Convicted Human Smuggler Received New Passport from the Liberal Government

NDP-Liberals failed to protect the integrity of our passport system. Plus, rising labour strife, an update on the Winnipeg Lab scandal, the emissions cap, and more.

The soft-on-crime Liberal government issued a passport to a human smuggler while he was awaiting sentencing for smuggling foreign nationals from the U.S. into Canada in 2021. This human smuggler was forced to hand over his passport to the RCMP in 2021 as part of his release conditions after he was arrested in April of that year. However, as he was waiting to be sentenced for human smuggling charges, the Liberal government gifted him a brand-new passport on April 11, 2023, even though he was already a convicted criminal and was forbidden to hold any travel documents.

Issuing a passport to someone who has been caught committing crimes across international borders is about as absurd as it gets. It raises questions about the integrity of our passport system because no criminal who is committing serious crimes should be issued a brand-new passport after a judge orders the seizure of the old one. But then again, nothing is surprising with this NDP-Liberal government these days.

The absurdity of the story doesn’t end there.

The newly issued passport was found during an RCMP raid on his Montreal home in June 2023. At the time he was wearing an ankle monitor as per a court order. He was subsequently sentenced to 15 months in prison in September that same year. In May 2024, this same individual was arrested again on charges of leading an international human smuggling organization that was moving hundreds of people both ways across the U.S.-Canada border. Multiple Canadian law enforcement agencies have since linked this convicted criminal’s organization to the deaths of nine people on the St. Lawrence River who were trying to get into the U.S. in late March 2023. The new passport was issued to him two weeks after eight of those victims were pulled from the river.

Unfortunately, this particular case is not an isolated incident. There has been a surge of illegal activity occurring along the Canada-U.S. border recently. Reports indicate that over the past year, the number of individuals apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol after crossing from Canada has exceeded 19,000 – a figure higher than in the previous 17 years combined. Furthermore, there has been a lack of adequate surveillance and coordination between the two countries, which has led to our border being vulnerable to exploitation by organized crime syndicates.  

Considering that a known, convicted, worst of the worst human smuggler was issued a new passport, Conservative MPs on the immigration committee forced an emergency meeting to start an investigation. Our aim is to find out how Liberals bungled the integrity of our passport system and compromised our national security. Two Liberal cabinet ministers and their government officials, will be forced to testify and explain how this happened on their watch. Conservatives will get to the bottom of this, and we will further expose how this Liberal government is putting the safety of Canadians at risk.

Here is a video from the immigration committee demanding answers from the government:

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Labour disruptions have gone up over nine years and continue to hit Canadians at the worst possible times. Strikes and work stoppages affect essential services, disrupt supply chains, and raise costs for all Canadians. The ongoing Canada Post strike will affect Canadians who are sending gifts to loved ones across the country. It will also affect the issuing of approximately 85,000 passports right before the busiest travel time of the year. These disruptions could also extend well beyond the new year.

The very fact that we are facing ongoing labour disruptions is a direct result of the incompetence of this NDP-Liberal government. Their economic mismanagement has left workers behind, with stagnant wages unable to keep up with the surging cost of living over the past nine years. Last year alone, 745 work stoppages occurred—an all-time high since 1985—because this government continues to fail to address the root causes of labour unrest.

Although fewer disruptions have started this year compared to last, significant strikes continue under the NDP-Liberal watch, including those by Air Canada pilots, WestJet mechanics, the Port of Vancouver, grain terminals, and Canadian railways. Workers, like all Canadians, saw their paycheques worth less because of Trudeau’s inflationary deficits and taxes. The current government has managed labour relations poorly, intervening late, giving mixed signals at critical points during negotiations and sometimes flat out ignoring the legitimate claims of workers who are seeking fair wages and safer working conditions.

Workers deserve the right to negotiate fair wages and benefits, and Conservatives fully respect this. However, constant labour unrest highlights the urgent need for better leadership. A Conservative government will fight for workers by delivering more powerful paychecks, reducing taxes, and making essentials like food, gas, and housing more affordable for all Canadians. We need solutions, not more disruption.

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In the last newsletter of Resuming Debate, I wrote about the anti-Alberta emission cap imposed by this NDP-Liberal government that will lead to the loss of up to possibly 150,000 Canadian jobs. I want to share another startling fact about this disastrous policy and what it means for us Albertans who will bear the majority of the consequences of this radical new policy. This anti-Alberta energy worker emissions cap could cut up to $1 trillion from Canada’s GDP and kill over 150,000 Canadian jobs. Moreover, the cap would limit emissions in the energy sector to 35 percent beneath 2019 levels and impose a cap-and-trade system on the industry. In short, this is not an emission cap but a production cap that will wreak havoc on hundreds of thousands of Canadians' lives and will be hardest felt by Alberta families and energy workers. This is a policy no other state or jurisdiction has applied anywhere in the world. It is a radical, made-in-Ottawa policy that is solely intended to further harm our province.

Only Conservative MPs will stop this radical plan. We will oppose this emission cap wherever we can. Should conservatives earn the right to govern at the next federal election, we will abolish this radical anti-worker emission cap. Its only immediate effect will be to send more of our Alberta energy jobs down south to the U.S. leading to more American prosperity instead of keeping it here at home.

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Earlier this year, we learned more information about how two People’s Republic of China scientists were able to infiltrate the Government of Canada’s top lab in Winnipeg after new government documents were released.

Here’s a quick recap of the scandal from an early March edition of Resuming Debate:

Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were ordered to leave the lab in July 2019 and were stripped of their security clearances. However, their dismissals were not made public until January 2021. The Level-4 National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg, where Qui and Cheng worked, is equipped to handle the most serious and deadly human and animal diseases, such as Ebola.

The newly released documents revealed that Qui used the Winnipeg lab "as a base to assist China to improve its capability to fight highly-pathogenic pathogens" and "achieved brilliant results."

Based on its own assessment, the NDP-Liberal government essentially allowed a person who was “a very serious and credible danger” to work in Canada’s top laboratory, which works with some of the world’s most dangerous viruses.

So, what have the NDP-Liberal government done to reassure Canadians that they are taking hostile foreign threats to our lab seriously since then? Well, not much.

It was evident that the government was very slow to act before removing Qui from the lab despite clear evidence they were infiltrating the lab on behalf of the PRC. Since then, the government has not assured Canadians that they would be quicker to respond to any other infiltration events if they were to happen in real-time.

The NDP-Liberal government did create a new research policy in January 2024 that would stop government funding on “sensitive technology” to any research organization with suspicious connections to hostile foreign entities. However, while groups from Chinese, Russian, and Iranian schools and military units are on that list, the Wuhan Institute of Virology is not. Yes, the same laboratory that is under a cloud of suspicion for its possible role in the last pandemic.

The Canada-People’s Republic of China parliamentary committee that I am vice-chair on recommended that the Wuhan lab be added to this restriction list so that it will never have a chance of receiving taxpayer dollars. The committee also recommended that Canada create a list of “trusted” countries that will be the sole recipients of dangerous viruses, which is something we do not have.

The safety and security of Canadians must be the top priority of the federal government, even in science research, despite the often cited need for international cooperation to achieve shared aims. National security interests must come first after a decade of naive governance from the NDP-Liberal government.

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Since 2015, the Liberals have released budget after budget, that unleashed economic vandalism on working Canadians. As a result of their inflationary tax and spend policies, Canadians are paying more for food, gas, and rent and housing interest payments than they were nine years ago. So, how would common sense Conservatives fix this should we earn the right to govern?

For starters, we would implement a cap on spending where government departments will be required to find a dollar of savings for every new dollar of spending. This will reduce public deficits, interest rates, and inflation. Additionally, we will introduce a “Bring It Home” tax cut that will reward work and investment for jobs and opportunities created here in Canada.

Another policy that will help Canadian workers and small businesses will be to repeal and replace the unconstitutional and anti-development law, Bill C-69. Already found unconstitutional by a federal court, once a new law is implemented, projects will be greenlit for construction including hydroelectricity dams, nuclear power plants, critical minerals mines, carbon capture projects, new oil and natural gas pipelines and mines, and uranium mines for exports to allied nations. This will help bring home more jobs in Canada and bring home powerful for all Canadians.

To find out more about the common sense Conservative plan to Fix The Budget, watch the video below, where I detail more about our proposed policy:

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The embattled Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault has been fired from the Liberal cabinet as Minister of Employment after more allegations of scandalous activity came to light. Boissonnault, who was appointed to cabinet in 2021, had been embroiled in an ethics scandal for a few months after it was reported he had an active role in 2022 with Global Health Imports, a company he had unclear ownership in, which I highlighted in an edition of Resuming Debate last month. While the former minister claims to have resigned from the company after being appointed to cabinet, leaked text messages revealed he was allegedly still involved in the operations of Global Health Imports following his appointment. In fact, it was not only until June 2024 that he gave up his 50 percent stake in the company, months after Global Health Imports won a government contract to supply gloves to Elections Canada. If true, all of this would amount to breaking the Conflict of Interest Act.

In the past couple of weeks, the former minister had been embroiled in another separate but related scandal where he labelled Global Health Imports as a wholly-owned Indigenous company while bidding on government contracts. The former minister blamed his business partner, Stephen Anderson, for the mislabeling. However, to remind you: the former minister also blamed his former business partner for failing to update the lobbying registry after Boissonnault supposedly resigned from Global Health Imports in 2021. Regardless, the former claimed "non-status adopted Cree" heritage through his great-grandmother but was later revealed to have Métis ancestry through his adoptive great-grandmother. He even sat as a member of the Liberals’ Indigenous caucus in 2016, which he now claims his membership was as an ally. Essentially, a member of the Liberal cabinet was claiming Indigenous heritage despite not having such status to try and win government contracts at taxpayer’s expense.

It is shameful that a minister would not tell the truth to Parliament or the public so that his business could get special treatment from the government via your tax dollars. The scandal was even too much for the Prime Minister, who stated on Wednesday that he and his Liberal minister agreed that he should “step away from Cabinet effective immediately.” The statement continued, “Mr. Boissonnault will focus on clearing the allegations made against him.” In other words, the Prime Minister fired him from cabinet.

Boissonnault is the most recent member of the Liberal government to have been involved in a conflict of interest scandal, as many more have been found to breach the Conflict of Interest Act or have been accused of doing so since 2015. Canadians are tired of the constant corruption from this Liberal government and are clear they want change. Common sense Conservatives will continue to hold the NDP-Liberals accountable for their corruption and will bring integrity back to the government if we earn the right to govern after the next federal election.

Watch as I raise this corruption in Parliament demanding that Boissonnault admit he broke the Conflict of Interest Act in October:

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