,000. And the timing of those donations were around 2016, 2017.
00:14:36.560 And you just pointed out, if he was briefed around 2017, there just seems to be a bunch of things converging all at once
00:14:43.200 around the common theme that there looks to be some pretty shady stuff going on, including, as we're talking about,
00:14:51.600 potential election interference.
00:14:54.480 You know, it's abundantly and obviously clear to me and should be to you and to Canadians who are watching this podcast,
00:15:05.360 that there is definitely something wrong with our democracy, that this has occurred right under our noses.
00:15:13.840 In fact, Jamie, I would actually go back and I would even suggest that it goes back to 2013.
00:15:20.320 If you recall, our block colleagues in the House during numerous question periods were questioning the amount of foreign
00:15:32.080 donations to Justin Trudeau's own riding in Papineau, Quebec, that 85% in 2013 of all of his donations
00:15:46.480 to that electoral district association was foreign, that it was coming primarily from Chinese Canadians
00:15:57.360 who did not live in that particular riding. I think that is very, very concerning. And I think it really
00:16:05.600 speaks to the overall change in the policy of the Trudeau government as early as 2015.
00:16:18.960 In my view, Justin Trudeau wanted to pursue the same sort of legacy that he felt his father,
00:16:25.040 Pierre Trudeau had with China, that he was concerned about the strained relationship that Canada had with
00:16:35.360 China under Prime Minister Harper. And in my view, this was part of his legacy to reopen those negotiations,
00:16:44.080 to reopen relationships. But as you know, in our view, that the relationship between Canada and China is
00:16:51.760 more strained than ever. So whatever aspirations this Prime Minister had, it's an abject failure.
00:17:00.080 Like most of his agenda. Exactly.
00:17:03.520 So where do we go from here? We know that Trudeau, Justin Trudeau, usually skates on a lot of this
00:17:08.560 stuff. He's like Teflon. It's unbelievable what this Prime Minister gets away with. And his cavalier
00:17:14.480 attitude, I think that's what bothers me as well, that I don't think we've talked about much, is just
00:17:19.280 basically, he has no time for the rules. Rules are for the little people, in Justin Trudeau's mind,
00:17:23.920 which just drives me insane. And as I've often said, as we've all said in the House numerous times,
00:17:32.000 this particular issue is a nonpartisan issue. Anyone, any one of our colleagues in the House
00:17:41.600 proudly serves the interests of this country, and the interests of their respective constituents
00:17:48.720 in their riding, and should be free of foreign influence and interference. For this Prime Minister
00:17:57.680 to suggest, as he did, that we were the ones making this partisan, that we were the ones that were
00:18:08.240 anti-racist, or racist towards Chinese Canadians. He was deflecting and blaming us
00:18:18.320 for something that any member of the parliament, any member of parliament in this country should be
00:18:24.720 standing for. And that's to preserve the integrity of our democracy. And that is a segue, I believe,
00:18:32.000 to where I want to go with this next comment. And if you recall, Jamie, one of the whistleblowers,
00:18:40.560 and I think there's more than one whistleblower from CSIS, one whistleblower prepared an op-ed that
00:18:47.840 was shared in one of our national papers. And it was to explain why they leaked the CSIS documents
00:18:55.120 to the media. And it starts off very poignantly, in my view, not to party, not to person, but to my country,
00:19:06.960 to its democratic institutions, and to my fellow Canadians. This person was frustrated after he and
00:19:17.840 several of his colleagues, sharing damning information to the Prime Minister or the Prime
00:19:25.440 Minister's office, regarding the extent and the seriousness of this Chinese foreign election
00:19:34.160 interference. And it fell on deaf ears, election after election. This person bravely took this
00:19:47.040 point to the highest level, knowing full well, they could be persecuted under the appropriate
00:19:53.920 statutes for this leak, but felt he had an obligation to this country to share that. Now, when you have that
00:20:02.400 that strength of conviction in terms of what was actually shared, it's completely disingenuous for
00:20:12.320 this Prime Minister, for Katie Telford, for any Cabinet Minister to suggest that there are so many
00:20:20.080 inaccuracies with respect to these leaks, without giving us specifics, without flat out denying that this
00:20:29.200 document actually exists. This person chose the courageous route, and I would only hope that the
00:20:37.120 Prime Minister would have displayed that same level of courage. Clearly, he has not.
00:20:43.360 What happens next? What happens next? Does Justin Trudeau face any consequences? I think the media is
00:20:51.520 trying to bring forward as much evidence to the Canadian public as possible. We're doing the same.
00:20:55.920 Does Justin Trudeau finally take that walk in the snow? My spidey sense is that this is probably not
00:21:04.640 the last of the leaks. I'm quite convinced that the press, for whatever reason, have held back
00:21:16.000 some reports. I could be wrong on this, Jamie, to see whether or not any relevant points would have
00:21:24.080 come out of Katie Telford's examination. So I wouldn't be surprised if we receive further reports
00:21:30.800 in the next few weeks. To your broader question, where do we go from here? I know that these are
00:21:37.280 early days. There will be some some discussions in terms of strategy moving forward as to how this
00:21:44.400 particular committee will reconstitute itself to continue this examination. I feel that there are
00:21:52.000 further witnesses. I can't identify who those witnesses are. I'm not part of this committee,
00:21:56.800 as you know, but I would anticipate further witnesses may be called. Katie Telford gave us
00:22:02.960 undertakings as well. I lost track as to how many undertakings that she gave. Whenever we receive the
00:22:10.400 documents pursuant to those undertakings, that may cause us to reconsider having her return or having
00:22:19.040 another official return. So early days, I think the question is a valid question, Jamie, but early days
00:22:25.760 for me to opine, other than to say, and this was the takeaway from our huddle before we left the committee
00:22:33.440 room, as this is one step along the path. There are many other steps that we will be taking, but this was
00:22:42.960 one small step along that journey. Including that push for a public inquiry. Of course, you still have
00:22:48.400 David Johnston doing his work as the rapporteur. I'm sure the ski buddy of Justin Trudeau will.
00:22:54.880 It's unfortunate somebody with that high credibility within the Canadian public to say yes to a
00:23:01.680 position like this. It's something that should be beyond approach, right? It should be clean.
00:23:07.600 Everything that has come out in the last few weeks, particularly with the foundation, in my view,
00:23:14.880 screens out for a public inquiry now. In my view, David Johnston, the special rapporteur,
00:23:24.880 has more than enough information. He's kept up, just like every other Canadian has kept up with the drip
00:23:31.920 drip-drip approach to this particular scandal. He has the ability to say, I have heard enough.
00:23:39.200 I recommend a public inquiry. Whether Justin Trudeau follows through on that recommendation
00:23:46.240 remains to be seen. We know he's got a horrible track record in following up with recommendations.
00:23:52.400 Let's take a look at NSACOP. The all-party, non-partisan group of our colleagues in the House from all
00:24:01.840 four parties, including senators, who were tasked of having the highest security level to review
00:24:10.160 highly sensitive material and to report directly back to the Prime Minister. This committee was
00:24:17.360 formulated in 2017, right smack dab in the middle of this controversy. NSACOP releases its report in the
00:24:28.400 summer of 2019, essentially confirming, Jamie, and highlighting everything, without getting into
00:24:38.160 monetary numbers, confirming everything that the whistleblower shared with the press. But more
00:24:45.600 disturbingly, shared with the Prime Minister significant recommendations moving forward. And here we are,
00:24:53.840 four years later, and nothing has been done. Well, if it benefits the Liberal Party,
00:25:00.640 why would we be in much more hurry? Absolutely. And you know what's going to happen. To your quickly
00:25:07.040 point, then we've got to get out of here way over time. But you can imagine if David Johnston does come
00:25:11.280 out and say, yes, we need a public inquiry, then you know that the Liberal talking heads, the Gerald
00:25:18.640 buts and the rest of them will be so we told you so we told you so you didn't have to go after David
00:25:24.160 Johnston. But at the same point, if this would just let fly, I don't know if the pressure would have
00:25:29.520 meant, you know, made a difference. You know what I mean? Like, we had to point out that this process
00:25:34.000 should be clean. And shouldn't people shouldn't have to wonder what if a personal connection is going
00:25:39.040 to get in the way of a judgment call. As I say, nonpartisan issue. Exactly. So as you know,
00:25:47.840 go ahead. I was going to give you my final statement. You know, you know how the show goes.
00:25:51.680 I don't mean to tell you just go ahead. It's your show too. Canadians deserve nothing less than full
00:26:00.320 transparency on yet another significant scandal of this Trudeau government. We as His Majesty's loyal
00:26:12.000 opposition and members of the Prague Committee will continue to chip away at this darkness, at this
00:26:21.280 whole concept of nothing to see here, folks. We've done everything by the books. We will continue to
00:26:27.920 chip away at that to shine the light on the truth. And finally, restore and this is the important
00:26:34.080 thing here, Jamie. Public confidence in our institutions is at an all time low. And I think
00:26:41.680 I've shared with you one of the rationales as to why I left the Crown Attorney system is I wanted to
00:26:48.480 to impart in some way, try to get back the confidence level that Canadians should have with our political
00:26:56.160 leaders and with our democratic institutions. It is at an all time low. We as Conservatives will
00:27:02.640 continue to shine light to give that confidence back to Canadians. Larry Brock, Member of Parliament,
00:27:08.720 Branford Brantz, the man of the hour, the guy who put Katie Telford on the hot seat. Well done, Larry.
00:27:14.320 You are a rock star and your history as a Crown Prosecutor really showed during committee.
00:27:18.880 Congratulations. Keep up the good work. Appreciate him coming on. Appreciate your time as well for
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