Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Red Deer—Lacombe for bringing this important piece of legislation forward and for speaking on this issue.

I would like to expand a little and talk about the “so what?”. We talk about money in foreign interference, but we do not really talk about why it matters and so what. To get to that, we have to go back to first principles. Why do we have a democracy? Why does democracy matter to Canadians? What are the pillars that are the foundations of that democracy that we must uphold in order to have a structure and a sound system?

The most important aspect of a democracy is that it is the people who make the decisions around the future direction of their nation. Sovereignty means that we the citizens of Canada, and we alone, have the ability to choose the future of our nation and to shape that direction. To be able to make an informed choice as citizens in what we want to see as the future direction of our nation, we have to have sound information: information that provides both sides of the story, information that comes from Canadians and is not overwhelmed by a foreign agenda that may or may not be in the best interests of the nation.

Today, with the Internet, advertising and all of these other mechanisms, money can overwhelm the information that gets to Canadians. As a result, Canadians do not have access to all of the information in balance to be able to make an informed decision. When Canadians do not have the information to make an informed decision, then the very nature of our democracy is compromised because of the structure of the information that Canadians are getting to make those choices.

Therefore, as legislators, as lawmakers and as those who are entrusted with that sacred responsibility to enable Canadians to shape the future direction of the nation, we must look at mechanisms to be able to ensure that balanced and informed information is given to Canadians to make decisions, and not those that are completely overwhelmed by money and foreign agenda without Canadians even recognizing that there are hidden agendas at play, as my hon. colleague so clearly and effectively pointed out. There are organizations outside of the nation whose websites clearly say that their purpose is to further their agenda not the agenda of what is in the best interests of Canada.

While there are many things that the bill would not do, there are many things that it would do. It is not valid to say that we are not going to do anything because this one piece of proposed legislation is not perfect and does not have the full plethora of things we need to do to address this problem. What the bill would do, most importantly, is take that critical first step.

The bill says that there is a problem in Canada with foreign interference and money that is able to disproportionately influence and inform Canadians, in a bad way, so that they are not in a position to make decisions that are in the best interests of Canada. If we define that we have a problem, then the second thing is that the bill would take a critical first step to addressing that problem. It would also allow us to have a much broader conversation about all of the other pillars and solutions that we need to look at in order to fully understand the complexity of how Canadians are getting the information and the breadth of the problem. We can then ensure that Canadians can take back the decisions about their nation and that we can maintain our sovereignty, which is our ability alone, as Canadians, to make decisions in the best interests of the nation.

To say that it is not achieving all the things that we need it to achieve and therefore we cannot support it going forward, I completely agree is fundamentally flawed and disingenuous because we have to accept that we have a problem, that we need to take critical steps—this is a critical first step—and that we need to open up a very important conversation about understanding just how broad this problem is and just how we might be able to address it, because those who would further their agenda have big bucks, great incentive and all kinds of means at their disposal.

At the moment, they are more in the driver's seat than Canadians are, to be able to influence where Canada goes. This is something that all of us should be fundamentally concerned about, and that is why this is such an important piece of legislation being brought to the House today. We must support it and we must support cybersecurity, information security, elections monitoring and all those other things to ensure that the power of the future direction of the nation and the structure of the information that our citizens have to make clear, concise and informed decisions about the future direction of the nation rests in the hands of Canadians and Canadians' best interests, not in the hands of foreign actors who benefit perhaps from things that are not in the best interests of Canada.

That is a very drastic perspective to have to have. It is a very frightening prospect that we think we are making decisions as Canadian citizens when we vote. We think that we have the right information to make those decisions. It is very disconcerting to think that perhaps we do not. It is all the more reason to inform Canadians about how they may be being manipulated or influenced by information and actors who have different agendas than we in Canada do.

Perhaps that is the reason that the opposition does not want to support this motion. No one really wants to have come face to face with the prospect that we are not necessarily informed and able to shape the future direction of our nation. Sometimes we do not want to admit that there is a problem because of the possibilities of undermining the confidence of Canadians in the Liberal government.

To do that would not be in the best interests of the government or of Canadians in general. That is why we are so honoured to have this opportunity in front of us, because of the incredible importance of being able to address those things that need to be fixed such as money, elections and cybersecurity. Are our economic structures at risk? Are our financial structures at risk? Are our resources and our ability to get our resources to market at risk? Also, we are not making investments in our mining industry. What other aspects of Canadian society are at risk because of the manipulation of the information that we have from foreign money?

Are there other countries that benefit from our not getting our goods and services to market, other countries that benefit by our not investing in defence, other countries that are benefiting from our being dependent on their oil or their natural resources? All of those things are critical questions we must ask.

That is what the debate has done today, and we must have the courage to take meaningful action. That first step in meaningful action is for everyone in the House to support this very important motion on foreign interference. I thank the member for Red Deer—Lacombe for giving us the opportunity to have the debate, to bring it forward and to make Canadians understand just how critically important this is and what is at risk if we do not address it.

Leona Alleslev

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