Trudeau’s Attempt to Defy Parliament
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Summary
In this episode, Conservative MP for the Wellington-Halton-Holton Hills, Michael Chong, joins us to talk about the recent firings of two government scientists, and the ongoing investigation by the RCMP into the matter.
Transcript
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Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
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host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton, for the likes of Rock. It is the
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summertime, but I do thank you very much for joining us. But we are not stopping. We are
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not slowing down. We are providing new content every single Tuesday, 1.30 p.m. Eastern Time.
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We do appreciate your help in liking, comment, share, subscribing to this program. Help us push
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back against the ever-moving liberal agenda. If you can't watch it all now on Facebook,
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you can download it, listen to it later on on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play,
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Spotify, you name it, it is out there. Today's topic, something we have talked about before
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and a guest we've had on before. And I think this is something we need to keep talking about
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because it has, for the most part, disappeared from a number of headlines across the country
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and the mainstream media. It has to do with the two scientists that were fired and then
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subsequently walked out of the Level 4, the Maximum Security Laboratory in Winnipeg,
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talking about the transfer of intellectual property to China without permission of the
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Public Health Agency of China. And we're going to bring in our good friend Michael Chong. He's
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the Member of Parliament for Wellington-Halton Hills. He's also the critic for foreign affairs,
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the shadow minister, if you will, the man of the hour, Michael Chong. Thank you very much for
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coming on again to talk about this very important topic.
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Now, it's kind of happened. A lot of it has happened towards the end of the parliamentary
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session. Just as June was starting to roll in, the warm weather had started to arrive,
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restrictions on some of the lockdowns across the country were starting to ease, people were
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getting out and about. So I don't think many people have been following this as closely as I
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think they should based on the severity of what this actually means. So the RCMP are now investigating
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two scientists that were dismissed from that top security infectious disease laboratory in Winnipeg.
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Now, they're talking about the potential leak of sensitive information to China. And the House of
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Commons, the parliamentary committees tried a number of times to get access to the documents as to why
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the firings happened. What is going on? The government locked it every road they could, including
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taking the Speaker of the House of Commons to court to stop the release of those documents.
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Yeah, Jamie, it's appalling what's happened. We don't know a lot. What little we do know makes it clear that
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the Trudeau government has failed to protect the safety and security of this country, has failed to
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protect national security, and was asleep at the switch when a number of things took place in the last
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several years. We know that seven government scientists at the government's lab in Winnipeg
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collaborated with Chinese scientists on some of the world's most dangerous viruses that we know that
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because they published at least six studies together for the period from 2016 to 2020. We know that some of the
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research of the government's lab in Winnipeg was paid for by China's government, which I think is a big lapse in
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security. We know that one of the government scientists in Winnipeg made at least five trips during a two-year
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period to collaborate on research with these scientists in China. We know that one of the Chinese
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scientists in China gained access, was granted access, to work in the government's top-level secret lab in
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Winnipeg, and that this scientist from China was actually a member of China's military. How on earth
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a Chinese military scientist, a Chinese member of the People's Liberation Army was granted access to work in a top-level
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secret government of Canada lab is beyond me. We know that there are shipments of various materials from Winnipeg
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to the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and we know that CSIS raised alarm bells about all of this. This is just some of what we know,
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but there's so much we don't know, and we have been trying to get information to get to the bottom of this. Look, you know,
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as members of Parliament, particularly members of the official opposition, you know, we assume that the
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government is doing its job to protect national security. We assume that the government is protecting the safety
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and security of Canadians. But when we get information that suggests otherwise, we have a responsibility,
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we have a constitutional duty to get to the bottom of the matter in order to hold the government
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accountable and to ensure that these kinds of lapses in security, lapses in national security, don't take
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place again. But the government has refused to respect an order of the House of Commons and is refusing to
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hand over these documents. Now, this isn't the first time Canada has seen China act in bad faith
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towards us. We saw a few years ago with our agricultural products, exports from Canada to China,
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a number of exports were stopped. We've had the two Michaels, I think it's going on two plus years now.
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We've seen even with most recently, the CanSino agreement that put Canada behind at least 100 days
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because they put all their eggs in that basket and all of a sudden they pulled out and there's
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Canada struggling to get vaccines way behind a number of other countries. Why do we continue
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to keep getting burned by China? And why does this government keep allowing this to happen?
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Well, I think it's in part because of the Prime Minister's naivete toward China. I also think it's in part
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because they came to office wanting a closer relationship with China. Clearly that was the wrong approach
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and they've been reluctant to abandon that approach. You know, you mentioned CanSino. It's a
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good case in point. You know, it was just a year ago in May that the Prime Minister announced a great
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fanfare, this partnership on a vaccine with China, with CanSino in China. And what's so appalling was
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the conspiracy that followed to cover up the fact that China took us to the cleaners. The Prime Minister
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made this announcement in mid-May of last year with great fanfare. This was the great hope for the
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nation that we were going to secure a vaccine to vaccinate Canadians through this partnership
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between the National Research Council of Canada and CanSino. That was announced in mid-May.
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Only two weeks later, a couple of weeks later, the Prime Minister became aware of the fact that
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the Chinese government had refused to uphold their end of the deal with the CanSino agreement and refused
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to allow a shipment of products to begin testing that was slated to have gone to Halifax, to Halsey
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University in Halifax. So the Chinese government, only two weeks after this big announcement, put a wrench
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into the plans and clearly wasn't going to uphold its end of the bargain. But the conspiracy is this.
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The Prime Minister did not make this known for several months afterwards. You know, we're in the
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middle of a pandemic. The government needed to be transparent and upfront with Canadians about what
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its plans were to secure vaccines. And the fact that they've withheld that information from Parliament,
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they withheld that information from the Canadian public is beyond appalling. It, I think it speaks to a pattern of
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cover up from this government that, you know, thinks Canadians are so naive just to believe that
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Even at the beginning of the pandemic, I think it was like something like 16 million tons of
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But it, it also is a very disturbing pattern. When, when you see China's influence around the
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world, how they start to operate, especially what is going on in terms of their control with mining
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in a lot of sectors, especially around the African continent, how, how they are, are really dominating
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that area. And, and that Canada really is kind of slow to the party in terms of standing up or even
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having a solid policy, because I think, uh, as we mentioned off air, and I'll let you get back into it. Our, our, our,
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our, as the opposition, as the conservatives, our foreign policy towards China aligns
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closely with a lot of our allies, whereas the Trudeau government is, is totally out in left field.
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Well, I agree entirely. Um, this government, the Trudeau government has been slow
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to react to the threat that China is posing to Canadians, posing to this country.
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Uh, other countries have been much quicker in reacting to the threats from China. I just think
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of, for example, Australia. Um, Australia had a much closer relationship with China than Canada
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ever did. Australia is much more reliant on exports to China than Canada ever was. Yet Australia woke up
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to these threats early on and has taken a strong hard line against these threats. In fact, it was just
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recently that the Australian government announced it was canceling two belt and road initiatives
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between Australia and the People's Republic of China, um, in response to these threats. The European
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Union similarly has been much quicker to react to these threats. Um, after China sanctioned a number
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of European parliamentarians, the European parliament, uh, took swift action and suspended a
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landmark key, uh, agreement between the European Union and the People's Republic of China. It was
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an agreement that had been struck late last year to great fanfare and agreement, um, an agreement on
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investment between the European Union and China. Well, the European Union was quick to react to these
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sanctions earlier this year and suspended the agreement in a big blow to China's president, President Xi.
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The United States has been much quicker to react, uh, to these, uh, these threats and has been, uh,
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imposing sanctions and making it clear to China that these threats, these cyber attacks, these threats
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to citizens are unacceptable. The Canadian government, um, has not cancelled a single agreement between
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Canada and the People's Republic of China. Um, recently, uh, they have not, uh, put in place strong
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measures, uh, to counter these threats, uh, and they're unilaterally alone in many cases. You know,
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we haven't joined the American administration and, and, and not participating in the Asia and the China
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led Asian infrastructure investment bank. Uh, we've not, uh, joined with Australia and the European Union
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in ripping up some of these agreements that are clearly a threat to our economy. We've not joined our
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four closest intelligence and security allies and banning Huawei or restricting Huawei from our,
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the core of our 5G network and so on and so forth. So, you know, this government is failing to protect
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our national security. It's failing to respond to these threats and it's failing to act multilaterally
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Even when the pandemic started, they, they, the government federally had three main responsibilities.
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One was the border, the other vaccines and the other rapid tests, and, and they failed on all
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three. And, and here we are, Canada, we're, we're quickly catching up. But when you look at the,
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the level of openings where other countries are, uh, they are way ahead of us. And it's unfortunate
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because the, the federal government not only let us down on each one of those, but also blame the
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opposition as the reason why they were failing on each and every one of those. It was really quite
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You know, it's, it's, uh, the last 18 months have laid bare the state of this government's
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management of our institutions. You know, we still don't have a governor general. One has been
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announced, um, but she's yet to be installed. We, we haven't had a governor general for months,
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um, because of scandal. Uh, we, uh, eight of the most senior members of the Canadian military
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have been forced out or resigned in scandal. In fact, the former head of our military has now
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been criminally charged. Uh, we have a government that could not implement a payroll system to pay
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some 250,000 employees when companies like Walmart pay millions of employees every day across many
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jurisdictions with complex, uh, uh, payroll arrangements, often part-time and, uh, part-time
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work and, and lots of employees joining with high rates of turnover by the nature of their business.
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We can't seem to procure, uh, equipment for our military without it turning into a fiasco
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and the procurement of vaccines, I think, uh, demonstrates, uh, how unprepared this government
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was on the fact that they dismantled the early warning system, uh, for a pandemic just months
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before the pandemic hit us. Uh, you know, you could go through the list and now they're preventing
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parliament from doing its job by denying us the very information we need, uh, to hold the government
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accountable and to do our job under the constitution. And so the list is long. Uh, I think it's laid bare,
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uh, the mismanagement of this government and my belief that this government does not deserve
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another mandate. I fully agree with you on that one. So what happens if there's an election? What,
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there's a whole bunch of talk whether or not election will be called. I guess there's only a
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few people in the prime minister's office and the prime minister himself that actually know the answer
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to that question, but what happens to that, to this process, should an election be called and
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parliament dissolved? Well, the four orders of the house and its committee, uh, will dissolve with the
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dissolution of parliament and the general election. Um, so that's the first thing that would happen.
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However, the question of, um, the government violating, uh, the constitution and, and the
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rights of parliament guaranteed under the preamble to the 1867 constitution and guaranteed
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under section 18 of the constitution arguably remain into the next parliament, which will reconvene
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after the next federal election. And so it remains to be seen whether we will take that up again,
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or whether, whether the government will have complied by then, or whether the courts will have,
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the court, the federal court will have ruled by then. So it's, there's a lot of unknowns here.
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Um, the government, I think needs to do the right thing and comply with the orders of the house,
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um, and withdraw its, uh, its attempt to defy the rule of parliament.
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Yeah. Does this not this pattern that you, you just described a few minutes ago, does this not,
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should this not concern Canadians for some reason? I think there hasn't been as much outrage or at
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least talk about what's going on. Even at the beginning of the pandemic, we saw the liberals been
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bringing a piece of legislation that would have given them extreme power, the complete control to
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tax and spend wherever and whenever they wanted on whatever they wanted up until 2022.
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We've seen them try to change the rules of the house of commons in the last parliament and in this
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parliament. And, and we've seen the, the internet censorship bill bill bill C 10, which would regulate
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the content that an individual can see on the, the internet. This is a pattern of deep concern,
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I think to every Canadian and, and, and it's a path that I'm not sure many want to take.
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Yeah, I think, I think these are these, all these events, um, together point to a pattern of a profound
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lack of belief by the Trudeau liberals in democracy, a profound lack of belief in our parliamentary system
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of government. You know, the one, the most egregious, um, example of this is one you just mentioned,
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which is that the government attempted to introduce legislation at the beginning of the pandemic
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that would have suspended parliament's, uh, right to approve spending and taxation for some 20 months.
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The original legislation that they proposed would have given the prime minister, um,
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the unfettered right to spend a tax as he saw fit himself, uh, till the end of this calendar year,
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till the end of 2021. The fact that they even thought this was remotely appropriate to, uh, to introduce
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this legislation, I think demonstrates their view of parliament, um, that it's an afterthought,
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that it is a consultative body, but not one that actually makes decisions, not one that they are
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accountable to, not one that they have to abide by. And the recent example where they are thumbing their
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nose at another federal law, the implementation act, when they say they don't have to immediately
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implement, uh, a recent bill that was adopted by the House of Commons and Senate with respect to,
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uh, capital gains taxes on the transfer of small businesses is another example of this.
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And, you know, they are seriously undermining not only the rule of law when they thumbed their nose
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at this recent legislation that was passed by parliament, uh, they are also undermining, uh,
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the other fundamental principle that our society is based on, which is a belief in democratic institutions,
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a belief in parliament. Um, and, and in the long run, few things matter more than those essential principles.
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I forgot who wrote this, but I remember someone saying, you know, the unfortunate part of,
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of liberals in government is that liberals will always liberal. And, and it just seems a disturbing
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pattern, especially in 2015, where Justin Trudeau was, you know, kind of the, the knight in shining
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armor riding into Ottawa. I'm going to clean up this mess. And then he only tightened control from the PMO
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and basically pushed parliament, its committees, their, their, the will to the side and the, the,
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pretty much the government itself is being run, uh, out of that prime minister's office. Just a few
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people making decisions for everybody. Yeah. This is a government that promised to do things differently
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when it came to power in 2015 and quickly did the opposite. You know, this is a government that
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promised to introduce electoral reform. We all remember the promise that the 2015 election
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would be the last election run on the first past the post system. Well, they abandoned that promise.
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They promised to respect parliament. Well, one of the first things they did was to break
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the law. It, you know, and it's something that went under, went under reported at the time.
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The reform act had just been passed in, uh, the previous parliament in June of 2015. Uh,
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the prime minister and his senior ministers knew full well what that act did and what it said. It
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came into effect right after the 2015 election. It required the liberal caucus to vote four times at
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its first caucus meeting, but the prime minister and the government house leader, uh, actively counseled
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liberal members of parliament to break the law and to disregard the requirement to vote.
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Um, you know, and that was a start of a pattern. They came to office with this arrogant, uh, attitude
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with this corrupt attitude about the law. They broke the law. That is a full fact. I'm not being
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hyperbolic when I said that they broke the law. They failed to uphold section 49 of the parliament of
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Canada act, which was the section of the parliament of Canada act that had been, that had been amended
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by the reform act only months earlier, an act that they were very aware of. Um, subsequent to that,
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they've thumbed their nose at a number of other areas of law. And the pattern continues to this day
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with the most recent adoption by parliament of this bill that, uh, changes small business,
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uh, capital gains taxation. Uh, and, you know, again, the government is thumbing its nose at the
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law. And as we talked about earlier, they're thumbing their nose at four orders of the house of
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commons and its committee to hand over documents. You know, as I said in the house in June,
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you know, why on earth are we spending $400 million a year in parliament, uh, if our decisions are not going to be
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be followed, why do we spend billions of dollars on the buildings, $5 billion at last count for the
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new center block, uh, if the processes and procedures in the house of commons and senate don't mean anything?
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Why do we have a parliamentary democracy if the government views the house of commons and the
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senate simply as consultative bodies rather than as decision-making bodies that bind the government?
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I couldn't agree with you more. I love it when you get fired up, Michael Trong. We're,
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we're pretty much out of time. As you know, I always give the guests the final word.
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You summed everything up so well. I, if you have anything more, I'd love to hear it.
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Quite simply this, uh, we've had six years of the current government and power,
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and while they can point to some record of accomplishment, I think on the whole,
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they do not deserve another mandate. I think it's clear there's a pattern of a reckless disregard
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for the rule of law, a reckless disregard, disregard for our parliament and for the elected
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will of the people as expressed by their members of parliament. I think they have seriously weakened
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the institutions of this country. As I mentioned earlier, we still have no governor general because
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of scandal. Uh, the former clerk of the Privy Council resigned in scandal. Uh, we had the former
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minister of justice and attorney general pushed out in scandal. Uh, we have eight of the most senior
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members of our military resign or have been pushed out because of scandal. We had the former head of the
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armed forces now criminally charged. Uh, and we have a government that just thumbs its nose at parliament.
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Um, this is a government that has mismanaged our institutions. And so people need to
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cut through the noise and clatter of the day to day reportings on politics and see the bigger picture,
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which is a government that is sending this country on the wrong path. And that's why I don't believe
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they deserve another mandate. Michael Chong, you are amazing as usual. Thank you for that. Again,
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I love it when you get fired up. Nobody can argue with you on that one because you are
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so on point to the member of parliament for Wellington Halton Hills, also the shadow minister for foreign
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affairs. Always a pleasure here hearing his perspective. And we didn't even get to touch
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on some topics, but maybe again, we'll have you on. We do appreciate Michael's time. We appreciate
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your time for joining us on the summer, many parts of the country. The weather is amazing,
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but you are here. You are focused. You are here to help like comment, subscribe, share this program
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because that liberal agenda, it is the summer, but it is still moving. We need to push back against it.
00:23:10.080
You can help us do it. There's somebody we know in your social media network that wants to hear the
00:23:14.480
conservative message. This is your chance to help ensure that Erin O'Toole is the next prime minister
00:23:20.000
of Canada. Again, if you can't watch it all now, listen to it, download it, have it later on,
00:23:25.280
on platforms like CastBox, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, you name it. It is out there. We will be
00:23:30.560
back next Tuesday, 1.30 PM Eastern time with brand new content. Join us then. Remember,
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low taxes, less government, more freedom. That is The Blueprint.