Minister of Foreign Affairs appearance before the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) on foreign election interference

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the officials for being here.

I want to pose my question to Mr. Perrault. I want to specifically ask about foreign funding of third parties.

In the 2015 election, it was well established that a number of U.S.-based organizations laundered money through various entities. That money ended up in the hands of registered third parties. For example, nearly $800,000 of U.S.-based Tides foundation money was transferred to the Sisu institute society, based in British Columbia, which in turn was laundered to Leadnow, which actively campaigned to defeat Conservative candidates in the 2015 election.

Amendments were made to the Canada Elections Act in 2018 with Bill C-76. Would you agree that the loophole that existed at the time of the 2015 election was not fixed in Bill C-76?

(1110)

Madam Chair, I agree that there remain areas where foreign funding could find its way through parties, though I'm not aware that it has. This is why I have made a recommendation to Parliament, which I will be happy to explore with this committee in future months, regarding the potential use of foreign funding.

Essentially, that loophole, if you may call it that, relates to the ability of a third party to use its own funds, so unless the money was provided specifically for a regulated purpose, then it would not be captured. What is an owned fund, and how can you address that?

I have made some recommendations, and I could expand on them today if the committee wants to hear.

I'd be interested in any recommendations you have.

Would you agree there is nothing in the act that would prevent U.S. money from going to a Canadian entity, then to another Canadian entity, and then to another entity, for example? The source of that money might then be considered Canadian.

There are opportunities for flows of money to make their way through a third party. If the party, however, raised the money for a regulated activity, they must disclose the source of the funding. It must be a Canadian source.

The concern is with money received for general purposes, which may, later on, become their own money, flow through various groups, then be used. In this case, it becomes an expense reported as from the source of the entity itself.

We have seen an increasing percentage of third parties funding their election activities with their own funds.

In short, loopholes exist with respect to third parties. You acknowledged that in your testimony on May 28, 2018, when you appeared before this committee. You said, “There is in my view a residual opening for foreign funding through third parties.”

Nothing has changed. Isn't that right?

I committed to look into this and come back with recommendations, which I have.

One recommendation you put forward was an anti-avoidance clause.

No. It's a recommendation that groups funded, in large degree, through contributions be required to have a separate bank account. If they use money for regulated activities, it comes from that bank account, and every penny comes from individual Canadians.

Groups, however, whether they be corporations or unions, that are not fundraising entities but earn money in Canada would continue to be able to use their own funds, as would individuals.

A fundraising entity—someone who receives money by way of contributions—should be regulated in a different manner. That's an avenue I'm putting forward to explore with this committee.

To be clear, a foreign third party can accept foreign money. That's clear. They can accept foreign money.

They cannot accept foreign money for the purpose of regulated electoral activities, but any—

Otherwise, if it's not specific to one of the regulated activities, there's no limit.

Any individual in Canada is a third party, unless they're a candidate. They may receive funds through investments or earnings from different sources, including foreign sources. That may also include contributions, unless it's for the purpose of regulated activities, you're quite correct. People and groups in Canada receive funds from different sources.

As you said, it could be commingled, and there's nothing in the act that clarifies this. How do you enforce...?

You said, set up a separate bank account if money is ostensibly donated on the basis of an administrative purpose. Then, it's commingled and used for a different purpose.

That is correct.

If money is given for general purposes, and not specifically for regulated activity purposes, it becomes their own money. It can then be used and reported only as their own money, even though it was a contribution.

I think that's an issue Parliament could choose to address in the legislation that reviews it.

Right.

What about an anti-avoidance clause?

Mr. Marc Chénier (Deputy Commissioner and Chief Legal Counsel, Office of the Commissioner of Canada Elections):

There are a number of anti-avoidance clauses in the act. I'm not aware of any prosecutions, although I may be incorrect.

Mr. Chénier has a long history of knowledge about these things and how effective they are. I'd leave that, perhaps, to Mr. Chénier.

(1115)

Yes, there's a prohibition against circumventing the prohibition against using foreign funds. That was added by this committee when Bill C-76 was before this committee.

The Chair:

Thank you.

[Translation]

Ms. Romanado, the floor is yours for six minutes.

Mrs. Sherry Romanado (Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, Lib.):

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being with us today.

Mr. Perrault, I would like to thank you for saying in your testimony that Elections Canada had not experienced any breaches to its IT infrastructure or interference with its electoral operations during the past two general elections.

[English]

It's important to highlight that, because there were a lot of conversations and reports on whether or not there was interference in the last two elections. I want to thank you.

I understand, Madam Simard, that you also mentioned there was nothing in the last two elections, in terms of foreign interference.

One area I'd like to touch on is the pre-election period. We hear a lot about initiatives happening and efforts made during an electoral period.

Could you elaborate on some of the work you're doing in a pre-election period, in terms of making sure our elections are safe?

[Translation]

I would like to make one brief comment. As I tried to make clear in my opening remarks, the expression "foreign interference" can have several meanings, depending on the context. That is why I tried to be relatively precise when I said we had not experienced any such situation at Elections Canada.

I would say there are two work streams in a pre-election period.

[English]

One stream is working with our partners in the Government of Canada in terms of ensuring the security of elections. A lot of the work that goes on there, because people come and go between elections, is making sure everyone understands who is responsible for what, who you speak to when you have an issue, and which kinds of issues which agencies are responsible for. It's a lot of making sure the parameters of the mandates are understood and we have contacts. We also receive fairly high-level briefings from the security community in terms of the overall environment.

That's one stream of work. I would include in that stream our work in terms of cybersecurity.

The other one is making sure Canadians have the right information about the voting process. That is critical for us. That's really at the core of our mandate. For example, in the last election we put a lot of effort into putting information on our website about postal ballots, just because there was concern. How do we count them? What is the transparency? What are the safeguards in place to ensure the integrity of the process? That is an important part of our work.

Moving forward, I think we'll need to continue and expand on explaining to Canadians why they should be trustful of our elections and the procedures we have in place for them.

Thank you very much.

I have a follow-up question to that. You mentioned mail-in ballots. I understand that approximately 200,000 special ballots were not returned in the last election. Obviously, with COVID, a lot of people availed themselves of special ballots.

Can you speak to that a bit? There have been some comments that perhaps the results of the election would have been different if the ballots that weren't returned on time had been counted. I would like to get your comments on that.

Thank you.

First of all, there's no indication that mail-in ballots had any swing effect on the election in terms of their spread. I'm not aware of that.

When we talk about this figure of 200,000, sometimes people talk about uncounted ballots. These were not uncounted ballots. These were ballots that were either not received or not cast. In some cases, electors came and voted in person. They had applied for a kit but didn't send in their ballot, or it was received late, or it was completed in a manner that the law directs us not to count and to set aside. These are accounted for. They are counted in the same way that at the polls, if a ballot is improperly marked, it is set aside. It doesn't mean it is not counted.

Thank you for clarifying that. As you mentioned, a lot of people have a misunderstanding of these “uncounted” ballots, as they call them.

You brought up misinformation campaigns. We've seen more and more, with social media, the ease with which misinformation about elections can happen. What are some of the other safeguards? In your testimony you mentioned that immediately, once you see something out there, you counter it and say, no, this is in fact the situation, whether it be the dates of elections or how people can vote.

Can you elaborate a little on what else we can be doing in terms of making sure that misinformation is addressed? The problem is that it's so quick. It can go viral very quickly. We can be trying to counter it, saying, no, actually, this is the information, but it's almost not believed...by political parties, by candidates, by Elections Canada. Can you elaborate a bit on what we can be doing together to make sure people have the right information about elections, about where they can vote and when they can vote, to make sure we have maximum participation?

(1120)

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau (Laurentides—Labelle, BQ):

Certainly, Madam Chair.

The language is important. We prefer to use the language “inaccurate” information, because we have no way of knowing whether it's misinformation or disinformation. It's simply not accurate information. We promote the idea that Elections Canada is the trusted source of information about the electoral process. That is something that you as candidates and your parties can do. You can promote that in case of doubt, turn to Elections Canada. That is a very important aspect.

We monitor the environment, especially the social media environment. We have relationships with social media platforms. We monitor 67 platforms in 15 languages. It's quite extensive.

The Chair:

Thank you for that.

[Translation]

Ms. Gaudreau, the floor is yours for six minutes.

It is impressive to know that you monitor 67 platforms in various languages.

So I am going to frame my question a bit more precisely. Personally, I am concerned more specifically with disinformation and cyber threats. I would like to know what we are lacking for working effectively on prevention.

As an aside, I wonder whether laws at the international level are inadequate to properly regulate Internet service suppliers. There have been several committees that have examined the possible contribution of the Group of Five to legislating in order to target any attempted cyber attack or cyber threat, or even any attempt to spread disinformation.

In your opinion, is this not a tool we should first address before asking everybody to file complaints?

I would ask both witnesses to answer in turn.

Our office does have tools now it can use to do investigative work. It is important to understand the difference between the various roles. For our part, our role includes compliance and enforcement of the Canada Elections Act. With that in mind, as you know, tools have been created and new provisions added that came into force in 2019, for the most part. We were able to test it quietly.

I would like to add a clarification to the comment that was made. It is important to note that our office has received complaints relating to foreign interference, but no official action was taken.

On your question regarding recommendations, I will let deputy commissioner Chénier clarify that for you by giving you a more precise answer.

Mr. Marc Chénier:

As Ms. Simard stated, new provisions were brought into effect with the enactment of Bill C-76. This strengthened the system and reduced the possibility of foreign money getting into the system.

On the question of foreign interference, our office's powers are limited to the provisions that Parliament has chosen to...

What are you lacking, then?

Mr. Marc Chénier:

Mr. Côté, Ms. Simard's predecessor, had recommended that a third component be added to the definition of "undue influence" in the act. Under the act as it now reads, there is undue influence when expenses are incurred to promote or oppose a party or candidate, or when an activity that is carried out in order promote or oppose a party or candidate contravenes a federal or provincial law.

According to Mr. Côté, while it is important to protect freedom of expression in political discourse, the right to freedom of expression and the protection of political dialogue are clearly diminished when foreigners deliberately attempt to sow confusion in people's minds. He had therefore recommended that the act recognize that third way of exercising undue influence: cases where a foreign entity or person sows confusion or intentionally disseminates disinformation.

(1125)

I am going to frame my question more precisely.

Would it help you if the G7 countries adopted rules that would determine what is acceptable on the platforms and what is not? Here, we are talking about foreign interference in elections, of course, but there could be rules that relate more generally to platforms that do not obtain people's consent or on which child pornography is found, for example.

The objective is to identify the factors that we should focus on in the action we take.

What are your thoughts, Mr. Perrault?

I made several recommendations in that regard in my report.

What we need, first and foremost, is greater transparency on the part of the digital platforms. We have to understand social media, know what their election advertising policies are, and understand how they deal with misinformation about the electoral process. As I said earlier, we monitor social media, and when we see what we consider to be misinformation or to meet the definition of disinformation, we can alert the major platforms. We have protocols in place for doing this. When cases are submitted to those major platforms, they deal with them in accordance with their policies. However, we do not always know their policies. There should at least be transparency. The platforms can make their own policies, but they should have to divulge them. I think that would help to establish trust.

I also have recommendations for strengthening the rules around disinformation, but I would start with transparency, before anything else.

My next question is relatively simple: why does the commissioner limit herself to the election period for receiving complaints about foreign interference or for monitoring in this regard?

Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP):

As the chief electoral officer explained in his remarks, there is no provision of the act that deals with foreign interference. I think you mean, rather, to refer to the provision on undue influence. On that subject, the chief electoral officer had in fact recommended extending the monitoring period, so that it was not limited to the election period. He could tell you about that. My predecessor approved that idea.

The Chair:

Thank you.

I would like to point out to all witnesses that they can always answer a question in the official language of their choice, regardless of the language in which they are asked the question.

Ms. Blaney, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[English]

Thank you.

I want to thank all of our witnesses here today. It's always important for us to talk about our election process and what we're doing to make sure we're protecting it from foreign threats.

One of the biggest hurdles is one that all of us as elected officials, and those in trusted positions such as yours, know, and that is getting people to trust the system. That's becoming increasingly hard with so much misinformation. We've seen recently, of course, what happened in the U.S., which was really a deliberate attempt to undermine the electoral system and make something that was concrete seem like it wasn't. That was very concerning. I know all of us are watching that and watching the outcomes of what happens when foreign entities abuse misinformation.

To both of you, through the chair, how can we ensure that accurate, reliable information is shared here in Canada so that misinformation isn't taken advantage of by foreign entities?

Madam Chair, it starts with seeding the environment with correct information. A big part of our work in preparing for an election is to build a repository of information about the voting process that the media and the candidates and the parties can turn to in order to understand what the rules and procedures will be.

The second thing is to monitor what is being said out there, to focus on information about the voting process, which is my mandate, and to respond to any misinformation or inaccurate information by pushing out the correct information. If there is the appearance of an attempt to interfere with the reporting process, I can refer that to the commissioner for investigation. My role is to make sure Canadians have correct information about the voting process.

In my recommendations report, I have made some recommendations about expanding the rules on disinformation. I'd be happy to speak more about that.

(1130)

[Translation]

From a practical point of view, it is important that you know that in accordance with its role regarding compliance and enforcement of the Canada Elections Act, my office has initiated a dialogue with the platforms. To date, that dialogue has been extremely positive. Some content has been removed form the platforms, at our request, and the evidence has been preserved and communicated. Obviously, I am not talking strictly about foreign interference, but about our investigations in general.

[English]

Just to go back to that idea, I guess I'm curious about methods that are being looked at in terms of reporting on which communities are the most vulnerable. What I mean by that, for example, is that indigenous communities, where there is often a sense of distrust already, could be more vulnerable to misinformation around how to vote and what the process is. We also know that new Canadians may not be able to access information through English and French. The other part I would add is that I think rural communities can be under a particular level of concern. Because of their remoteness, often they don't have access to information as readily as other people.

In the work that is being done, how are those communities being considered around those particular vulnerabilities, especially in this area of foreign threats? There is a unique situation there that needs to be addressed. I would love to hear your thoughts on that.

Madam Chair, I think it's a very important point. We know there are communities in Canada that have a knowledge gap about our political institutions. They don't know as much as they perhaps should or could about the voting process and how our institutions work. That makes them more vulnerable. Our outreach activities are geared towards communities that have a knowledge barrier in terms of our voting process.

For example, right now we are working on a pilot project with indigenous communities in northern Ontario to build a civic education program specifically for indigenous Canadians. That's a pilot, and we'll learn from that and see how we can expand it.

We have a range of outreach activities aimed specifically at bridging that gap for certain communities. You're quite right to point out that it makes those Canadians—new Canadians and different groups—more susceptible to being vulnerable to disinformation.

Just so you know, this is not something included within our mandate of compliance and enforcement.

Thank you.

We know that election interference is not just a Canadian problem, so I'm wondering from what other jurisdictions Elections Canada is learning lessons about protecting the integrity of elections, and what lessons are being learned.

Yes, again, Madam Chair, that is a good question.

We work with international partners. One of our good partners is Australia. They had in their most recent election a registry of misinformation. That registry would publish the false statements about the electoral process, and people could refer to that. They felt it was a valuable addition to their program. We're looking into something similar for our elections, so we are exchanging information. At the end of the month, I will be attending a meeting of the OAS—the Organization of American States. I expect to meet people there from Brazil, from the United States and from other jurisdictions in the Americas to deal with these issues.

The Chair:

Thank you.

It's Mr. Calkins next, followed by Ms. Sahota.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Confirm for me if you can, Mr. Perrault, that approximately 17 million people voted in the last federal election. Is that correct?

That's correct.

The result from the last election was that on election night the Liberal Party of Canada, which is now the government, fell, I believe, 11 ridings short of a majority. Would you say that's correct?

I believe that's correct.

If you look at the closest 11—and I'll just say 13, because there were some things that happened afterward—13 ridings was the number of ridings that the Conservative Party subsequently asked about foreign interference in. In the closest 13 ridings that the Liberal Party could have won, the difference between their candidate winning and the person who did win, in my estimation, falls a little over 20,000 votes. Out of 17 million votes cast, the difference between a majority and a minority government in this country was 0.1% of the ballots cast. How easy is it for a foreign state actor to move the needle by 0.1% in this country?

(1135)

I don't have an answer to that question. I don't know the effectiveness of any interventions, be they domestic or foreign. I have to say one aspect of the work we do is that we're not equipped to distinguish and we have no means of ascertaining, when we're seeing, for example, debates on social media or criticism of a candidate or a party—and we do see some of that—whether that criticism is originating from a foreign source or a domestic source and whether it's a legitimate part of the actual process or an attempt at foreign interference. That's something that belongs to the national security agencies. Beyond that, it's hard to ascertain what the impact would be. I recognize that the challenge here is how we determine whether any aspect of that would have an impact.

My former colleague, Kenny Chiu, who lost in the last election, was, prior to the election, very vocally critical of the things that were happening in Hong Kong, and he has alleged quite publicly that the Chinese Communist Party is using software that might not be physically available for everybody to see, but it is using chat groups and so on. These chat groups can get quite large, involving tens of thousands of people. In light of the fact that we've had people report in this country about unofficial Chinese Communist Party police stations or enforcement stations operating in certain parts of the country, how reasonable would it be to assume that these kinds of things are happening so covertly that we wouldn't be aware of them happening or of their significance?

It's quite possible that some of that is happening, and that is a matter of concern. I think that's why we have national security agencies to look into these matters. I do not have the mandate or capacity to look into that. That said, if there are offences under the act or complaints that the commissioner receives that fall within the parameters of the legislation, then there are ways for her office to look into those. In terms of our agency, it's very difficult to ascertain to what extent there is foreign activity to influence the election.

You said in your opening remarks that Canadian intelligence services—both CSIS and the Communications Security Establishment—have been in contact, or you are in contact with them. They obviously discuss things with you. What can you publicly share with this committee insofar as your instincts towards the information that you've received from our security establishments go?

Prior to the election, we received briefings that informed at a general level of the trade craft of certain countries and the interest some countries may have in Canadian elections. It's fairly high-level information. They would inform us of anything that was actionable for us. The understanding is that if there is something that relates to the voting process, for instance, that I need to know in order to run the election, then I would need to be made aware of that. I have not been made aware of any of that, any activities in that regard. Beyond that, they are the ones who are concerned with foreign interference.

I have just a quick question. Would returning to enumeration help you, help your organization, improve the integrity of the election system?

No, it would not at all. I think, very clearly, moving to enumeration would be to the detriment of the integrity of the election.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair:

That's excellent. Thank you.

Ms. Sahota, go ahead, please.

Thank you.

I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today once again to help strengthen our democracy.

My first question is for either the Office of the Commissioner or for Elections Canada.

You are a party to this SITE task force that has been created. Even though it may not be your role to collect the information, I'm sure, at least at a high level, you are all briefed about the different threats and the nature of those threats that happen.

A report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, “Foreign Interference Threats to Canada's Democratic Process”, in 2021 said that although Canada's electoral system is strong, ongoing foreign interference threatens the integrity of democratic institutions and Canadians' trust in them.

It covers foreign interference and different techniques, which go from cybersecurity to elicitation, cultivation, coercion and illicit and corrupt financing. We have been made aware through different reports that when it comes to cybersecurity, countries like Russia, China and Iran are some of the top offenders. What countries other than those three have been involved in more of these covert operations that you have been informed about?

(1140)

You've named the countries that come to my mind. I'm sure you'll be hearing from the security agencies that follow us, but I don't have any additional information for the committee.

No other countries have ever been mentioned, or you haven't been made aware of operations on the ground in any countries other than these three.

Off the top of my head, I don't recall. I want to be careful. It's difficult to remember whether or not the information you have is something that's sensitive. I would not want to put out there any information that I should not be sharing publicly, but quite frankly, there are no countries other than those that come to mind.

Perhaps we're saying that these are the publicly known threats. You may be informed of other countries' involvement, but you may not be able to share that information with us here today. Is that what you're saying?

Well, yes, and perhaps I should add that the source of a threat is something that is difficult to ascertain, whether that threat is misinformation or cyber-related. I'll let the cyber experts speak to that. It's something that during an event is not immediately apparent. You're seeing incorrect information. Whether it's misinformation or disinformation, whether it's foreign or domestic, it's just incorrect information, and we need to deal with it. The same is true, from our perspective, with cyber-attacks. We need to have walls. We need to have protections.

In terms of who's behind those cyber-attacks, this is, of course, of interest to Canada, but in terms of our role, the important thing is that we protect our infrastructure.

It's not just cyber-attacks but other types of operations that could be influencing. If not other countries, could you state whether there are perhaps third parties or entities located in other countries that come to mind?

I'm not aware of any, Madam Chair.

Okay. My next question is about social media companies.

Many social media companies have signed the declaration on electoral integrity, which commits, among other things, to addressing disinformation. We know algorithmic transparency is an issue when it comes to these social media companies. A lot of those algorithms originate from the U.S. Many of these social media companies originate from there as well.

What impact do you think that has in terms of their being considered foreign influence on elections?

Again, this is a bit of a laced question.

[Translation]

We have to be careful: the fact that there are activities from outside Canada does not necessarily mean there has been interference. Under the Canada Elections Act, the concept of interference refers to very specific offences. So it is hard to untangle all the elements of your question.

I think Canadians would have more confidence in the electoral process if they were able to know what the social media platforms' policies are in relation to how misinformation, disinformation and illegal content are handled. At present, it is a black box. We have protocols in place for letting them know our concerns, but we do not get the transparency from them that we would hope for and that would assure us that actions are being taken to reduce the impact of misinformation or disinformation.

[English]

I've run out of time, but I just want to thank you for all your hard work in making sure elections are run fairly and smoothly.

The Chair:

Thank you.

[Translation]

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

Given the short time I have, I will keep to very precise questions.

My first question is for the the commissioner.

Ms. Simard, you said that you work primarily on the basis of public complaints. You also said just now that there had been interference, but there had been no complaints during the last two parliaments.

So I am wondering: if there are no complaints, what type of monitoring to you do? I imagine you are going to do some fine-tuning, inspecting or more analyzing of what there is.

(1145)

In answer to your question, I would say that the act gives me discretion. It is important to understand the parameters within which this discretion can be exercised and to know that this discretion has been exercised in the past. You will find that information in my predecessor's public reports.

That is what I can tell you at this time.

You said that the presence of activities or entities from outside Canada's borders could significantly increase the complexity of an investigation.

We are here to help you. What might you need in order for your investigations to be less complex?

As I said, our mandate is set out in the act, we have tools now, and we are able to do work now.

What is important to understand is that our mandate is limited to those provisions and that framework, and we have to work in collaboration with partners. That is what we are doing now and will continue to do.

Since you seem to be offering us a hand by asking us what improvements might be made, I would say that a recommendation was made previously by my predecessor regarding the definitions and terms used in the act. The deputy commissioner could given you details on that.

Since I have only a few seconds left, I will invite you to tell us in writing what things you are lacking at present and what you might need, Commissioner.

Similarly, Mr. Perrault, we would really like to know what comes out of your exchange of ideas with Australia and your upcoming meetings with Brazil, among others, in order to include that information in our report.

The Chair:

Thank you.

That is a good invitation, which I will also issue to all the witnesses. If anyone has additional information to provide to the committee, you need only send it to the clerk of the committee.

Ms. Blaney, the floor is yours for two and a half minutes.

[English]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My last question for both of you is really on the pre-election period. We're hearing a lot more about the due diligence that needs to be done in the pre-election period. We can't ever overestimate how foreign influence will come through the process.

I'm just wondering if you could talk a little about what would be more beneficial around the pre-election period in terms of the services you provide and how they could assist us in building Canadians' trust in the systems we have here for our elections.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, if I may, it's important for us to increasingly talk about what we do to protect the integrity of our electoral process. This is something we certainly began in the last election. I think it was quite successful. We had a lot of information about postal ballots because of concerns with those.

It's also important to go beyond that and to explain to Canadians why they should trust elections. We have extraordinary safeguards in our procedures. They would know that it is a very transparent process, if only they knew more about it.

I think we have a responsibility to share that information with the Canadian population, of course, through the media and through MPs and candidates. That is certainly a way forward when we talk about work between elections, so that we seed the ground with healthy information about the voting process and not let the space be filled with conspiracy theories or inaccurate information.

[Translation]

My answer would be that it is important for Canadians to submit their complaints to us. For information, in the last general election, 13 situations involving foreign interference were brought to our attention in 16 complaints, while our total caseload came to 4,000. So it is important for Canadians to communicate with us.

In terms of the complexity of the investigations, you have to understand that it is all a matter of evidence. Because we operate on the basis of tangible facts, it is important that we be provided with those tangible facts.

[English]

My time is wrapping up, but I will say again that it is by interacting with our systems that we build trust, so I think it is important for the pre-election component.

Thank you.

(1150)

The Chair:

Thank you.

Mr. Cooper, you have four minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will direct my question to whoever is in a position to answer.

The Canada Elections Act prohibits a third party from using foreign funds for regulated purposes, as you noted.

Let me just give you a hypothetical. A third party can spend $1.5 million. They receive $1.5 million from domestic sources and a U.S. entity donates $1.5 million. If they spend $1.5 million in an election, what happens?

It's a hypothetical. We may not have a window on the historical assets of that third party. A third party is anybody in Canada who is not a registered party, the electoral district association or the candidate. Essentially, it's everybody.

We don't have visibility on the history of its assets. It does need to report, and that was an improvement brought in—

It needs to report monies that are spent for regulated purposes, right?

That's right, but it—

Then what's the enforcement mechanism?

If it reports that it has used that $1.5 million—and very few of them reach that amount because, to be clear, the vast majority spend small amounts—it will have to report the source of the expenditure, of the funding for that money.

A significant portion could be its own funds, so we have no mechanism—

Those funds could be foreign funds.

Those funds could be foreign funds. That's why I made recommendations that third parties—

That's even though the act says there's a prohibition on the use of foreign funds. You're saying that doesn't really mean much.

I wouldn't go that far, but I'd say it's incomplete.

Until we have a grasp on the use of an entity's own funds, I think the act is incomplete and it needs to be addressed.

I want to ask another question.

I think, Madame Simard, you mentioned there was no significant difference between the number of issues giving rise to complaints containing allegations of foreign interference in the 43rd election and that in the 44th, but what were the numbers?

If there wasn't a significant increase, what were the numbers?

I'll ask the deputy commissioner to answer this question.

Thank you.

Mr. Marc Chénier:

I believe for the 43rd general election there were 10 complaints involving some component that could be foreign interference. For the last general election there were 13 complaints. Again, those are allegations. In many cases they don't fall within the prohibited conduct in the act. It depends again on what the prohibited conduct is and what the allegation is. Often we cannot do anything with the complaint.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair:

Mr. Cooper, I enjoy having you on this committee. You always give me time back, so I appreciate that.

Mr. Turnbull, you have four minutes.

Thanks, Madam Chair, and thanks to all the witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Perrault, maybe I'll start with you. It's good to see you again.

In response to Ms. Blaney's comment about misinformation, I think you indicated that you're constantly monitoring it and that you're putting out messages to correct the misinformation that's out there. Obviously, this is a concern to all of us. The prevalence of misinformation and disinformation out there is quite troubling.

Would you like to comment on the impact of parties' attacking or undermining of our democratic institutions, such as Elections Canada? How do those things impact their ability—your ability—to be a trusted source of information?

That's a very generic question, and I'll respond very generically. I welcome the support of all parties to reinforce the trust in the electoral process. It's a partnership we have with Canadians to make sure people trust the electoral process.

If parties have concerns about aspects of the electoral process, then of course there should be debate about that. There are avenues for that, but it's critical that we all work together to reinforce our democratic institutions.

Mr. Stéphane Perrault:

Mr. Perrault, you said in your opening remarks that there was no foreign interference in the last two general elections, which is great to hear. How do you know that?

(1155)

I said there were no breaches of our IT infrastructure. That I know for a fact. We have cyber-attacks every day, as does every institution. We have no mechanism for knowing whether they are foreign or domestic. I'm assuming that in large part they are foreign, but that we're not specifically targeted. We have had no breach, and we have had no interference with our operations.

That is not to say there is no foreign interest in Canadian elections and the political debates and the political outcomes, but these are areas that ultimately go beyond the reach of Elections Canada.

Mr. Ryan Turnbull:

Okay. I guess if we're talking about pre-election periods in a minority Parliament, they're a bit more extended.

I'm interested in how the undermining of our democracy was attempted during the convoy we saw. We saw and heard media reports multiple times about how there was a significant amount of funding coming across the border to support that convoy, which had a stated intention of overthrowing the government and which was really trying to undermine policies that a democratically elected government had been elected to implement.

I'm wondering if you can make any comments on how we can protect against that? It's a form of foreign and domestic interference, I would say. It's foreign-sponsored domestic interference, and it's pre-election. What are we doing in that area?

Mr. Stéphane Perrault:

This is an issue that's much broader than electoral administration. Certainly we monitor beyond the election period what I described with respect to the voting process, so if there was incorrect information on the voting process during the convoy or in any other circumstance, we would respond to that.

On the point you made about foreign funding, I read the papers, as we all do. I don't have any definitive knowledge about the source of the funding for the convoy, but certainly it was an illustration of how, should there be foreign funding of a group or an individual, we need to have measures to prevent foreign funding from seeping into the activities of third parties. I certainly hear agreement across the board.

Mr. Ryan Turnbull:

Thank you, Mr. Perrault.

Ms. Michelle Tessier (Deputy Director, Operations, Canadian Security Intelligence Service):

That's excellent. That brings to an end our time together for the first panel. We want to thank Madame Simard, Mr. Perrault, Mr. Caron and Mr. Chénier for joining us today.

If you have any additional information on the study that you would like to share with our committee, please share it with the clerk, and we'll make sure it is shared with all members.

With that, I thank you for the tremendous work you do and I wish you a good day.

(1155)

(1200)

[Translation]

The Chair:

We will now resume the meeting.

[English]

We have with us for the second panel, Michelle Tessier, deputy director of operations with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, also known as CSIS. We also have Madam Alia Tayyeb, deputy chief of signals intelligence with the Communications Security Establishment, also known as CSE.

We will be starting with four minutes of opening comments from Madam Tessier, then we will continue with Madam Tayyeb.

Welcome to PROC.

Madam Tessier, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much.

Madam Chair, members of the committee, good afternoon.

As was mentioned, my name is Michelle Tessier, and I am the deputy director of operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

[Translation]

Thank you for the invitation to appear before you today to talk about this important subject, foreign interference threats to our elections.

[English]

I would like to begin by defining what foreign interference is and what it is not. Foreign interference is not the normal diplomatic and public relations activity that is carried out by foreign states to influence policy outcomes. Those activities, when they take place overtly, are acceptable activities in Canada, even when conducted vigorously. They are not foreign interference.

[Translation]

Foreign interference activities are different. These are activities that cross a line. They attempt to undermine our democratic processes or threaten our citizens.

[English]

In the CSIS Act, Parliament defined foreign influenced activities, which is another term for foreign interference, as “activities within or relating to Canada that are detrimental to the interests of Canada and are clandestine or deceptive or involve a threat to any person”.

To be clear, foreign interference is a covert and malign activity undertaken by a foreign state to advance its national interests to the detriment of Canada's interests. It often targets Canadians, as well as our democratic institutions and processes. These activities take aim at Canada's economy, policy process, communities and media.

Today we are discussing how foreign interference impacts our democracy. It targets all levels of government, be it federal, provincial or municipal, as well as political parties, candidates, elected officials and their staff and elections themselves. States may seek to influence who becomes an official candidate and even electoral outcomes.

Indeed, individuals may be threatened or made to fear reprisals if they fail to comply with publicly supporting a particular candidate or contributing funds to a foreign state's preferred party or candidate. While state actors may use coercive techniques to achieve their objectives, they may also use flattery, promise compensation or appeal to an individual's sense of pride towards another country to elicit the desired behaviour.

We are also increasingly seeing states leverage media, including more traditional and community-based media in addition to social media, to spread disinformation or run influence campaigns designed to confuse or divide public opinion or interfere in healthy public debate and political discourse.

As a member of the security and intelligence threats to the elections task force, known as SITE, CSIS worked closely with partners in efforts to raise awareness and assess foreign interference threats against the 2019 and 2021 federal elections. This included providing classified intelligence briefings on foreign interference to cleared political party members.

In both 2019 and 2021, the panel of senior civil servants responsible for the critical election incident public protocol determined that the Government of Canada did not detect foreign interference that threatened Canada's ability to have a free and fair election and that warranted public communication.

Last year, ahead of the 2021 federal election, CSIS released a public report entitled “Foreign Interference Threats to Canada's Democratic Process” to better inform Canadians of this serious threat. As this report shows, foreign states target our democratic process to covertly influence Canadian public policy and public opinion and ultimately undermine our democracy, but there are ways to help protect against this threat. Our report communicated some strategies Canadians can take to identify and resist foreign interference.

Both the RCMP and CSIS have phone numbers and online reporting mechanisms that are monitored 24-7 for anyone who would like to report a threat to national security, including foreign interference.

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The Chair:

Thank you, Ms. Tessier. Four minutes fly by.

Madam Tayyeb, we'll go over to you.

Ms. Alia Tayyeb (Deputy Chief of Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), Communications Security Establishment):

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for this invitation to appear today.

My name is Alia Tayyeb. My pronouns are she and her. I'm the deputy chief of signals intelligence for the Communications Security Establishment. CSE is Canada's national cybersecurity and foreign intelligence agency.

[Translation]

I am pleased to be here today with my colleague Michelle Tessier from CSIS.

Today, I will provide you with an update from CSE’s perspective on the threat of foreign interference to our electoral system.

[English]

I’ll begin by outlining some of the key trends we have observed. To complement Michelle's remarks, I'll focus on what we see from a cyber perspective.

On Friday we published our “National Cyber Threat Assessment”, more commonly known as the NCTA. The NCTA highlights that online foreign influence activities have become the new normal, with adversaries seeking to influence elections and impact international discourse related to current events.

We assess that misinformation, disinformation and mal-information, or MDM, propagated by state-sponsored cyber-threat actors represents an ongoing, persistent threat to Canadians. Adversary states constantly circulate and amplify MDM that supports their interests. Further, we've seen that state-sponsored cyber-threat activity is impacting Canadians by targeting both individuals and Canada's economy at large. Individuals are targeted, including diaspora populations and activists in Canada. They may also target Canadians' personal information. Another method state-sponsored actors utilize is targeting Canada's economic value. This may be done through intellectual property theft and foreign intelligence operations.

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[Translation]

Canada’s active participation in the international community and membership in key organizations such as NATO and the G7 almost certainly make Canadians a target for online foreign influence campaigns.

Between 2015 and 2020, the vast majority of cyber threat activity affecting democratic processes could be attributed to state-sponsored cyber threat actors. Russia, China, and Iran were very likely responsible for most of the foreign state-sponsored cyber threat activity against democratic processes worldwide.

[English]

In terms of what we're doing to prevent and defend against these threats, we collect foreign intelligence on the activities of foreign states, including any foreign interference activities directed at Canada's democratic institutions or processes.

We provide cybersecurity and information assurance, including providing advice and defences against malicious state actors who may seek to use cyber as a tool for foreign interference. For example, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, we have observed numerous Russian-backed disinformation campaigns online, including those designed to discredit and spread disinformation about NATO allies and false narratives about Canada's involvement in the conflict. We shared this information on Twitter as part of the Government of Canada's efforts to help inform Canadians.

In addition, we can conduct active and defensive cyber-operations to disrupt hostile activities from foreign states, which could include disrupting foreign interference activities. We also provide technical and operational assistance to CSIS and the RCMP as they seek to identify, prevent and disrupt foreign interference.

[Translation]

CSE and the Cyber Centre that it heads have also worked directly with Elections Canada for several years providing cyber security advice and guidance. This partnership continues today, and we continue to support their efforts to ensure secure elections.

[English]

I know that later this week you will be hearing from the security and intelligence threats to elections task force, or SITE for short, so I'll only briefly outline CSE's role in SITE.

In the lead-up to and during the 2021 federal election, CSE, CSIS, Global Affairs Canada and the RCMP worked together closely as part of the SITE task force to monitor for foreign threats and interference with electoral processes in Canada.

[Translation]

Outside of the context of an election, our intelligence work continues and provides insights to partners with respect to foreign interference, and our cyber security work continues to prevent and defend against cyber intrusions that could enable foreign interference.

[English]

Members, I can assure—

[Translation]

The Chair:

Thank you, Ms. Tayyeb.

[English]

Time flies, I know, but we look forward to hearing more from you during the question-and-answer period.

Mr. Calkins, welcome. You have six minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses. I really appreciate your testimony. It begs more questions than I have time for, so I'll get straight to it.

The Communist Party of China passed its national intelligence law in 2017, which requires Chinese organizations and citizens anywhere in the world to assist with the Communist Party's state intelligence work. Would you agree with that?

Yes, we absolutely do agree with that.

In September, an article in The Globe and Mail exposed an extensive network of Chinese police stations operating not only in Canada but also in other democratic nations around the world. We also know that the Government of Canada had to limit the Chinese Communist Party's use of Operation Fox-Hunt in 2015, due to fears that it was used to intimidate dissidents in Canada.

My question to you is this: What ongoing measures are your organizations taking to monitor this threat?

I don't know if you followed the line of questioning I had with the previous guests, but 17 million Canadians cast ballots in the last election. The difference between a majority Liberal government and a minority Liberal government in the 13 closest ridings was a mere 20,000-some votes. I'm going to ask you this, even though it might not be directly related to your mandate: Can foreign state actors, which I think pose a different threat from third-party funding coming from other countries, move the needle 20,000 to 30,000 votes during a federal election campaign?

Perhaps, Madam Chair, I can begin, and I'll certainly turn to my colleague, Alia, as well, for any comments she may have.

If I address the initial question about the overseas police stations, as I'm sure you can appreciate, I can't go into the operational details of the service's work, but I can say that we are using all the authorities we have to look at any potential threat to our communities. It is very important for us to ensure that our communities in Canada feel protected and are not the victims of any threat action towards them or any foreign actor trying to threaten them or their families back home, which we know is of concern. Obviously, this remains a priority for us.

In terms of foreign state actors influencing any elections, I'm not at liberty to say whether or not certain numbers could be influenced that way. I can say, as we have said in our public reports and other venues, that we are very concerned about foreign influence activities against our democratic institutions and against our elections, and we see these activities increasing. We are working with our stakeholders and other Government of Canada partners to increase awareness of this threat.

(1215)

In 2019 it was discovered that a spy from the communist Chinese government was recruited to run the constituency of an Australian parliamentarian. Despite our geographic distance from China, there are worries that China interferes with our politics here domestically, of course. I'll use the examples of former ambassador John McCallum's intervention on behalf of Meng Wanzhou, as well as China's praising Canadian senators who voted against the Uighur genocide motion.

Are there current parliamentarians or senators, volunteers in various campaigns or staff members working for members of Parliament or senators whom Parliament should be made aware of, who could potentially be compromised? If there are any, how would you communicate that, and who would get to know that?

As I mentioned in my opening comments, we are very concerned about the targeting. We know there is certainly a desire to target elected officials at all levels of government, municipal, provincial and federal. We work to provide defensive briefings, and we certainly encourage individuals who have concerns or questions to reach out to us. We engage quite a bit in stakeholder awareness and in defensive briefings when these types of concerns are raised.

In order to mitigate....

I'm sorry, Ms. Tayyeb. Do you have something you want to add to that?

I just thought I would echo what Michelle was saying in that regard. We work very closely, and we did, as part of the SITE task force as well in the lead-up to the election, the four agencies together, ensure that we were providing regular briefings to political parties. We also work very closely with the House of Commons to ensure that any and all information we should be sharing with them in the way of threat information about foreign interference is shared.

Thank you.

Given the nature of your comments about the tools you have available to you, Ms. Tessier, in regard to the increased level of foreign state interference, are there any new tools or any other authorities you think you would need, either of you, in order to continue to protect Canada's democratic institutions?

We have highlighted in the past that we feel that the CSIS Act was written at a time, 1984, that has likely not kept up with the modern, complex threat landscape and technological advances, so we are constantly looking at our authorities and at the tools we require.

One example I would give is our ability to use and assess data. We are in a world of increased data. Although changes were made to the CSIS Act to enable us to look at data and manage datasets, we still feel that, again, with evolving technology and our authorities, there is probably discussion to be had in terms of CSIS's ability to assess data. Another example—

The Chair:

Thank you. I'm sorry. I know our time flies by so quickly. You can always provide us this information, especially when it comes to input that we should be aware of to help you do the important work you do.

Mr. Turnbull, you have six minutes.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks to both our witnesses for being with us today. I found your opening remarks really helpful.

Ms. Tessier, I'll start with you. In your opening remarks, you said that CSIS did not detect foreign interference that needed to be disclosed. Just going back to the critical election incident public protocol, it sounds like that wasn't used.

I wonder if you could speak to the fact that there can be a potential threat that did not meet the threshold under that protocol. Can you explain that a bit more for the committee?

(1220)

Certainly. As we've mentioned—and I believe there will be members of the SITE task force appearing later this week—we, as well as other government partners such as CSE, Global Affairs Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, participate in SITE. It is really a combination of all our intelligence that is used to inform the critical panel if there is any type of foreign interference we feel could potentially affect the integrity of the overall election. In this case, there was not, but that is the work we do on a constant basis. The SITE group briefs the panel on a regular basis in terms of the incidents we see during an electoral period.

Thank you for that clarification.

We can probably infer that there are potential threats in our electoral process. It's just that they're not going to impact or make a material difference on the election integrity. Is that correct?

That's correct. As we've mentioned, we see activity of foreign interference or attempts at foreign interference in terms of trying to influence, but not enough to have met the threshold of impacting the overall electoral integrity.

Thank you. I'll go to Ms. Tayyeb now.

Many social companies have signed what's called the declaration on electoral integrity, which, among other things, commits them to address MDM, as you call it.

We know that algorithmic transparency is an issue; it's been talked about quite often. The algorithms they use predominantly originate, as far as I understand it, from U.S., i.e. foreign-based, companies. What impact do you think this has, Ms. Tayyeb, in terms of being considered foreign influence on an election?

We work very closely with social media companies all around the world. We did so in a collaborative fashion as part of the SITE task force as well.

In terms of addressing your question about the U.S. origin of those algorithms, we definitely work with U.S. companies. As well, we will advise them of any information or any interference we suspect to have taken place. We have a very collaborative relationship with them. They've been very open to addressing those concerns. As you pointed out, they have very robust policies in and around proper use of those platforms, and we've found them very responsive to that.

Maybe I'll just clarify. When we here at CSE are looking at foreign interference and foreign influence activities, we're mostly looking at state actor activities. It's not to say that a foreign organization couldn't also be engaged in such activities. In the case of the U.S., we've found very strong partnerships with those companies, and we've been able to work with them in a collaborative fashion.

Thank you.

One recent concern that stands out in my mind is Canada Proud tweeting @ElonMusk, hours after he became the owner of Twitter, to ask about Bill C-11, which we know was the subject of significant disinformation in the last election.

What role do social media companies have in being responsible actors during and leading up to elections?

I'm sorry. Yes, I was directing that to you, Ms. Tayyeb.

I'll leave some room for Michelle to answer, in case she has anything else to add.

We think they play a very strong role in this domain. As practitioners in the security and intelligence community, it's important for us not to be seen to be interfering at all in what is healthy discourse, even when we don't like it. We definitely see activities that are not foreign state directed as being well within the purview of responsible industry to take care of. Certainly, our role in that is to advise them and provide them the information they need in order to protect themselves and to protect their audiences, but we absolutely believe that they are well placed to address those threats.

Thank you.

(1225)

Thanks.

Ms. Tessier, would you like to add anything?

No, I find Alia answered quite well.

I would just reiterate that we work in a democracy. Managing social media, knowing that it is very much a tool used by foreign actors, is, of course, of concern, and we encourage awareness and liaison with these platforms so that they recognize foreign interference and are able to act on it.

Would you say, Ms. Tayyeb, that the majority of the MDM that's out there is propagated through social media?

I would say that it certainly is a very large vector we have in society these days. It's not exclusive to social media, but certainly, since the very robust propagation of social media throughout our society, we've seen an increase in those types of activities.

The Chair:

Thank you.

[Translation]

Ms. Gaudreau, the floor is yours for six minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here. I am learning a lot from this testimony.

You know that just before you, we heard from the commissioner of Canada elections, the deputy commissioner, and the chief electoral officer. I asked them a question that I would like to ask you now, and I will have more after that. This is about the present legislative situation.

The monitoring you do is crucial. It is not only preventive, but also remedial; we don't want to have to get to that point, but, things being what they are, it is a possibility.

Are the laws in our country inadequate to regulate Internet service providers and online platforms? That is a subject we have been discussing for several years. There have been talks and consultations on this subject among the Group of Five, but we have not yet heard anything about any common legislative action being taken by the members of the Group of Five or the G7, for example.

What should we do to establish the priorities among our efforts in this regard, so that you could do your job better?

I would like to hear comments from both witnesses in turn.

We are constantly reviewing the powers and tools we have. As I said earlier, the technology is evolving, as are the laws and the complexity of the environment. We are in constant discussions with other departments or agencies of the Government of Canada and with our allies to understand what might be useful for this country.

Obviously, we respect the fact that decisions relating to legislation and changes to policies belong to the political sphere. We simply send our recommendations or opinions. That said, we are always on the lookout for anything that could be useful for us here in Canada, based on experiences that other countries may have had.

For my part, I am going to answer your question in English, in order to be more precise.

[English]

I agree with what Michelle said. Our authorities are in a constant state of evolution. We have very robust engagement with partners across government in order to make sure they have the information we collect with respect to foreign threats to Canadian electoral processes but also in terms of manipulation of societal dialogue.

That said, regulation in that vein is not the purview of CSE. We'd be happy to provide advice to our government colleagues, but we ourselves don't have a part in the regulation of telecommunications or social media.

Thank you.

[Translation]

You have given me some reassurance, nonetheless, when it comes to election interference. Certainly it is concerning to hear about malicious acts, clandestine activities, or even flattery.

Does what we see today in terms of cyber security and cyber threats give you cause for concern for the coming decades, if we look at it from a global perspective?

(1230)

If I may, I will answer that question first.

[English]

From a CSE perspective, certainly we see that our adversaries are very well resourced. They're dedicated to their strategic interests. We have a lot of work to do to ensure that we can catch up and that we can continue to both identify and counter the threats they pose.

That said, we have a very robust set of authorities, at least at CSE, as they relate to a foreign intelligence mandate, our cybersecurity mandate, and furthermore, more recently, in 2019, we were given the authority to conduct both defensive and active cyber operations, which I think added significantly to the toolset Canada has in order to defend against these threats.

We also have very robust partnerships with our Canadian colleagues in the security and intelligence community and across government, in addition to robust partnerships with our Five Eyes and additional colleagues across the world.

I think we're well positioned to defend against these threats, but we need to make sure we are constantly evolving to match the threat. As you know, the cyber domain is increasing exponentially, and it is incumbent on us to ensure that we are constantly reviewing our authorities and our tactics in order to make sure we can continue to defend Canadians.

[Translation]

In short, the answer is neither yes nor no; the important thing is to adapt to what is coming.

Ms. Tessier, can you tell us quickly what your thoughts are?

I would add that a lot of information continues to circulate on the Internet. People have to protect themselves and be suspicious of the emails they receive. People have to stay up to date on threats and pay attention to the information they publish on the Internet themselves, to avoid making themselves vulnerable. It is always a question of education, because the actors use very sophisticated techniques that are constantly evolving.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Ms. Blaney, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[English]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Of course, I thank the folks who are here testifying. I really appreciate the work you do. I'm learning a lot today.

As we're having this discussion, I can't help but reflect on how important it is that voters and institutions be protected from any threat to democracy, and how important it is to continue that work. I thank you for being part of it.

I will come to Ms. Tayyeb first and go to Ms. Tessier if she has anything to add.

In a July 2021 update on threats to democracy, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security wrote that between 2015 and 2020, cyber-threat activity was directed at voters more often than at political parties in elections. Based on that information, how do you think an everyday Canadian should understand this? We're hearing that these threats are becoming more and more sophisticated. What sorts of actions should voters take to ensure that they are viewing correct information about democracy in Canada?

It's an excellent question, and it's really core to how we see this threat, which is to really do our utmost to ensure that Canadians are aware of the threat, that they're aware of the tactics that are used, and that they know what to expect when they are viewing material online. That is, in large measure, why we've published cyber-threats to democratic institutions in previous years. The 2021 one was, I believe, our third.

Our first line of defence is to ensure that Canadians have as much information as possible about the tactics that are used and the adversaries that we name, specific adversaries we see as most prolific in this space. We outline the tactics they use, including spreading disinformation about the political process, sowing divisive seeds in our social media and casting aspersions on the democratic process as a whole.

We feel it's important that Canadians receive as much information about that as possible. We regularly reach out to Canadians, through either media releases or Twitter, in order to emphasize those messages as much as possible.

Thank you very much.

(1235)

I appreciate that, but I also represent in my riding a lot of rural and remote communities that often have limited access to services. I'm just curious if there are any particular strategies or recommendations that you're providing for different community groups—rural communities, remote communities that have limited access to connectivity—or looking at different groups across our country that are more marginalized. I'm just wondering if there are specific strategies or recommendations around that, especially in terms of promoting democracy. We know that sometimes these groups are the groups that don't participate in democracy as often or as fulsomely. I'm just curious about that process.

It's an excellent question. It's one that we talk a lot about at CSE and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security: how to reach more Canadians, how to increase the reach of our media campaigns and how to ensure we're reaching communities across Canada, including remote and northern communities. We are developing ways to do that in a better way, but we realize there is a lot of work to do in that regard.

Thank you.

My next question is that, of course, when we look at this process, there has to be a balance between what we expect voters to do to inform themselves and understand and how government should ensure that accurate information is available to the public. How do you envision this task being balanced between the two?

Perhaps I can start, and Alia can answer after that.

A lot of it is awareness and communicating to Canadians, to various communities, that, if there's any concern, if they see any information that they feel is questionable, and certainly if they feel threatened, our RCMP colleagues and other law enforcement partners are certainly available to address any potential threats.

It's really very much an awareness issue, so that Canadians know that they can address any questions or concerns to us, to the RCMP or to Elections Canada. We can answer questions and create awareness, so people feel they have the information they need and are well informed when it comes to the elections and their ability to vote.

Thank you.

I don't want to speak on behalf of Elections Canada, but I worked with them during the election campaign and I'm aware that this is something they are also seized with by improving their outreach to communities about the importance of participating in the democratic process. They may be able to offer more information on that as well.

Thank you. I have only a couple of seconds, so I will cede those.

The Chair:

Thank you always, Ms. Blaney.

Next we will go to Mr. Cooper and then Ms. O'Connell.

Mr. Cooper, you have five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the officials. I will direct my questions to whichever official is best positioned to answer them.

The first question I'll ask is this: Did the Chinese communist regime interfere in the last federal election?

As I mentioned, I can't get into—as I'm sure you can appreciate—operational details of our investigations. What I will say is that we know that the Chinese Communist Party is involved and interested in promoting its own national interests. It is an actor in foreign interference. We have said that publicly. I can state again that we are concerned about the activities regarding threats against the security of Canada, including foreign interference by the Chinese Communist Party.

I understand that you can't get into operational details, but could you speak perhaps a little more broadly about some of the activities the Chinese communist regime is involved in in terms of interference?

Yes. As I mentioned earlier, we know that China, among other countries, tries to target elected officials at all levels of government to promote its own national interests and to encourage individuals to speak or act, if you will, as proxies on behalf of the Communist Party of China.

There is even open information that talks about these types of activities and their use of proxy agents in other countries who they will use to represent their interests. That remains of concern to us in terms of its influence activities and how it tries to manipulate some individuals to work in their interests against Canada's national interests.

(1240)

Would it be fair to say that it's threatening and intimidating individuals on Canadian soil?

It's fair to say that it would use a number of techniques, including threats to communities here, including using proxy agents so that you don't necessarily know it's the Government of China behind it, and including attempts to use community resources. It's fair to say that there are a number of techniques it would use to promote its own national interests against Canada's.

Would it be fair to say that this is occurring on a fairly widespread basis?

I hesitate to give a frequency. Again, I would say we are increasingly concerned. We have seen, as was mentioned earlier, the laws the Chinese Communist Party has passed, making it obligatory for everybody in China, including the private sector, to work on behalf of the government.

We are seeing increasing authoritarianism, if I can allow myself to say that word, in terms of the Communist Party of China's strategies in this regard.

Can you speak to the use of Chinese language media by the regime?

We are concerned about the use of media by many of the hostile state actors, including China. We know there are attempts. We've talked about disinformation and misinformation attempts using all types of media. The media are very much a victim or a tool that is used for foreign interference.

[Inaudible—Editor] content farms?

Ms. Michelle Tessier:

I'm sorry. I didn't hear the question.

What about content farms, content mills and information saturation?

Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (Pickering—Uxbridge, Lib.):

I would say all available vectors in media would be able to be exploited by hostile state actors, so all types of media are certainly vulnerable to exploitation.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Ms. O'Connell, you have five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

I want to follow up on that line of questioning in terms of using media outlets. I believe, Ms. Tessier, you mentioned earlier that foreign state actors often use local media to spread disinformation or misinformation. You said just now, in that exchange—I'm paraphrasing here, of course—that all types of media could and would be used.

For CSIS, or CSE or any Canadian agency, for example, if a so-called media group like Canada Proud or Rebel News started using Chinese or Russian types of disinformation in their local disinformation or misinformation campaigns, what mechanisms would you have to then tell Canadians that this local source of information is being used by foreign state actors like China or Russia?

I want to highlight what we said earlier, that we respect.... Obviously, we are in a democracy. We respect the media, and we do not want to be seen as interfering in the media. I want to underline that. That is certainly not an activity the service would undertake.

Without being able to get into great detail, we would look from an investigative perspective to try to determine what the nature of the threat was. Of course, we'd use the whole gamut of tools at our disposal.

I go back to the importance of working with the community and how important it is for us to work with stakeholders in the community to protect the community. That's why it is important for community members to be able to reach out to us should they feel that this type of activity is going on. It is certainly not the service that will be monitoring all media.

I want to be careful here. We recognize the right in a democracy to have the freedom of expression that exists, but we are concerned when our mandate is called into question. That is when hostile states working in a clandestine fashion are working against Canadian national interests or threatening the community. Our mandate is quite defined in that respect. I would want to reassure the committee that it is where our focus would be.

(1245)

Thank you.

Following up on that, isn't that part of foreign state actors' attempts to undermine democracy in places like Canada, and, I'm sure, in other countries as well? It's to undermine democracy, our pillars of democracy and our trust in institutions. Foreign interference and the messages they send are not necessarily, “We like this person or that person or this party”; it's to sow doubt in our institutions. For example—I don't know—the Governor of the Bank of Canada, the local media that asked tough questions of certain parties.... Isn't it a factor that it's not very clear-cut support of this government over that government, but foreign interference is to sow doubt in our democratic institutions? That could take form in many different messages.

You are absolutely correct. That is very much one of the vectors used to, as an example, try to find a divisive issue in society and amplify it one way or the other.

I'm pleased to say that the increased awareness and discussion about foreign interference highlights how society is becoming much more attuned to the threat it represents.

Did you see COVID as an opportunity? You mentioned taking a divisive issue and turning that against governments. For example, Canada Proud was criticized for spreading misinformation about vaccine rollouts. Did you see an increase in disinformation or sowing doubt in Canadian society? Did you see that vacuum open or increase during COVID?

Again, focusing on our mandate, if I look back to the threats to the security of Canada, what we saw, certainly during COVID, was interest by hostile state actors to try to spread disinformation. We saw that from hostile state actors. We also saw attempts to conduct espionage against some of the vaccine work that was being done, so we undertook—

The Chair:

Thank you. I'm sorry; that flew by really fast, but the clerk is always so efficient, so I know it was five minutes.

[Translation]

Ms. Gaudreau, the floor is yours for two and a half minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My question is very simple and it is for Ms. Tessier.

You talked about the importance of education and raising awareness. For the purposes of the report we will be writing, I would like to hear your comments and suggestions as to how we could go about doing this. You have given me some reassurance, nonetheless, by explaining all the upstream work you are doing.

In our public report, we describe a number of techniques used by states that are hostile to Canadian interests. They include what we call cultivation. That is when individuals cultivate relationships by offering gifts, paid travel or that kind of thing.

Our report also talks about cyber security. For example, it explains how to protect yourself online and describes the kind of emails that you should be suspicious of.

We also offer advice to individuals, for example, in cases where they feel they are being asked a lot of questions about a number of subjects and as a result they wonder whether they are giving too much information.

Our report provides advice based on the techniques used.

(1250)

What I see is that there needs to be some alignment with the other commissioners who deal with issues relating to gifts, requests, or the ways in which certain people try to achieve their ends. I get the feeling that we need awareness and prevention programs. We have them at the House of Commons, for example to combat harassment. In addition to elected representatives and their staff, I get the feeling that there should be awareness programs for the general public in the near future.

Ms. Tayyeb, do you have a comment to add quickly?

I would like to add to what Ms. Tessier said. When it comes to cyber security, we publish a lot of advice, for various people, about how to protect themselves. I can list a few of them.

[English]

We counsel people about using difficult-to-guess passwords specifically. Michelle mentioned caution about—

The Chair:

Thank you. I was trying to help you get one out. You can send the rest to us in writing to the clerk.

I will do that.

The Chair:

I'm sure Madame Gaudreau and the committee would love to hear that.

Ms. Blaney, you have two and a half minutes.

Thank you.

I'm going to leave this question open to both of you. I'll just let you decide who answers.

I'm seeing an increase of misinformation on social media, and it just continues to grow and grow. There's no longer that debate about different opinions or perspectives; it's more about debating the facts of reality, which I find really scary and concerning. We know there are reporting structures on social media sites. Twitter and Facebook, of course, are at the front line of complaints around this right now.

Can companies that profit from engagement effectively stop the spread of disinformation? How do we make sure, in this country, that misinformation isn't being impacted by foreign interference, especially in terms of our elections?

Maybe I could start and then pass it to Michelle.

It's an excellent question. We have discussed that with members of the social media companies. There are many of them with whom we have very robust relationships. It's in their business interest as well for their platforms not to be used for nefarious purposes. For the most part, we have found excellent collaboration among our industry partners.

There are certainly other online platforms that are maybe hosted in other countries, and we don't have a relationship with those. Those are the ones, at least from a foreign perspective insofar as they are in other countries, that we are actively looking at to determine whether foreign governments are using them in order to disseminate such information to Canada. We then advise government about those threats so that we can determine, particularly in a case of election interference, which organization might be best placed to address that.

Also, at CSE, we are able to use active cyber-operations. If ever we were to find reasonable grounds to believe that a foreign government was using platforms to target Canadians, there would be ways we could disrupt those activities.

I don't know if Michelle...?

You answered it well, Alia. It is certainly a key topic during SITE discussions, that type of activity we see during an electoral period, and as Alia pointed out, who is best placed to address it to the best of our ability.

The Chair:

Thank you so much.

We'll just do a quick one of up to two minutes for Mr. Cooper, followed by Ms. Sahota.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

In the CSIS report entitled, “Foreign Interference Threats to Canada's Democratic Process”, it's noted that some donors to political candidates may have connections to foreign states and may be coerced into making donations. It says, “Political parties and candidates may also receive funds...seemingly from a Canadian, though this may have originated from a foreign threat actor”, and, “Threat actors can use someone as a proxy to conduct illicit financing activities on their behalf.”

Can you elaborate on this? This is quite alarming. Do you have a sense of how much foreign money is being funnelled in this way?

(1255)

Obviously I can't go into specifics about some of our investigations, but we know that this is of concern and that it is a possibility. We put it in our public report to bring awareness to this potential threat and to how some hostile state actors are seeking to use funding. I can't go into the details of what we have done operationally, but I can say that it was of significant enough concern for us to put it in our public report to raise awareness.

Do you have any recommendations on how to combat this threat?

Certainly we would look at all the tools at our investigative disposal in terms of knowing, if we come across this type of activity, how we would address it, working with other stakeholders, creating awareness and raising it, perhaps, directly with an individual who may be unwitting to this type of information or this source of funding.

It really is looking at all the tools at our disposal to ensure that people are aware this is occurring, and working, as an example, with the Office of the Commissioner of Elections, should this meet its mandate as well.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Ms. Sahota, you have two minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is for Ms. Tayyeb.

Would you agree that many of Canada's policing agencies and intelligence agencies have traditionally had a blind spot for right-wing extremism? That has now been revealed through what has occurred on Capitol Hill and even with the commission we're seeing for the convoy, whether they are foreign actors or sometimes a mix of foreign and domestic, which becomes quite confusing.

I know some of the threats in Canada's terrorism reports have been revised over the years to include some of these threats more recently, but traditionally they weren't necessarily investigated to the extent that we are trying to catch up to today.

I can speak on behalf of CSE. Certainly, any ideologically motivated violent extremism that originates from foreign sources and is directed towards Canada would be something we would look at. We have been active in that space for a very long time.

With respect to the first part of your question, I wouldn't be in a position to comment on police forces or security agencies. I know we all take threats to Canadians very seriously. That's been my experience in the community.

In terms of what distinguishes foreign interference from legitimate international diplomacy, could you maybe distinguish the characteristics of the two? From some of the stuff we've heard today, perhaps there's a lot of overlap that sometimes is used domestically here on the ground by different countries.

Indeed, I can start off with that, and I'll pass it over to Michelle as well. From our perspective, there are many legitimate diplomatic activities that are undertaken by nation states with respect to Canada. When we qualify it as interference or influence is when that activity is covert and deceptive in nature. The activities trying to be undertaken are to influence Canadian decision-makers in a way that is contrary to Canadian national interests, and—

The Chair:

Thank you.

I appreciate the information. Because I've had to interrupt so many times, if you can take the time to provide us some of the information that was requested via the clerk, I believe members would really benefit from it for the purpose of this study.

I also want to appreciate the way both of you have worked together in providing answers. I think it's the first visual I've had as to how well our partners can work together.

I want to thank both of you for taking the time to be with us today. I look forward to seeing more from you, through the clerk, that will be shared with all members. With that, I wish the two of you a good day.

For PROC committee members, today the recommendations for the precinct study are due by five o'clock to the clerk. Thursday we will resume with witnesses on this study. On Friday by noon, we are asking for hybrid study recommendations to the clerk in both official languages.

(1300)

Then we will be headed into a constituency week. I think there is some desire to see a subcommittee meet for the first time, which is probably what we'll try to do on the Thursday when we return from the constituency week. Then we'll make our plan accordingly.

Go ahead, Ms. Blaney.

The Chair (Hon. Bardish Chagger (Waterloo, Lib.)):

Is it Thursday or Tuesday when we return?

The Chair:

It's Tuesday, November 14. I'm sorry. I get so excited.

Through the constituency week, please stay tuned, as reports will be coming to you. We will make sure teams have about a week with the report prior to our getting it to drafting at this committee, so everyone has time to read it. There's lots of information.

Happy Tuesday. Have a good day.

This meeting is adjourned.

Transcript of Study Meeting #2 (November 3, 2022)

NUMBER 038

1st SESSION

44th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2022

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

(1105)

[Translation]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 38 of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The committee is meeting today to continue its study on foreign election interference.

[English]

Our first panel consists of the security and intelligence threats to elections task force. For the second panel, we have two experts who have spent much time examining the vulnerabilities of the electoral system to foreign election interference and misinformation or disinformation.

I would like to let the committee know that all virtual witnesses have undergone the pre-committee connectivity and audio tests.

With regard to interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. Those in the room can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. Before we start, I will remind you that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

For our first panel, we have Tara Denham, director general, office of human rights, freedoms and inclusion, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development; Lisa Ducharme, acting director general, federal policing national intelligence, Royal Canadian Mounted Police; and Adam Fisher, director general, intelligence assessments, Canadian Security Intelligence Service. We will also be hearing from Mr. Lyall King, director, risk mitigation programs, Communications Security Establishment.

Mr. King, I know you have four minutes, but because you are the only person speaking, I will provide leniency. You can have up to five minutes.

Welcome to PROC.

Mr. Lyall King (Director, Risk Mitigation Programs, Communications Security Establishment, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force):

Thank you. That's very kind, Madam Chair. I appreciate that.

Hello. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to appear today.

My name is Lyall King, and I'm the former chair of the security and intelligence threats to elections task force—SITE for short. I am now the director of risk mitigation programs at the Communications Security Establishment. I am pleased to be joined by my colleagues from each of the organizations that make up the SITE task force.

I know that earlier this week you heard from the CSE and CSIS. While that brief focused on threats of foreign interference as a whole, I will focus on providing an overview from the SITE perspective.

The SITE task force comprises officials from the Communications Security Establishment, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Global Affairs Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Together, we have a mandate to provide a clear point of engagement within the security and intelligence community for government partners; to review and focus intelligence collection, assessment and open-source analysis related to foreign interference; to provide government partners, senior public servants and other partners with situational awareness; and to promote the use of intelligence, assessment and open-source information analysis in the protection of electoral processes through sharing with partners or, when mandates permit, taking action to mitigate the threat.

Each organization here today has a distinct mandate that allows us to work together to reduce the threat of foreign interference against our democratic institutions in Canada.

I would like to take a moment to highlight some of the important contributions that our partners have made to the SITE task force. This is an overview and does not cover all of the roles and responsibilities of SITE members.

CSIS provides threat briefings and intelligence reporting to Elections Canada and the Commissioner of Canada Elections and provides assessments of hostile state activity methodologies and capabilities to Government of Canada decision-makers.

Global Affairs Canada provides research on disinformation campaigns targeting Canada by foreign actors and reports on global trends, metrics, and incidents.

The RCMP investigates criminal activity related to interference or influence of Canada's electoral processes and works closely in partnership with intelligence, law enforcement and regulatory agencies.

CSE provides intelligence and cyber-assessments on the intentions, activities and capabilities of foreign threat actors, protects government systems and networks related to elections through cyber-defence measures, and provides cybersecurity advice and guidance to political parties, provinces and other institutions involved in democratic processes.

It is important to note that, in addition to SITE, there was a panel of non-partisan senior civil servants who administered the critical election incident public protocol. SITE provided regular intelligence updates to the panel and also gave classified briefings to Canada's main political parties to ensure that they were aware of the threats.

The important work of the SITE task force progresses outside of election periods as we continue to help the government assess and respond to foreign threats to Canada's electoral processes.

Members, I hope this has helped paint a better picture of the SITE task force and the important role that each of our organizations plays in safeguarding Canadian democracy.

I do thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, and we look forward to answering any of the questions that you may have.

Thank you.

The Chair:

Thank you for that excellent introduction.

We will start with six-minute rounds, commencing with Mr. Cooper, followed by Mrs. Romanado, then Madame Gaudreau and then Mr. MacGregor.

Mr. Cooper, go ahead.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I will direct my questions to whichever witness is able to answer them.

I want to talk about the 2021 federal election campaign. It has now been established that there was interference by Chinese Communist-controlled media. There was a proliferation of disinformation on social media platforms that was influenced or controlled by the Chinese Communist regime. There were civil society organizations that had reported on such interference during the election campaign, including DisinfoWatch.

During the election campaign, the rapid response mechanism at Global Affairs had observed such interference in terms of the spreading of disinformation, specifically targeting the Conservative Party and individual Conservative candidates. One glaring example was in the case of Kenny Chiu, the incumbent Conservative member in the riding of Steveston—Richmond East.

It had been mentioned that there is in place the critical election incident public protocol, the purpose of which is to communicate transparently with Canadians during an election about incidents that threaten the integrity of the election. Pursuant to the protocol, barring any overriding national security or public security reasons, the agencies will inform affected parties of any information regarding interference.

Was Kenny Chiu informed?

(1110)

Madam Chair, I can begin with a comment and then perhaps open it up to my colleagues.

Thank you very much for the question. I appreciate it.

I would just note that there were activities observed, certainly during the election. I will note in context, as well, that it's activity that we also see on a persistent basis; that is to say, we observe things before, during and after an election. That's what SITE is also looking at, the task force, looking at those behaviours over a period of time.

I will say—

My time is limited. My question is specifically about the 2021 election.

I know there were things that were happening before and there are things happening now, but this protocol is in place during the election campaign. The panel is in place during the election campaign. Pursuant to the protocol, if there's evidence of interference, the affected party will be informed.

My question is very simple. Was Kenny Chiu informed?

Thank you. I appreciate that clarification on the timing.

I will very simply say that we had advised the critical election incident protocol panel of the information. In terms of making public statements, it is their decision whether or not it meets a threshold to do so. We at SITE simply present the information.

I will open it up—

Barring any overriding national or public security reasons, pursuant to protocol, the affected party will be informed. Was he informed or wasn't he?

Mr. Adam Fisher (Director General, Intelligence Assessments, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force):

My apologies, sir. I will ask my colleague Adam Fisher from the service if he may be able to respond to that particular question.

Thank you very much.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Through you, thank you for the question.

On that issue, we clearly can't speak to specifics of cases or investigations. What we can say—I'm echoing what my colleague has said—is that throughout the election, any incidents or intelligence that pointed to foreign influence activity from a foreign state would have been provided in a coherent manner to the panel of five. From there, it was for them to determine whether it reached their threshold and required onward action.

I can assure you that certainly we were alive to threats throughout the election period and leading up to it and providing intelligence and advice, along with our colleagues.

(1115)

Pursuant to the protocol, if a certain threshold is met, the public is to be informed.

The public wasn't informed. Why not?

Ms. Tara Denham (Director General, Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force):

I will attempt to answer that. Thank you for your question.

I will simply note that this is a decision that is in the sole purview of the panel of five, as we would refer to them, the panel of five senior civil servants. The SITE task force does not have insight as to how and when they make those decisions. We stand here and we deliver the information so that they are able to make an informed decision.

We, as SITE, would not be able to answer the question of why something had or had not met the threshold. That is up to the purview of the panel, sir.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Ms. Denham, did you want to say something?

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to add to it, because the reference was to some of the reporting of the rapid response mechanism.

Just to echo answers of other colleagues, we did see some of the activity, but in the reporting of the rapid response mechanism—again, we're looking for foreign threats—we were not able to verify whether the behaviour was directed by state, whether it was organic or whether it was an intermingling of the two.

I just want to clarify that.

The Chair:

Thank you.

I will just remind all colleagues that if we're going to interrupt, it's best that we go through the chair. For the purposes of our interpreters and the work that we do, it's important that we provide time to our guests, who have accepted our invitation to be here with the information we are looking for.

With that, Mrs. Romanado, you have six minutes.

Mrs. Sherry Romanado (Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, Lib.):

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

First of all, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I also want to inquire a little bit more about something that was mentioned in the opening remarks. Mr. King, you mentioned the classified briefings to political parties, and we were just hearing a little bit about that. Could you elaborate a little bit on what you would classify as a political party?

As you can imagine, Canada can have hundreds of different political parties that are registered with Elections Canada. Some of them may not be as well established or as well known. Do you provide these classified briefings to all political parties that are registered, or is there a certain threshold or criteria that are required?

Thank you very much for your question.

I would first say that it was the role of the Privy Council Office, our colleagues in the security and intelligence and the director there who brokered these engagements. It's not SITE directly; it's through the Privy Council Office.

They would send invites out to, I believe, registered political parties. From my recollection, an invite would have been sent out explaining what the intent and purpose was, and then there would be a follow-up for those who were willing to engage. It was really on the invitees to accept or decline.

The Privy Council Office is the body that would have done that.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

You mentioned classified briefings. I know that, for instance, when a minister or a parliamentary secretary is sworn in, we go through additional security background checks and so on in order to receive security clearance status of secret or further up in terms of top secret, and so on.

When you mentioned classified briefings to political parties, volunteers and employees of political parties do not necessarily have classified security clearance. Could you elaborate a bit on what you referred to when you said “classified briefings”?

Thank you, again, for the question.

The classified briefings were typically at secret level. It was, to be fair, a fairly small grouping. We would naturally look at, perhaps, campaign managers or chief information officers of the parties to target them in terms of the information briefings. We'd provide some general overviews of the nature of the threat to understand the threat landscape and what we were dealing with on a regular basis. We'd provide some context for what they may see and, at the end of the day, just open a dialogue to be able to have some open discussions with partners in that space should something arise.

They were classified briefings with a fairly small community at the secret level.

(1120)

Thank you.

Switching gears a bit, I wanted to get your thoughts—it could be from anyone on the panel today—on the benefits of a registry of foreign agents. What are your thoughts on that?

I will open it up to see if any of my colleagues want to have a say first.

Through you, Madam Chair, thank you for the question. I can take a run at that.

I'm not a policy person. I'm not from a policy department. We provide intelligence and advice to government, so I hope you'll forgive me for answering the question in a general way.

What I would say is that the threat of foreign influence activity is something that is felt not only here in Canada. It's felt by our closest allies, our Five Eyes allies. We're all dealing with the same threat and from, in large part, the same aggressive adversaries. There's a lot to learn from each other. There's a lot to learn from our partners, as they are learning from us. My understanding is, for example, that the SITE task force is unique to Canada and is something our allies have looked to emulate in their jurisdictions.

Yes, I'm not answering your question directly, but I would say there's a lot to learn, and I know that certainly in intelligence circles we speak on a constant basis with our allies, and in policy circles, as well, the same is being done. Ultimately, of course, it's up to the government to decide what sort of policy fixes they'd like to see in place to address the issue.

Thank you.

Mr. King, do you want to chime in on that one?

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau (Laurentides—Labelle, BQ):

Thank you.

I don't really have much more to add, other than to say that there are obviously a number of tools that can assist us in attempting to identify aspects of foreign interference. While I wouldn't want to comment specifically on a foreign registry, I would just say that could be another of those tools that could be implemented, among the others. As Mr. Fisher has highlighted, we look to understand and share with allies...their best practices also, what they have in play and how that may or may not assist us in our efforts to combat foreign interference.

Thank you.

The Chair:

Thank you.

[Translation]

Go ahead, Ms. Gaudreau. You have six minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm from a wonderful little area not far from here, Laurentides—Labelle.

As I listen to everything that's being said, I'm thinking about my constituents, the people following our proceedings and voters in general, and wondering what information they need to know.

It's not at all reassuring to hear, right off the bat, that foreign actors are targeting a specific party in an effort to interfere in elections. I want to use my time to learn more from the witnesses.

I understand what the role of the Privy Council Office is, but I want to know what the limits are regarding information that is not to be shared, once the threshold has been reached.

I'd also like to know why we are learning about this now and why it takes a committee to have this discussion.

Perhaps those concerned are aware of what's going on, but how is it that voters know so little about the problem of foreign interference?

I'd like a short answer, Madam Chair.

[English]

Thank you very much for the question, Madam Chair. Maybe I will have a go at answering this.

I think it's a fantastic question. It's one that we've talked about a fair bit as a SITE group in terms of wanting to make sure that information is relevant and available to the public as well, so I would say that when it comes to constituents, it's about education and information sharing at the end of the day. That's what it comes down to.

In terms of educating, certainly the Government of Canada—CSE—has produced a number of reports over the years on threats to democratic processes, in 2017, 2019 and 2021, updating the types of things that people can look out for and how they can protect themselves. There's plenty of advice and guidance online as well, which we have on our website.

We've also issued, as I'm sure you've heard this week, the national cyber-threat assessment, which does talk a bit more generically about what people may expect to see and what the real risks are to Canadians with respect to cyber-threats. Cybercrime is one of those.

Equally, we mentioned the activities of nation-states in those products as well, in terms of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. As well, I know the service has issued a number of products publicly to describe the ways in which foreign-fed actors behave and the methodologies they use. So “education, education, education” is one thing I would say.

The other thing is letting people understand what is a good source. Evaluate your sources, and that's I think probably a challenge there. It's not just the SITE task force and our intelligence agencies playing a role here, but equally, certainly, Elections Canada as well, in terms of providing clear, valid, good information for the public.

I'll stop there and open it up to my colleagues if they have additional comments.

(1125)

Madam Chair, if I can have a couple of seconds, I can add to that and reinforce the message from my colleague.

From a service perspective, we see this as critically important. Foreign-influenced activity cannot be addressed by the federal government alone, never mind other levels of government and civil society.

Although our founding act and our mandate have always been to provide highly classified information to government, we have, in the last five to 10 years, developed a very robust stakeholder engagement program through which we engage with civil society, academics, communities, diaspora communities, the media, industry and all levels of government. We do that in an unclassified setting. There's a lot we can talk about in an unclassified setting that prepares Canadians well to be able to identify the threats that we face in an FI environment.

[Translation]

Thank you.

I have a very important question. Are we adequately equipped?

When I think about two-factor authentication and the biometric information financial institutions have been requiring of their clients for quite some time now, I wonder whether we have the tools we need to respond to cyber-attacks against individuals.

You monitor the situation beyond the scope of elections. Do you think we are way off track when it comes to our legislation? You mentioned our Five Eyes partners. Are there comparisons to be drawn in terms of what's being done elsewhere? Are there best practices we should be following?

[English]

Madam Chair, I will attempt to answer a bit of that question.

I would say that we are in an environment that is increasingly online. We talked about this, and I'll refer back to the national cyber-threat assessment for this piece. Canada has a pretty significant digital economy. We understand people are working in hybrid ways now. We have to use the Internet, so it comes down—

[Translation]

In light of your expertise, do you think we are adequately equipped?

If not, efforts are needed on a number of fronts: privacy protection, education and digital media transparency. That's a lot. You shouldn't be working in the wilderness.

Are we well equipped?

[English]

Mr. Alistair MacGregor (Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, NDP):

Thank you for the clarification.

My response is that it's an ever-changing environment. We always have to be evolving ourselves and our methodologies to address the threats. Can we ever be 100% sure that we are able to deal with everything? I think the answer is no.

I think the point here is pushing the bar and the message around resilience. It's not necessarily whether something will happen, but being prepared for when it happens, and that means being able to detect—

The Chair:

Thank you.

We're going to go to Mr. MacGregor for six minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I really appreciate hearing from our witnesses today. The committee that I'm usually a member of is the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. The witnesses' organizations are no strangers to appearing before that committee.

I'm glad to see the procedure and House affairs committee looking at this issue, because at the public safety committee, we have looked at issues of ideologically motivated violent extremism and Canada's security stance vis-à-vis Russia. We have had a number of experts in the field and representing your agencies—including the chief of the defence staff—who have painted a very stark picture about the changing geopolitical tensions in the international order, particularly the threats posed to Canada and other like-minded democracies by Russia and China. I think the testimony from General Wayne Eyre was a wake-up call for every member of that committee. We have heard a lot of information in the course of both of our studies about what foreign actors are attempting to do to disrupt the Canadian democratic system and influence our citizens and our democratic norms.

What I would like to hear a bit more from you about is.... One of the areas that we have concentrated on is the role of social media platforms. We've really grappled with what the correct course of action is for Canada's Parliament to take in terms of how we regulate them and what kinds of partnerships we need to establish with them.

Could one of you inform us as to what your working relationship is like with some of the major social media platforms? Are there ways that parliamentarians could help you improve that relationship?

Take a few minutes to talk about that, please.

(1130)

Ms. Tara Denham:

Madam Chair, I could perhaps start on that one. Thank you for the question.

Again, I'm going to start with the context of the elections. As this committee is familiar with, there was the Declaration on Electoral Integrity Online. That's a voluntary declaration that social media companies were encouraged to participate in. A number of them have signed on, which is progress. I think we need to continue to work on those types of declarations and encourage more social media companies to sign on.

From a Global Affairs perspective, we're looking at that and sharing what we've done, so a best practice is that declaration. We then look at what other countries are doing and the result of that. That type of work, like the declaration, also encourages social media companies to work together; they're collaborating to understand what the space is and what actions are taken. We then look at that and say, if the collective of this is happening not only in Canada but in other countries, then how do we engage in a global conversation, perhaps about frameworks of behaviour for social media companies?

I know there are a lot of conversations about legislation. National legislation would not be the purview of Global Affairs. I can say that we're watching that and we engage in entities like the Freedom Online Coalition, of which Canada is currently the chair. We try to push those conversations about what can be done when you're talking about actions that cross national and international borders.

Mr. Alistair MacGregor:

Thank you for that answer.

Mr. King, you mentioned that it's an ever-changing threat environment, and I think the subtext is that we have to be nimble. In your opinion, what are the legislative, policy and funding gaps to which parliamentarians should pay particular attention to enable your collection of agencies to meet this ever-changing threat environment? What should parliamentarians, maybe those on the public safety committee and this committee, be paying attention to, so that you have the tools required to do your jobs and protect our democratic system?

Thank you for the question.

To be quite frank, I don't think I would be qualified to necessarily comment on some of those big things you've asked for, sir.

I think I would underline—keeping it in a SITE perspective and the particular roles and mandates of our organization as part of SITE—that we need to continue to make sure we have an open dialogue with social media companies. We each have different areas of focus and different ways to engage. From a cyber centre perspective, that means working with them to try to highlight threats that we see through our aperture, what we understand that to be, and to learn from them as to how we can detect, respond to and reduce those threats.

I would not want to comment on the legislative aspect of things. I would maybe double down, from a SITE perspective, that we want to continue to engage and have an open and collaborative, sharing relationship where that's possible.

Adam, I'm not sure whether you would like to comment from the services perspective.

(1135)

No, I think you covered it nicely.

I could make a pitch, and I hope my colleagues will forgive me for doing this. I'm on solid ground in doing it. I know my deputy director has said the same thing in front of this committee.

In terms of social media and the technology of foreign-influenced activity, the threat is evolving. Certainly, speaking from a service point of view, we don't have all the tools to adequately understand that threat. What I'm referring to in particular is the ability to look at data and integrate that into our investigations and assessments. Our act has not kept pace in terms of the technology and the legal landscape in that respect.

That's something that certainly my organization would flag as perhaps needing something there.

The Chair:

Thank you.

We will now go for five minutes to Mr. Calkins, followed by Monsieur Fergus.

Thank you.

I'll keep going on that vein of questioning.

Mr. Fisher, is it because the legislation is not technologically neutral enough, or is there some other gap? Can you be a little more specific, without giving away our monitoring posture or anything like that? Your answer was interesting, but vague enough that I might not have got it.

It was probably by design, Madam Chair. Forgive me for being so general about it. It's really not my area of expertise.

I'll say that our act was designed in 1984, and it has not had significant changes or amendments. Certainly the technological environment we find ourselves in now, combined with the very real necessity to guard privacy rights and constitutional rights that are top of mind here, requires a rethink of how we approach these threats.

Madam Chair, in 1984 I was singing along to Van Halen on the radio, and I can assure you that is a very long time ago. If we were lucky, we had a Sony Walkman.

This is a little bit alarming, so I'm hoping there is a way that you and your organization can be a little more direct, maybe through another medium, with members of this committee, but your point is well taken.

I have a general question for you. It's one thing to identify the threat. It's one thing to monitor it, and it's one thing to track it, given the current structure of the legislation. It's another thing to inform the panel of five that you talked about, and it's another thing for them to decide that a threshold is met and to inform electors or to talk to political parties.

I want to talk a bit more about what we are doing to interdict, disrupt and, if necessary, carry out an investigation and prosecution of a foreign actor that might be operating within the territorial confines of Canada. Is there anybody here who can speak to whether or not we have any gaps on that front?

Ms. Lisa Ducharme (Acting Director General, Federal Policing National Intelligence, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force):

Madam Chair, I can perhaps start, and then I'll hand it over to my colleague from the RCMP.

Certainly in terms of action that the service can take when it sees foreign-influenced activity occurring within Canada, we have mechanisms under our threat reduction mandate, both warranted and non-warranted solutions, that are sometimes applied to foreign-influenced activity that we see in an attempt to diminish that threat. We usually approach this in a very collaborative way with other government agencies and departments so that we choose the best tool.

When it comes to prosecution, that does become difficult in this space. It's the age-old problem of transferring intelligence into an evidentiary arena, and that is difficult. There are ways to do it, and it's always an option on the table.

I'll stop there and maybe let my colleague from the Mounties jump in.

Thank you for the question.

With respect to foreign interference threats in general, the RCMP uses all of its authorities to be able to tackle these problems and looks for the criminality per the Security of Information Act. It must be able to prove that there is espionage, release of classified information, foreign influence, threats or violence. It also has the Criminal Code, which has various offences such as threat, intimidation and bribery of officials, and it also has other legislative tools at its disposal.

When it comes to election issues, it is the Commissioner of Canada Elections who is responsible for determining whether they wish to proceed with an investigation, and that is with the advice of Elections Canada and the panel of five, and through the SITE task force advising the panel of five.

The RCMP has a memorandum of understanding with the Commissioner of Canada Elections to investigate what they want to pursue. We can work with them on joint investigations, and we can provide technical assistance, advice, guidance and other such support, should they wish to proceed with an investigation.

Thank you.

(1140)

My colleague adjacent to me just said that elections are a very short window, and this process sounds like it is a very long process.

Madam Chair, I'll take the time from my colleague in the next round, if it's possible.

If you could boil down any efficiencies that this committee should be aware of, anything that can make that process more efficient for your organizations, and let this committee know, I think this committee would appreciate it.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Vice-Chair Nater was kind enough to offer time for an answer right now, but we can take that in writing, per Mr. Calkins' preference.

[Translation]

Now it's over to Mr. Fergus for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for sharing their insights today.

This is a very serious issue.

I have three questions, and I'll start with the easiest one.

Mr. King, in response to a fellow member's question, you said that China, North Korea, Iran and Russia were the top four countries responsible for political interference on social media.

I know most of our questions have focused on China, but can you tell us briefly what the other countries are doing? Is it the same thing that China is doing, or is it different? Is there a difference quality-wise in their unwanted interference?

Thank you for your question.

I'm going to switch to English, so I can provide a clearer answer.

[English]

Thank you very much.

I should clarify something there. When I listed the countries that I did, they're from the national cyber-threat assessment, which speaks to the strategic cyber-threats to Canada from nation-states, rather than specifically those countries being engaged in social media-related activities targeting us in a political sense during that. I should really just clarify that.

I will note that, generally speaking, when it comes to threats to democratic processes—and it's no surprise, as we've mentioned this before—China and Russia tend to be the two big players in that space. They do represent different threats to us because they behave in different ways, because of their different interests, intent and capabilities.

I would just like to be very clear that the comment on those four countries that I noted was in relation to the broader strategic threat to Canada from a cyber perspective, sir. Thank you.

[Translation]

Thanks for clarifying that.

Can you tell us the difference between what China is doing and what Russia is doing? We've talked a lot about China, but I'd like to hear about Russia as well.

What kinds of activities is Russia engaged in, and how are they different from China's?

[English]

Thank you.

I'll make a brief comment and perhaps open it up to my colleague from the service as well.

Again, I have to underline that I obviously can't get into the specifics of some of the things that we understand of the behaviours and activities of these states, but it's easy enough to point out, I think, from open-source intelligence and what you see in the press, to be quite frank, as to how things unfold. You'll even see social media companies, for example, outing the use of fake accounts and that sort of thing.

Russia and China do have different ways of operating in that sphere, but I couldn't comment specifically on some of the things that we observe. I will maybe just open this up to Mr. Fisher from the service to see if he wants to add any nuance to that.

(1145)

Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll speak in general terms again, not specific to social media, and I'll just make a couple of comments.

My colleague has already referred to this. Their approaches and their activity in the FI space do depend on their strategic intent. From open sources, you can generally infer that Russia is more inclined towards disrupting and undermining our system of government through messaging that casts what is happening here in some doubt. China, I would say, by comparison, is more interested in working within the system to corrupt it, compromising officials, elected officials and individuals at all levels of government, within industry, within civil society, using our open and free society for their nefarious purposes.

That's how I would, at a very high level, generally distinguish between the two. I would say that, without a doubt, China is the foremost aggressor in this space.

Thank you.

The Chair:

Thank you.

[Translation]

Go ahead, Ms. Gaudreau. You have two and a half minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will be asking our valued witnesses questions that they will have to answer in writing for the purposes of our report. We'll let you know when we need those answers by at the end of the meeting.

I'm going to fire off all my questions.

You said that you looked to what the Five Eyes partners were doing, so I'd like to know what best practices the Five Eyes have adopted.

You also talked about the tools you use to carry out your work. We don't have time to get into them now, but I'd like to know more about those tools.

I asked you earlier whether you were adequately equipped to do your work. You mentioned a few things, but I'd like you to provide a more thorough answer.

Lastly, two things I took away from your comments were transparency and education. What do you need on that front?

You can take the last little bit of time to tell me what you need in order to ensure people are educated about this. As pointed out, we should be embarrassed about the state of privacy protection. The legislation goes back to 1984. I hope that will get through to people.

You have about 30 seconds to comment.

Thank you for your questions.

Once again, I'm going to answer in English.

[English]

That's a lot of questions.

I would just maybe underline, in terms of the authorities and tools we have to do our jobs, that, as Mr. Fisher has already stated, the service might require some updates to legislation, given the age of that.

CSE did have the Communications Security Establishment Act come into force in 2019, which has enabled and provided us with additional tools, which we are using. Therefore, from a CSE perspective, we feel that this modernization has really helped us quite significantly, and it just remains to continually invest in our ability to stay on top of the issue from a technological perspective with investment.

Perhaps Tara or Lisa would like to speak.

The Chair:

Not this time, but I look forward to hearing from you next time.

Mr. MacGregor, you have two and a half minutes.

Mr. Alistair MacGregor:

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To our witnesses, I want to focus specifically on Russia, because of the conflict in Ukraine and the changed relationship between Canada and Russia because of that conflict.

At our public safety committee, we have heard testimony during the studies that I previously mentioned about the relationship between the Russian government and various Russian criminal organizations that commit a variety of financial crimes around the world. There's also a sort of loose relationship between the Russian government and these criminal organizations within Russia.

My two questions are as follows. Can you comment about this relationship vis-à-vis foreign influence? Second, how has activity from Russia changed from the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine? What kind of trends can you broadly speak about that you have observed since the start of that conflict?

(1150)

Adam, do you want to have a crack at that first?

Sure. We're veering a little bit outside the scope of election security.

Certainly, with the conflict in Ukraine, we've seen Russia using social media to promote its narrative of blaming the invasion on the aggression of NATO. That narrative is obviously counter to the one the west subscribes to. What the conflict has changed has been maybe their focus in terms of the narratives they're pushing, through both overt and covert means.

Mr. Alistair MacGregor:

To be clear, I was asking whether their activity has changed vis-à-vis interference in elections, not only in Canada but also among our democratic allies, just to be specific.

I'm not sure I have an adequate answer for you on that one in an unclassified forum.

Perhaps I can just offer that it's a space we continue to look at to try to understand. Again, it may veer a little bit outside of what the SITE focus is, but in terms of understanding the nexus between the various components of the Russian regime—

The Chair:

Thank you.

We will now go to Mr. Nater for two minutes—maybe even two and a half—followed by Ms. O'Connell.

Mr. Nater, go ahead.

Mr. John Nater (Perth—Wellington, CPC):

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

I want to start with a question and open it up to whoever is best positioned to answer it.

When we see some diaspora approaching a million to 1.5 million individuals within Canada, and the fact that often an election can be decided by a handful of seats—a dozen or so seats, with a total of 20,000 to 30,000 votes total, can influence an election—how capable are foreign state actors currently of moving that needle by 20,000 to 30,000 votes among the diaspora within Canada?

I'm sorry, Adam, but I may pick on you for that one.

Madam Chair, thank you.

I'm hesitant to comment precisely on the extent to which foreign adversaries can turn the needle in certain ridings or elections.

Certainly with respect to China, they look to interfere domestically in all respects. That includes in certain elections and ridings. They certainly see local diaspora as an opportunity to advance their narrative and to coerce and pursue outcomes that are in the interests of the PRC. The intent is there, and certainly.... I'm speaking in very general terms here. I'm not speaking specifically of the last election or any particular riding. In general terms, certainly they see that as an opportunity for foreign influence activity.

Thank you for that.

I want to go briefly to Mr. King.

Earlier this week, the Chief Electoral Officer stated that Elections Canada did not experience any breaches to its IT infrastructure or interference with its electoral operations, which I think is good. My question for you is whether you would agree with that.

Second, very briefly—and perhaps you can answer in writing at a future date—what threats do you see in terms of the IT infrastructure for Elections Canada when considering 338 electoral districts and 338 riding offices?

(1155)

The Chair:

I'll give 30 seconds for an answer.

Thank you.

Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (Pickering—Uxbridge, Lib.):

Thank you very much for the question.

Madam Chair, in response, I would certainly say that I absolutely agree with the Chief Electoral Officer in terms of that assessment. The cyber centre has worked very closely with Elections Canada for many years, in terms of hardening systems and being able to detect and defend in that space. We're quite confident on that particular view.

The other thing, in terms of looking at the overall threat—

The Chair:

I'm going to have to let it go there. I'm sorry. I was trying.

We will make sure that we.... I will reiterate a couple of points at the end.

Ms. O'Connell, you have three minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

On Tuesday, we heard from CSIS that foreign actors, whether it's to disrupt or influence elections, are not strictly supporting one party over the other, but are really about showing distrust in political institutions and in democracy. That vein is the context for my questions.

The 2020 CSIS annual report also talks about foreign governments continuing to try to interfere in Canadian affairs—in this context, elections. That same 2020 CSIS report speaks a lot about incels, and in particular people who go to forums to promote violence against women.

In the context of foreign state actors trying to promote violence, disinformation and misinformation, would you suggest that incels—which CSIS has identified in terms of violent extremism—are a forum where foreign state actors might want to create upheaval in our democratic institutions? In particular, would the promotion of violence against women be a forum where foreign state actors might love to delve in and promote disinformation and misinformation?

Thank you for the question, Madam Chair.

Again, I'll answer that in a general way. What I would say is that our adversaries are opportunistic. They look for issues that are divisive domestically and they exploit them. Certainly that is a theoretical possibility, and foreign adversaries could take advantage of that domestically.

I would also clarify or expand a bit on the reference to foreign-influenced activity disrupting Canadian society and undermining our institutions. Equally, in foreign-influenced activity, there are states that are looking to exploit the system we have from the inside in a covert and deceptive way. That is equally worrisome and of concern for the service from a national security perspective.

[Translation]

The Chair:

Thank you to the witnesses for your participation.

As the members have requested, we would appreciate it if you would send the clerk the necessary information, whether classified as secret or not.

We also appreciate the time you've taken to participate in our study. We thank you for the work you do and the responsibilities you shoulder.

Have a good day.

[English]

I will suspend really quickly and we'll get ready with panel two. Please stay close to your seats, because I'd like to start it within two minutes.

Thank you.

(1155)

(1200)

[Translation]

The Chair:

Now that the second panel is ready, we will resume the meeting.

We have two witnesses joining us.

We are welcoming Marcus Kolga, director of DisinfoWatch, and Jim Judd, former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, who is appearing as an individual.

We'll start with Mr. Kolga.

Welcome, Mr. Kolga. You have four minutes for your opening statement.

[English]

Mr. Marcus Kolga (Director, DisinfoWatch):

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for dedicating your time to study the threat posed by disinformation to election integrity and, indeed, the cohesion of our entire democracy.

My name is Marcus Kolga. I've been monitoring, analyzing and exposing Russian disinformation for the past 15 years. In 2020, I started DisinfoWatch, a platform dedicated to exposing foreign disinformation narratives with the support of the U.S. State Department and Journalists for Human Rights, under the roof of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. DisinfoWatch was initially focused on tracking foreign disinformation about COVID-19. We expanded its scope in 2021, and we were actively tracking foreign narratives during the last federal election.

In the weeks before the September 20, 2021, election, we were alerted to Chinese state media narratives that directly targeted the Conservative Party and its leader, Erin O’Toole. Simultaneously, members of the Chinese Canadian community brought to our attention similar narratives appearing on local Canadian Chinese-language media platforms and the Chinese social media channel WeChat. WeChat is commonly regarded as a tool used by the Chinese government for surveillance and repression.

On September 9, 2021, the Chinese Communist Party-owned tabloid Global Times published an article attacking the Conservative Party’s foreign policy platform. The Global Times article threatened Canadians that if they elected a Conservative government, Canadians should expect “strong counter strike and Canada will be the one to suffer”.

At the same time, an anonymous article was posted to WeChat targeting an incumbent MP, Kenny Chiu. In September 2021, Chiu introduced a private member's bill to create a Canadian foreign influence registry modelled on existing Australian and U.S. legislation. The registry law would have required individuals and groups acting on behalf of identified foreign authoritarian regimes, such as Russia, North Korea, Iran or China, to identify and register themselves. This would have threatened Chinese government influence operations in Canada. The anonymous WeChat article falsely accused Chiu of seeking to “suppress the Chinese community” through his bill.

Both the Global Times and WeChat narratives were shared on local Chinese Canadian digital and social media platforms.

According to Taiwan’s leading disinformation analysis NGO, Doublethink, Chinese state actors often use low-level disinformation disseminated on chat platforms—

(1205)

The Chair:

I'm going to pause this really quickly, Mr. Kolga. I know that you are trying to get a lot of information in. I can assure you that we will provide you avenues to provide us more information when we're outside of this hour.

With two official languages, receiving the message in the other language is something we need to slow down for a bit.

I will indeed.

The Chair:

Okay. We want to hear what you have to say.

I'm going to continue the clock. You are currently at two minutes and 17 seconds.

It's over to you.

Mr. Jim Judd (Former Director, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, As an Individual):

Perfect. Thank you.

According to Taiwan's leading disinformation analysis NGO, Doublethink, Chinese state actors often use low-level disinformation disseminated on chat platforms like WeChat and others as a method of attack. The method and content of the narratives spread about former MP Kenny Chiu are tactically consistent with those identified by Doublethink.

After analyzing open-source data and consulting with key stakeholders, we believed and continue to believe that the timing and content of these narratives were consistent with previous Chinese government information operations and indicated the likelihood of a coordinated operation targeting Chinese Canadian voters. We published our initial report on September 14, 2021, and a subsequent report in December. Researchers from the Atlantic Council's digital forensics lab and McGill University later confirmed our findings in separate independent reports.

Now I'll briefly speak a little bit about Russian interference.

Russian information and influence operations are persistent and they are growing. They do not turn on and off with election cycles and have intensified during the course of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Over the past 36 months, we have observed the Kremlin exploit the COVID pandemic by amplifying vaccine hesitancy and anti-lockdown narratives, a threat that I anticipated at the onset of the pandemic. These were key issues during the 2021 federal election.

Recent Russian information operations have also focused on dehumanizing and marginalizing Canadians of Ukrainian heritage, including those elected to public office, regardless of political affiliation. Deputy Prime Minister Freeland has faced ongoing attacks since 2017 from the Russian embassy and domestic proxies aligned with it that accuse her of being a neo-Nazi.

Russia's primary and full-time focus is to undermine and destabilize our democracy by exploiting the most polarizing issues of the day. Their operations focus on amplifying and legitimizing narratives that support the extreme left and right so as to erode trust and cohesion within our society. These attacks affect our political environment and choices every day, not just during election periods.

The Chair:

Thank you, Mr. Kolga. Believe it or not, I gave you an extra 45 seconds, and I can't wait to hear more from you.

With that, we are now going to Mr. Jim Judd.

I'll be a little lenient with you, but try to keep it to four minutes, if you can. Welcome.

Thank you.

As noted, my name is Jim Judd. I am a retired federal public servant. I retired from the federal government in 2009. I am here today, I assume, because I was asked by the Privy Council Office several years ago to do an assessment of the critical election incident protocol that had been put in place creating a panel of senior officials for the writ period of the election to monitor potential foreign interference in the election of 2019.

I did the work. The report was published two and a half years ago or so. The work was done on the basis of interviews with a large number of people, including the members of the panel, security agencies, academics and former public servants, and a lot of research, mostly in public source material. In the course of doing my work, I did not have access to any of the intelligence that went to the committee and just relied on the interviews to get their perspectives on what had happened.

The review was mandated by the protocol itself, which said that following the election, there should be a review done.

That's essentially the short story, I hope.

(1210)

The Chair:

Is that it, Mr. Judd?

I think so.

The Chair:

I appreciate that.

Thank you so much for those words.

We are now going to start our opening round, with six minutes to Mr. Cooper.

[Translation]

After him will be Mr. Fergus, followed by Ms. Gaudreau and then Ms. Blaney.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper. You have six minutes.

[English]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'll direct my questions to Mr. Kolga.

Mr. Kolga, you spoke about evidence that DisinfoWatch gathered respecting activities on the part of Chinese Communist state actors using social media platforms to spread disinformation against the Conservative Party generally and certain candidates specifically, with a real emphasis on the riding of Steveston—Richmond East and Kenny Chiu.

In the case of Kenny Chiu, and maybe speaking more broadly about this type of interference that occurred during the election, is there any indication that the interference materially affected the outcome of the election?

Thank you for the question.

It's incredibly hard to measure the impact of these sorts of operations on election outcomes. At the same time, we can't dismiss that they may have had an effect, but in this case it's certainly very difficult to measure. We can assume that these operations, which were in the Chinese language, targeting Canadians of Chinese heritage, probably connected with thousands of members of those communities. We can measure the impact on various forums and such. We can see how many people have accessed or commented on many of these posts.

Again, there's no evidence that the outcome of the election, whether in that electoral district or any others where there are high percentages of Chinese speakers, was directly affected or that the outcome would have changed because of this specific attack. The fact is that, again—

I'm sorry. My time is limited.

But it can't be ruled out, either.

It cannot be ruled out.

(1215)

You were speaking a little bit about the scope of the disinformation campaign. I will give you a bit of time to perhaps expand on exactly what occurred. How was this used? How many people might have come across some of this disinformation?

Again, if we're talking about this anonymous WeChat campaign, what happened was a narrative about Mr. Chiu and his legislation, the private member's bill that would have enacted a foreign influence registry. As I said in my introductory remarks, this legislation would have required actors advocating on behalf of specific foreign authoritarian regimes to register with the government.

This is something the Chinese government would not want to have enacted, so it's entirely possible that the narrative was placed onto WeChat—a platform, by the way, that is largely controlled by the Chinese government—by actors aligned with the Chinese government. WeChat is widely used by Chinese speakers around the world, including in this country.

The overall impact of that narrative is unknown, but the fact that it spread to various other platforms and forums—Chinese-speaking forums here in Canada and local media—does indicate that the narrative was widespread. It's likely to have been seen by tens of thousands of Chinese Canadians, perhaps hundreds of thousands.

Again, whether it changed their voting intent during the election is unknown, but the fact that so many people saw that narrative should be of concern, and I think we can certainly assume that was an effort to undermine the integrity of our elections.

Thank you for that.

I want to ask you a little bit about the critical election incident public protocol. It is a mechanism that is purportedly designed to be transparent, to bring it to the attention of Canadians that interference is happening during the course of the campaign. It appears—in fact, I think it was established—that the critical election incident public protocol was not invoked. There was no public notification that was provided. Voters in Steveston—Richmond East, etc., would not have been informed about this disinformation campaign, and the threshold is fairly high.

Could you maybe speak to that protocol and the threshold that must be satisfied? Do you have any thoughts on that? On the one hand, it probably should be fairly high, but on the other hand, timing is limited. How can this protocol be used or how can it be improved to provide greater transparency in a timely manner?

Well, the protocol was introduced before the 2019 election, along with several other measures, including the continuation of the RRM, which is critically important to protecting our democracy. I think that was a very good first step. In 2019, it appears to have done its work. Whether it was to deter foreign actors from trying to interfere...it seems to have done its work.

I cannot comment on the thresholds that were put in place. With this incident and the fact that Chinese state media, Global Times, was directly trying to interfere in our election by injecting various narratives into it, I'm not sure how that fits with those thresholds. I unfortunately can't comment on that.

My understanding, from reading the publicly available information, is that when that threshold is met, the political parties involved and the candidates who are targeted are notified, and the public is notified.

The Chair:

Thank you.

[Translation]

We now go to Mr. Fergus for six minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses. I'm less familiar with Mr. Kolga, but I have the utmost respect for his work. I'm quite familiar with Mr. Judd, as well as his work and career in the public service.

Thank you for your service to Canada, Mr. Judd.

Mr. Kolga, your opening statement was extremely insightful and relevant. You said that foreign actors looking to destabilize our democracy exploit polarizing issues that already exist in Canadian society.

Can you tell us more about that? Can you give us any examples? How do foreign actors do that?

[English]

Thank you very much for that question.

I outlined how some Chinese state actors were doing that during the previous election. They were using state media outlets such as Global Times, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. They use platforms like that to inject false narratives into our information environment and the global information environment. The hope for them is that they are picked up by various actors domestically and spread in that way.

Russia, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, has been active on an ongoing basis. Their operations never stop. They never sleep. They are constantly seeking to exploit the most polarizing issues in our society.

Certainly during the COVID pandemic, they were extraordinarily active, promoting anti-vaccination narratives and anti-lockdown narratives. They were promoting anti-government narratives at the same time. During that period, we saw a number of domestic anti-vaccination and anti-lockdown organizations amplify those narratives.

Indeed, all of that crescendoed in February of this year during the Ottawa truck protest. We saw RT, Russia's state media channel—which used to be available on our public airwaves and is no longer, thankfully—broadcasting interviews with extremists inside that protest who were exploiting those protests to promote anti-government narratives. The leaders of these anti-vaccination groups who were given a platform on RT were calling for the removal of our government, in fact.

The Twitter platforms of those organizations, later in February, when Russia invaded Ukraine, switched their narratives from anti-vaccination, anti-lockdown and anti-government narratives to ones that were explicitly anti-Ukrainian. There were certain tweets where those organizations were directly taking statements from the Russian embassy in Canada and retweeting them.

This is the ultimate objective of some of those organizations: to take those state narratives, find local actors who will amplify them, and affect the discussion and local debate on those issues.

(1220)

[Translation]

Thank you very much for those examples. They were very helpful.

Let's go back six months to what happened during the occupation in Ottawa.

Do you think Russian influence on social media was as impactful as that of the Chinese government or actors associated with China?

[English]

I would say, in my assessment, that the Russian government is very effective at finding the most polarizing issues and amplifying them and finding the actors domestically to amplify them.

China is not as sophisticated when it comes to its operations, so I would think that the Russian government's efforts during that period were far more impactful than the Chinese government's.

[Translation]

I have one last question for Mr. Kolga, before I move on to Mr. Judd.

Do you think Russia's activities have as big of an impact on Canadian voters as China's?

[English]

For clarification, do you mean during the election? Okay.

It is hard to measure. As I mentioned in my opening statement, Russia's efforts are ongoing. They are persistent, so I think that the overall impact of Russian information operations may have been more significant during that election.

China targeted specific ridings and, in those ridings, the impact was far greater than Russia's. If we're looking at the ultimate outcome of that election, it's hard to say which government would have had a greater impact.

[Translation]

I don't have much time left, but I have the same question for you, Mr. Judd.

Do you think Russian and Chinese influence had the same impact on the election results?

[English]

What I am about to say is based on public source information. I haven't seen a piece of intelligence for a very long time, three grandchildren ago. Public source information is quite extraordinary—not just here. It's, in fact, global—Europe, the United States and so on.

Certainly, I don't think I would disagree with anything Mr. Kolga said about the activities of these individuals. For me, it was quite a new experience, because when I was working, this was not an issue. There was a very different basket of priorities for CSIS and national security issues in my time.

(1225)

The Chair:

Thank you. We'll come back to you again.

[Translation]

Go ahead, Ms. Gaudreau. You have six minutes.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Just a heads-up that I have two questions for Mr. Kolga and two questions for Mr. Judd.

Mr. Kolga said that a protocol was established in 2019 to protect democracy and had not changed since, so I'd like some clarification.

Very quickly, I'd like Mr. Kolga to tell me what hasn't changed since the protocol was introduced in 2019.

[English]

I'm not sure how much has changed within the protocol or whether the thresholds have changed. I have no information about that.

The threat certainly has evolved. That's what has changed since 2019. In 2019, we believed that the threat to our democracy was exclusively targeting our elections and writ periods, whereas since that period, I think our understanding of the threat has evolved. I've mentioned several times during my testimony that the threats—certainly from Russia, and from China as well—are persistent. That's what has changed.

[Translation]

Thank you.

I gather that the protocol isn't adequate to respond to growing threats. I have another question for you, and then I'll move on to Mr. Judd.

Mr. Kolga said the public needed to be educated. We talked about transparency and education with the witnesses in the previous panel. I'd like Mr. Kolga to tell me whether the public was ever informed of foreign interference. If so, what information can he provide to the committee on the source of that activity, for the purposes of our report?

I'm somewhat naive about all this, so I'd like to know what being advised looks like.

[English]

Again, thank you for that question.

We, DisinfoWatch, did try to inform the public when these efforts were brought to our attention in early September. We took the time to look at the information we received. We tried to process it. We couldn't necessarily trace it directly to the Chinese government, but given the nature of the messages that were targeting Mr. Chiu, that campaign in British Columbia, and there was also another—

[Translation]

Madam Chair, my question was actually about the information that was shared with the public or the people concerned. Is it possible for the committee to get those communications and links? That's what I wanted to know.

I'll let Mr. Kolga send us that information.

Now I'll turn to Mr. Judd.

Mr. Judd, I heard you say in your opening statement that the Privy Council Office had asked you to clarify the critical election incident public protocol. You said you didn't have access to certain information. What information were you missing in order to do the job properly? It is possible, however, that I didn't hear you correctly.

[English]

Thank you.

What I intended to say in my opening comments was that in the course of doing my work, I had no access to any of the intelligence that went to the panel from SITE, the integrated intelligence organization.

[Translation]

Madam Chair, I asked why the witness didn't have access to that information.

[English]

It was classified above my security classification level, and given the time that was at play, it would have taken quite a long time to re-establish what I used to have as a security classification. That's essentially it.

I would say, though, with respect to this issue, that my understanding from the 2019 election was that the political parties were privy to SITE information on an ongoing basis throughout the election and even before. I understand that this continued to be the case in the last election as well. Chances are that someone in your party knows a lot more about this than I do.

(1230)

[Translation]

Madam Chair, I'm trying to educate myself here, because foreign interference is a subject I know little about, and I'm learning things that are extremely distressing.

My next question is for whoever wishes to answer.

What are the tools we need? We heard suggestions in terms of what Five Eyes partners were doing, but I'd like to know what the first step is in order to reduce the spread of this activity.

I think I have a minute left, so I'd like the witnesses to say a few words about that.

[English]

Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP):

I'll quickly give a few of my thoughts.

I strongly believe that exposing these efforts, analyzing them and explaining them is incredibly important. That's the work we do at DisinfoWatch. I think the government should expand the initiative it's already taken with the critical election incident public protocol and make that into a full-time organization. That includes civil society, academia, media members and representatives from all of the major parties in Canada as well as social media—

The Chair:

Thank you.

Ms. Blaney, go ahead for six minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to both of the witnesses for your testimony today.

I'm going to start my questioning with Mr. Kolga.

In one of your responses to a question, you said very clearly that Russia never sleeps. I thought that was an important thing to pick up on. We know that Russia never sleeps and that it is constantly looking at ways to create destabilized realities within other countries. I think all of us are concerned.

Really, this study is about two things: ensuring that Canadians have confidence in our electoral process and systems and ensuring that we have the best protection from any foreign threats. We know that the more disinformation gets out there, the less Canadians believe in the systems we have. They're winning, and we can't let that happen.

I'm just wondering if you could talk about the fact that Russia never sleeps and how, not only during elections but also outside of those and even pre-election, that is a problem.

Thank you very much for that question.

Absolutely, Russia does not sleep. Russia has been engaging in disinformation and influence operations for a very long time—nearly a century. Joseph Stalin began creating deep fakes, if you will, by doctoring photographs, already in the 1930s.

It engaged in this throughout the Cold War. Canadians of central and eastern European heritage were constantly targeted with Russian disinformation during that time because they were critical of the Soviet occupation of their countries. They were often labelled as neo-Nazis and such. Those sorts of narratives were intended to dehumanize, marginalize and silence them, and create second-class citizens of those Canadians.

We're seeing very much that same sort of process right now during this war with Ukraine. The Ukrainian diaspora, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, has been targeted with similar narratives and operations.

When we look at Russian disinformation operations in general, all of that is intended to break down, geopolitically, Canadian and U.S. support for NATO. It's intended to break down the cohesion within that alliance because, as we've seen, Russia is unable to compete with us when we're united.

Domestically, in Canada, they try to break down the cohesion within our society. That means breaking down trust in our democratic institutions, in all of our elected officials—all of you in this committee—and in our media and such. It does that by injecting different pieces of disinformation, conspiracy theories and such, in hopes that various far-left and far-right extremists will pick them up. They hope those narratives will eventually filter into our mainstream media and interfere in our normal democratic debate. That is the ultimate outcome of Russian information operations.

Unless we stand up to it and make an effort to expose narratives, as you are doing right now with this study, and have an active discussion on how we address this challenge, they will win. They have a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars for these efforts. They are doing this day and night. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people employed to undertake this task of injecting those narratives, of using social media and of exploiting our freedoms to gain the advantage.

We definitely need to step up our game. I think that during the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Canadian government has started to acknowledge the breadth of this threat and is taking measures to address it. We need to continue to do that.

As I was trying to say in my previous answer, we need to take a whole-of-society approach and an inclusive approach. That includes media, social media giants, civil society and, of course, government and our elected officials. We need to have that discussion all together because that's the only way we're going to innoculate ourselves against this and defend against foreign disinformation operations in the long term.

(1235)

I think that's really interesting. I think of the convoy that was outside and how many people were yelling about fake news. I saw reporters right in front saying things like, “Say whatever you like. We're totally open. You're on live television.” People were just losing that connection with the understanding of our reality.

My next question is really around targeting marginalized groups. I think of myself; I represent rural and remote communities. I'm just curious about the strategies that could be used against more remote communities, marginalized communities, indigenous communities and ethnic groups. I think those would be specific and targeted.

I'm just curious whether you have any feedback on that.

That's a great question. It deserves its own study, I think.

We need to be working with local media and smaller media organizations that speak to these groups to ensure they get the good information, the facts and the truth.

We've been reading reports about how smaller media organizations are simply going out of business. They're disappearing. A robust and trustworthy media is one way we can defend against foreign disinformation. Certainly making sure that vulnerable groups—minority groups and such—have access to that information is an extremely important way, and I believe an effective way, we can combat disinformation and misinformation.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Next we have Mr. Calkins for five minutes, followed by Ms. O'Connell.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Kolga, I guess, basically, if I can summarize what you're saying, in an environment where Canadians might be disenfranchised—if you're an oil patch worker who lost his job, if you're somebody whose kid was kicked out of college or university because they didn't want to get vaccinated, or if you lost your job or were unable to travel—these create breeding grounds for frustration. It can be anything. It can be any type of source of that frustration.

I'm from the west; I'm from Alberta. I know what western alienation does. I know how my constituents think, because I think just like they do. I have been here for 17 years, through a Liberal government and a Conservative government. I can tell you that people's attitudes and their frustrations are completely different depending on who's governing the country.

If we actually have...and the Prime Minister of this country's own caucus colleagues have basically stood and said that he has a wedge, stigmatize, divide approach. Does that provide fertile breeding grounds for these kinds of organizations, like Russia, to manipulate the Canadian public?

Yes, absolutely. The Russian government exploits those grievances, and it aggravates them. That is exactly how it operates.

I should remind you, though, that it has been doing this for quite some time. Just about a year and a half ago, we did a study of over 100 Twitter accounts that had been taken down by Twitter. We had access to the deleted tweets of those accounts that were connected to the Russian government, and they went back to 2014.

In 2014, those accounts were actively doing the same. They were attacking the Harper government on various issues. They are agnostic with regard to any sort of political party. They will sink their fangs into the left and the right, and they will tug on any specific issue until it tears us apart. This is what they do.

It doesn't matter who's in government, whether it's the Conservatives one day, the Liberals the next, the NDP another day, or perhaps the Bloc one day. All of those parties—even when they are in opposition—will be attacked when they are critical of the Russian regime, and, again, those grievances that do emerge toward whichever party is governing will be exploited by Russia.

(1240)

Given the fact that in your testimony you have just said that it doesn't really matter who the political actors are who are making the decisions of the day, our democratic institutions are vulnerable to these attacks regardless.

I just went and looked. WeChat has 1.25 billion users globally and over a million users in Canada. I just went onto Facebook to DisinfoWatch's page, and you are lucky, sir—and this is not a slight against you in any way, shape or form—to get into three digits when it comes to views of your explainer videos and so on.

Can you give this committee any indication of what needs to happen? Salacious information or misinformation seems to be gobbled up and consumed by the consumer a lot more readily than the truth is. As parliamentarians, how do we bridge that gap?

That's a very good question. I should add that we do try, and our impact is largely in the media and in mainstream media when they report on the reports that we have. You shouldn't take that from our Facebook views.

I think the problem is quite far gone at this point. I don't think we can put the genie back into the bottle, but we can take measures to innoculate future generations. That means ensuring that we look at countries like Finland, which has enacted early childhood digital media literacy strategies, making sure that's in our curricula, informing Canadians, and doing what we can to expose these disinformation narratives so that elected officials, our media, and anybody who's interested in finding the facts have that information available.

I think that's what we need to start looking at right now because, as I said, we can't put the genie back in the bottle. I think these information operations, the disinformation and the polarization of our society are almost at a point of no return.

In the context of a Canadian general election or even a by-election, notwithstanding that we don't want to put very many.... You know, we enjoy our freedom. We enjoy free speech. We enjoy all of these things. Every western liberalized democracy does. However, should we consider or should this committee be recommending that those platforms be somehow identified or taken off-line during, say, an electoral writ period when we know full well that certain types of platforms are specifically being used?

The Chair:

I'm going to ask that you hold that thought.

I'm going to send the screen over to Ms. O'Connell for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Kolga, I'm going to start with you.

Mr. Judd, I hope I'll have some time. I have some questions for you as well.

Mr. Kolga, I found your last intervention particularly interesting. It was about making sure that elected officials have the disinformation and information available to them. I transport in my mind to your comments earlier, too, about Russian TV broadcasting the convoy and how awkward it must be for those elected officials who posed with convoy members or who brought them coffee, and then they could be broadcast on Russian TV after that. Your comments about elected officials having this information, understanding their role in the very disinformation and the agents of Russian foreign actors are quite interesting.

I want to get to my questions around some of your comments on disinformation and that you can't discredit what could have been an outcome in Mr. Chiu's election. You spoke about the involvement of Chinese agents or activity from China. You also spoke about ongoing activity from Russia, and you specifically named Minister Freeland as somebody to receive that attention from these actors.

I have a couple of questions here, and then I'll leave it to you. How do you distinguish that ongoing Russian activity against Minister Freeland doesn't have any impact but activity during the election period for Mr. Chiu could have had an impact? I think that disinformation or activity from foreign state actors is real, but I think we have to be very careful about certain parties using it as the excuse for a loss.

I can tell you that the voters in Steveston—Richmond East rejected Mr. Chiu in 2015. Then he won the election in 2019. Looking at the numbers of the 2019 and the 2021 elections, there was a difference of 4,412 votes for Mr. Chiu between those elections. I also note that, from the 2019 election to the 2021 election, voter turnout was smaller by about 3,070 votes. One could argue—I'm sure the Conservatives would—that the voter turnout was smaller because of the disinformation and the campaigns from China. I'd also like to point out that, in my election, from 2019 to 2021, my voter turnout was smaller by over 5,000 votes, which is more.

How can you determine that, if the electors in 2015 rejected Mr. Chiu...? Voter turnout was smaller across the country. How can you determine that the Chinese actions had an impact and that the Russian actions had no impact for Minister Freeland? Do we run the risk of playing this game of where impact was had versus protecting our democracy overall from foreign interference, instead of trying to pick winners and losers riding by riding, when you can't determine it with any data?

(1245)

To address your introductory remark about certain politicians posing with members of the convoy protest in Ottawa, having elected officials pose with these people or supporting people who may have legitimate grievances is not disinformation. That's part of our democratic processes. Whether you agree with them or disagree with them, that's not necessarily disinformation.

What I was trying to say was that RT does exploit fringes within that movement who are advocating for the destabilization of our democracy.

As for the outcome in Mr. Chiu's riding, I don't know. I don't know what the history is there. Again, my point was that that specific election was targeted. He, as a candidate, was targeted with foreign operations. Again, we can't measure the impact of that, so I can't—

I'm sorry to interrupt.

Was Minister Freeland's election also targeted by Russia?

If you'd let me get to that, I will.

Minister Freeland has been targeted since 2017 because of her involvement when she became the Minister of Foreign Affairs. As soon as she became Minister of Foreign Affairs, overnight a campaign appeared. We know from various reports by Canadian reporters—

The Chair:

I'm going to have to stop it there.

This is a very important issue, though.

The Chair:

It is very important. We are going to make sure that you have the avenues to provide us information.

I have a tough job and I need to keep the train on the tracks.

Madame Gaudreau, you have two and a half minutes.

[Translation]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think we can all agree on the fact that whatever the disinformation and whoever the target, it's unacceptable.

The past little while, I have been trying to raise issues so we can have a constructive discussion, but I'm disappointed by what I'm hearing.

Ultimately, we are going to produce a report with findings. My questions are about how we can do better.

Earlier, Mr. Kolga said that Finland had a digital literacy strategy, and I'd like to know which other countries are doing things we should replicate.

I have just one question for both witnesses.

Finland appears to be setting a good example. On a scale of one to 10, where does Finland rank for its efforts to counter disinformation?

Where does Canada rank on that scale?

I'd like both witnesses to answer.

(1250)

The Chair:

Mr. Judd can go first.

Did you get all of that in English, Mr. Judd? Did you understand the question?

[English]

I understood the question.

I'm still working on the answer.

The Chair:

I'm going to go over to Mr. Kolga very quickly, and then we'll go to Mr. Judd.

I think we do some things well. I think we do other things not so well.

I couldn't give you a specific number, but I think we should be looking to Finland, which is doing a good job. I think we should be looking to Sweden—

[Translation]

We're just talking. I asked for a number just to get a sense of how Canada measures up: not bad, average or very good.

Where is Finland on a scale of one to 10, as far as its regime goes? Would you give it an eight out of 10? Where does Canada fall—

[English]

If we take Finland, Sweden, the Baltic states, and Taiwan, which are doing this and have been doing this well for a long time, if they are the baseline, if they are the 10, then I think maybe we're on the way to approaching a seven.

The Chair:

That was believable.

Mr. Judd, go ahead.

The problem we're talking about, disinformation, is a global one. Lots of other governments are asking the same questions you are. Right now, the British Parliament is doing new legislation in response to the Russian interference in Brexit and the election at the same time.

The Chair:

Thank you, Mr. Judd.

[Translation]

Madam Chair, I lost some time because of the interpretation.

What would you give it?

The Chair:

You're out of time, Ms. Gaudreau.

We are moving on to Ms. Blaney.

You have two and a half minutes, Ms. Blaney. Go ahead.

[English]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have one question for Mr. Kolga. I want to come back to the question I asked earlier about rural and remote communities, indigenous, ethnic groups, and marginalized groups.

You spoke a lot about small, local, community media and how important it is to have those sustainable systems in place so they can provide information in a trusted way and that they're trusted resources. I also know a lot of these communities use social media as a function of connection in the community.

Could you talk about the threats that could be targeted to those particular groups? I think they're unique and I think that in some ways, if somebody got into that system, trust could be built very quickly. I'm worried about that disinformation, especially recognizing that due to language and remoteness fighting that disinformation could be even more difficult.

I completely agree with you. Social media is clearly being exploited to connect with and divide these communities, to influence them in various ways. I think there is a really big problem there. On how we address it, I don't think we've even really started discussing that on a national level.

This is why for the past several years, I have been calling for a whole-of-society approach to this problem. That means bringing social media companies to the table. I am sure they are also interested, as it's in their own interest to clean up their act. Making sure they sit down and have this conversation about how these vulnerable communities are protected, and what sort of measures can be put in place to do that, is something the government needs to be taking a lead on, along with all the other groups I mentioned earlier.

It's only in that way we're going to address this problem. We can't just leave it to social media to do it on their own. We certainly can't leave it up to these vulnerable communities. We can't just leave them to their own devices to do this, because it needs some leadership. I think that's one place where the federal government and other levels of government can surely step in to help.

(1255)

Do you want to add something, Mr. Judd?

It's a big problem. I agree with Mr. Kolga in respect of a whole-of-society approach.

If you want to look at a robust regime for dealing with social media disinformation, I suggest you look at Singapore, which enacted laws in the last several years specifically to address social media disinformation campaigns around elections. Now they're adding more to it with respect to hate issues, irrespective of what they are.

The Chair:

Thank you.

[Translation]

Sorry to cut you off, Mr. Judd.

Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. You have two minutes.

I'll keep it short.

I want to raise a few things.

Mr. Kolga and Mr. Judd, can you provide the committee with some written information on Finland's regime? What programs exactly has Finland put in place to educate youth?

Mr. Judd, if you have additional information about Singapore that you could share with the committee, we would appreciate it.

Now I'd like to address a comment one of my fellow members made.

Disinformation and foreign interference, whether the target is a member of the Liberals, Conservatives, Bloc Québécois or NDP, is unacceptable—period. It makes no difference. It's unacceptable. We need to do everything in our power to combat foreign influence in every riding so that Canadians are the only ones deciding who gets elected. I think that's the whole premise of today's study.

Mr. Kolga, how much of the responsibility for the spread of disinformation can be attributed to Facebook, Twitter and other social media algorithms?

[English]

Thank you for that question.

Certainly the revenue of social media companies relies on the number of eyeballs that fall onto any piece of content, and they want to make sure that their users remain on their platforms as long as possible so they can expose them to advertising.

I think many of these social media companies have recognized their responsibility in ensuring that disinformation narratives are pushed lower down in their algorithms.

I think Twitter has, certainly over the past 12 months, and I would say even more so during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, really put in an effort to clean up their act. We'll see what happens now with the change in ownership. We may slide backwards there, but that remains to be seen.

At Facebook, I think there is a lot of work that remains to be done. I think YouTube has been quite good in labelling foreign state media when it comes to those platforms.

Again, a lot more needs to be done.

[Translation]

The Chair:

Thank you, Mr. Kolga. I have to cut you off there.

You have some homework to do, because we need your answers in writing. Please send them to the committee clerk.

Next we go to Ms. O'Connell for two minutes.

[English]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to my colleague.

I didn't have time in the last round, so I do want to get to Mr. Judd with my questions here.

I was actually familiar with your report when I was a member of NSICOP. Obviously, we can't discuss that here in this forum.

I just want to clarify, with respect to an earlier question, the mandate of your role. Can you explain further? It's my understanding that the reason the intelligence wouldn't have been provided to you was that the mandate of your role was to review the process. It's not about individual instances. You weren't auditing, let's say, the process the last time, but you were reviewing the process itself. In that, did you look at the pre-writ question of having this process in place for foreign interference activity during elections?

The Chair (Hon. Bardish Chagger (Waterloo, Lib.)):

Thank you for clarifying what I meant to say earlier.

The issue of the writ is one that's always bothered me in this respect. Just to go back to what Mr. Kolga was saying, this is an infinite issue. An average election is 50 days. There are 315 other days in the year in which there can be all kinds of mischief, which can, in some fashion, have an impact on politics, but more importantly, I think, on broader social cohesion in this country and others.

(1300)

The Chair:

Thank you so much.

I would like to thank both of our guests for their time with us today. Please do not hesitate to share information through the clerk for committee members to consider. Just to clarify from earlier, if you ask the clerk not to share it publicly, the clerk will ensure that the information is available to members, but not to the public. If anything else can be made publicly available.... If you can just decipher that, we will ensure that it is managed and handled with the care you require.

With that, I wish you both a good day.

For committee members, we are returning to our constituencies next week for Veterans' Week. I hope you take time to think about how we are able to enjoy the freedoms we do today. We will return on November 15 to a subcommittee meeting, so all members will not need to be present, but subcommittee members will be present for Tuesday, November 15.

Throughout the constituency week, you will receive one if not both reports, and we will return on November 17 as a full committee in camera to look at the draft report.

I wish you the best. Keep well and safe.

Transcript of Study Meeting #3 (November 22, 2022)

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

NUMBER 041

1st SESSION

44th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2022

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

(1205)

[English]

Welcome to the second hour of our meeting of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

I would like to welcome our Chief Electoral Officer, Monsieur Stéphane Perrault, to PROC again.

Thank you for always taking the time. With that, I will pass the floor over to you.

Mr. Stéphane Perrault (Chief Electoral Officer, Elections Canada):

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Since my November 1 appearance, I have read news reports of foreign interference in the 2019 election. I am not in a position to speak to the accuracy of the contents of the recent news articles, but what I can say is this.

First, there were concerns prior to the 2019 election regarding the risks of foreign interference through various means. This is why, as part of a range of actions in preparing for the 2019 election, national security agencies took part in a meeting of the advisory committee of political parties, under the auspices of Elections Canada, to raise awareness regarding possible attempts by foreign state actors to interfere in the election. As I said in my last appearance, election security is a team sport.

[Translation]

Second, there are clear protocols in place among national security agencies, Elections Canada, the Commissioner of Canada Elections and other law enforcement agencies to allow for the sharing of information based on respective mandates.

The Canada Elections Act very clearly prohibits foreign contributions to candidates. According to the protocols in place, if there is information that would assist the investigation of illegal contributions, it should be sent to the commissioner.

I will note, however, as I did previously, that interference by foreign states raises issues that go well beyond compliance with legislative provisions and involve state-to-state relations.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I welcome your questions.

The Chair:

Thank you very much for your comments.

We will move to the first round of questions, where each member will have six minutes.

Before we begin, I remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Mr. Cooper, you have the floor.

[English]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Perrault. It's good to see you again before our committee.

You referenced in your testimony the Global News report. In the November 7 report and in an updated November 20 report, Global News stated that intelligence memos cautioned the Prime Minister and several cabinet ministers regarding a vast campaign of interference by Beijing in the 2019 federal election campaign.

Has the Prime Minister or anyone in his office reported to Elections Canada any particulars concerning a campaign of interference by Beijing?

I'm not aware of any specifics regarding campaigns of interference by Beijing other than what I've read in the news article.

So, the answer to my question is that no report has been made by the Prime Minister or anyone in his office.

Madam Chair, that is what I said. I would like to remind the committee that the mandate of the commissioner of Canada Elections, unlike my own mandate, is to investigate cases of non-compliance. If there is evidence to support an investigation regarding an offence under the Canada Elections Act, that information should go to the commissioner of Canada Elections.

Just to be clear, no report has been made from the Prime Minister to you or to the commissioner, or anyone in your office—

I'm not aware of it.

— in his office.

Certainly not to my office or to me. I can't speak for the commissioner.

Can you undertake to find out from the commissioner?

I think it's for her to speak to the committee, Madam Chair. If the committee wants to ask, perhaps by written means....

I would note that the commissioner's independence is something that is very important, and that was very much a subject of legislation in recent years. There is a very clear distinction from her mandates—

Well, perhaps we do need to hear from the commissioner, just as we had both you and her on November 1.

Similarly, can you confirm whether any reports to Elections Canada have been made by any cabinet ministers or any officials in their office?

I've not received any reports regarding specific instances of non-compliance with the legislation or specific instances of Chinese interference in the election.

You're not aware that the commissioner has, from any minister.

I'm not aware that the commissioner has. I'm aware that we....

As we prepare for the election, we have extensive discussions with partners. We do tabletop exercises at the different levels of each organization—DG, ADM, deputy minister—so that people understand the roles and responsibilities and are able to share information.

Yes. Thank you, commissioner.

I take it that no investigation has been initiated.

I can't speak to that. I have no way of speaking to that. The law is very clear about the role and the commissioner's limitations in sharing information.

So you can't speak to that.

Perhaps you may be able to elaborate on answers provided by the commissioner to our committee that I received, that committee members received, yesterday. As you will recall, on November 1 the commissioner referenced that in the 2019 general election, there were 10 separate allegations of foreign interference brought to the attention of Elections Canada. She went on to indicate that there were 158 complaints.

I'm wondering if you could answer whether any of those 10 separate allegations of foreign interference concerned the CCP.

(1210)

I'm not in a position to speak to that. Again, the work of the commissioner is done independently and in confidence.

You're not able to speak to any particulars concerning those allegations.

That is correct.

You're not able to shed any light to this committee on—

That is correct. I can speak about roles and responsibilities—

Okay. Thank you for that.

You did state—

The Chair:

I am going to pause for a second.

We have spent a lot of time on this committee understanding the important work that interpreters do. We are a country with two official languages. Therefore, I'm going to ask that, as committee members, we ask questions through the chair and we let our witness—whom we invited to the committee, remember—answer those questions.

With that, Mr. Cooper, you have a minute and a half left. I do not want to hear two voices speaking, from anyone, at the same time. It's important that we actually get to the work we are doing.

It's back to you, Mr. Cooper.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Perrault, in your testimony you said, “The Canada Elections Act very clearly prohibits foreign contributions to candidates.” Can you elaborate on some of the penalties for either funnelling money that is foreign or directing money to candidates or knowingly receiving such monies?

Madam Chair, if the committee wishes, I do have a table of the various offences that could come into play in this situation. I'm happy to share that with the committee rather than reciting them.

It is correct that the law very clearly prohibits contributions from any entity other than an individual who is either a Canadian citizen or a permanent resident. Any other contribution is illegal. It is also illegal to hide the source of a contribution and to direct contributions to other persons. There are various offences for that. Typically, the highest penalty is a year imprisonment.

I have a full table that I'd be happy to share with the committee.

What constitutes the highest penalty?

I believe it's one year, depending on the offence.

The Chair:

That's it? Excellent. Thank you.

We will now go to Mr. Turnbull for six minutes.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Perrault, for coming back to our committee. You're making regular appearances here, which we appreciate.

I want to start with a very simple, clear question.

In your opinion, was the election in 2019 fair and free in Canada?

I have no reason, Madam Chair, to believe that the election overall was not a free and fair election.

What if I were to ask you the same about the election in 2021? Was that election free and fair, as a democratic election should be, in your opinion?

In my opinion, there's no reason to believe that it was not a free and fair election.

When you say, “no reason to believe,” I would say that you, of all people, would have oversight and ability to see many of the factors that lead you to make that judgment. That's a pretty important blanket statement you're making. How can you be certain that your judgment is accurate? What are you taking into consideration when you say that our elections, in both instances, were free and fair?

I was careful, Madam Chair, to speak in the negative, in the sense that from what I know, I have no reason to doubt that it was free and fair.

I am accountable for the overall conduct of the election. Of course, in all elections there are issues that we encounter and we've seen, and we've spoken in this committee about cases, for example, of incorrect information about the voting process, which we seek to correct and make sure electors are able to vote.

There may be offences that are committed that we find out about after the fact, and there may be investigations that are or are not under way that I would not know about, but with the information that I have, I have no reason to believe that the election was not a free and fair election.

Thank you. Okay.

Along similar lines, do you have any reason to believe that in either 2019 or 2021 the federal elections were disrupted or compromised by foreign interference?

I have no specific intelligence or evidence in that regard.

What I will say is that through our relationship with the national security agencies, we are—and we were prior to both elections—aware that this was an area of risk and there was an interest in certain countries in conducting various forms of disruption or interference in the elections. This is one of the reasons why we held a meeting with political parties and the national security agencies to start raising awareness and build a relationship between the various players in order to protect the election.

(1215)

What steps have been taken to protect the election? I'm sure you have specific examples.

For example, certainly in our case, one of the key aspects that we need to do is work with the cybersecurity experts and the Government of Canada to secure our infrastructure so that we are able to actually deliver the election and that we do not suffer from cyber-attacks.

We also take extensive steps to inform Canadians and inform the media of the procedures that we follow in order for ensuring that the vote is fair. We have a communications role to play during the election to educate Canadians and help them understand their rights and what they have to do. We also provide training to parties and candidates regarding obligations—their financial obligations and their reporting requirements—so there's a range of activities that we undertake to ensure the fairness of the election.

Okay. That's great.

Do you have any reason to believe that Canadians' ability to vote was compromised in any way by foreign election interference in either the 2019 or the 2021 general election?

Generally speaking, I would say not. As I indicated to this committee, in the past there have been cases of incorrect information on the voting process. It's very difficult to ascertain whether incorrect information originates from a domestic or a foreign source. Whichever the source, we do rectify the information.

Thank you.

In terms of election financing, I understand that—you've said it and I think Mr. Cooper also made mention of this in his questioning—there were limits on foreign contributions to candidates, i.e., there is none allowable, so that's good, obviously, as we can all agree.

How do our election financing rules stack up against those of other jurisdictions around the world? My understanding is that they're pretty stringent, which is a good thing for us. Could you give us some details on that?

I think that overall, Madam Chair, we have a very robust regime of political financing, with a mix of private and public funding, which I think is healthy. We have strong disclosure rules and low contribution limits. We do regulate a range of political entities, going from nomination contestants, electoral district associations, political parties and leadership contestants, so it's a very extensive regime.

It never is perfect. I've made recommendations to improve it, but I would say overall it's a very robust regime.

Can you explain what protocols are in place when Elections Canada becomes aware of a candidate violating the Canada Elections Act?

If we have, through whatever source, grounds to believe or even suspect that there have been specific cases of non-compliance, we would necessarily refer that to the commissioner for her to investigate.

When Elections Canada is alerted to a campaign breaking financing laws, how does Elections Canada respond? Do you alert the commissioner and they launch an investigation?

The commissioner decides whether the facts warrant launching an investigation or a review.

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau (Laurentides—Labelle, BQ):

Thank you, Mr. Perrault.

The Chair:

Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.

Next is Madam Gaudreau.

[Translation]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

To be very honest, I have to say that a tremendous amount of information has been provided. I had a lot of questions to ask, but I'm going to go back to the basics.

I have a good understanding of the issues related to cybersecurity and the steps or procedures to follow. Mr. Perrault, you said that the media and individuals were well aware. Could you elaborate on that? Maybe the interpretation was missing something.

I'll explain what I mean. In a way, we are told that the idea is to take action against people with bad intentions. At the end of the day, there are indeed people here who seek power or don't want to lose it. From your point of view, what can we learn from your exchanges to ensure that citizens have confidence in our democracy? Does Elections Canada have everything it needs to determine that the Canada Elections Act is compliant or is insufficient?

I would like you to talk about what measures you have and what is missing. I know very well that we will talk to the commissioner, but I will let you answer my question.

(1220)

It is important for members of the committee and those who are listening to us to understand that ensuring the security of the election is not just Elections Canada's business. When we talk about what we do to ensure that elections are fair and secure, people need to understand that many stakeholders have a role to play. For example, local police forces can act when there is interference, and I am not talking about interference in the sense of foreign interference, but rather issues related to public safety. Moreover, in the last election, provincial and federal public health agencies had a role to play. So there are a lot of stakeholders.

With respect to national security, there are the national security agencies. I know that the committee will be hearing from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security supports us in terms of the security of our IT infrastructure. So a number of stakeholders are involved.

In the case of Elections Canada, we need to distinguish between the role of the Chief Electoral Officer and the Commissioner of Canada Elections. The Chief Electoral Officer is responsible for enforcing the act, and this includes ensuring that Canadians understand their rights and how to vote. The Chief Electoral Officer must also ensure that candidates and parties understand their obligations, including those under the political financing rules, and know what they can and cannot accept. In this regard, manuals are prepared and training is provided. So there's a set of activities underway to make sure that the regime is working properly.

If there are cases involving potential violations of the act, it is the role of the commissioner and her office to investigate, independent of Elections Canada.

When we talk about the different actors, it is important to understand that they have very distinct accountabilities. Personally, I report to Parliament through this committee; I do not report to a minister, unlike the national security agencies.

Therefore, we are careful to talk about our respective areas of responsibility and mandates, while ensuring good collaboration between the different departments and agencies.

How do we justify the current information gaps? On the one hand, we are told by the media that there is enough evidence to say that there is the appearance of foreign interference in 11 constituencies. On the other hand, we are told that this is not true, that no information was provided, and that they are trying to throw a wrench in the works.

What is the job of Elections Canada, when we see that the commissioner is doing investigations? I don't understand anything anymore. Help me: what can I tell my constituents about the last election?

In general, I think we can talk about a fair election. I have no reason to doubt that.

We have to be careful about newspaper articles and the media. I don't want to question the journalistic work, but there was no investigation. We don't know what happened or which constituencies are affected. We don't know if money was given to candidates for their campaigns or for personal use. Are we talking about corruption of individuals or influence in the financing of elections? I don't have that information.

So we have to be careful when reading a media article before making a statement about the fairness of an election and the consequences that may result. That said—

I will continue with my last question, as I only have about 30 seconds left.

Based on your expertise, is the Canada Elections Act sound? Do we have everything we need?

I think we have an excellent regime. Having said that, some things could be improved. I've shared that with the committee and I can elaborate on it as needed. All in all, I think our political finance regime is the envy of just about every other regime in the world.

I am glad about that.

Earlier, we were talking about the measures and the steps to be taken. Of course, as you say, the commissioner has to do her investigation. However, once you have that information, what are the steps to be taken to disclose it to whom it may concern? Earlier, you mentioned ministers and the entire government.

What is the disclosure process in that respect?

We don't know if there are facts that would lead to an investigation. Again, this is just a newspaper article. You can make assumptions when you read an article; we all do, it's normal. You can assume that money was used to fund campaigns. If that is the case and there is evidence, it should be forwarded to the commissioner. However, I don't know if that is the case. If the commissioner decides to investigate because she feels there is sufficient evidence to do so, the investigation will run its course. Normally, at the end of the investigation, the commissioner will take action, which may or may not become public, depending on the outcome of the investigation.

(1225)

Mr. Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP):

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Mr. Blaikie, go ahead for six minutes.

[English]

Thanks very much, Madam Chair.

I appreciate the comments to date from Monsieur Perrault, so I'm not asking him to comment on details of the case that was reported.

I do think we're in a moment where those allegations have been made in the media. The issue has been raised in the House. On the weekend, the Prime Minister offered up that he hadn't been briefed on these 11 candidates. From a public confidence point of view, I think that probably would have been helpful sooner in the process.

Monsieur Perrault does have experience talking about elections and inducing confidence in the electoral process. I think there is clearly a tension here in the mind of the public between these allegations that have surfaced, the Prime Minister later saying he didn't know anything about it and people asking questions.

For Canadians who want to come out of this feeling confident about the process and who are not satisfied to date with the way things have transpired, what do you think government, Elections Canada or other players in this process could do to help those Canadians who say that, fundamentally, they want to have confidence in the process? They think it's probably okay, but they have some lingering questions down in the backs of their minds.

Is there a process that you think might help? I get that it's not your job to determine when an investigation is warranted. That's the commissioner's job. Suggestions have been made in the House about maybe having the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians look at this.

Is there some other organization or group that could engage in a process that you think might help shore up Canadians' confidence with respect to this particular allegation?

I understand, Madam Chair, that the committee will be hearing from CSIS. They may have things to share with the committee in terms of the process of that nature. I can't speak for them. Again, I think it's important for accountabilities to be quite distinct. As much as I value the independence of Elections Canada, it goes both ways.

To reassure Canadians, what I can say is this: Prior to the 2019 election, and certainly prior to 2021, but in both cases, there was a high level of alertness to this issue amongst the various institutions that have a role to play. Not only were they alert, but they were very deliberate in sharing their concerns with political participants—parties—through briefings. We had them come to the advisory committee of political parties in February 2019 prior to the election and I know there were subsequent ongoing briefings to the parties. The system was geared up to deal with those issues.

Beyond that, I can't say what actually took place and who shared information. That is beyond my mandate, but the system was geared up for this. I would say that the eyes were on the ball.

In respect of one proposal that's been made in the House, which is to just make the names of these 11 candidates public, do you have any advice either for the committee or for government about the potential consequences of doing that without any other due process around that?

Are there any consequences, either positive or negative, that we should be aware of?

I think it's always important to reinforce the need for the rule of law. Unlike other countries, we have a democracy that is based on the rule of law and we need to let that process flow, and that means having investigations that are confidential. If they do warrant prosecution, prosecutions are made in a court process. Certainly, we need to have confidence that the institutions we have set up to operate under the rule of law are doing their job, but we should not substitute ourselves for the various institutions.

It's important to raise awareness of this issue, and I think the work of this committee is assisting in raising awareness, but we also have to let the rules operate as they should.

The report you issued on the 43rd and 44th general elections—I believe that was in June, but you can correct me if I'm wrong about that—is called “Meeting New Challenges: Recommendations from the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada following the 43rd and 44th General Elections”. I think there is one specific reference to foreign interference in section 4.2, “Broadening the Scope of Existing Prohibitions”.

Could you elaborate on that particular section of your report for the committee and speak specifically about what you believe undertaking what you recommend would do to help prevent foreign interference in Canadian elections?

(1230)

Madam Chair, this was a provision that was enacted in 2019 and that applies extraterritorially. It targets a range of measures that are designated under the Canada Elections Act as exerting undue influence.

This provision, unlike other provisions, applies only during the election period. Of course, I do believe that it needs to be extended beyond that. In my recommendations report, I recommend that at the very least it go through the regulated pre-writ period, but the committee may also consider, in fact, expanding it at all times.

This is one recommendation that is specifically on foreign interference. As I said in my prior appearance, foreign interference is conducted in a range of ways, so there are specific aspects of the legislation that are useful although they do not pertain specifically to foreign interference. Whether it's disinformation or impersonation of candidates, that is an illustration.

The Chair:

Thank you.

I wanted you to be able to complete your thought, but I can't be too lenient.

With that, I appreciate it.

[Translation]

Mr. Berthold, the floor is yours for five minutes.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Perrault, thank you very much for being with us today.

We are here because a Global News article revealed that a foreign underground network allegedly funded 11 candidates' election campaigns, which may have affected the outcome of some elections.

The Chief Electoral Officer is appointed directly by the Parliament. Therefore, you are the representative appointed by Canadians and elected officials to ensure that elections are well-run in Canada. I have reviewed your mandate, part of which is to “monitor compliance with electoral legislation”. In addition, your values include “continuously earning and maintaining the public's trust”.

What does it take for the Chief Electoral Officer, who is responsible for the electoral process in Canada, to come to the conclusion that an election was influenced by foreign interference?

It certainly takes more than a newspaper article. Again, I have a lot of respect for journalists, but I can't rely on a newspaper article.

By the way, the issue involved many implications, but none of that was confirmed by this article. First, it is not clear whether the money was used for the candidates' campaigns. The article does not say so. Even if you believe the article, you don't know whom the money went to or what it was used for. Essentially, we're talking about what I would call attempts at bribery or buying influence. Those are not necessarily attempts to influence the election.

Let's set aside that article.

The Chief Electoral Officer must, at some point, report and certify the result of the election by stating that it was conducted properly and that there was no foreign influence.

At what point will the Chief Electoral Officer say he has concerns? How many ridings must be targeted, how many allegations and investigations must there be before the Chief Electoral Officer says that he has concerns and that there is a possibility that the outcome of some elections may have been influenced by foreign interference activities?

After each election, I submit a report to Parliament, which is discussed in this committee. If I have any concerns about the fairness of the election, I will never hesitate to report them. If you read my report on the last election, you will see that I was very transparent about what worked well and what didn't. At that time, there was no specific indication to me that there was foreign interference, and this is still the case. I was aware of the risks, however, and my job is to work with the parties and with national security agency partners to make participants aware of the risks.

The mechanics of the act are followed: I report to the committee and convey, in a very transparent way, any concerns I may have about the conduct of the election, without necessarily putting a label on what's going on in one, 11, or three ridings.

(1235)

That's my point.

I'm submitting a hypothesis to you, as I really want to know how this works. If you ever found out that there had been foreign interference, which affected the outcome of a campaign in a constituency, would you say that it affected the outcome of the election?

That is a good question.

It is extremely difficult to establish a causal relationship between financial irregularities and the outcome of the election. It's difficult even when it comes to spending. Campaign spending sometimes exceeds the set limit. Yet, it is extremely difficult to draw a conclusion on how overspending may have impacted the results in a particular riding.

There is, however, a mechanism for this: contesting the election. If someone believes that the election results were influenced, there is a mechanism for deciding on the issue.

So when it is publicly stated that there was no foreign influence on the results of the 2019 and 2021 elections, that is a general statement. Based on the information you have, we can't confirm anything; we can't say there was no influence, but we also can't assume that the influence changed the results.

That's exactly right. I think talking about the impact on the results is very speculative. The article in question talks about contributions made to candidates. To me, it's much less about the possibility that it changed the outcome of an election than it is about the fact that people's loyalty was bought.

It could go either way.

Indeed, what the article says is that it could go either way.

I'm not necessarily talking about the article, but more in general terms.

I see my time is now up. It is a shame, because we were on to something interesting.

The Chair:

Would you like to finish what you started to say, Mr. Berthold?

What I want to know is at what point you can say that something happened in a constituency, so that the overall outcome of the election was influenced by a foreign power. At what point does the Chief Electoral Officer consider that he has received enough information, complaints and contestations to say that there was foreign influence, even if it did not change the result of the vote? What does it take for the Chief Electoral Officer to come to such conclusions in his report to Parliament? Let's not forget that, as Chief Electoral Officer, you are the voice of the public.

That's an important question, but it is not my role to say whether or not the election in a particular riding is valid. My role is to report to the committee what I know about the conduct of the election. If a voter believes that the results have been influenced, the mechanism for contesting the results of an election is to go to court. Only a court has the authority to overturn an election. It is not the role of the Chief Electoral Officer to say that. My role is to convey to Canadians, through this committee, what happened in an election, what went right and what went wrong.

The Chair:

Thank you very much.

Ms. Sahota, you have the floor.

[English]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Chief Electoral Officer, for your presence here today.

My first question is regarding the recommendations you were just talking about. Through many Parliaments, you've been coming before this committee and making recommendations after an election. You made recent recommendations about foreign interference and financing rules that should be changed.

Were these recommendations made from a precautionary perspective, or were they based on some examples that you can give this committee of things you've learned through your partner agencies?

There's a long list of recommendations, so it's difficult to provide a blanket answer. For example, as we go through applying the law, we sometimes find that it is inadequate to deal with certain circumstances.

Here we're talking about contributions. In my recommendations report, I made some recommendations to better ensure the transparency of the source of money. Right now there are rules against cash contributions that are more than $20. It's not allowed. However, there are no rules against prepaid credit cards. That was a matter of debate during a recent leadership race. I took well note of that and I agreed, in my mind, that this needs to be addressed.

Also, in my report we talk about cryptocurrencies. We haven't seen any use of cryptocurrencies to fund elections in Canada, but they are used to a growing extent in the United States. What are the rules that apply? We have guidance on that, based on the existing rules, but I do not feel that the existing rules provide sufficient transparency for those contributions.

There are things that we are looking at, and that I'm looking at, in this recommendations report that are not specifically about foreign interference, but that may be of assistance in addressing issues of foreign interference, in that case, through contributions.

(1240)

Thank you for that.

There's a saying that I'm fond of, that only a fool learns from their own mistakes. It's good to see that you are looking to other jurisdictions and other countries and learning from them, so we do not step into something that could be problematic.

You mentioned that Canadians should have confidence in their institutions. You are one of our finest institutions. I was wondering if you could elaborate on how Elections Canada can communicate to Canadians and continue their confidence in your institution.

I know many questions have been raised about what the threshold is. What would you do if there was an incident? The commissioner would investigate. What would that look like? You said that the investigation could be made public, but it might be private.

Could you walk us through a bit of that so Canadians can have that confidence?

I think an important role of Elections Canada is explaining the rules and the process. That's something that we take to heart. In the last election, for example, there were concerns about mail-in voting in light of the American experience. We were very deliberate in explaining every step of the controls and making sure that we were quite transparent and that Canadians could see what controls were in place.

Of course, we don't reach everybody. Not everybody looks at our website, but we have media and other partners to facilitate conversations about the security of our elections.

When anybody has specific information regarding non-compliance with the act, they should not hesitate to contact either my office or the commissioner. If it's my office, I will pass it on to the commissioner. Her mandate is to examine whether, in her judgment, this warrants a review or an investigation and to take appropriate steps to follow through on that. That may lead to a range of penalties, going from administrative monetary penalties all the way to criminal prosecutions. When those penalties are applied or the prosecutions take place, it is public.

That provides a degree of transparency at the end of the day on what took place during an election.

You referenced earlier that we should be very careful about what is said or spoken about in the media or in Parliament, even.

Why is it that you say that? What is your fear about some of these articles that are being published?

I want to be prudent to not draw conclusions from information that is not demonstrated. Again, I want to show no disrespect in any way to the media outlets and the journalists, but in my capacity, and, certainly, other institutions that are involved in securing the election, we can't draw conclusions from just news reports.

What would happen if we were to draw those conclusions?

We would risk discrediting the electoral process in situations that are not warranted. However, even in this case, even if we accept at face value what is said, we don't know which are the districts, what are the amounts of money and whether they went to the campaigns or to the pockets of the candidates.

Is this a corruption of individuals, or is it an attempt to support a campaign? We don't know any of that, so it's premature. Even if we accept those as facts, it's premature to draw conclusions. There are not enough facts at this point.

The Chair:

Thank you.

[Translation]

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to put all my thoughts together. We were discussing increased transparency and legislation to enhance our capacity to target any possible attempts at corruption and influence. My understanding is that there are a lot of things to consider when we get the opportunity to ask the commissioner some questions.

At the moment, it's difficult to really be sure about anything, because we can't prove anything. An investigation is needed and it's complicated. I may be wrong, but in addition to being much more vigilant, haven't we got to the point of having to look at the situation under the Lobbying Act and the Conflict of Interest Act? We've come a long way.

Voters, for whatever party they may support, as we were saying this morning, want to have more confidence in the system. I'd like you to reassure me on that score. Have you any suggestions to make? We could begin by reviewing Canada's privacy rules, which are clearly inadequate. Only yesterday, I was with the president of Estonia. We could learn from Estonia on that score.

What would you suggest? If you run out of time, I'd like to receive a report from you about this.

(1245)

I would like us to pay attention to it here. I make recommendations about the Canada Elections Act, and I'm going to continue to do so. With support for these recommendations we can then amend the act.

Some measures could indeed go farther. I'll give you an example. I'm talking about potentially illegal contributions. Normally, every candidate submits a report that includes a list of their contributors, and everything is reviewed by my office; so how can such contributions be made? If that kind of money is coming in, it means that it's either cash, which is illegal beyond a certain amount, and if so it would require an investigation, or through prepaid credit cards, which I have recommended be eliminated, or through fake identities, a well-known problem.

Quebec has in fact adopted rules that are more strict than at the federal level. Employer names are requested so that several contributions from a given employer can be identified. That's not mentioned in my recommendations report, but the committee members may be interested in that. And don't think that I'm assuming the employer in this instance is the Embassy of China. The bottom line is that there are ways of improving the system.

Allow me to repeat that my role is to talk about the Canada Elections Act, and not other regimes that may be relevant with respect to instances of corruption.

Thank you very much.

The Chair:

Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau.

Mr. Blaikie, please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Perrault has already dealt with the issues I was going to ask about. I will therefore ask him to simply continue to talk to us about the recommendations made in section 4.2 of his June report.

If there are other ways to come up with legislation that would reduce the possibility of election interference, I'd like him to tell us about them.

My report contains another recommendation about the transparency of third-party funding which includes the issue of third-party foreign funding. We discussed this the last time I appeared before the committee.

Currently, third parties can neither receive nor use foreign contributions. It's important to note that a third party is any individual or group that is not a candidate or a political party. Third parties have a life outside of elections and have sources of income that can be commercial or consist of contributions received for general purposes to serve the causes they defend. So if third parties decide to get involved in an election, the funds they use are considered under the act to be their own, even when they come from abroad originally. That raises an issue of transparency and possibly of foreign financing.

What I recommend is that the possibility of requiring groups that receive a certain threshold of funding in the form of contributions to be limited, for the purposes of activities regulated by the Canada Elections Act, to using contributions from a bank account containing donations only from eligible Canadian donors under the act. Groups that do not receive contributions and have commercial revenue, can continue to use their own revenue.

This is an option I suggested to the committee to deal with the issue of third-party funding, including potential foreign funding.

Thank you very much, Mr. Perrault.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair:

Thank you, Mr. Blaikie.

Mr. Nater, you have the floor.

[English]

Mr. John Nater (Perth—Wellington, CPC):

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I get Mr. Blaikie's extra time as well.

Mr. Perrault, I want to start off by asking a follow-up question.

When you are made aware during a writ period of information of wrongdoing or potential wrongdoing, at what point would you think it's sufficient enough to make the public aware of the threat of foreign interference during a writ period?

That is, Madam Chair, I think, a highly theoretical question in the sense that, typically, financial violations do not come to light during an election period. I've never seen a situation where that occurred.

Again, we have a system guided by the rule of law. If I believe I have evidence that there was an illegal contribution or any violation of the act, my role is to refer that to the commissioner. Until the commissioner completes her investigation, I think it's premature for me to speak to any particular violation.

(1250)

Thank you for that.

In going back to your opening comments, you flagged, as you have in the past, concerns that were raised prior to the 2019 election about the risks of foreign interference. That was your first election as Chief Electoral Officer, but you had been involved with the organization for a number of years prior to that. I'm curious about what changed between 2015 and 2019, from your perspective, that flagged that risk more clearly for 2019 versus previous elections.

The answer is that it was very clear after the 2016 presidential election in the U.S. After that election, I believe in January or February, I did meet with the Privy Council Office. I did reach out to the Communications Security Establishment to start preparing for our election, because I realized that things had changed.

The concerns we had in the past around disruptions to the elections were more about natural disasters or policing matters, but then they were of a different nature.

I think I was not the only one to draw that conclusion. We saw a number of actions taken by the panel that was put in place. Different players reacted to that, but I think that was very clearly the starting point.

Now, with the benefit of 2019 and 2021 and looking forward to the 2020-something election, where do you see the biggest risk from foreign actors? Going forward, where do you see the biggest risk?

I think that's a very good question for CSIS. I take my information in that regard from CSIS, and we will continue to meet.

So far, what we know on our side is very much what was said in the public report of CSIS prior to the 2021 election. It may evolve over time. I have no reason to doubt that we'll keep sharing information as we prepare for the election.

Thank you, Mr. Perrault.

Madam Chair, I'll turn it over to Mr. Cooper.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Perrault, through you, Madam Chair, I know you cannot speak to the contents of the Global News report, but I'll put to you a hypothetical based on that report.

If there were $250,000 that were directed by a foreign consulate through proxies and then funnelled into campaigns of federal candidates, first of all, would you agree that it would violate multiple sections of the Canada Elections Act?

Absolutely.

Among the sections in that hypothetical that could be violated would be section 363 prohibiting foreign money to candidates; section 367 pertaining to the maximum contribution limit of $1,500 per person; section 368 prohibiting any person or entity from circumventing or attempting to circumvent the prohibition of foreign money and the maximum contribution limit as well as concealing or attempting to conceal the identity of the source of a contribution or acting in collusion with another person or entity for that purpose; and section 370, which prohibits indirect contributions where the source of money comes from another person or entity.

Would you agree that all of those sections could be implemented?

On the face of it, under your hypothetical, yes.

We often hear the assertion that the overall election was free and fair. Just because the overall election is free and fair, I would ask if you could clarify that it doesn't negate the possibility there could be interference or could be instances of illegal activity. There could be instances of violations of the Canada Elections Act that would not impact the overall integrity of an election. Do you concur?

Madam Chair, in every election there are signs that are unfortunately destroyed. There are all kinds of irregularities that take place, but that does not negate the overall fairness of the election. It doesn't mean that these behaviours are right or that they're fair, but there's quite a difference between seeing illegal behaviour and drawing inferences regarding the results of the election.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Mr. Fergus, you have five minutes.

(1255)

[Translation]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd also like to thank Mr. Perrault for his presentation.

Mr. Perrault, you are the fourth chief electoral officer that I have had the privilege of meeting in my lifetime, after Mr. Hamel, Mr. Kingsley and Mr. Mayrand. We have a fine and long-standing tradition in Canada.

I would just like to confirm that you believe Canada has some of the best mechanisms and regulations in the world for the proper conduct of elections.

I think, generally speaking, that Canada has an excellent regime.

One of the things that makes it excellent is that it is reviewed on a regular basis. Not only that, but this committee plays an important role. After every election, the chief electoral officer prepares reports, learns lessons from the election and makes recommendations about changes to the act. My predecessors did so, as I have in turn. These recommendations are then very seriously examined by the committee. There is a solid tradition of conducting these examinations in a non-partisan manner. The fact that we strive to improve the electoral process in a non-partisan manner contributes enormously to the credibility of the Canadian regime.

I would imagine that if we had to start over from scratch, you too would establish a federal elections commissioner position and a chief electoral officer position, to ensure that irreproachable and non-partisan people organize elections in Canada; is that right?

One of the features that makes our system so solid is that we have an elections administration that is independent from the government, and headed by a chief electoral officer appointed by the House of Commons. This is not something you see everywhere around the world and it's an important aspect.

Yesterday evening, when I read the notes you provided, I saw that you did not want to take a position on this question today because you did not have all the facts and could not could not draw conclusions based on a Global News report. Why is that?

[English]

Process matters.

[Translation]

That's simply all I would say about it.

It's important to follow the procedures in place. We're talking here about potentially very serious violations of the act that would be very damaging to elections. We therefore need to take the time to ensure that the evidence is known and reviewed, and that the process is followed. This includes ensuring the independence of the commissioner, who would conduct her investigations with all of the tools available to her, without any interference. You have to look carefully before drawing conclusions.

They are nevertheless serious allegations, and I take what's in the report seriously, as do all other parliamentarians, I believe. I would even go so far as to say that the vast majority of people who actually actually put their name on a ballot take it seriously, whether or not they have a good chance of winning in their riding. Is that your point of view also?

Definitely. When candidates decide to run, something that you've done several times, we send them a letter reminding them of the importance of complying with the act. We send them a message about maintaining the reputation of candidates and the electoral process. They are also reminded that if they have any concerns or see anything that doesn't appear to be consistent with the act, they should report it to Elections Canada or to the office of the commissioner of Canada Elections. All participants have a role to play and I don't have the impression that our system is corrupt.

What message can you send out to ordinary people listening to us talk about the Global News report? Do you take it seriously. Does the commissioner of Canada Elections take it seriously? Are you looking into the allegations made in this report?

The Chair (Hon. Bardish Chagger (Waterloo, Lib.)):

All the participants are taking it seriously. I have no reason to doubt it.

As I said in my opening address, the national security organizations we have been talking about were very much aware of issues of this kind prior to the election. They kept us informed accordingly, and we in turn transmitted relevant information to the political parties. The then commissioner also took the matter seriously. The current commissioner even wrote to the committee, and I think she stated very clearly that she took it seriously.

The message people need to receive is that we have institutions that are working properly and that we need to let them do their work.

(1300)

The Chair:

Thank you very much, Mr. Fergus.

[English]

On behalf of PROC committee members, I would like to thank you, Mr. Perrault, for your time today and for the discourse and information you've shared.

As always, should you wish to share any information, including what was referenced earlier on the list, please do send it to the clerk and we'll have it circulated to committee members.

With that, I wish you and your team a good day. Keep up the good work.

Thank you. Have a good day, everyone.

Transcript of Study Meeting #4 (December 13, 2022)

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

NUMBER 047

1st SESSION

44th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2022

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

(1205)

[English]

I want to get us on our way for our second hour. I want to start by really thanking Minister Joly and Minister LeBlanc.

I know it was really tough to get your schedules to work for you to be here today, but I want you to know that it is noted and it is appreciated by all committee members.

Minister LeBlanc, I will let you introduce the people who are with you, and we'll keep the opening comments to five minutes. For the purposes of committee members, I will remind everyone that all comments will be made through the chair. I will also remind everyone about the conversation we've been having with regard to interpretation and only one person speaking at a time. If the question is posed or the comment is made, then we want to provide adequate time for it to be responded to. I think I have demonstrated that I will always provide time for good, important conversations, since this is such an important topic that we are dealing with.

We will now start with Minister LeBlanc for five minutes.

Welcome, Minister.

Hon. Dominic LeBlanc (Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities):

Madam Chair, thank you.

Colleagues, thank you for your invitation. I'm obviously very happy to be here with my colleague, Mélanie Joly, but I'm accompanied in my capacity as minister responsible for democratic institutions by somebody you know well. Al Sutherland is the assistant secretary to the cabinet for the machinery of government—it's an impressive title—and democratic institutions.

[Translation]

Working to preserve the integrity of our elections is essential to maintaining the legitimacy and credibility of Canada's democratic processes.

[English]

Foreign interference in Canada's elections is obviously not acceptable, but let me be very clear that Canada's elections are free and fair, and the non-partisan national security experts who oversee threats to elections are confident in the results of these elections.

As a world leader in various economic, technological and research sectors, Canada has always been subject to foreign interference activities.

[Translation]

That's why, at a time when many democracies have already faced foreign interference, it remains important for Canada to prepare for this evolving threat. We have done so through a wide range of innovative measures to combat these complex threats.

Canada led the way among its international partners by developing the plan to protect Canada's democracy, announced in early 2019. This strategy has four distinct areas of action.

[English]

The first part of our plan, as you know, focuses on citizen resilience through preparedness and prevention, by enhancing digital media literacy. Since 2000 we have reached more than 12 million Canadians under the digital citizen initiative, through projects that help people to recognize fraud, disinformation and manipulation when they see them online.

The second part of our plan focuses on improving our government's ability to identify threats, emerging tactics and vulnerabilities in our systems. Under these measures, we've worked for the first time to provide security clearance to representatives from each of Canada's major political parties to make sure they are able to protect their organizations, their candidates and ultimately our democracy.

As I have said in the House of Commons a number of times, we also created the critical election incident public protocol to make sure a non-partisan panel is in place during the caretaker period, the election period, to inform Canadians quickly and effectively of any incidents that threaten Canada's ability to have a free and fair election. We established the security and intelligence threats to elections task force to support the work of this important panel.

[Translation]

Third, as a global challenge, the fight against foreign interference requires international cooperation. In this regard, Canada has also been active internationally, leading the creation of the G7 rapid response mechanism, which established a coordinated approach with our allies to respond to foreign threats to democracy.

The fourth point in our plan combines awareness and action by increasing transparency, authenticity and integrity on social media platforms. In May 2019, we released Canada's declaration on electoral integrity online. The declaration was updated in June 2021 and is supported by many platforms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Google, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn.

[English]

Canada's plan acknowledges that foreign interference and disinformation challenges are too complex and too relentless for any one actor to tackle them alone.

Observers routinely commend Canada for the high levels of integrity in our federal elections. In no small part, this is a result of Canada's electoral law, including amendments passed through the Elections Modernization Act, which took into account, of course, colleagues, recommendations made by this committee in previous Parliaments.

The result is that our law, including our political financing regime and Elections Canada itself, is regarded as one of the most thorough in the world.

[Translation]

As a government, we are continuing to improve the measures put in place, because the threats to our democracy continue to evolve, and Canada must be prepared.

This concludes my remarks, Madam Chair.

Thank you again.

The Chair:

It's us who thank you for being with us today.

Ms. Joly, you have five minutes.

Hon. Mélanie Joly (Minister of Foreign Affairs):

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[English]

Madam Chair and members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be before you today. I want to thank you for the invitation to discuss foreign interference and, in particular, for examining the matter of foreign interference in Canada's federal elections.

We all know the world is at a critical time. The world's power structures are shifting. Democratic systems are under threat and, in some cases, under attack. We know Canada is not immune, particularly given the realities of our interconnected world. The reality is that we can't take anything for granted, and that includes being vigilant in protecting our own democracy.

(1210)

[Translation]

Reports of Chinese foreign interference in the 2019 election are deeply troubling. Obviously, we take these allegations very seriously. I will talk more about China in a moment.

I would like to begin by saying that protecting our democracy from any form of interference is a priority for our government. We will never accept foreign interference in our democracy in any form, period.

It is our duty to ensure that our elections are always legitimate, credible and reliable. That's why we have adopted a government-wide strategy to address threats to Canada's electoral integrity and sovereignty. In fact, my colleague Mr. LeBlanc talked about this a little earlier. It's a simple, clear and impartial process for informing Canadians of any threat to an election after it has been called. A federal group called the “P5”, made up of experts in national security, foreign affairs, elections and law, is tasked with this process.

In addition, a working group on security and intelligence threats to elections supports the “P5”. This is another important part of this plan.

We have also put in place Canada's rapid response mechanism, or RRM, which is responsible for identifying signs of foreign interference and coordinating information sharing and response within the G7 on foreign threats to democracy.

During the last federal election, Canada's rapid response mechanism group organized training on foreign interference for departments and agencies. It also provided briefings on threats to senior government officials, political parties and the media.

I would now like to talk about the disinformation and interference campaigns led by Russia and China.

[English]

While Canada has not been a primary target of Russian disinformation in recent years, Russia has long used disinformation and propaganda to advance its objectives. This is well known, as are the Kremlin's tactics of creating polarization narratives aimed at undermining trust and social cohesion in the west. Canada continues to work with international partners to monitor and share information on the tactics used by Russia, particularly related to disinformation campaigns.

In recognition of the importance of this work, this past summer the Prime Minister announced the expansion of the rapid response mechanism to include a dedicated team to focus on Russian disinformation as part of Canada's strategy in eastern Europe and the Caucasus.

China shows growing sophistication in carrying out online campaigns to influence Canadians and people worldwide. Beijing can quickly saturate social media platforms with messaging, but it is also nimble enough to microtarget anglophone, francophone and Chinese-speaking audiences in Canada. China is considered by some as being best able to spread its influence online now that social media companies have curtailed Russian-aligned accounts and activities in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

Last month I raised the matter of alleged Chinese foreign interference with my Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the margins of the G20. I said to him directly that Canada will not tolerate any form of foreign interference in Canada.

As I said recently when launching Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy, we will do more to tackle foreign interference and disinformation. The strategy recognizes China's growing influence globally. It states that domestically, Canada's approach to China will include strengthening the defence of Canadian infrastructure and democracy against foreign interference. That includes interference in our elections.

Let me stop here for now, Madam Chair. I'll be pleased to take your questions.

[Translation]

Thank you very much.

[English]

The Chair:

That's excellent. Thank you so much.

We will start with six-minute rounds, starting with Mr. Cooper, followed by Mr. Turnbull.

[Translation]

It will then be Ms. Gaudreau's turn, then Ms. Blaney.

[English]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and through you, thank you to the ministers for being here.

Ministers Joly and LeBlanc, were you briefed earlier this year, or did you receive memos, about interference by Beijing in the 2019 election?

(1215)

Madam Chair, through you to Mr. Cooper, yes, I received updates, as have a number of implicated ministers, from our security and intelligence officials, as part of the routine responsibilities. I have participated in some of these discussions. It's not frequent, but certainly it's something I would be updated on by security and intelligence officials in the government.

As for foreign interference in the 2019 elections, I did not have any information in that regard. I think you've heard the Prime Minister about this. He had no information in that regard either. Jody Thomas of the NSIA specifically stated before all of you that “we've not seen money going to 11 candidates, period”.

That would be my answer to the—

Thank you for that.

Through you, Madam Chair, to Minister LeBlanc, you indicated you have been briefed more than once. Can you elaborate on what you know and what you were briefed about, specifically with respect to interference in the 2019 election by Beijing?

Madam Chair, as the Prime Minister indicated in the House of Commons, our ability to discuss publicly the details of those national security briefings is understandably limited. That was true of predecessor governments, including the Conservative government that was in office before us.

Again, the Prime Minister, in his answers in question period and in various media interviews that I have seen—

My time is limited, Minister. I'll put the question this way: Did Beijing interfere in the 2019 and 2021 elections, yes or no?

Madam Chair, I think that both Mélanie Joly and I have said that the Chinese government regularly attempts to interfere in various aspects of Canadian society. Elections would not be excluded from some of their efforts. The good news is that we have a robust security apparatus that follows these threats, that intervenes.

To me, the most reassuring news is that the experts who are empowered to do this work have confirmed that none of these attempts to interfere have constituted, in any way, something that would have had an adverse effect on the election results and the election outcomes.

On the overall—

Mr. David Morrison (Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development):

If I can add to that, you heard Jody Thomas about this and you heard the Prime Minister. I think my deputy minister David Morrison could maybe add to that.

I'll happily add to it.

Before I was deputy minister, I was acting national security adviser through the most recent election. I was also acting national security adviser in the period after the 2019 election. There is, as has already been said, a kind of baseline level of foreign interference or attempted foreign interference at all times that we need to be vigilant on.

My experience as national security adviser in those key periods was that there was no spike in foreign interference, that I'm aware of, in either the 2019 election or the 2021 election.

In the production we received from PCO, there is a report entitled “Daily Foreign Intelligence Brief, 21 February, 2020”. It speaks to a subtle but effective interference network. It says, “Investigations into activities linked to the Canadian federal election in 2019, reveal an active foreign interference...network”.

Can you speak to that foreign interference network?

Madam Chair, I am not familiar with that specific report, but I certainly take at face value what our colleague has quoted. I think it just confirms what the deputy minister of foreign affairs has just said: that there is, at various times, an active effort, not only from that country.

As Mélanie Joly just said, there are other actors that are also involved in this space, but the government has taken the necessary steps to protect democratic institutions, and we believe that has been successful.

(1220)

Are you aware of an active foreign interference network in the 2019 election by Beijing?

I think, as I said in my comments—

It's tough to believe you wouldn't be.

An hon. member: Point of order—

The Chair:

This is what's not fun. All that happens is we end up having points of order and we take away time, which means there's less time for questions. Whenever there is an action, there is a reaction. I suggest, as per my opening comments, that one person speak at a time.

Mr. Cooper, as I've demonstrated in the past, if you have a good line of questions, then I'll give you a bit of time. I think you want to ask good questions and make comments.

We've invited these ministers to be here because they have insights to share. We can let him respond. Is that okay? That's excellent.

Minister, you have the floor.

Madam Chair, through you, as we've said consistently—and the Prime Minister has repeated—we are aware, as I think Mr. Morrison said, of a baseline level of attempts from a number of foreign actors to interfere not only in the electoral context but in other economic contexts as well. We're not naive about the threat this represents.

The good news, Madam Chair, is that the government has taken robust and unique steps that didn't exist when previous governments were in office to combat exactly this legitimate concern of Mr. Cooper's that's shared by the government.

The Chair:

Mr. Cooper, we'll have your final question.

Well, I just note that it was specifically an active foreign interference network as it pertains to the CCP.

Well, you've asked me the question regarding any form of information I would have regarding the 2019 election or even the 2021 election, and I can confirm to you that I have no information regarding this particular issue.

Of course, my comment regarding foreign interference in general is that we have a principled approach. We don't tolerate it, period.

The Chair:

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Turnbull, six minutes go to you.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks to our ministers and their officials for being here today with us on this important topic. We all approach it with a great degree of concern and a sense of duty and responsibility.

Minister LeBlanc, maybe I'll start with you, with a few quick questions.

Did foreign election interference start becoming a concern in 2019?

Madam Chair, Mr. Turnbull raises a question. The government took positive steps after assuming office, as we've indicated, with respect to the 2019 general election. I don't have information that exists of security briefings that would have covered previous periods, but it would be naive to think that this foreign interference suddenly started after 2015.

The tactics, as colleagues have said, are more sophisticated. Some people...I think my colleague Madame Joly indicated they get emboldened, some actors, but I don't think this is a new phenomenon.

Maybe she wants to add something.

I think the difference over the years in terms of foreign interference is actually the question of disinformation online, and what happened over the last year is definitely the fact that we all use social media and all of our citizens are on social media, so how we tackle the issue of disinformation online is extremely important for our democracy, but it is an issue that we are not facing alone. We are facing this issue as our allies and partners are facing that same issue—definitely the Americans and definitely the Europeans and other democracies in the world.

Bearing that in mind, what we decided to do recently, on the margins of the General Assembly of the UN, is to launch a first disinformation online.... We will work to make a declaration on this issue, along with the Netherlands. We hope we can come up with this new declaration, which would be creating the foundation for international law when it comes to disinformation online.

Thank you for that.

Minister LeBlanc, we've heard assertions from time to time in the House and in this committee that somehow the government has neglected to implement measures to prevent foreign interference in our elections. I think that's contrary to the truth, as far as I understand.

Do you have any documentation or perhaps an overview or an outline of the progress we've made since 2015?

(1225)

Madam Chair, Mr. Turnbull's question is a very good one. I have before me something the Privy Council Office has prepared. It's on measures to combat foreign interference in elections. It's a 10-year review. It summarizes what I think are many of the innovative and effective actions our government has taken, starting in the 2016-17 period.

It also shows what existed before 2016, when, as we've said, the threats were somehow not present. There was the establishment of the rapid response mechanism, which came out of the G7 summit, for example, in Charlevoix; and some of the work that was done around the Paris Call for Trust and Security in Cyberspace; and obviously the “protecting democracy” plan of 2019, which I referred to earlier, around citizen preparedness, and setting up a panel—

Mr. LeBlanc, I apologize—

If it's okay, Madam Chair—I just asked Mr. Sutherland—I'd be happy to make available to the committee this particular chart. I'll make sure, obviously, that we have it in both official languages, and I will follow up and table that with the chair. Happily, I think it sets out a rather compelling answer to your very good question.

Thank you, and I appreciate that. If that could be tabled with the committee, that would be very helpful.

We got a package of documents, as well, Minister LeBlanc, from NSIA. It's the branch package, and on page 9—and I want to read this into the record because I think it's pretty important—with regard to political parties, it says this:

In accordance with the Protocol, cleared members of the political parties also received routine threat updates. We received positive feedback by the parties on this experience, most notably from the [Conservative Party of Canada].

It actually says “CPC”. What's interesting about this is that I keep hearing this narrative coming from the official opposition that somehow this is a revelation to them, that at this moment in time they're concerned about election interference, when in fact it seems as though they've been briefed on these credible threats from time to time, quite regularly.

Could either of the ministers speak to that and how regularly that happens?

Very briefly, Madam Chair, I can speak to exactly what Mr. Turnbull said. We thought it was important for major political parties to be security-cleared and to have access to this information. This is about protecting our democracy and ensuring that important political institutions in our democracy, like the Conservative Party of Canada, have access to this information and can take the necessary steps to protect their own infrastructure in the political space.

It's also important that the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, which includes members, obviously, of this House and of the other place, also be briefed by intelligence officials, and we think it's important that they, too, be kept up to date as part of ensuring that everybody has a line of sight on the very robust measures, Mr. Turnbull, that you referred to that our government is taking.

Perhaps Mélanie has a brief comment.

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau (Laurentides—Labelle, BQ):

All political parties in the last election were briefed on this issue. Maybe David Morrison, my DM—

The Chair:

I'm sorry, but when you hear the beep, it means time's up. It's really awkward for me to have to do this. I would appreciate it if we could keep things moving.

[Translation]

Ms. Gaudreau, you have six minutes.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for helping us shed light on this. The people listening to us are particularly concerned about disinformation, cyber-attacks and all that.

In the 2019 documents we received from the Privy Council Office, there are various summaries that I would like more explanation on. One is the issue of the panel that was formed. In 2019, it was reported that the expert panel that conducted monitoring activities on a weekly basis did not observe any activity that met the threshold for a public announcement or for the activity to affect Canada's electoral capacity.

I want to focus on the notion of a threshold. I'd like you to clarify that for me. What does it take for a public announcement to be necessary?

(1230)

Madam Chair, I would first like to make a few comments. I know that Ms. Joly will also want to add her comments.

Ms. Gaudreau has just raised an important issue. As we said, there are always people who try to interfere, intervene or meddle in elections. During an election period, the expert panel, chaired by the Clerk of the Privy Council and composed of senior officials of the Minister of Foreign Affairs and other departments and agencies with security responsibilities, has the discretionary power to publicly warn Canadians of interference activities if it deems those activities to reach a certain threshold where it becomes in the public interest to do so. That decision is based entirely on the judgment of that panel. Understandably, in an election context, it isn't up to a minister of an outgoing government to make that kind of decision. We deliberately gave that responsibility to that panel.

These experts assess a series of factors. For example, they determine the reliability of the information, assess the potential for multi-constituency impact and determine whether the activity in question is regional or national. They assess a series of factors, independently of government, and decide whether Canadians should be notified of interference activities.

As we know very well, the good news is that this situation hasn't happened in the last two elections.

Ms. Joly, would you like to add anything in response to Ms. Gaudreau's question?

Certainly.

I'd like to thank Ms. Gaudreau for her question.

We all care about protecting our democracy. It was important for us to set up this system.

Basically, every time there's an election, it's no longer the cabinet and the duly elected government that intervenes. It's the public service that provides the transition during elections.

At the time, the process was put in place because there was a real concern about disinformation online. That's why I mentioned earlier, in response to a question from my colleague Mr. Turnbull, what disinformation campaigns could influence the vote of citizens.

As for the threshold issue, it's left to the discretion of the public service. They are able to make informed decisions based on information from security agencies and publicly available information.

Mr. Morrison, would you like to add anything?

Mr. David Morrison:

Yes, thank you.

As I said before, I was on the panel during the 2021 election, but not during the 2019 election. In a way, we were lucky.

[English]

As I said before, we didn't see a spike, so the issue of the thresholds didn't really come into play.

We certainly had been briefed, and we had done scenario playing. However, in both elections, the panel functioned as designed and didn't have to confront the circumstances of a threshold.

[Translation]

Since I have only one minute left, I'll move quickly. In fact, I'm going to explore the task force a little more.

We were also provided with a summary of lessons learned. We all know that here we have the privilege of having a paper ballot, which helps prevent any kind of situation that could influence the outcome of an election. There is also a lot of talk about transparency and awareness.

I understand that, since 2019, the number of reported foreign interference cases hasn't increased, but what lessons have been learned and what recommendations have been offered? Things are still evolving at a rapid pace when it comes to disinformation and cyber-attacks.

I think you have 30 seconds left to answer my question.

I can give you my point of view, and then my colleague can respond.

In terms of foreign affairs, disinformation is really a concern within the G7, in particular. That's why we set up Canada's rapid response mechanism, or RRM. It's used by other G7 allies. This mechanism checks for trends in online disinformation. I think the issue of online disinformation is a contemporary issue that we need to address. That's why we decided to show leadership and work with the Netherlands on this issue.

(1235)

Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP):

Madam Chair, I'd like to add something to Ms. Joly's response.

Ms. Gaudreau is absolutely right that we need to learn from this. These are new experiences for the government's national security apparatus.

The protocol requires an independent review by an expert. That's why, following the 2019 election, I chose former deputy minister Jim Judd to conduct this review. He submitted his report to the Prime Minister and me. We then forwarded that report to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, which publicly released a version of the lessons learned.

The good news is that the same exercise was initiated after the 2021 election. I have already mandated Morris Rosenberg, a former deputy minister in the Departments of Justice and Foreign Affairs, among others, to do this work. In fact, I'm meeting with him on Friday of this week. If possible, we will share his findings with you, as we should.

The Chair:

Thank you very much.

Ms. Blaney, you have the floor for six minutes.

[English]

Thank you, Chair, and I thank all the witnesses for being here today.

One of the things that's very concerning about the story about the 11 candidates is the fact that it has created a great deal of distrust across Canada in our systems, and that can never be underestimated. I think creating a sense of assurance that the systems work is very important, and I would like to see a bit more of that, because people see these things and they of course have a reaction.

Could you explain what the rationale is for not releasing the names of the individuals who were targeted by foreign interference?

First and foremost, thank you, Rachel, for your question. I think it's really important that we all agree that this should not be a question that is politicized, because at the end of the day, like you mentioned, it's about the trust of Canadians in our institutions and in democracy.

As I mentioned, we don't have information about these 11 candidates. The Prime Minister has mentioned it, his national security adviser.... I, the foreign minister, don't have any information about this.

Of course, we take very seriously this media story, but at the same time, I'm giving you under oath the information I have, which is that I don't have any form of information on this.

In terms of process, were the candidates aware that they were targeted? Do you know that?

Mr. Allen Sutherland (Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet, Machinery of Government and Democratic Institutions, Privy Council Office):

Madam Chair, perhaps Al Sutherland would like to add something, because it's an important question.

Mélanie said it very well. I share Ms. Blaney's view that trust and public confidence are essential. These state actors, these malevolent actors, seek exactly to undermine that trust.

The question is very appropriate. That's why, as much as possible, the actions of the government, and more particularly the national security agencies that are responsible for ensuring that the democratic processes are free and fair, need to be able to assure Canadians that's the case, as did Madam Thomas, the national security adviser to the Prime Minister, and a number of other officials.

Like Madame Joly, I don't have this supposed list of 11 candidates. I have seen that in the media. In my discussions with security officials, people didn't produce lists of these names, but if individual candidates may ex post facto have been the subject of an attempt, I don't know how or if they're informed of that. Maybe Al Sutherland or somebody else has information.

I don't have a list of the 11 either.

What I can say is that as part of the 2019 and 2021 elections we engaged primarily with campaign chairs and chief information officers for the major parties. I have to say I was very pleased with the level of engagement we had with the parties. It was clear that partisanship was left at the door, and we had a seriousness of intent that I think was admirable.

The sorts of meetings we had were used to raise the issues around technology, because a lot of this is cyber-enabled, so for each of the parties we were laying out issues around technology requirements and the kinds of weaknesses and the simple things you've also heard about as part of your briefings with CSE—two-factor authentication and those sorts of things. Then there were also specific briefings by the RCMP, by CSIS and by CSE in kind of laying out the state of issues.

I would say this was an experiment in 2019. We did it again in 2021, and I would say it exceeded our expectations because of the seriousness with which each of the parties took it. It was, I think, a very helpful part of the protecting elections protocol. It meant that we created.... Because everyone was security-cleared, we could give secret briefings. It created an information link, so that if parties had issues, they could come to us and raise them with us one on one, as well as in a group setting.

(1240)

Thank you for that.

I guess my next question is specifically around consultation with the parties. I read about it in some of the information.

I'm just wondering if a candidate of a particular party was targeted specifically. I know you can't give details, but what was the process of letting the parties know? Was it something you talked about individually with parties if their particular candidate was identified? Was it something that was shared with all parties, not giving, maybe, the detailed facts? Were they alerted to that?

Your question has a hypothetical aspect to it, so let me take it as a hypothetical.

If it related to a specific party, it was a discussion that would be had with the party. They could, of course, raise it in forum at the meetings, but they were not required to. If they had an issue, they could come to us. If we had an issue the other way, we could come to them.

Madam Chair, I want to make sure I understand Al's answer, because it's important.

The mechanism—and your question, Madam Blaney, is, I think, very appropriate—would probably be this group that was established where Al Sutherland and his colleagues were active participants with designated representatives of the parties. If their particular candidate had a concern about a particular circumstance, it would presumably, in a campaign structure, be raised with the appropriate campaign officials, who would then have access to Mr. Sutherland and other experts in that context.

I suppose, Al, in the same way, there would be a two-way process by which you have security-cleared, designated representatives of all these political parties with whom you and your colleagues could talk should you see a particular incident that required their awareness.

That's correct.

The Chair:

That's excellent. Thank you.

We will now continue with Mr. Berthold.

[Translation]

You have the floor for five minutes.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. LeBlanc and Ms. Joly, thank you for being with us today.

Mr. LeBlanc, I just want to confirm something. You said earlier that you couldn't share with us everything you learned during the briefings because some of the national security information couldn't be disclosed. Is that correct?

This is a long-standing tradition that has been followed by many governments before us, so it won't surprise you at all to know that your statement is absolutely correct.

During these briefings, were you personally informed of any specific instances of foreign interference in our elections by the Chinese communist regime?

As I said in English in response to a question from Mr. Berthold's colleague, these discussions are general. In these discussions, intelligence services inform about the ways in which some foreign actors are trying to interfere, and that is not limited to the electoral context.

As for discussing specific cases in this context, you'll understand that your predecessors under Mr. Harper's government did not discuss them either, because that would have been irresponsible. However, we can assure you that the information provided to the House of Commons by the Prime Minister is absolutely correct.

So we're talking about information that you can't tell us more about.

Ms. Joly, have you been personally informed of any specific incidents in the 2019 or 2021 elections?

(1245)

No.

Ms. Joly, as the Minister of Foreign Affairs, you recently released Canada's Indo-Pacific Strategy, which I have read by the way, despite what you said last week.

Congratulations. I hope you enjoyed reading it.

There's one thing that caught my attention. It's the statement that “Canada will continue to strengthen the defence of our Canadian infrastructure and democracy.

So I assume you've been briefed on foreign interference by the Chinese communist regime in the process of implementing the strategy.

Generally speaking, we know that there are attempts of foreign interference in the country, and—

Have you been informed of any specific cases during briefings?

I would just like to finish my answer. Thank you.

Yes, I sometimes receive briefings on attempts at foreign interference by certain foreign actors. When such cases are brought to my attention, I work with my colleague Mr. Mendicino because our national security agencies have a job to do.

My job thereafter, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, is to raise these situations with the representatives of the foreign states in question to basically tell them that foreign interference is unacceptable in our country. That's what I did last time at the G20 with my counterpart Wang Yi.

As for the 2019 and 2021 elections in particular, as I said, I don't have any information on that. You've also heard from the Prime Minister on this issue.

Madam Chair, the minister also seems to want to speak, but—

The Chair:

Actually, I'm asking members to respect their time, but I'm asking the same thing of the witnesses. If we could get one answer to the short questions, that would be really good.

Perhaps you'll have a chance to respond next time, Mr. LeBlanc.

Mr. Berthold, you have the floor.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I want to stay within the confines of how the committee operates.

So, Madam Minister, you have had briefings. Can you explain to us why the committee didn't receive any briefing notes or other documents from your department on foreign interference in our elections, when it had asked to receive all documents related to foreign interference? Are there no documents from the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development that deal with foreign interference?

As I told you, I don't have any information about foreign interference in our elections.

However, I spoke earlier about disinformation online, which is certainly a form of foreign interference. We have seen several countries, including Russia and China, try to launch online disinformation campaigns that have an impact on our democracy. So we need to do more to counter that. We also have the rapid response mechanism, which identifies these kinds of threats.

So I'll summarize the situation, Madam Minister.

You're the Minister of Foreign Affairs. You developed Canada's Indo-Pacific Strategy and, within your department, you haven't produced a single briefing note on the Beijing regime's interference in our elections or our democratic system. If I look at the documents that were provided to the committee, I see absolutely no information that we received from your department.

Did you talk about—

I can answer the question, Madam Chair.

No, it's not a question.

Madam Chair, can I have a little time for one last question?

The Chair:

You may finish your comment.

There's a lot of talk about the 2019 and 2021 elections and the reports you've done on that. Often, when we look at the facts after the fact, we ask questions to find out exactly what happened. Unfortunately, the answers we have aren't timely. We don't always catch a criminal in the act, Madam Minister. Sometimes things are discovered after the fact.

What we want to know is what you have learned since the 2019 and 2021 elections about this underground network of 11 candidates who allegedly received improper funding.

The Chair:

Thank you, Mr. Berthold.

Please respond quickly, Madam Minister.

I think my colleague is asking us questions that have already been answered.

The answer that the four of us up front can provide is that we don't have any information on the 11 alleged candidate cases. I can't be any clearer about that.

Now, with respect to Canada's Indo-Pacific Strategy, I'm glad you read it. If you go to the end of the document, in the appendices—it's always important to read the appendices as well—you'll see that there's $150 million to support our security agencies to manage the issue of foreign interference.

(1250)

The Chair:

Thank you, Mr. Berthold.

[English]

Ms. Sahota, you have five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Going from where we left off, I keep hearing from Minister Joly and Minister LeBlanc that they have no information as to money going to these candidates. In the recent defence committee meeting that was referenced today, we had Ms. Thomas, who is the Prime Minister's national security adviser, as you know, state that she has “not seen money going to 11 candidates, period”.

Would you agree with that statement? Has that been conveyed to you in your briefings as well?

Like I said, I have no information about the 2019 election, nor 2021, regarding foreign interference. Therefore, I can only relate to Jody Thomas's statement and the Prime Minister's statement.

Madam Sahota, the information I have received from the Privy Council Office and the security agencies is exactly consistent with what Jody Thomas shared at the other committee as well.

My next question is about the briefings in which all parties take part. Different leaders have taken part, and I imagine the democratic reforms minister is informed about them.

Mr. Sutherland, you said there's a lot of co-operation in those meetings. Within those meetings, can you explain what issues have come up? How often have these meetings been happening? I assume they haven't just been happening now, post the 2019 and 2021 elections, because we have been talking about this baseline of interference that we have been aware of as a country for some time now.

Can you elaborate as to how long we have been having these types of briefings and where the discussions have evolved to?

Madam Chair, if you will allow it, Mr. Sutherland—who has direct personal knowledge, having participated in those discussions with political parties—can answer Madam Sahota's question. I also think Deputy Minister Morrison—having been a member of the panel in a previous election, as he indicated—can provide insight into that.

Mélanie and I are obviously not participating in those particular fora, so perhaps Mr. Sutherland and Mr. Morrison could provide very precise answers to a very good question.

For briefings for the political parties, the committee—if I can call it that—occurs during the election time period. It could have them weekly or once every two weeks during the election time period. The briefings are intended to provide information on security steps parties should take, and anything we're seeing in the national security space. That's why you would have briefings from CSE. The RRM came forward and provided a briefing on the ambient level of disinformation, giving a sense of, “Here's what we're seeing, and here's what we're not seeing.”

Parties were invited to ask questions. If they had something that was, perhaps, sensitive to them, we could also have a follow-up discussion, one-on-one.

Who are the party representatives at these meetings?

I'm sorry. I don't have the names right now. Typically, it was the campaign chair, as well as a CIO.

For the Conservatives, it was Walied Soliman. I think it was Anne McGrath. They were both participants.

I'm sorry. It wasn't the campaign chair for the Liberals. I don't recall who it was.

Go ahead, Mr. Morrison.

Mr. David Morrison:

I have very little to add.

Al's group provides the support function. I was one of the briefers. I think we did it once, mid-campaign. What we were able to convey is a version of the answer I've already given.

Foreign interference is an ongoing concern, but we hadn't seen any perceptible spike up to the point of the briefing. That was the case for the rest of the 2021 election.

Would briefings taking place after the 2015 election—just like the ones we're talking about, after 2019 and 2021—have included former prime minister Harper, Prime Minister Trudeau or former minister Pierre Poilievre? At the time, he was the democratic reform minister.

(1255)

I'm not the democratic institutions minister, but I can answer for him, if he likes.

I'm teasing him.

My answer is that there was no process before. We put the first process into place in order to deal with this issue, because we had real concerns. Other democracies in the world had faced issues of foreign interference.

Madam Chair, the answer to the question is that after the 2015 election.... None of these institutional elements were put in place by the Conservative government, so the follow-up, the review and the effort to strengthen.... We also evolved our own measures from 2019 to 2021, based in large part on the report by an expert like Jim Judd—

The Chair:

Thank you—

Those things were strengthened, but they didn't exist before.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Translation]

The Chair:

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

One thing is certain, we all agree that anything that constitutes espionage and foreign interference is a significant threat.

I have in my hands the text from the document entitled “Canada: National Security Outlook 2019”, which summarizes the threats in the context of the Canadian election. What it makes clear is that Canada is an attractive target, given the stance it takes. It also states that efforts to try to influence the election process generally have one of four main objectives. This is where this relates to the one question I am going to ask. One of the objectives of foreign interference would be to undermine the integrity of the electoral process or to cast doubt on its integrity. This is a concern and should be avoided.

My fellow citizens ask me the question: why is it that, despite all the opportunities parliamentarians have to go and gather certain pieces of information, whether it is during oral question time or elsewhere, they are not well aware of what is going on? I would like you to help my fellow citizens understand better, so that they do not lose confidence in our democracy.

We spend weeks gathering information. Is it normal that we are not aware of the whole situation? I'm talking about us, the parliamentarians, but even you, the ministers. Obviously, I will never be a minister, because Bloc Québécois members are not called upon to be ministers. I'm talking about all the parliamentarians in this House.

I thank the member for her question.

Ms. Gaudreau is absolutely right. We fully share the desire of the Bloc Québécois and other parliamentarians to strengthen the public's precious confidence in the integrity and transparency of the electoral process.

We have seen, in other countries not far from here, what can happen if the public lacks confidence in an outcome, a process or a method of counting votes. There are some very disturbing examples that have happened not too far from here, where our government has actually been called upon to intervene.

I know we are running out of time, but I want to remind you of something that is important to us. It is the decision to ask the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, chaired by our colleague Mr. McGuinty, to look into these issues. This committee has had access to this information on a highly confidential basis and can ask follow‑up questions. It places great importance on transparency. I think it is this body that can reassure our citizens. It does its job while respecting national security obligations.

The Chair:

Thank you very much.

I now give the floor to Ms. Blaney.

[English]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to come back because I am really fascinated by the process. I think having that process be clearer to Canadians will help us trust these systems and also be critical where we need to be.

I guess, in terms of process, what I'm trying to understand is whether, when interference is identified, any actions are taken against those who have done the interference. Is it referred on to law enforcement? In that context, as well, are there any legislative gaps that prevent action that need to be fixed?

I guess what I want to say in that last part of the question is that we're hearing clearly what the ministers and the department don't know, but what I don't understand is what you do know and how you look at what is happening to make sure that, legislatively and in terms of all our processes, those things are strengthened as we deal with this increase in foreign interference.

(1300)

I just want to make sure, Rachel, that I understand well your question. Is that for elections or for foreign interference in general?

It's foreign interference in elections.

Do you want to take it?

Again, Madam Chair—and maybe Mr. Sutherland wants to add something—Madam Blaney's question highlights a concern all of us share. This is a new and evolving space for open democracies like Canada's. The intelligence reports that some colleagues have read properly identify Canada as a target for the precise reasons that Madame Gaudreau and others raised.

It contributes to a lack of confidence and a lack of faith in these institutions, which are fundamental to the good governance of any modern democracy. That's why we have a high level of concern about all these allegations. That's why we have taken a series of what we think are responsible and appropriate steps.

We're always looking to strengthen and renew these measures. We evolved them from 2019 to 2021. None of these measures existed previously.

This committee, I know, will produce a report or suggestions for the government that will inform further actions. Madame Joly properly identified international work that we're doing with partners in the G7. Her department received additional funding in previous budgets so that we can have exactly that kind of capacity to learn about best practices from other partner democracies.

The Chair:

Ms. Blaney, do you want to put a quick word in?

One of the parts that wasn't answered was that if there is foreign interference and it's identified, are the people who did it charged, and who takes that on?

It's important to differentiate between just the ambient level that the ministers have discussed, about there always being a base level of foreign interference.... If we were to react to every single one as a government during an election time period, you would conclude that, in fact, you didn't have a legitimate election. That would be wrong; it would be an incorrect impression.

Therefore, what is set out in the cabinet directive, I think, is important: There's a threshold that has to be hit, a level of impact or potential impact. In that case, we have a mechanism in place. It's the critical election incident public protocol panel, a name only a bureaucrat could come up with. If something were to exceed a certain level of impact, the panel of five would be empowered to step forward and explain to Canadians what happened and what they can do to avoid the consequences of it.

The fact that the panel did not step forward in either the 2019 or 2021 elections should give Canadians comfort that in fact, despite this ambient level—and I'd say, as David has, that it's low-level interference—our elections are legitimate and proper, and there isn't—

The Chair:

Thank you. I know it's hard to get quick answers in, but I appreciate the attempt. We've gone over time.

We're really grateful to both ministers and their teams for making this possible.

To finish out the round, we're going to do a quick two minutes with Mr. Cooper, followed by a quick two minutes with Mr. Fergus.

Mr. Cooper.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, through you, Minister LeBlanc keeps hiding behind national security. The advice of CSIS is that when it comes to foreign interference, the policy of the government be “grounded in transparency and sunlight” in order to expose that interference, and that such interference should be brought to the attention of the public. That is the advice CSIS has offered the government. We have seen anything but transparency in the way of answers to some very straightforward questions here today.

Through you, Madam Chair, going back to Minister Joly's saying she has no information, no knowledge of interference by Beijing in the 2019 or 2021 elections, we have a foreign intelligence briefing document from February 21, 2020. It doesn't make an allegation, but it provides an assessment of an effective interference network: “Investigations into activities linked to the Canadian federal election in 2019, reveal an active foreign interference...network” by Beijing.

In the 2021 election, the minister talked about the rapid response mechanism. Analysis from the rapid response mechanism reveals that there was interference by Beijing on social media platforms. In the face of all that, how can the minister claim she doesn't know, that she has no knowledge...? It's simply not credible.

(1305)

Michael, I think there's something that should be made very clear to all of us. We have a shared interest in tackling foreign interference. No single person or party benefits from any form of foreign interference. Obviously, we want to make sure that our democracy works and that the will of the Canadian people is respected in every aspect of the democratic process.

Now, when it comes to foreign interference, we have national security agencies that can investigate. Afterwards, as a country, based on the rule of law, there can be prosecution. Our job is to make sure that work is being done. That's why I will do so, working with the Minister of Public Safety, and make sure also that he has the right resources so that the RCMP can do anything linked to any form of foreign actor trying to negatively influence our democratic process.

At the end of the day, when it comes to disinformation online, this is something on which I would like to be working with all of you. This is a very important issue that all democracies in the world need to tackle.

The Chair:

Mr. Cooper, it will have to be quick.

I'll try one more question to see if we can get an answer.

CSIS documents reveal that politicians and riding associations were targeted by foreign interference. What are the names of those politicians and riding associations?

Thank you, Madam Chair. This question has been answered on multiple occasions. Just because Mr. Cooper wants to participate in some theatrics that are not responsible for Canadian democracy doesn't mean he's going to get an answer that doesn't exist.

The Chair:

We don't want answers that don't exist. We are trying to deal with a very serious issue here, so I appreciate that exchange.

Mr. Fergus, your two minutes have just turned into 3 minutes and 10 seconds, like magic.

We can do ourselves a solid and keep the questions and comments short. The run-on sentences just run on long, and it's—

Madam Chair, it would be the first time it's ever happened in Parliament—no run-on sentences. I've never seen that.

The Chair:

I know. It will be “breaking news”, and that will probably be the headline.

Mr. Fergus, go ahead.

[Translation]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the ministers who have come here today, and the officials who are with them.

My first question is for Mr. LeBlanc.

I was not shocked, but surprised by your comments. As Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, you are responsible for the democratic process. That is part of your mandate. Yet you said that prior to 2015, before this government came to office, there was no robust system to investigate issues of foreign interference in our elections.

Was there really no process in place?

You are unfortunately right, Mr. Fergus.

Prior to the 2015 election, under the Conservative government, there was no system or transparency at all in this regard as there has been since the 2019 general election, which is the one after the election where we succeeded the Conservative government. The protocol is led by the senior officials responsible for the national security agencies. They have a solemn obligation to warn the public when foreign interference activity reaches a threshold where it presents a threat to Canadian democracy.

In the interest of transparency, these items are now publicly available and can be better understood by Canadians, and political parties can participate in briefings. None of this existed before our government was elected in 2015. Of course, I can't speak for Mr. Harper's government. Today, the Conservatives are certainly outraged by these allegations of interference, but when they had the opportunity to put safeguards in place, they fell short and didn't do so.

(1310)

I will use my remaining time to ask a short question of Mr. Sutherland, Mr. Morrison, Ms. Denham or Mr. Epp.

If there was no process, there were certainly threats and incidents of foreign interference in our political system. This was not invented in 2015. Am I right? Why was there no process at least in the Canadian public service?

The Chair:

There are 15 seconds left for a response.

The Chair (Hon. Bardish Chagger (Waterloo, Lib.)):

As my colleague Mr. LeBlanc said, it is unacceptable that no process was put in place earlier to ensure that there is no foreign interference in our elections. We have known for years that there are opportunities for foreign interference, and we must always be careful about that. We must also pay attention to this in any form of political party activity, including leadership contests.

[English]

The Chair:

That's excellent.

With that, Minister Joly, Minister LeBlanc and all the officials, thank you so much for your time today.

Minister LeBlanc, you've been here a few times. I really want to give a shout-out to your team for responding so quickly and making sure you get to come to your favourite committee, that being PROC.

With that, I wish you both the best of the season. Merry Christmas and all that good stuff. We look forward to seeing you again next year.

To all committee members, we'll reach out in 2023. Until then, I wish you the best. I hope you keep well and safe.

There is no meeting on Thursday, because we've been so productive and effective.

Take care. Thank you to all the support teams and all that stuff, too.

Bye for now.

Transcript of Study Meeting #5 (February 7, 2023)

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

NUMBER 050

1st SESSION

44th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2023

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

(1200)

[English]

I call the meeting to order.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to meeting number 50 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The committee is meeting today to continue its study on foreign election interference.

Today we have with us Mr. David Mulroney, Mr. Charles Burton and, on Zoom, Mr. Matthew Johnson from MediaSmarts.

We have made sure that the sound check and those kinds of things have been done.

Charles Burton is the senior fellow of the Centre for Advancing Canada's Interests Abroad at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. David Mulroney is a former ambassador of Canada to the People's Republic of China, and I've mentioned Matthew Johnson, who is the director of education at MediaSmarts.

We will have up to five minutes for opening comments. I will just remind all members and our guests that all comments should be made through the chair.

With that, Mr. Mulroney, you have up to five minutes. Welcome to PROC.

Mr. David Mulroney (Former Ambassador of Canada to the People's Republic of China, As an Individual):

Thank you.

I've travelled to Ottawa today because I believe the topic under discussion, PRC interference in our elections, is an increasingly serious problem and a key component of a broader campaign that threatens our sovereignty and the safety of our citizens. I worry that we have yet to address this threat with the urgency it deserves.

I’ve followed your discussions carefully and have heard some members ask why we are focusing on China. It's because China is a formidable military and economic power that, as a matter of policy, infiltrates and undermines organizations abroad perceived to be a threat to the Communist Party; it's because China is also the focus of concerns about political interference in the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand; it's because I believe that Beijing’s ambitions and capabilities are growing; and it's because many of the victims of PRC interference in Canada are members of Han Chinese, Uighur and Tibetan diaspora communities that Beijing threatens with seeming impunity.

Beijing’s tools include bribery, disinformation, collusion with criminal gangs and the ever-present threat of hostage-taking. It is increasingly sophisticated in its intimidation of elected officials who dare to speak the truth to Canadians.

Here in Canada, Beijing recruits proxies to parrot its talking points; to expand its influence in media, on college campuses and in government; and to launder its illicit financial contributions. The party’s objective is to transform Canada into a compliant country that perpetually looks over its shoulder to be sure what it says and does meets Beijing’s approval and that looks the other way when Beijing’s extraterritorial reach extends into our communities.

Beijing’s objective is a degree of influence—in our democracy, our economy, our foreign policy and even in daily life in some of our communities—beyond the ambitions of any other country. This is furthered by propagation of the falsehood that simply speaking up about PRC interference is itself racist and anti-Chinese.

Beijing’s Canada policy is being advanced aggressively. Although it’s not too late to push back, the longer we delay, the more difficult the task becomes.

I believe we need to do four things.

First, we must understand that China is the primary threat when it comes to foreign interference in Canada. Therefore, our defences, including election security, must be designed to counter techniques favoured by Beijing, such as the use of proxies.

Second, we should therefore act now to create a registry of foreign agents, something that would simply require transparency of those who disburse funds for, lobby for, or speak for foreign states in Canada. We must empower our security agencies and police to identify and bring to justice those who fail to do so. We need to hold current and former elected officials and public servants to higher standards of transparency, accountability and loyalty.

Third, Canadian police need to be more present in diaspora communities, better informed about PRC interference, and be enabled to act if they are to protect people who are being harassed and silenced by the Chinese state here in Canada.

Fourth, we must be prepared to expel Chinese diplomats involved in interference or harassment. Our failure to do so only encourages increasingly brazen meddling. This will trigger retaliation, but we must make it clear that expulsion is the inevitable consequence of such hostile behaviour.

A defining characteristic of a truly sovereign nation is the ability to shield its citizens and its institutions from foreign interference.

Thank you.

(1205)

The Chair:

Thank you.

Mr. Burton, please go ahead.

Dr. Charles Burton (Senior Fellow, Centre for Advancing Canada's Interests Abroad, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual):

Thank you.

I heartily endorse everything that Mr. Mulroney has just said, and I'd like to go on to the serious allegations made in media reports that Chinese diplomats in Canada or other agents of China's Communist Party regime have been complicit in unlawful actions to influence the results of the 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections.

First of all, foreign embassies' expressing of their government's views on Canadian politics and our politicians is consistent with their diplomatic function, although I'd prefer that they didn't do that.

The Canadian embassy to China, on both of my diplomatic postings there earlier in my career, was doing the same sort of thing. I was involved in furthering Canada's foreign policy mandate to promote human rights, democratization and good governance abroad, such as by implementing Canadian government programming to encourage the Government of China to bring China's legislative and judicial system into compliance with the UN's International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including by holding free and fair elections at all levels of the Chinese government.

The difference is that what Canada does in this regard is done openly and transparently, whereas China's approach, as CSIS defines it, is: “purposely covert and malign”, designed to deceptively influence and corrupt Canada's national policies, officials, research institutions and democratic processes.

This is very much in line with the distinctive political culture of the People's Republic of China as it has developed since the party was established by Chairman Mao and his cohort of Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries over a hundred years ago. Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping, along with Chairman Mao, has identified that his party possesses what he refers to as three treasures of the dharma, fabao, or, as they are sometimes translated, magical weapons. These are party building, armed struggle and the United Front.

The party has a United Front Work Department, consisting of a comprehensive work bureaucracy of over 40,000 people plus a much larger number of agents in foreign countries and within China who collaborate with them. The point of the United Front Work Department is to secretly develop and implement a strategy of carefully crafted deception about the true intentions of the Chinese Communist Party. It engages in a massive program of influence peddling, disinformation and coercion to suppress all voices in Canada critical of the party's domestic and international policy. As it says on their website, its mandate is to rally as many allies as possible in order to defeat a common enemy.

As secretary of the Chinese embassy's Chinese Communist Party branch, the ambassador of China to Canada oversees this activity. Last December 23,, for your reference, I sent the clerk of this committee a note listing 18 recent reports and journal articles that provide authoritative data on how this works in Canada and abroad.

Finally, let me note that over the weekend I pulled out my copy of Global Affairs Canada's publication entitled “Diplomatic, Consular and Other Representatives in Canada”. I counted up the numbers of diplomats accredited to Canada by various countries. Japan has 46 people here. India has 35. The U.K. has 23. China has 146 diplomats accredited to Canada. It does make me wonder if a significant proportion of China's exceptionally large diplomatic cohort here are engaged primarily in United Front Work, monitoring agents involved in influence peddling, disinformation and coercion.

I would imagine that CSIS would know the answer to that question, and if so, I do hope that CSIS will be prepared to share with this committee that information about the United Front work mandate of the Chinese diplomats here in Canada

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Mr. Johnson, you have up to five minutes.

Welcome.

(1210)

Mr. Matthew Johnson (Director of Education, MediaSmarts):

Thank you, Madam Chair.

For the past few years, barely a day has gone by without disinformation making the headlines. Whether it's doctored videos of politicians or conspiracy theories about vaccines, it affects our health, our democracy and even our ability to tell what's real and what isn't. According to one recent study, two-thirds of Canadians consider it to be a major threat to our country.

Nor can we hope to outgrow this problem. Young people are not necessarily better able to recognize misinformation or disinformation than their elders and are more likely to encounter it in formats that make verification more difficult, such as videos, social network posts and podcasts.

While governments and industry are taking steps to address the issue, without a national commitment to digital media literacy, their efforts will have limited effect.

Digital media literacy education has repeatedly been shown to be an effective way of limiting the impact of disinformation, and Canada has long been a pioneer in this field. Today, however, we've fallen behind. In Canadian schools, digital media literacy is often introduced late, relegated to optional subjects, or taught as separate topics, such as online safety, misinformation or film studies, rather than as an integrated discipline.

Adult learners might have access to only a patchwork of mostly local programs aimed at teaching basic digital skills. A recent report from the Open Society Institute underlined this decline, finding that Canada now ranks seventh in their media literacy index.

Finland, the top-ranked country in the study, provides the kind of model that Canada once did. The focus on digital media literacy in that country is a direct result of concerns about foreign, particularly Russian, disinformation.

What can Canada learn from their example?

First is the importance of integrating digital media literacy across the curriculum, both as its own subject and in existing subjects. Rather than isolating it in one course or focusing on a single issue such as fake news, the Finnish curriculum takes a comprehensive approach, from teaching how to recognize misleading statistics in math class, to analyzing the visual appeal of ads or memes in art. Whether it's understanding how algorithms use our personal information to target us with election ads, recognizing bad-faith arguments, or learning how to identify and question our own biases and act as responsible sharers of information, Canadians need a full range of digital media literacy skills to be engaged and informed citizens.

Digital media literacy has consistently been shown to be effective in building resiliency to disinformation. One recent study found that participants who reported studying critical thinking activities and media literacy in school were 26% less likely to believe in conspiracy theories, while other research has found that education in media literacy makes people more likely to verify information and less likely to share misinformation.

Most recently, a task force on disinformation on the war in Ukraine identified the need to educate people about disinformation and media literacy as one of their 10 recommendations.

While curriculum in Canada is, of course, a provincial and territorial responsibility, there is room for the federal government to establish national standards for digital media literacy. On a broader scale, there's an urgent need to adopt a national digital media literacy strategy. All sectors and levels of government can collaborate to support equitable access; promote engaged citizenship and close the digital divide; provide adequate funding to develop, deliver and evaluate digital media literacy programs; and adapt those programs to meet the needs of everyone in Canada.

In order to be critical and engaged citizens, the youth in our research say they need to be able to make free and informed choices about what information platforms collect about them and how it is used, and to know how those platforms' algorithms decide what content to show them.

Digital media literacy is not going to be the only solution for disinformation, but it will be part of any successful solution. While regulation, legislation and platform policies are all likely to be parts of the solution as well, none of those will be possible without a populace that is sufficiently well informed and engaged to demand and make use of them.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair:

Thank you.

We'll start with out six-minute rounds, starting with Mr. Cooper, followed by Mr. Turnbull.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses.

I'm going to direct my first question to Mr. Mulroney.

We have repeatedly seen the Prime Minister and Liberal cabinet ministers and MPs downplay Beijing's interference in our elections. Even at this committee on November 1, a member of this committee, a parliamentary secretary speaking on behalf of the government, said that it makes her wonder why there is such a focus on China, notwithstanding that CSIS has identified China as Canada's most significant foreign interference threat actor.

Do statements such as those from the parliamentary secretary give you any confidence that this is a government that takes Beijing's interference in our elections seriously?

(1215)

One of the reasons I wanted to come today was to talk about China, because I noticed that discussion on where China fits in. People focus on Russia and other threats, and they are all threats. However, China is categorically different, and we need to understand that.

I was reading something that the director general of MI5, the British internal security agency, said. He said that Russian interference has an effect like a bout of bad weather. You don't want it, but that's what it's like. Chinese interference is like climate change. It is much more systemic. It's based on the large financial reserves that China has. It's delivered sometimes through the companies that China has seen invest in other countries. It has the capabilities. It also has the intent.

China, I believe, sees itself in a moment in the world when it has the potential to achieve global leadership. They believe the United States is a spent force. This is their moment. That is driving them to be bold and exceptionally threatening.

They are also very opportunistic and quick to pick the weakest target. My concern is that Canada not be the weakest target. Frankly, I have some worries on that score.

Thank you for that.

Mr. Mulroney, you were quoted in a November 7 Global News report by Sam Cooper that revealed that the Prime Minister was briefed by CSIS about a vast network of interference in the 2019 election. You said:

Canada is more exposed than other Western democracies to China's interference, and yet as the United States, UK and Australia strengthen their counter-interference laws and ramp up investigations into Xi's United Front networks, Ottawa remains strangely inactive.

Can you elaborate on that comment and speak to how this government is failing to respond in the way that it needs to on this level of interference by Beijing?

I believe that China picks the path of least resistance. Right now, when you look at the Five Eyes in particular, that's Canada. New Zealand isn't much further ahead, but we're not New Zealand. We're a more attractive target than New Zealand.

I think if you looked at the United States, Britain and Australia in the last two or three years, they have all had what they would consider a crisis in terms of Chinese penetration of their government and electoral systems—serious Chinese interference.

The Department of Justice and the FBI talk about opening two investigations a day. I think that was the quote I saw. First, they understand the threat and they're acting.

Australia has its registry of foreign agents, which requires transparency of Australians who act for foreign governments. The United States has the Foreign Agents Registration Act. It has also taken steps to prosecute people who have been found to be interfering in the business of Congress, and indeed congressional elections. The U.K. has identified a person who was very active in British politics and funded several politicians as a foreign agent working for China. Those things send messages.

Recently we also saw Britain leaning on the Chinese consulate in Manchester, England, after protesters were dragged into the consulate and beaten. The result was that five diplomats left the consulate.

They're taking action, but we aren't.

I have a question for both Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Burton.

Before I get to that, just to clarify for the record, Mr. Mulroney, I thought I heard you say—to clarify that I heard you correctly—that Beijing's interference in our elections and its interference more broadly is growing.

It is growing.

The allegations are what concerned me about the Global News report. I know that they're working on elaborating the details. The scope, if it is indeed 11 ridings just in the GTA, would be formidable and ambitious in any country. That growth and ambition and possibly a growth in capability are some things we have to take note of.

(1220)

Right.

Now for my question. The Liberals have often cited the establishment of the SITE task force and the critical election incident public protocol to say that they're taking action.

What do you say in response to that? Do you think that these mechanisms are sufficient to combat Beijing and other foreign interference in our elections?

That is to both Mr. Burton and Mr. Mulroney.

Certainly, the disinformation that was launched in the recent election, in particular in Steveston—Richmond East at former MP Kenny Chiu, was largely in the Chinese language and largely inaccessible to people who are monitoring elections. In other words, we don't have the capability within the Canadian system to deal with activities in the diaspora community that could affect election results improperly.

In the case of Mr. Chiu, he didn't really have anywhere to turn with a complaint about being slandered and mischaracterized in the Chinese language. There was no means to identify where the source of the Chinese information in WeChat came from. There was nothing in the Conservative Party, or indeed within Elections Canada or even within the G7 rapid response mechanism in Global Affairs, that was able to come to terms with this, and he was unable to respond to these allegations, which were utterly false.

The Chair:

Thank you.

When we hear the beep-beep, it's easiest if we let the next person go.

Mr. Turnbull, you have up to six minutes.

Thanks to all the witnesses for your testimony today. I appreciated your opening remarks.

Mr. Mulroney, I totally concur that we have to take these foreign threats seriously. As I think both you and Mr. Burton stated, this is a campaign. It's over many years.

What's interesting to me is that from our conversations, somehow it seems as though the Conservatives just woke up to this threat during our committee meetings and proceedings just recently, whereas I think this has been a systemic issue for quite some time.

Would you not agree that these attempts at foreign interference in Canada's election process and other forms of foreign interference from China specifically have been ongoing for quite a number of years before 2019?

Mr. Burton, maybe we'll go to you first.

Yes.

Party General Secretary Xi Jinping, since he came into power 10 years ago, has allocated a massive increase in resources towards the United Front Work Department, particularly their 9th and 10th bureaus, which are involved in engaging with persons of Chinese origin in foreign countries. There has been an increase.

Seeing that after what happened in the previous elections no Chinese diplomats have been declared persona non grata and no agents of the Chinese regime have been brought before a Canadian court to be accountable for alleged criminal activity emboldens the Chinese regime to do much more of it in the next election. In other words, the longer we remain passive and ineffective, the more encouraged they'll be that they can do more of this and get away with it.

Thank you for that.

I understand that. It's becoming more acute over time in terms of the general assumption that we're essentially not meeting this threat.

They're putting a lot more resources into it. It's becoming a much more central part of the Chinese government's foreign policy.

Got it.

Mr. Mulroney, I have a quick question for you, just to follow up on that

You mentioned the registry of foreign agents that you've recommended. I recently looked at an article that I think you were quoted in or that was published on a website here. Maybe you could give us a little bit more information on that, and then I want to share my time with my colleague MP O'Connell.

Could you speak to that a little bit more? How does that work?

What would happen in the way it works in Australia is that if you.... The issues they are concerned with are that if you are disbursing money for a foreign entity that is either part of the government or controlled by the government, if you've lobbied for them—and some of that's already captured by lobbying legislation, but this is specifically for foreign governments—and if you communicate, if you deliver their talking points, you have to be transparent. If someone's on Power & Politics talking about foreign policy, Canadians deserve to know if that person's also being paid by a foreign state to say those things. They certainly need to know if a politician or a public servant, whether current, former or recently retired, is being paid.

The Australian government also works to identify entities that they think are representative of foreign states. There's an appeal process, but once that identification is made, if you work for them along those lines, you need to be transparent.

(1225)

Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (Pickering—Uxbridge, Lib.):

Thank you.

We'll go over to you, Ms. O'Connell.

Thank you, Mr. Turnbull, for sharing your time.

Madam Chair, through you, I'd ask that Mr. Cooper table with this committee my full quote, because I would hate for misinformation to be spread within this committee.

Mr. Burton, I want to speak quickly about the comments you made when you brought up the example of Mr. Kenny Chiu and the election campaign. Were you aware of the testimony we had in this committee from members of the critical election incident public protocol, who spoke about the process that our government put in place for the 2019 and 2021 elections for parties to have full security clearance?

They described the process by which parties could bring specific examples. You said that Mr. Chiu had no opportunity to find out what was happening because there's a difference between activity and impact. In fact, in the description of the process for the critical incident report, they spoke about how parties could, in fact, bring really specific examples to CSIS, to the national security community. They could brief the parties, and the parties could take action or inform their members.

Your comment that there was no process would have been the case under the previous government, but in this instance Mr. Chiu could have raised it with his party and his party could have brought it to the national security community. They could have provided a full briefing, but they didn't. We heard from the critical incident report that no instances were brought forward from the Conservative Party.

I think what happened in the case of Mr. Chiu was that on the same day that a poll came out that showed that the Conservatives might achieve a minority government, this massive campaign of disinformation on multiple Chinese-language websites directed at people in Canada appeared. It was a matter of gathering information.

I mobilized some friends in the Honk Kong community to go through the Internet to try to find out where it came from, and we failed to do so. I think it's really that it happened too fast, and immediately Mr. Chiu's numbers started to plummet as soon as the thing came out.

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau (Laurentides—Labelle, BQ):

Perhaps the party should have brought that forward using that incident report.

Thank you.

The Chair:

Thank you.

[Translation]

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for six minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to start off by giving the witnesses the opportunity to make any suggestions that they may have.

We spoke of Finland, especially in terms of its education and awareness programs. We also spoke of areas in which we should urgently and radically change tack. Many things are worrying me. Since 2019, I have been interested in the legitimacy and ethics aspect of the disclosure of interests process. As we have just seen, the cat is out of the bag.

In your article, Mr. Mulroney, you state that “for the activity to be lawful, there must be some form of disclosure that identifies the source of the material and on whose behalf it is being shared.”

You have surely heard the testimony given by the Minister of Foreign Affairs on December 13. I would like to hear your take on what she said. I quote: “As for foreign interference in the 2019 elections, I did not have any information in that regard. I think you heard the Prime Minister about this”.

And yet we are talking about transparency and responsibility in matters of disclosure and the importance of setting aside partisan concerns. What should we do then? I am embarrassed by what is going on at the moment. People are watching us, and we have to show them that we must radically change tack so as to prevent the worst from happening.

I would like to know what you think.

(1230)

[English]

Thank you for that question. I have thought about that too.

I must say I've followed all of your proceedings. I listened to our officials, who spoke about the defences we have against interference. They are all very impressive and very capable people, and I know some of them, but I am left with a misgiving. My concern is that sometimes when we design something, we design what we want; we don't design with a view to what actually needs fixing. We don't look at the target. We are motivated by what we enjoy doing or want to do or think is best, without checking.

The impression I had after listening about our various defences was to think back in history to the 1930s, when France constructed the Maginot Line. They were not going to suffer what happened to them in World War I, so they were going to build defences that went from the borders in the low countries all the way along the borders of France to Spain. It was impregnable, and it gave the French great confidence. However, the Germans didn't follow that plan. They had another plan. They entered via the Ardennes, and France fell. It was a disaster because they had designed something as they saw fit.

I don't think we've designed entirely the right defences, and that's why my concern with proxies is so acute. I've heard your discussions. People quite legitimately admit that the use of proxies foils the system. The Prime Minister has talked about the consulate giving the money directly, but if someone doesn't give the money directly—if the consulate gives the money to someone, who then gives it to someone else, who then passes it on—the effect is as problematic. That's what we have to get at. We have to have other systems to back up the systems we have.

[Translation]

Thank you.

I would like to carry on the discussion on this topic with Mr. Burton, who was nodding his head. What's more, during his testimony, he mentioned he agreed with Mr. Mulroney.

During those exchanges, I heard that we were a docile country and that we were just looking the other way. I did not hear the word lax but I may as well have.

What is going on with Canada? What is our big concern that is keeping us from taking action, given the knowledge and the tools that we have today and the education programs that we could offer?

What should I be saying to the residents of my riding? I would like to be able to answer their questions.

[English]

Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP):

I think there is a problem within Canada of a lot of influence from Chinese benefits going to people in positions of trust. When the Australian Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act came into effect in 2019, several former Australian politicians resigned from lucrative boards, including the former minister of international trade, Andrew Robb, who resigned from an $880,000-a-year private consultancy with a Chinese billionaire who had achieved a 99-year lease on Port Darwin.

I do think this kind of legislation has a dampening effect on people who might feel that they need some funding for whatever purpose and that they can manage the conflict-of-interest aspect that may exist in it. I do think raising awareness of this and providing some mechanisms that ensure accountability is significant. That might encourage more champions within the government to take this matter more seriously and start pressing in cabinet for the necessary legislation to try to bring our Canadian practices and laws up to the standards of other nations.

That would include laws with regard to the transfer of classified technologies and dual-use military technologies to agents of a foreign state. We have a lot of trouble prosecuting these matters, because our laws are not as strong as those of the U.K. and the U.S. It's another area. There are just so many areas of concern about the challenge of China that we need to be able to address.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Ms. Blaney, you have up to six minutes.

Thank you, Chair. I'm going to direct my first questions to Mr. Johnson.

I appreciated your testimony today. As we're discussing all of this, what I hope we're all going to come back to, despite our political differences, is how we make sure our systems are strong enough and how we make sure that we're building trust within Canada and holding all systems to account so that people have faith in our processes. That's something that I'm really aware of.

You talked a lot about disinformation and how many people are being pulled into that world. They don't always have the tools that they require to evaluate it more objectively and understand where the source material is coming from. I definitely see that in my constituency, and I'm actually surprised in my role by how many people send me articles just to ask, “Is this true or not?” I am now given the capacity to decide for them, and that's not a role that I think an MP should take on.

You mentioned in your testimony the idea of having a national media literacy strategy to evaluate programs. Could you expand on that and what that role could potentially look like?

Within that, I'm also very curious about what sort of digital media literacy awareness we need to see focused. I represent a more rural and remote area of the world. Are there things that are specifically important for those communities and for indigenous communities? Those are two groups that I represent for which I'm particularly concerned about the impact of disinformation and how we get the proper tools to those communities to be able to address that problem in a meaningful way.

(1235)

Mr. Matthew Johnson:

Thank you. I'll start with the second part of that question.

Our model of digital media literacy is composed of four competencies. The first of these competencies is access, the ability to access digital media and other media as well. It is the one that underpins the other three competencies, which are to use, to understand and to engage with media. We see access as underpinning the other three because you can't do any of the other three if you do not have access. Access is also unique in that it is both a skill and a condition, because we need to provide full access to digital media to everyone in the country.

We know that as a country, Canada generally does have good Internet access, but we also know that there are pockets, places where Internet access is slow or unreliable. We know from our research with teachers that Internet access within schools is frequently unreliable, and that's undeniably a much bigger issue in rural areas, in remote areas, and among indigenous and northern communities.

We need to be committed to finishing the job of providing every Canadian with good-quality, reliable Internet access. Of course, that means in every school as well. We need to be teaching those access skills, because one of the issues is that many people do face barriers beyond simply being able to access it technically. In many cases, there are barriers caused by disability, language, poor literacy skills and of course poor digital literacy skills. Breaking down those barriers must be a component of digital literacy or a digital media literacy plan for the country.

Equitable access is certainly an important part. It's also really important to ensure that it is a whole-of-society plan, because we know that no one has grown up with these technologies. Adults are just as much in the position of needing to become more digital media literate as young people are. We can't kick the can down the road by only covering it in K-to-12 education.

Of course, we need to build a plan that draws connections between the different levels of government so that each level of government is playing a role in the strategy that makes sense and is complementary to the other ones.

Finally, digital media literacy programming for all sectors needs sustainable funding, so that we don't wind up in a situation that we've seen, when terrific programs got rolled out and either couldn't continue because funding ended or couldn't be maintained. We know that issues change, new concerns arise and new platforms become popular, so there needs to be a provision to make sure that programs that are being offered at all levels are maintained and updated on a regular basis.

(1240)

I have 20 seconds. If you could add that on to my two minutes and 30 seconds, that would be great.

The Chair:

Thank you.

I want to take a moment to say that I'm really appreciating the pace at which we're speaking for the purpose of interpretation and the fact that one person is speaking and then the other person. I hope we can continue with this. That's very good. I want to commend you all for your good work.

[Translation]

Mr. Berthold, you have the floor for five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I have many questions, so I will ask you to be brief in your answers.

I will start with you, Mr. Mulroney.

You are very active on social media. You stated that an example must be given from someone high up, such as the Prime Minister himself. Allow me to quote you:

[English]

But little will happen so long as the PM is fixated on demonizing domestic critics, fomenting ever deeper division at home. CCP couldn't be happier.

Could you explain why you said that?

The thing that shaped my thinking about this was my experience on the Manley panel when we were deciding whether to extend the mission in Afghanistan. The mission was failing because Foreign Affairs was doing its thing and CIDA was doing its thing and the Canadian Forces were doing something else.

The panellists had a number of recommendations, and the government took them all. The first was that the Prime Minister had to lead. You can't get all of the uncoordinated and disparate parts of government to work together unless they have very firm and direct leadership. They are looking to see what is coming from on high, and I don't think they're seeing it clearly enough.

[Translation]

Do you believe that the Prime Minister is not doing enough currently to counter foreign interference efforts?

[English]

Yes. I think his China policy took a long time getting on the right track. I think he was originally—he said it himself—naive when it came to China, and the country has paid a price for that, but I haven't seen the actions to follow up on that new understanding, that new awareness of China.

[Translation]

Mr. Burton, you have said that Chinese influence being peddled by the United Front Work Department was particularly profitable to influential people. We have learned that Chinese businessmen have given $1 million to the foundation set up by Mr. Trudeau's father. We also learned that a lot of money is being given to universities.

Is this the type of influence that is being sought currently by the Chinese communist regime in order to pave the way so that it can get involved in Canadian business and indirectly influence our politicians?

[English]

Yes. With regard to that particular instance some years ago, I believe that the person who coordinated the joint donation to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation was a member of the standing committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, which is the lead United Front coordinating body in China. He was attending a fundraiser for the Prime Minister in the home of a Canadian of Chinese origin. He was not a Canadian, and therefore could not donate to the Prime Minister.

Everybody else, I believe all of them, looking to me from the photographs that appeared in mainland overseas Chinese newspapers—in other words, the photographs of who was at the party—initially appeared in China, not in Canada. On the Prime Minister's schedule, I believe they were identified as private meetings. They were all Chinese faces. I imagine they all could well have given the maximum allowable under law.

The question is on this issue of proxies, as Mr. Mulroney pointed out. It's extremely difficult for us to note. We certainly cannot make allegations against Canadians without evidence for that, and we don't have any evidence.

[Translation]

You also mentioned having noticed a massive disinformation campaign deployed in the Chinese language. During the most recent elections, newspapers reported that a minority Conservative government might be elected. You say that unfortunately, Kenny Chiu was probably one of the victims of that campaign.

You therefore sincerely believe that Chinese interference influenced the election results in certain ridings. Is that correct?

(1245)

[English]

Is that for me?

It's for both of you.

Obviously we don't know why people put an X next to whatever candidate they put it to—what factors inform that decision. However, within Canada, with the exception of the Falun Gong media—the Epoch Times, which I do not regard as a reliable source of information—they are all well identified as being under the control of the People's Republic of China. There are no Canadian-Chinese language newspapers that do not reflect the views of China, and—

[Translation]

According to you, Mr. Burton, did that have an effect on the election results?

[English]

I'm sorry; I didn't hear the translation.

Do you believe that changed the results of the election?

My subjective judgment was that the impact was enormous.

People like to believe negative things. They're much more appealing than positive things. My personal view is that if it had not been for that disinformation—

The Chair:

Thank you.

—Mr. Chiu would still be in Parliament today.

The Chair:

Respectfully, we can make the beep-beep go longer, if that would help. I just don't think it helps. I will leave that with all of us, because we are able to do well.

Ms. O'Connell, you have five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Through you, I would like to ask this of Mr. Mulroney.

During your tenure as ambassador, did you ever make a recommendation for a registry for China to the government that you served?

No, I did not.

What was the reason for that, or when did you realize that perhaps that was a mistake and that something of this nature should be implemented in Canada?

When I was ambassador to China, my focus was on China. When I retired and I wrote a book and travelled across the country and talked to people, I began to see that our China problem wasn't in China. It was now in Canada.

But as ambassador, would you not—

I talked constantly about the importance of security, threats to information and the need for ministers and members of Parliament to guard their documents safely. That was a real focus for me. I met with all of the senior security people in Ottawa when I came back. We talked about what was happening, so now that was a priority for me.

Okay. Good.

What was the government of the day's reaction? What concrete steps were then put in place to deal with the security threats and to inform MPs and things like that?

Again, I wasn't back in Canada for how elections were run—

Ms. Jennifer O'Connell: Sorry. Not just elections—

Mr. David Mulroney: —but I think the government was appropriately security conscious when they were in China. That's the only thing I could see—that when they came to China, they were appropriately security conscious, as were other governments.

I travelled to China with Mr. Chrétien and with Mr. Martin as well.

Okay, but you didn't have specific recommendations to the government of the day, based on what you saw in your role.

I had a lot of recommendations. I remember bringing together the economic deputy ministers and the defence and security deputy ministers to talk about the situation we were getting into back in 2010-11, when more than half of Canada saw China as this unlimited opportunity and the other half saw it as a threat. I said we need to integrate this now. I had some success in that, but not complete success.

I was very conscious of the security situation vis-à-vis China. I had also been assistant deputy minister for Asia in Ottawa when Mr. Chrétien was Prime Minister, and Mr. Martin, and I saw how the Chinese ambassador of the day worked then too. I was very vocal about that.

Right, but subsequent measures needed to be implemented so that they would remain in place for successive governments, and those legislative or regulatory changes didn't happen.

You mentioned the MP security or MP awareness. This was something I raised as a parliamentarian myself, that MPs get little to no briefings or training on how to even deal with that. Clearly, that issue persisted even past your time in flagging it.

They always got a briefing from me.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Madam Chair, if I have time, I want to get to a question for Mr. Johnson.

You spoke about literacy. My colleague Ms. Blaney raised literacy and education, and if I have time, I'd like to quickly ask about legislation.

I as a Canadian found it very concerning and upsetting to know that, for example, hashtags could be hidden in codes and programming for videos, and that Canadians wouldn't even know, unless they knew what to look for, that they themselves were being targeted. Is there a role for legislation, or also for governments, to require platforms or some sort of awareness for Canadians that if there are hidden hashtags, Canadians know they are being targeted? You can't just hide coding for specific groups to then share.

(1250)

Mr. Matthew Johnson:

I can't take a position on the specific legislation, but what I can say is this: There certainly is a role for appropriate legislation and regulation in addressing disinformation.

It is also not possible, as the British scholar Sonia Livingstone has said, to be literate in something that is not legible. In order for Canadians to be able to critically engage with the media that we consume, it needs to be at a certain level of transparency, whether that transparency has to do with making things like hidden hashtags clear or whether it is about making clear how algorithmic decisions are made in delivering or recommending content.

Thank you.

I have very little time, but in terms of the use of local media by foreign state actors to somewhat legitimize content, is that part of the literacy program you would also recommend?

Mr. Matthew Johnson:

I would say that the literacy program that we recommend and the programs that we currently deliver would address that. It wouldn't be targeted. It's not targeted specifically at that, but certainly any digital media literacy program is going to address how to evaluate whether or not a source of news is reliable and how to read news critically.

Thank you.

The Chair:

Thank you.

[Translation]

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to talk about the foreign agents registry toolbox.

My question is for both witnesses.

Yesterday, Minister Mendicino testified before the Special Committee on the Canada-People's Republic of China Relationship. He spoke of the toolbox, but he didn't really answer the question when asked when the tools would be made available. I would like to know what you think about an issue that was raised: the minister said that he was worried about perhaps offending people because of their nationality or the current situation. He also spoke of stereotypes.

At the end of the day, is the Canadian government is trying to keep some information on Chinese interference on the down-low so as not to offend the Chinese-Canadian community, either because it does not want to foster a feeling of stigmatization, or because of fear of retaliation?

Both of you may take all the time you need to answer this question.

[English]

I saw those comments, and I must say that I was discouraged when I saw them.

There are a couple of things to consider. The most important is that a with lot of what China is doing in its interference, the first victims are in the diaspora community. The Chinese state will say to a Chinese student at a university, “We heard that you were speaking about independence in your class, and that could be bad for your family back home”, or they say to Uighurs, “You'll never see your mother again if you keep this up”, so in terms of not acting and finding reasons not to act, by all means be careful. Be sensitive and be respectful in terms of how you do it. The very fact that you announce that you're doing it already sends a message to the Chinese, a very important message, a message we are not sending.

I would announce the registry. Then do the consultations and hear from the Chinese community, but also hear from the Tibetan community, hear from the Uighur community, hear from Falun Gong activists, who are all being persecuted here in Canada by agents of the Chinese state who increasingly act like it's a little piece of China.

I think that certainly the legislation is by no means directed towards one group. It's called “foreign”, so any foreign power that's involved in trying to interfere in Canadian affairs by providing benefits to people in a position of trust in the civil service or Parliament should be made accountable. It's not that you would simply declare benefits that you've received from one specific foreign state, but from any foreign state, so it's even. The resistance to this idea—

(1255)

The Chair:

Thank you.

Mrs. Blaney, you have two minutes and 45 seconds.

Thank you.

The question I'm going to ask this time is for Mr. Mulroney.

I found it interesting. You talked about the four points that you thought were priorities. Of course, there was the registry for the foreign agents and then having Canadian police participate more in ethnic communities. I believe I got that right. I'm just curious about how those two things could potentially intersect, because I've heard things from different ethnic communities—for example, the Uighur community—that have brought forward concerns or tried to bring forward concerns to the RCMP and police, and it's like they just get passed around. Nobody really knows how to address that issue, but the threat is real in Canada.

I'm just wondering how those two things could coincide and support one another so that we have more supports for people in our own country who are under those threats that you both have mentioned so clearly.

I don't disagree with Mr. Mendicino's idea of a tool box. We need the registry, but we need other things, and I think we need to train our police to be more aware of what's happening.

The work that Charles is doing in going into the Chinese language press and hearing what people are saying and doing is more important than we think. We think that's obvious, but a lot of people aren't aware of what's being said here in Canada, so we need to have police who can do that, who can understand the pressures that these people are under. Again, they are people who have every right to expect the protections of the police instead of being told to go check with the Chinese police, as if they somehow don't deserve our protection. We need to do a much better job, but I see that as a separate priority itself.

I guess when you look at all the things we're talking about—the threats to our political systems, the influence that particular groups can have—I'm just wondering.... You stated very clearly that we need to have that foreign agents registry put into place, make that stance and then get onto the consulting.

To both of you, who would be at the top of the line to do the consulting with to make sure that this happens? What will that action do to impact China and what it's doing in Canada?

The Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China is an organization that I've been advising since 2005. Coordinated by Amnesty International and consisting of Tibetans, diaspora groups, Uighurs, Falun Gong, democracy activists and many others, they have been requesting a proper government agency that would address their harassment by agents of a foreign state. There are some Hong Kong activists who get threatened with rape, young women who really should be able to have someone there who would address this and give them a sense that they're safe again.

In terms of foreign influence, it would be important to reassure these Chinese groups and other groups that the legislation is not requiring that they all register with the state and that they all have to report all of their connections with China. It's about people in positions of trust who are receiving benefits from a foreign state and who should publicly declare it.

The Chair:

Thank you.

We'll now do a quick two-minute round, starting with Mr. Cooper.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Burton, CSIS advised the Prime Minister that when it comes to foreign interference, the policy of government should be “grounded in transparency and sunlight”. Repeatedly throughout the fall, we have seen talking points from this government that the 2019 and 2021 elections were free and fair and that they weren't compromised. Then they rely on or cite the independent election panel findings, even though it was the finding of the election panel that the “overall” integrity of the election was not compromised—something very different.

In the face of that, is it your opinion that this government is being transparent with Canadians about the degree of interference from Beijing in our elections?

I think CSIS, as compared with the intelligence services of our like-minded allies, is much less forthcoming about what's going on. Therefore, we need more information about what they know about what sort of interference may have taken place. I don't know the basis for the judgment that everything was okay and didn't affect the election. I'd like more detailed information to be able to make that assessment.

You know, when you look at something like the balloon incident, on February 15 the entire Congress will be getting a security briefing on this matter. I would like to see the entire House of Commons get security briefings so that our members of Parliament have a better understanding of the truth of matters and can form legislation and make decisions accordingly.

(1300)

Go ahead, Mr. Mulroney.

I think the bar is way too low when you say that it has to affect the outcome of the election. Affecting one constituency disenfranchises Canadians and is a big win for China. Interfering in 11 is a major, major aggressive step by China.

So the threshold is too high.

Mr. David Mulroney: It's far too low.

Mr. Michael Cooper: Sorry. It's far too low. That's right.

The Chair:

Thank you, Mr. Cooper and Mr. Mulroney.

Ms. Sahota, you have up to two minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to all the panellists today. I think you've provided really great information. Like me, probably many members around this table are really intrigued by the idea of implementing a registry not only for foreign actors but also for disinformation. Those ideas have both been presented to this committee before as well.

What I do want to know from you, though, is this. Canada has a diverse community, with huge diasporas from many countries. We've heard from CSIS about countries playing an active role in interference in our elections. However, I again quote the Chief Electoral Officer that with the threshold we currently have, any interference that has been happening for many past elections has not risen to the point of having a material impact on the election.

Having said that, I still want to know your opinion. I heard some comments about looking at images of fundraisers and seeing Chinese faces and making the assumption that perhaps those Chinese faces could have been influenced by foreign state actors. Don't we have to be a little bit careful, living in a country with so many different multicultural communities, that we don't level accusations and don't hinder the participation of communities from those different minority groups in the electoral process?

The Chair (Hon. Bardish Chagger (Waterloo, Lib.)):

I can take that one.

At that particular fundraiser, the presence of a representative of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference raised flags for me, because that's the coordinating body for United Front Work, but I absolutely agree with you. In our country, we want to have full representation of all of the ethnic groups that make up our nation, and we want to encourage more Canadians of Chinese origin to actively participate in our politics and represent their communities.

However, these representatives have to be committed to liberal democracy and Canada, and not have potential mixed loyalties to what they refer to as the motherland, which is not Canada.

The Chair:

Okay.

Mr. Johnson, I see your hand is up. I'm sorry, because we've run out of time, but if you want to provide us with something in writing, I am sure committee members would welcome that—and from all witnesses—so please do not feel that the conversation has to end. You can provide information to us.

I want to thank you, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Burton, for giving us your time and for being with us today.

Committee members, really quickly, we had a reception today. We'll have an informal reception on Thursday, which means we've brought a couple of snacks in for our guests. I want to make sure that it is suitable for the clerk to be able to order those snacks so that we have them available again on Thursday.

Your motion has been passed for your budget. Brilliant.

With that, have a great day. See you on Thursday. The meeting is adjourned.

Transcript of Study Meeting #6 (February 9, 2023)

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

NUMBER 052

1st SESSION

44th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2023

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

(1100)

[Translation]

I call this meeting to order.

Good morning, everyone.

Welcome to meeting number 51 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The committee is meeting today to continue its study on foreign election interference. The first hour will be public. For the second hour, we'll continue in camera.

[English]

From the Communications Security Establishment, we have the former chair of the SITE task force, Lyall King, director, risk mitigation programs. From the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, we have Adam Fisher, director general, intelligence assessments, and Cherie Henderson, assistant director, requirements. From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have Lisa Ducharme, acting director general.

Thank you, all, for being here today.

Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone to please address all comments through the chair.

I understand, Mr. King, that you will be bringing greetings on behalf of everyone. You have up to five minutes.

Welcome.

Mr. Lyall King (Director, Risk Mitigation Programs, Communications Security Establishment):

Thank you very much.

Hello. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to reappear on the study of foreign election interference.

My name is Lyall King. I am the former chair of the security and intelligence threats to elections task force, also known as SITE. I am now the director of risk mitigation programs at the Communications Security Establishment. I am very happy to be joined today by my colleagues from CSIS and the RCMP, with whom we worked very closely in the SITE task force.

Since our last appearance on November 3, there has been a great deal of media attention on the topic of foreign interference. The SITE task force understands the concerns shown by Canadians, and we do take them very seriously. I would like to begin by providing some background on—and revisiting a bit—the SITE task force and outlining a couple of the key trends observed on the threat of foreign interference. I hope this will help set the stage and provide some context for the discussions we have today.

As mentioned in our previous appearance, the CSE recently published the renewed national cyber-threat assessment, the NCTA. The NCTA highlights that online foreign influence activities have become a new normal, with adversaries seeking to influence elections and impact international discourse related to current events. We assess that misinformation, disinformation and malinformation—referred to sometimes as MDM—propagated by state-sponsored cyber-threat actors does represent an ongoing and persistent threat to Canadians.

I will now return briefly to an overview of the SITE task force and the work we do. As I discussed in my last appearance, I believe it is important to have a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of each of the SITE task force members, as well as the mandate of the SITE task force. The SITE task force is comprised of officials from the CSE, CSIS, the RCMP and Global Affairs Canada.

The SITE task force's mandate—just to reiterate—is to provide a clear point of engagement within the security and intelligence community for government partners; to review and focus intelligence collection, assessment and open-source analysis related to foreign interference; to provide government partners, senior public servants and other partners with situational awareness; and to promote the use of intelligence, assessment and open-source information analysis in the protection of electoral processes through sharing with partners or, when our mandates permit, taking action to mitigate the threat.

I would like to take a moment to highlight some of the important contributions that our partners have made to the task force. Again, this is an overview and does not cover all of the roles and responsibilities of SITE task force members.

CSIS provides threat briefings and intelligence reporting to Elections Canada and the Commissioner of Elections, and provides assessments of hostile state activity methodologies and capabilities to Government of Canada decision-makers. Global Affairs Canada provides research on disinformation campaigns targeting Canada by foreign actors; reports on global trends, metrics and incidents; and coordinates attribution of incidents. The RCMP investigates any criminal activity related to interference or influence of Canada's electoral processes, and works closely in partnership with intelligence, law enforcement and regulatory agencies.

The CSE provides intelligence and cyber-assessments on the intentions, activities and capabilities of foreign threat actors. We protect government systems and networks related to elections through cyber-defence measures; and provide cybersecurity advice and guidance to political parties, provinces and other institutions involved in democratic processes.

The important work the SITE task force conducts is also done outside of election periods as we continue to help the government assess and respond to foreign threats to Canada's electoral processes.

I'll just note that, since our last appearance, the CSE was tasked with a production of papers order to facilitate the committee's study on foreign elections interference. We do understand the important work of the committee, which is why we have produced and worked to provide documents in response to that order. We submitted 36 documents in total to ensure that your committee had the necessary information needed to complete its study, while at the same time respecting the national security limitations.

(1105)

In conclusion, I would just state that the SITE task force does remain vigilant to protect Canadians and Canada's democracy from threats of foreign interference. I do hope this opportunity to reappear on the committee's study helps to answer further questions you may have and better showcase the importance of SITE.

Thank you for the opportunity to reappear, and we look forward to answering your questions.

The Chair:

Thank you so much for those opening comments.

We will now begin with our six-minute rounds starting with Mr. Cooper for up to six minutes.

Please comment through the chair, and I would ask that no two people speak at the same time.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll direct my question to Mr. King or whichever official is in the best position to answer.

What is the highest security classification level of information that will be provided to this committee during the first hour?

We'll only be able to discuss unclassified information in this setting today.

Would that also be the case in the second hour?

Yes. Madam Chair, you have my apologies. We will only be able to discuss unclassified information in this particular setting today in both sessions.

Is there no material difference with respect to the security level of information that would be offered in the first hour versus the second hour?

That is correct. I can confirm that there will be no difference in the level of classification we will discuss from the open session to the in camera session.

Given that there is no material difference, it seems to me that it is entirely unnecessary to go in camera, especially having regard for the advice that CSIS has provided, including what was laid out in a February 2021 memo to the Prime Minister that issues of foreign interference be grounded in a policy of sunlight and transparency. Therefore, I move that the second hour remain in public.

(1110)

The Chair:

Mr. Cooper, I think what's suitable for the purposes of this committee, and I will welcome comment.... Pause the clock on his time, please. I would love a signal from others as to what would be best. I think the level of conversation in an in camera setting is different from an in public conversation.

We have, as a committee, up until now been able to find and chart a path forward, which I regard and respect. I think that you should use your six minutes, and I will gauge the audience—Mr. Turnbull wants in—and we can then sort out what the best way to proceed is, but I think it is taken in good faith.

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

I have no problem with what Mr. Cooper is suggesting. He didn't ask all the witnesses that question, so I just wonder whether there are any others who would reply differently to that question.

The Chair:

I understand that the appearance today by witnesses is through the SITE task force, and Mr. King is speaking on behalf of the task force. Therefore, the answer would remain the same.

I would take a nodding of heads if it's not the case. It seems consistent.

Mr. Cooper, why don't we proceed with your six minutes? I'll get a gauge of the room, and then we'll get back to this.

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau (Laurentides—Labelle, BQ):

We have a motion on the floor. I don't think there's any objection. It appears that we might have reached unanimous consent on this.

[Translation]

I would have liked two minutes to think about the pros and cons.

[English]

The Chair:

I think you're right that we can get there. Is it okay that one member gets a couple of minutes to reflect, and we continue with your time to proceed with maximum time? I think we can definitely get to the bottom of this. Can we proceed with our questions, and we'll get that sorted out before your six minutes are over?

I don't want to belabour this, Madam Chair, but will there be a vote on the motion upon the conclusion of my six-minute round?

The Chair:

I think that we can get consensus, that we don't even need a vote. Therefore, that's what I would like to proceed with.

Okay, that's fair enough.

The Chair:

I will return your six minutes to you, and I will get a good gauge. By the end of your time, your four minutes that are now remaining, I will have an answer. Is that suitable, Mr. Cooper?

That's very good, Madam Chair.

The Chair:

I appreciate your collaboration here.

We'll go back to you, Mr. Cooper.

Ms. Lisa Ducharme (Acting Director General, Federal Policing National Intelligence, Royal Canadian Mounted Police):

Ms. Ducharme, can you confirm that there are ongoing RCMP criminal investigations respecting foreign interference arising from the 2019 and 2021 elections?

Thank you for the question.

Madam Chair, I can confirm that there were no criminal investigations into the 2019 elections, as per Commissioner Lucki's letter to this committee dated 28 November, 2022. That being said, there are active investigations into foreign actor interference activities at any given time—multiple investigations.

With respect to the 2021 elections, I am unable to respond whether there are active investigations into the election at this time.

There are active criminal investigations pertaining to interference in the electoral process. Is that correct?

I am unable to respond whether there are investigations, Madam Chair, into federal election issues.

I am able to confirm that there are active investigations into foreign interference activities.

Thank you for that.

Mr. King, given that you were chair of the SITE task force, we know that in September 2021 the SITE task force was monitoring interference targeting MP Kenny Chiu, which was released months later.

The problem is that the information was not passed on to Kenny Chiu at the time. He was kept in the dark. It didn't come to light until the election was already over. From the standpoint of combatting foreign interference, why was MP Kenny Chiu kept in the dark?

(1115)

Thank you for your question.

Madam Chair, I would only say in general, as we identify through our methods what may appear to be foreign interference, we need to go through a process of evaluation before we can take actions.

What we can do, and what we did do, with the information that we had available to us was inform, as was our remit, the critical election incident protocol. That was done through regular engagements, briefings and daily reports.

There's a distinction between observing and needing to analyze—

I just want to cut you off.

I want to give you as much time as needed to answer the question, but you did make reference to the critical election incident public protocol, which is set out in a cabinet directive. It provides, with respect to informing a candidate who is the target of interference, that the candidate or political party be informed. Surely that would mean being informed as expeditiously as possible. Wouldn't it?

Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (Pickering—Uxbridge, Lib.):

Madam Chair, I would simply restate that it's not a decision of the SITE task force to engage in that. That is a decision made by that critical election incident public protocol. It's in their remit to make that decision and make that call. We provide the information that we have to them, so that they can make an informed decision.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Just so everyone knows and we're all on the same page, with a nodding of heads I will get agreement that the two hours will now be in public.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chair: Do you see that, Mr. Cooper? It's magic. It's a good committee to be on, this PROC committee.

I'll just say to all witnesses that, if at any time you want to jump in to answer, give a nod and we'll make that possible, because this information is really important and there are many people who are listening and engaging. As long as we keep questions and comments short, we can always have time.

Ms. O'Connell, you have up to six minutes.

Madam Chair, through you to the witnesses, I'm following up on Mr. Cooper's questions about the SITE committee.

Through either your testimony previously or other testimony at this committee, the Conservative Party, which is Mr. Chiu's party, did in fact send a representative who was security-cleared to have these discussions, to bring allegations to any of their candidates or, on the reverse, for you and your committee to provide information to that party member.

Can you speak to the fact that there seems to be this suggestion that nobody was notified? Would it not be through that party process, which the Conservatives had access to, that they could have raised any questions of influence and could have had that classified security briefing?

Perhaps I can begin. I would open it to my colleagues of the service to interject where appropriate.

Those engagements with cleared members of the political parties were very much to provide context to the threat—a little bit more detail to what we say publicly so they can understand—and to help them identify some of those issues themselves as well, and, quite frankly, to enable and open up some manner of dialogue.

Again, I just would like to restate that there are multiple levels of classification as well. The members we spoke to I believe were cleared up to “secret”. Sometimes our information is more than that. Classification levels can be an issue.

Again, as I was trying to state prior, there's the fact that we do take time, sometimes, to analyze before we start to take an action. I think it's important to develop a threshold and understand what you're conveying to an individual, so I would just say that—

I'm sorry. It's just because I'm limited on time, but if others want to jump in, please do.

With that being said, previously...and the reports from the national security community have actually said and we've talked a lot about the difference between attempts and impacts. I believe CSIS has come out and said that in SITE the protocol was not engaged. Do you still feel that for 2019 and 2021, although there were attempts made that everybody takes very seriously, the attempts did not equal impacts in the election results?

(1120)

Typically the way SITE approaches this matter is not to try to get into the evaluation of impact, ultimately. It's to understand what is happening in that domain and to inform and to try to take some action. We don't typically get into a deep assessment of the impact of that activity.

CSIS has confirmed.... They have stated publicly that there was not an impact in the 2019 and 2021 elections despite attempts, that the protocol was not reached, the incident protocol committee was not reached to actually acknowledge anything, and that has not changed since the last time you appeared here.

That's correct, to my understanding. I'm not involved in that space anymore—

Fair enough.

—but yes, there's no difference in that stance from my perspective.

Thank you.

With that being said, is it not.... We heard testimony on Tuesday where our witnesses, despite the national security community not indicating any sort of decry or decree that the 2019 or 2021 elections were impacted by these attempts.... We heard from witnesses who said they felt that there was an impact in Mr. Chiu's riding.

Doesn't that somewhat undermine one of our pillars of democracy? That if we're to trust the non-partisan security officials who live in this space, who have all of the classifications that would be needed, who see the information, isn't this kind of doing China's bidding by suggesting our elections were in fact influenced, when the national security officials, who know far more than any of us in this room, who have the security classification, have come out and said they don't see that any of these attempts were successful?

Doesn't that kind of do China's bidding in undermining the civility and security of our elections?

I think we can only be honest and open with the facts that are before us at the end of the day. Again, you are speaking to perhaps bigger issues than I feel maybe I am able to address because of my position, but we strive—we do strive—to be open and communicate as much as possible. That is effectively why we have opened up those channels: to speak to and share some classified information with partners.

We will do our best to identify. We will do our best to get that information to the people who need it to make a decision and take an action. Ultimately, other people are going to take some of those decisions. It's not necessarily—

Ms. Cherie Henderson (Assistant Director, Requirements, Canadian Security Intelligence Service):

I'm sorry. With the amount of time I have left, I think Ms. Henderson would like to speak.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for the question. I think it's a very important point that we actually need to discuss.

When we talk about foreign interference, the service is extremely focused on any foreign interference activity against our country by numerous hostile state actors, so what we are trying to do is build that picture and educate all Canadians, because all Canadians can partake in supporting all of us in protecting our sovereignty, which includes not only our elections but also all of our democratic institutions. That's why these committees are so fundamentally important as well.

Thank you.

[Translation]

The Chair:

Thank you.

Mr. Fisher, I know you want to add something, but maybe that will be for next time.

I'll now invite those who don't speak both official languages to use their earpieces.

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for six minutes.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I've just learned a number of things that I'd like to ask the witnesses about, and I invite them to tell me if I am on the wrong track.

Witnesses, you are subject to a protocol that, in practice, may have prevented you from accurately disclosing the information or the warning we received from Global News to raise awareness of the threat. Do I have that right or not?

(1125)

[English]

Madam Chair, if I understand the question correctly, and just to make sure.... Are you verifying whether or not the protocol prevented us from sharing information that you're saying was publicly available?

Publicly available information is there for everybody. We are not just—

[Translation]

I'll stop you right there because interpretation can affect understanding.

Your role is to advise and inform the public, and we have reports where it is written in black and white. Besides the protocol that may have prevented you from informing the public—we'll ask you about that later—is there any other reason why we weren't informed? Are there any concerns or anything else?

I bring this up because we had the Minister of Public Safety here who, in his speech, raised concerns about the stigmatization of the Chinese-Canadian community. He also talked about vigilance.

If the protocol prevents you from doing so, what is there to prevent us from making a change? In other words, do you have a duty to be vigilant about your role to inform and advise the public?

[English]

Thank you for that.

With respect to the protocol, it's there for a very particular purpose in a defined time frame: an election period.

I will note—as Cherie, my colleague from the service, mentioned before—there are avenues outside of that through which we can communicate trends, information and our understanding of a threat to the public. The service does this through outreach and issuing reports. CSE and the cyber centre do this by sharing and issuing reports. It is the nature of some declassified information. You lose some of the granularity of those details. What's important is that people understand where the issues lie.

The protocol itself is very specific to the election period. Whether or not we determine to go public, in the event we feel we cannot hold a free and fair election.... Again, that's a decision for a panel of senior deputy ministers to make.

We all have other avenues, and we use those avenues to communicate threat information and trends in order to educate and prepare people—

[Translation]

Okay.

Considering that you had elements and all the restrictive measures at the time did not allow you to inform the public, even though Global News did, was the government well aware of the results?

You say that an investigation is under way. I imagine there was a warning, a sounding bell. I'm asking because I want to make sure. People are watching and are worried about what's going on.

Also, when the minister came to meet with us, she said that she hadn't been informed. It may be a communication problem, but I want you to tell me more. What happened?

[English]

I will reiterate that, especially when you have online information playing out in a public domain.... We talk about online influence that is available for people to see and for anyone to pick up, look at, interpret and share. We, inside, are also trying to understand what is behind that. We are trying to understand what and who is driving that information exchange. Those aren't always simple, quick or easy things to do.

However—and we did this routinely throughout the election period—we shared when we had information, whether or not it was open source. We said, “Look, this is in the news, so we are having a look at this to try to understand what's behind it”, in order to alert and advise. Information was shared. It's decisions on what to do with that information....

We are in a different role and realm than the media and public. We have other considerations to think about when we're sharing and treating information, especially classified information.

(1130)

[Translation]

Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP):

I only have 30 seconds left. In my second round of questions or in the extra hour that follows, I will ask you a question for the people who are watching us and who are concerned about all the electoral process.

What can be changed? I'd like your opinion. We're talking about trust, but we're also talking about citizen participation in action.

I'll ask you a question later about the famous foreign agents registry.

The Chair:

Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau.

Ms. Blaney, you have six minutes.

[English]

Thank you, Chair.

Of course, all of my questions go through the chair as they must. I want thank all of the people who are here testifying before us. For me the biggest concern I have is that Canadians have faith in our system, and that if there are problems within our system we fix those and we don't create a bunch of fearful speculations but rather a conscious effort to bring clarity and understanding. I feel that this is an area that we all need to do a little bit better in, to be quite frank.

We know that China and other foreign actors have had involvement in Canada's politics and have been going on for quite a long time trying to interfere, and that's very concerning. We see that, in the 2019 election, there were some pretty profound things that happened. We're hearing that there hasn't been an impact on our elections, but I think people's fear is growing and that really concerns me.

I'll direct my first question to Mr. King, and if anybody else wants to answer it please feel free to join in.

I feel, based on the research I have done, that Canada is far behind so many other countries and that concerns me greatly.

My first question is around the registry. What kinds of discussions are happening internally? I know you can't give us all of the details, but I think Canadians want to know there is information out there that we've heard. There isn't clarity on how that has impacted us in a way. There's not clarity, quite frankly, around what MPs and their parties can do to protect themselves. I'm concerned that there could be something happening and I would be merrily going along my way doing my work during an election and I would have no idea.

Is the registry being discussed, and what are other ways that we can look forward to in elections so that MPs can protect themselves from these kinds of things? Are there specific questions of ourselves and our parties? I heard Ms. O'Connell talking about those things and saying the Conservatives.... How would they know when to ask? What are the things that we need to be watching for as parties, as political folks, as MPs, as people who are running to be MPs, to have a better awareness and ask the correct questions so that hopefully we can get the information we need to do the things we need to do during the election process?

I know that was a lot to take in.

Mr. Adam Fisher (Director General, Intelligence Assessments, Canadian Security Intelligence Service):

I will probably pass to my service colleagues maybe to talk about the foreign registry, or a few of those points.

Just briefly in terms of protection of MPs maybe I should just start by saying there's a constant learning process here for us as well. What we did in 2019 worked reasonably well, and we tried to take some lessons from that and reuse or change. There is a need to constantly evaluate where we are. I would say, comparing us to other nations and specifically the Five Eyes, we've gotten very good comments and feedback from our Five Eyes partners on the way we operate in this domain. You are correct that there are probably some gaps there undoubtedly, and I think we should look to highlight and close those where we can.

In terms of protection for MPs, certainly during the election I know the cyber centre, which is part of CSE, had a 24-7 hotline that was available for MPs to reach out to. We provided specific guidance to MPs on how to protect themselves with respect to their personal devices' information really from the cybersecurity perspective. I know there are other discussions in and around security for MPs from a physical perspective through probably the RCMP. These were themes that came up and the service does reach out as well and try to engage with those communities.

I don't know if the service wants to reply on that piece and maybe the registry a bit.

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Through you, maybe I'll put those in two buckets: policy, and some of our briefings to folks who can be impacted by foreign influence activity.

On the policy side, there's the foreign registry, of course. Behind the scenes, certainly the service and our partners are engaged in giving advice to government on what we see as potentially useful tools that could address foreign influence activity.

Something I would emphasize is that we're up against adversaries who are very sophisticated. They're using the full state apparatus in terms of their targeting against Canada. It's not a static threat. It evolves. They watch very closely how we react and how we adapt, and they look for ways to work around that.

My point is that there's no one silver bullet to deal with this. There needs to be a continuous process, a continuous conversation and engagement to address it.

In terms of awareness amongst Canadians, and the political class as well, that is something the service, outside of the SITE task force has been putting a lot of effort into in the last few years. That's both in general terms, so engaging with parties in a classified setting, and in an unclassified setting with broader audiences, to educate them about the threat. We have a number of unclassified publications on foreign influence activity, which give you a good idea of the flags to look for in terms of foreign influence activity.

I also want to say, where we can—because a lot of what we're dealing with is highly classified intelligence—we try to engage with individuals we know are being targeted. I say that outside of any specific case or example.

(1135)

The Chair:

Thank you.

Mr. Calkins, it's up to five minutes for you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a question for you and whoever can answer this. Australia's intelligence service recently intercepted a foreign interference plot, and the situation became so grave that the director-general of security, Mike Burgess, confirmed that espionage and foreign interference in democracy in Australia have now supplanted terrorism as the nation's principal security concern. You're probably aware of that. He also expressed that Beijing used dating apps to mine confidential information from thousands of Australians with access to classified information. That's not me; that's you who would be the equivalent here in Canada.

In response to Australia's new laws making it a crime to engage in covert, deceptive or threatening conduct on behalf of a foreign government, and so on, we're trying to figure out here, as parliamentarians, what we should be doing. However, it's really difficult to figure out what we should be doing if we actually don't know what's going on.

Right now I can read Bloomberg's various very credible news articles coming out of Australia, where they say that they've intercepted people who are bankrolling money. We've had the same allegations here in Canada, yet nobody will say anything. If Beijing's willing to do it in Australia, I don't know why they wouldn't be willing to try it in Canada as well. All I hear is “media reports”, but I can't seem to get a single official from the Government of Canada to confirm or deny that there is actually money that's being bankrolled.

I can look at the documents you provided. I look at “Cybersecurity Threats against Electoral Infrastructure”. It's been fully redacted. “Cybersecurity Threats against Political Parties and Government Officials” is fully redacted. “Foreign Interference—Political” is fully redacted. “Overt Influence” is fully redacted. “Overall Threat Assessment” is fully redacted. I look at the other sides of the pages here and see that “Foreign Interference—Public” is fully redacted. I don't know what to communicate with my constituents.

It's a really awkward position to be in, because I don't want to impugn anybody's reputation here—that's not what my intent is. I actually believe that our government officials are doing the best they can. I believe you're very good at monitoring. I'm not so sure that we're good at interdicting or stopping, because I haven't see any results that tell me so. I have no media reports. I have no information that tells me that we've actually stopped anything, but I do have a former colleague who tells me very clearly that Beijing was interfering in his election. At that last meeting, the former ambassador to China said that just a threat to one riding alone undermines the integrity of our process. I believe the government is now saying that the overall election result has to be the bar in order for us to become public with information, not just undermining the integrity of one electoral district.

I'm wondering if you could give me some clarification, because I'm very frustrated right now with the lack of information, the lack of transparency and the responsibility of trying to figure out how to solve this problem as a policy-maker and as somebody who votes on legislation.

What is the bar? Should the bar be interfering in a single election in a single riding, or should it be for the entirety of the country? Should the presence of any money being discussed by a foreign actor then warrant public information? At what point does the public...? Because the public has to maintain confidence in our systems, in our institutions. I have to tell you, as somebody who represents the public, there is not a lot of public confidence in some of our public institutions right now. I don't want to go down that road, and I'm not trying to foment that feeling. I'm trying to protect our institutions. I'm just frustrated.

Can you clarify for me—because going into an in camera meeting doesn't seem to resolve any of the questions I have—if any election or any candidate for any party in this country has been affected directly by foreign interference in the last two elections? We hear about 11 in Toronto. We hear about Kenny Chiu. Has the needle been moved in a single riding in either of the last two elections? Is it yes or no?

(1140)

Thank you, Madam Chair. Through you, I'll take a stab at that. There was a lot in that question.

Maybe I'll separate what occurs during an election and outside an election, first of all, through the protocol and otherwise. There's a policy in place and protocols in place during the election for very good reason, because we want to be careful that we're not interfering with the democratic process. There are thresholds that need to be met there. It's not determined by the SITE task force. It's determined by the panel of five in terms of when something is publicly communicated. That's during an election period.

Outside an election period, as I've said, we are communicating more. I'll take the point that you can always do better, and I think certainly within the service we're looking for opportunities to be communicating with Canadians and politicians in an unclassified setting. Certainly, I think the effort is there.

As I said, you had a lot in your question, and I've forgotten what the rest of it was. I'm sorry.

It was a rant.

I would say as well that we can't speak to specific ridings, specific candidates.

Our measure is not whether foreign influence activity has moved the needle. When we see foreign influence activity, that's enough for us. That engages our mandate. That engages an investigation. That brings advice and assessments to government. Whether it changes the course of an election in a riding is not something we measure, and it's probably not something we could measure even if we wanted to, making that link between the two.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Certainly when we see it, we report it.

The Chair:

When the beep happens, I have to end it, but I do want to make sure we get the valid information. Exciting news: this is a public meeting. You can go back and watch the game tape and send us more fruitful answers. We always welcome them.

Mr. Turnbull, you have up to five minutes.

Thanks, Madam Chair.

For me, I'm worried about the repercussions of the direction that unfortunately the official opposition is moving in, which probably has some real risk associated with it. I'm wondering. When you treat allegations in a published article—the Sam Cooper story is what I'm referring to—that are really uncorroborated and unvalidated as fact, what are the risks of that?

(1145)

Thank you for the question.

I'm not going to speak to any specific cases and I'm not going to speak to the allegations within the media article. What I will say goes back to what my colleague said and what one of your colleagues recently questioned. It was just in regard to this ongoing persistent threat of foreign interference and the fact that, as a nation, we need to create greater awareness of that threat. The threat does not only happen during an election process. It is an ongoing persistent threat that we are facing and that, as Canadians, we need to increase awareness of.

When we talk about being able to defend ourselves against the threat, we need to be able to have open conversations and be as transparent as we possibly can be.

Our director has come out and said publicly that foreign interference in our processes in our democratic institutions is one of the most serious threats that we are facing. It's not the most serious, because terrorism is still extremely serious but it is insidious. It takes its time and they can certainly play us against each other in trying to get their interference activities moving forward.

Without interrupting you, I just want to build on that.

Disclosing some of the information that folks with national security clearance rightfully had access to and are looking at every day, having that exposed out there in the public, to me, is a very dangerous game. Isn't it doing the bidding of some of these foreign actors? Wouldn't China just love it for us to have that information out there in public?

Again, I'm not going to speak to the specific allegations in the article.

What I will speak to is the fact that we need to have an ongoing greater conversation on national security within this country. We need to take the opportunities to have that and educate all Canadians and make sure that Canadians know where they can go to get information. I take the point that maybe we can do better, as my colleague said, but we certainly are trying to reach out and educate and bring that greater awareness so that people can tell perhaps truth from fiction.

Thank you.

Just building on that, we heard earlier this week from former ambassador David Mulroney that there were credible threats of foreign election interference well before 2015. There has been some discussion and almost implication that somehow the current government and the security apparatus that's there haven't done a whole lot to progress on protecting our democratic institutions, which I think is false.

Could one of you on the panel speak to the many steps that have been taken to essentially prepare ourselves and improve our process since 2015?

When the service operates, of course, we do not operate out in an overt manner. A lot of our work is done in the background to support everyone in building strength and resilience against any type of threat. What we engage in, you will not always see. That's why it's so important to have this ongoing national security conversation to raise awareness, because every Canadian can support defending against foreign interference.

I have one last question.

Just because the public protocol in the last election wasn't triggered—the public wasn't necessarily notified; we couldn't, and for good reason, as I understand it—that doesn't necessarily mean that security agencies weren't in the background, working away to mitigate and interdict the different risks and threats that were there. Is that right?

Could you speak to what was being done in a general fashion?

Thank you for the question.

That is correct.

I think part of the problem is that, by nature, we have to live and operate in the shadows to an extent, given the nature of the source material and the methods of collection, etc., that we employ. However, we worked very hard in the lead-up for months and months. It wasn't just during the election period. I think that is what I would be very clear about. This is an ongoing thing.

During the election period, you see other mechanisms come into play, like the critical election incident public protocol—the CEIPP—but, in fact, we work very hard. We have to make sure that our operations and our actions are backstopped with good information. When we find something, we can't just take action willy-nilly, nor should we be able to. We should be under processes and procedures that are reviewable by oversight bodies, and we are. We need to meet thresholds to take action, but that does not mean that we are not feverishly at work, trying to identify and get that information to be able to take action.

(1150)

The Chair:

Thank you.

[Translation]

Go ahead, Ms. Gaudreau. You have two and a half minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Since I'm going to have more time later, I'm going to ask the witnesses an extremely specific question, and I invite them to answer it in turn.

We're not talking about foreign interference here. The subject of foreign interference can be very broad, in terms of disinformation, possibilities or elections, which we are talking about more specifically. How is it that the United Kingdom talks about steps that could be taken, and the United States talks about Russian interference? I'd like to know why we're not talking about it here.

[English]

Thank you for your question.

I would say that we speak about foreign interference consistently, certainly in the lead-up.

Again, I've referred to some of the publications that we try to put out there, both in the service and the cyber centre, to educate the public about what foreign interference is, where it can happen and how people should be aware. They try to educate, so we speak about it and we speak about it when we can.

The difficulty, as well, during election periods is that we are different from the U.S., absolutely, and we have to observe other things, like the.... My mind is blanking. I apologize. There are things we can communicate and things we cannot communicate. That's why we have the critical election incident public protocol in place to be able to track—

[Translation]

Thank you, Mr. King. Before we go to Mr. Fisher, I understand that there are two different directives: during an election period compared to when we're in government.

Mr. Fisher, why do we hear so little about it? Yes, we hear about it, but clearly not much in the general public via the government to citizens.

[English]

Thank you for the question.

Maybe it's a symptom of where I work, but I find that we are talking about it more and more. That's the honest answer from me.

I think about where we were five or 10 years ago. I couldn't have thought of being in front of a committee like this and speaking openly about Chinese foreign influence, Russian foreign influence and Iranian foreign influence. It just wouldn't have happened, so I think we have made progress.

We can go further, but it takes time. We're on the right track.

The Chair:

Thank you very much.

We have Ms. Blaney for up to two and a half minutes.

Thank you, Chair.

One of the other issues that I'm really concerned about is misinformation and how that's impacting.... I have an especially significant concern about any impacts it has for rural and remote communities, indigenous communities and different ethnic communities, so I want to preface that.

I saw that the report released by the CSE in 2021 states clearly that Canadian voters will very likely encounter “some form of foreign cyber interference” in the next federal election, so my question for you is this: Can you explain what that foreign interference looks like online?

What policies are being implemented? What measures are being taken to educate Canadians, so that they have some awareness that this might be happening to them and that they should question it? How are we protecting Canadians?

Thank you for your question.

In terms of online misinformation, disinformation, malinformation and that whole ecosystem, it's unfortunate that our Global Affairs colleagues aren't here with us today to speak about it, because that is very much their domain in terms of SITE's role.

Generally speaking in terms of the trends, we're concerned. Looking at what Canada is going to be susceptible to, I suppose, is the ultimate thing. What is the intent of foreign actors and what are their foreign policy objectives, for example, with respect to Canada?

We have the fortunate—and sometimes unfortunate—issue of being very close to the U.S. Our media ecosystems are very intertwined. That is an issue as well, in terms of spillover. Sometimes that disinformation isn't necessarily directed at Canada, but we're getting blowback effects because it's part of the North American ecosystem. It is problematic.

Sometimes it is hard to discern the origin of the information. The methodologies employed by adversaries are pretty good. They intentionally obfuscate who they are, so it's hard for us to identify who's in behind. We have clear examples in the past of, say, Russia sharing disinformation around COVID, etc. That was aimed at a number of different audiences.

It can take a lot of different forms and isn't exactly being directed to Canada, yet we still feel the impacts.

What can we do? I would just like to point out—and I'm sure this is true of the service as well—that CSE and the cyber centre are making more of a concerted effort to specifically engage with indigenous communities, so that we understand their needs from a cybersecurity perspective. Given that there are different geographies and different complications there, how can we better support and understand their needs?

That is certainly on our radar. Things that we're engaged in—I'm sure that is the same for the service—are looking at particular communities and doing outreach to educate, understand and let them know what the risks are.

(1155)

The Chair:

Thank you so much.

I have been so impressed over the last few weeks on how long one sentence can go on for. It's really impressive to see that it's not just elected officials who can really extend a line. It's an impressive skill to gain over time.

[Translation]

Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. You have five minutes.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here.

Ladies and gentlemen, what I gather from the first hour of testimony is that, unfortunately, you are not in a position to disclose much information to us. In reading the many documents that have been sent to us, we've had the opportunity to note that every time we became a little more specific or asked for a little more information that would allow us, as parliamentarians, to take action and make decisions to introduce bills and propose legislative changes, we are unfortunately deprived of that. The information you have can't be made public and can only be sent to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians to determine whether the information should be made public.

So here's the problem we have. During an election period, this non-intervention or this decision to follow the process can directly affect the outcome. We saw this yesterday with the former ambassador, Mr. Burton, who told us that he believes that had it not been for the massive online disinformation campaign against MP Kenny Chiu, he would still be a member of Parliament today. Respecting a process and following the steps means that, unfortunately, it also affects the outcome of the election.

I understand your discomfort and the difficulty of your work, but since our only source of information is from journalist Sam Cooper, let me look into a few allegations and see exactly what you can tell us.

First of all, he told us of documented evidence that the Chinese communist regime is trying to infiltrate all levels of government.

[English]

It says here, “there is a substantial body of evidence that Chinese officials are actively pursuing a strategy of engagement to influence Canadian officials in ways that can compromise the security of Canada and the integrity of Canadian institutions.”

[Translation]

Is that true? I'd like a short answer: yes or no.

Thank you for the question.

[English]

I'm going to respond in English, just for clarity.

One thing that we're very concerned about, actually, is that every Canadian and all levels of government—

[Translation]

Madam Chair, with all due respect, I'm just asking if the statement is true.

The Chair:

Let's stop for a few seconds.

Sometimes we ask long questions, and they have to be answered with a little information. Since we are all respectful, we will give Ms. Henderson a few moments to answer the question.

Thank you.

[English]

All levels of government are susceptible and targeted by foreign interference actors. I am not going to specifically name a state, but I would say that all levels of government are. That's provincial, federal and municipal. All electoral candidates are.

(1200)

[Translation]

Why can't you name a country?

[English]

I think we can easily say that we know China is very engaged in focusing, but there are other nations as well out there. I would always be very concerned to focus on one nation and then lose the focus of what else could be happening from other hostile activities of states.

[Translation]

Here's another statement:

[English]

It says, “Chinese officials used local, pro-Beijing community groups as intermediaries to engage Canadian politicians they identified as strategically valuable.” Is that true or not?

Yes, it's true.

We see China—in particular, China—using non-traditional methods of foreign influence activity. They're not relying necessarily on trained agents. They use cut-outs. They use proxies. They use community groups, and they use diaspora organizations and community leaders.

[Translation]

Thank you.

Is it true or false that Chinese foreign interference against elected officials and public servants in Canada is very well documented by the various agencies?

[English]

Yes, that's true.

[Translation]

Thank you.

[English]

This is from a Global News source.

[Translation]

You apparently have information about China's efforts to influence Canadian politicians.

[English]

Again, I am not going to speak specifically to one state, but every Canadian politician is potentially susceptible to foreign interference activity. Every Canadian politician needs to be aware of that and then learn how to defend themselves. The best way to defend themselves is through awareness and discussion.

[Translation]

Without naming names, do you have any specific, well-documented cases of the Chinese regime interfering with Canadian politicians?

[English]

I can say that we definitely have seen specific cases of hostile activities of states against politicians. In those specific cases, we definitely brief our government on the challenges that are being faced.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Ms. Sahota, you have up to five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This has been an interesting conversation. Of course, unfortunately, it's not overwhelmingly enlightening. I feel like we're going a little bit in circles from where we started. I was talking with the analysts earlier. The job of this committee is to gather all of this information from all of the wonderful witnesses we have had, but due to our not having certain security clearances and not being able to get the information that's needed—and Mr. Calkins was even referring to that—it's hard to make proper recommendations that will improve the oversight we have in Canada and get the best results with the most protection of our democracy for Canadians.

A lot of what we've heard from previous witnesses—or at least the witnesses we had on Tuesday—was that perhaps the threshold is too low and maybe we should be having a higher threshold to sound the alarms, and that our job is to gather information, not necessarily to analyze that information.

Would you be able to leave this committee with some type of recommendation as to what more we can do as a government and as a committee to recommend something to government, so that Canadians have confidence in our system? It's not about the one riding or political gain from one party to another and, to some degree, it's disappointing that this is the conversation we've ended up having throughout this study.

It's about our democratic system. It is about that larger picture that you were talking about, Mr. King, which you said you might not be able to answer to. However, I am sure that, being on this task force, you probably do think about those larger issues, because I think about them at night. It keeps me up wondering where we're headed with our institutions and our democratic system. I'd really like any of you to provide us with some insights as to what our recommendations should be.

(1205)

I can start. Thank you very much for the question.

One of the things that I think we need to do is to make sure that our security agencies actually have the tools we need in order to do our jobs. The CSIS Act was created back in 1984. In terms of a lot of the challenges we're dealing with today on the technology side, the creators of the CSIS Act did not foresee those kinds of challenges.

The other thing within the CSIS Act is that we cannot share classified information with provincial or municipal partners. We need to be able to do that, but section 19 of our act specifically prohibits it. Just to be able to have the tools we need as an agency to be able to properly investigate and advise the government on threats would be extremely valuable.

Perhaps I can add a few comments as well, Madam Chair.

I think we'll be very honest, and my colleague Adam has stated this: This is a learning process for all of us.

Adam, you mentioned that 10 years ago you wouldn't have imagined sitting here before committee. I wouldn't have imagined sitting here before committee two years ago, I can tell you.

We're making a concerted effort, I think, to be more transparent, putting out our information and declassifying information more and more. I'll give the example of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where CSE has declassified information and literally put out on Twitter feeds that we've observed activities and instances of Russia sending misinformation about, say, Canadian Forces operating in Ukraine.

Those things can change. I think we are on a path of being more and more open, and I think we will continue down that trend. I think that's one thing. I would suggest it's as much a culture.... Within our organizations to wrap our heads around that, it doesn't happen overnight. I think instances like war will trigger a drastic response.

I think that's a thing and that is not unique to Canada. I've heard that reflected from my Five Eyes colleagues also.

I'm sorry, Lisa. You look like you want to speak. Please go ahead.

I just wanted to make sure we didn't run out of time.

From the RCMP perspective, the RCMP does face challenges with transitioning security and intelligence information into criminal investigations. I know that there's been a lot of discussion on this with our elected officials and our senior policy-makers, but that issue is one area that the RCMP is continuing to closely collaborate on.

If you're looking for recommendations, that's another area from the RCMP perspective that continuously challenges us in this foreign actor interference space.

The Chair:

That was excellent timing. That was on the dot.

We'll now restart the round. The way rounds work is that all will now have six minutes, and then we will use our time accordingly.

We'll be starting again with Mr. Cooper.

You have up to six minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll direct my questions to whichever official is in the best position to respond.

Is it true that Beijing security agencies might try to compromise Canadian officials who travel to China—yes or no?

Yes.

Okay.

Is it true that Beijing's consulate in Toronto uses an extensive network of community groups to conceal the flow of funds between Beijing officials and network members—yes or no?

I'm not going to speak specifically to that question just due to the requirement to maintain operational secrecy. What I will say, and what we have said, is that hostile states will use whatever avenues they can to engage in foreign interference activities.

That would include using embassies and consulates to direct money to proxies.

Again, I wouldn't speak specifically in regard to money, but I would say that they will use whatever avenues they can in order to achieve their objectives.

So that's yes.

Is it true that the staff of politicians who are targeted provide information or relay information to foreign-state bad actors, such as the PRC?

Again, I'm not going to comment on any specific operational questions, but I would say, as I noted earlier, that any Canadian citizen, any electoral official, is susceptible or can be approached by a foreign hostile actor in order to engage in foreign interference activities.

(1210)

Do you have evidence that's happening?

I'm not going to speak about any specific investigations, but as I noted, we need to build our defences against any foreign interference activity and make people aware that they are being targeted or could potentially be targeted.

Is it true that a greater Toronto-based network involving candidates, aides, an MPP and unelected public officials...? Did that exist at the time of the 2019 election or at all, yes or no?

I'm not going to speak, again, to any specific operational questions, but what I will again reiterate is that we need to maintain strong defences against foreign interference and make sure that we educate all Canadians, including MPs, with regard to the potential threat that they face from foreign-interference actors.

All right.

Ms. Henderson, you said again—and you said it before—that the best way for politicians to protect themselves is with general awareness. That's fine and well, but that's insufficient. You further said, in answer to an earlier question, that politicians are being targeted and that, when politicians are targeted, that information is conveyed to the government. What you didn't say is that the information is passed on to the politician who is targeted. Why not?

What we will do as an organization, if we determine that individuals are under potential threat from foreign-interference activities, is to have discussions with individuals. We will also go out and approach everybody—

How often does that happen?

I don't have any figures at this moment, and I'm not going to speak to operational specifics, but I will say—

Where's the transparency? Where is the sunlight?

Part of the sunlight is being able to have this ongoing conversation with regard to foreign interference. Canadians, I think, feel very comfortable, and the more we have this discussion and make awareness—

It's a conversation—

I have a point of order.

The Chair:

Now we have a point of order.

We all just eat into all of our own time by just.... I asked very kindly, and I think I've demonstrated my intentions here of trying to be really good for the sake of all of us. Letting one person speak and one person answer is important because this is a study that we all agree is important.

We might not like the questions and we might not like the answers, but it's important that we hear the questions and we hear the answers.

Mr. Turnbull, does that echo your point of order?

You read my mind, Madam Chair.

The Chair:

Excellent. I'm hoping for a career after politics. It might be just that.

I'm actually going to ask Ms. Henderson to respond, and we're going have a really tough conversation and an important one.

Ms. Henderson.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, it goes back to the importance of having the conversation and the importance of raising awareness. There are many Canadians who I would call “unwitting”. They wouldn't even know that they were being approached, and that's why these conversations are fundamentally important.

If you're an unwitting target, wouldn't it be all the more important to be informed?

If they're unwitting, it may not have raised to that point where anybody is aware. The more we can have those conversations about the types of things that individuals can look for, then they can say, “I think there's something happening. I need to talk to somebody.” Then we can have that greater conversation.

It doesn't just come from us. It comes from all Canadians creating that greater awareness to make us much more resilient as a country.

Mrs. Sherry Romanado (Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, Lib.):

I would just say that I don't see any evidence that's happening. The suggestion is made that it is, but no examples can be cited. We know that there's no evidence that concrete action has been taken. It's well established that interference has been ongoing, but no one has been charged, let alone convicted.

In the face of that, having these general conversations about foreign interference really doesn't seem to address the fundamental issue at hand.

(1215)

The Chair:

Thank you so much.

A lot has changed. It's interesting because sometimes I get a text message. I have Ryan here from my team, and I always take a screenshot of it and ask, “Is this spam, or is this real?” Oftentimes, he'll say, “Don't answer it”—or “Do answer it.” It's interesting how much the world is changing. I'd like to believe that I'm hip and cool. It turns out that's not the case.

Mrs. Romanado, you have up to six minutes.

[Translation]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ms. Henderson, you mentioned that all levels of government were targeted. Under section 19 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, you don't have the ability to share information with the provinces, territories and municipalities.

Is there currently a way for federal agencies to work with the provinces, territories and municipalities when it comes to their elections?

[English]

Thank you very much for the question.

There are several ways we are working hard to get the message out. We provide many unclassified briefings. In some cases, individuals within those other provinces or municipalities, or even in some cases industry, can get a clearance sponsored by the Canadian government and that will allow us to have greater conversations.

The other thing I can say that the service does a bit more in the background is that we will engage our threat reduction mandate in order to mitigate any threats. Sometimes that will enable us to engage those partners as well.

[Translation]

Mr. King, I'll ask you the same question.

Thank you for the question.

[English]

I'll just note as well that the cyber centre does engage regularly with provincial, territorial and some municipal bodies. In fact, we do things like regular threat briefings. To be quite fair, it's around cyber-threats and information we can share. It would be in an unclassified manner. It's an ongoing thing. It's not just during an election. It's to better enable them to understand the threat and build up their own defences, so that we're providing them with what we're seeing in terms of trends.

That's an active thing, and that goes for some of the provincial electoral bodies as well. There's engagement there on a persistent basis. I would have to clarify about the classification of those discussions, but they are ongoing and persistent.

Perhaps, Lisa....

Madam Chair, just to let you know, a number of provinces have their own legislation regarding threats to elections at that level. The RCMP is uniquely placed to work with those police of jurisdiction on both a proactive and reactive basis to educate them on indicators of foreign actor interference and to provide them with support. We are connected with our police of jurisdiction partners at the provincial and municipal levels, exchanging information on such issues.

I just want to focus a little on conversations we've been hearing about the fact that members of Parliament on this committee do not have the same security clearance that would allow you to share some of the information that has been requested.

I understand that the 2019 election report has been sent to NSICOP, and that was studied at that time by the members. I'm not sure if the Conservatives were on that committee at that time or not. I understand that the 2021 election report will be tabled with NSICOP, which has the necessary clearance to dig a little further and ask those questions. Is that accurate?

I would have to verify. I imagine it will happen. We welcome, honestly, review by oversight bodies to have a look at what we're doing.

Absolutely, we've had conversations with NSICOP on previous activities, so I imagine that would be forthcoming. I could not verify with you today whether they've received the 2021 report and are looking at that actively, but they do have the clearances. We do disclose the information to them unredacted. We are at their will to answer questions.

Perfect. Further to that, you were talking about reviews.

Ms. Henderson, I think you mentioned that the CSIS Act was created in 1984. I was 10. Look at the colour of my hair. We can imagine some people here probably weren't born.

Talking about cybersecurity, Canada is working to increase our capacity and our capability in cyber. I used to sit on the defence committee and was parliamentary secretary in a previous government, so I'm fully aware of cyber-capabilities and our strive to increase those.

Given the fact that the CSIS Act was created in 1984, and with these new technologies that we're hearing about, further to my colleague's question earlier, what would be the proper mechanism to make sure we update that act so that it captures what you need to do and what our agencies need to be able to do the work they need to do?

(1220)

You will all be aware, of course, that five years ago we did Bill C-59. It had some very important additions to our act, but as I said, it's very old.

Some nations do a regular review just to make sure it's all up to standard and can allow the agencies to engage and do what they need to do into the future as well. The CSIS Act has withstood the time, but it is time for a review and to have a good close look at it.

Is there anything further? I only have about 30 seconds left.

If not, I will cede my time to the next speaker. Thank you.

I will say one thing, if I may. Another thing we need to look at within the act is our ability to use big data and crunch big data. We don't have that ability at this point.

Thank you very much.

The Chair:

Thank you very much.

[Translation]

Ms. Gaudreau, you have the floor for six minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have a quick question, and I'd like a quick answer.

I think it was Ms. Henderson who said the following: we informed the government of foreign interference activities. I'd like to know more. What did it involve, and when did it happen?

Thank you for the question.

[English]

The service regularly provides intelligence assessments and intelligence reporting to the government to advise them of threats to national security under our act.

[Translation]

We probably won't know what it entailed.

But could we know when it happened? Was it in 2019, 202, 2021? Can we have a month, a date?

Thank you for the question.

The only reason I'm taking time to respond is because we give out information regularly.

[English]

We write assessment reports on an ongoing basis, looking at the situation that we're dealing with. I would never say that it was just a certain month or even a certain quarter, but regularly.

[Translation]

This means that information must have been circulating about possible alerts, which led Global News to make such a release.

I wanted to talk about the registry of foreign agents, since Mr. Martin was here, since Mr. Mulroney and Mr. Burton, whom I'm sure the witnesses are familiar with and who are two experts on China, came to talk to us about what the Five Eyes, including Australia, were inspired by, and how they responded and equipped themselves.

One of the things they both mentioned was that a registry of foreign agents would be necessary to intervene with more vigilance and to act. I'd like to know if this registry, which could be put in place quickly, could help fight foreign Chinese influence.

I'd like to hear Ms. Ducharme's opinion.

Thank you for the question.

Madam Chair, I'm going to answer in English so I can be more specific.

[English]

From the RCMP perspective, if I'm understanding the question correctly about a foreign agent registry, the RCMP would find that valuable for Canadians, as it would identify foreign actors undertaking certain activities who are operating in the interest, or not, of the Canadian public. Obviously, this is a topic of much interest right now. We are supporting our elected officials in those discussions, in close collaboration with our security and intelligence partners and Public Safety.

(1225)

[Translation]

How urgent do you think it is to get this registry up and running?

Thank you for the question.

[English]

If I understand, your question is how urgent it is, in our opinion. Any tool that supports the RCMP in their activities is good progress in the right direction. However, we want to get this right, in close consultation with Canadians, respecting Privacy Act issues, respecting all of the legislation that exists that complements and is related to this particular endeavour, and again, in close consultation with our elected officials and partners on the way forward.

[Translation]

Madam Chair, I'd also like to know what Ms. Henderson thinks.

Is a registry urgent and necessary to get the job done right?

Thank you very much for the question.

[English]

I am in agreement with what my colleague Ms. Ducharme said, because we certainly see the benefit of this. We have provided our advice to government and policy-makers. We need to get it right when we do that.

As Adam noted earlier, the conversation is ongoing. We are providing advice and engaging with our partners to help track the best way forward.

[Translation]

Madam Chair, what I see is that there are restrictive issues around the protocol and around the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act that limit the possibility of moving forward. I also understand that there are tools that should be put in place urgently.

I would like to give the witnesses the minute I have left so that they can express how important it is to act now.

Mr. King, I'd like to hear your comments on this.

[English]

Thank you.

Yes, I'd support my colleagues' view when it comes to the foreign registry. It's not a domain I would play in, since CSE is a foreign intelligence agency. These are more domestic-related pieces.

I think the items you noted are fair.

I'll go back to the protocol, and the notion that it is, perhaps, restrictive. I think it's always good to review—I'll put it that way. It's always good to review in order to see whether or not we have it right. I'm not going to say whether we have it right or wrong. I think the supporting mechanisms behind it are good and sound. They've been proven so over a couple of elections. I think we found that it's good.

It's another question when you put information out publicly. I think we should always have the conversations to evaluate whether or not we've done the right thing.

[Translation]

I'm sorry for Mr. Fisher.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Ms. Blaney, you have six minutes.

[English]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Through you, as always, my first question is simply this: How does an MP become aware they are targeted? Is the MP or party notified—or both? You talked about the government being notified. Is the government the only one? I'm trying to get that clear.

The other part of that question is this: What is the protocol during an election, compared to pre-election time?

Thank you very much for the question.

Again, I would go back to some of the comments I made earlier. We need to educate our MPs so they can potentially recognize they are being approached. The service has produced certain documents. One is called “FI and You”. I believe that's the name of it. It's an unclassified document. It sets a base level, so individuals can look at it and say, “Okay, yes, this has happened to me,” and then reach out for a conversation. The service has, on some occasions.... As I noted, when we determine someone is being approached and there is a real threat, we will go and have a conversation with that individual.

Let's be honest. We can't see and do everything. We require Canadians to recognize when they are being approached and the fact that they are a very valuable asset. They have a voice, and people could be trying to use that voice. They really need to be aware of that threat to their own security.

Thank you.

The next question I have is for the RCMP.

I'm curious. I've heard stories from folks who feel they've been exposed to foreign interference. There are people from vulnerable communities who want to come forward and talk about things that may be happening within their ethnic community. Sometimes, when they go to the RCMP—depending on the community—there's no awareness, so they get passed around without a resolution to the problem.

I'm wondering what tools and resources are available to everyday Canadians to report information related to foreign interference. Is there a need for the RCMP to have a little more training, in order to address those issues in a more meaningful way?

(1230)

Madam Chair, the RCMP takes all threats of intimidation and state-backed harassment and foreign interference very seriously. It has a national security information network that has been set up to receive complaints either via telephone through a 1-800 number or via email. However, most often, when individuals may feel targeted, the first place that they will go to is their local police of jurisdiction, or if they feel there's an imminent or a pending threat, they should be advised to contact 911 immediately.

The RCMP works with the police of jurisdiction in proactive and reactive information sharing to increase awareness of indicators of foreign actor interference and whatnot, but as mentioned there is the national security information network. It's an RCMP system that is managed 24-7, 365 days a year, by trained RCMP telecommunications operators. CSIS also has a reporting system for that, so together, when we receive tips that are credible, we collaborate on that.

There are multiple ways and means for individuals to report, but as I mentioned it's usually through 911 if they feel immediate threats or their first place is the police of jurisdiction.

I hope that answers your question.

Thank you, somewhat. I appreciate that.

I did appreciate one of the recommendations.

I think it was you, Ms. Henderson, who talked about opening the CSIS Act for sharing information with different levels of government. Right now it's pinioned in at just the federal level but not the other levels, and I can imagine that for provinces, territories and municipalities it would be very useful to know that information.

Knowing the reality of our world, that how foreign interference intersects in our communities is an ever-changing, growing and developing reality, I'm just wondering if there are any other changes to the act or to any other legislation that would be helpful to allow the work to be done in a more meaningful way.

As I noted earlier, another very beneficial tool would be the ability to use big data and crunch data, of course respecting the privacy of Canadians. We still need to be able to use the data to determine trends. It helps us get leads. It helps us set ourselves up in order to follow the investigative route. I don't think we can underestimate the value of being able to use data. It will help us in our investigations.

My last question goes back to that idea of misinformation, especially in different types of social media and other media outlets. Should the Canadian government have a clearer process to publicly identify foreign-based sources of disinformation, like a public naming or revealing, to let people know that these are sources that might not be safe for us to gather information from?

That's a tricky one if you're saying you want to have a list—don't go here or you could be at risk here—because it shifts over time and the problem is that platforms can be used by anybody. To single one out because there may be a presence of some nefarious activity there, that could be detrimental to others who use the same platform when it's in fact not used solely for that. There are encrypted messaging apps that exist that we use to communicate with one another because we trust them more, to be quite frank, sometimes, and that the public uses and that bad people use.

It's kind of a difficult thing to draw a line and say this bad and this good. As well, this sort of issue does shift over time.

The Chair:

Thank you very much.

Mr. Calkins, you have up to five minutes.

Thank you.

Through you, Madam Chair, my question is to Mr. Fisher.

Can you just confirm something for me? I think you said several times at this committee so far in your answers that you don't measure votes or voter intention as part of your assessment for interference. Did I get that right?

(1235)

What I was trying to communicate is that, when we're investigating foreign influence activity during an election or outside of an election, we're not necessarily focusing on impact. We're focusing on the activity of the adversary. If they're acting in a way that is deceitful and against the interests of Canada, that's what we focus on. Whether they're successful or not is secondary to our purposes.

It just seems odd to me, because the purpose of an election is for the political actors who are operating lawfully in the country to move votes back and forth. How would you know if somebody is actually interfering in an election if they weren't able to adjust any election results?

Again, we'd be looking at the activities. If it's an agent of a foreign state who is, for example, looking to get the vote out for a certain candidate and is messaging in that regard, that's what would concern us. Whether the agent had success or not would be secondary, but any attempt of foreign influence activity would be something that we would take seriously and look into.

I hope that answers the question.

Sort of.

We've heard from other witnesses this week that our intelligence services do not have a functional working knowledge of what's being said or reported in Chinese-language media. It's not only here, but everywhere, so that would be Mandarin and Cantonese, I presume. It's also been reported that only 18% of senior Global Affairs Canada officials have met the language requirements for their positions.

I'm wondering if we have the assets to fully understand what's being communicated in this country in languages that would not be our official languages, because 18% is a pretty low number.

I'm not going to speak to government officials and their language requirements specifically, but we always look to increase our capability when it comes to foreign languages.

It's the same with any skill set. These can be rare and hard to come by, depending what our focus is with respect to the intelligence requirements and the questions we need to answer. It's not always easy to find or to get people moved through security processes and clearances either. There are a number of things we have to contend with that, maybe, others do not in terms of building capabilities.

Would I say we need more? I would always say that we need more. That stands for cyber-skills as well, and people with science, tech, engineering and math backgrounds. It's difficult, but we do our best. We have some capability, but I think we would always say that we would like to have more skill sets and languages.

Testimony that we heard earlier in this meeting alluded to or alleged that the Chinese Communist regime in Beijing has a disproportionate number of employees here in their various consular activities. They gave us numbers for what other consulates from Japan and other countries might have, and the numbers they gave us were staggering.

Would your assessment of the operatives, agents or consular officials here from China be disproportionate? Do you think they have too many people here?

My light has come on, so I'll try to answer that.

I'm not a diplomat. I don't know what is normal or abnormal in terms of consular representation, and I wouldn't speak to that specific assertion. What I would do is echo what my colleagues have said, which is that hostile foreign states will use any platform in order to further influence foreign activity, and that can include consular representation.

You've talked a bit about your ability to collect, mine and get data, crunch numbers and so on. I've suggested that I think.... My sense is that the government does a good job of gathering the information. I'm not confident, based on the fact that other countries are very public about the fact that they've hauled people to the mat for foreign interference, and we don't have any examples here in this country.... I don't know why operatives in other countries would be any different there than they are here.

I'm running out time. I wonder if you are missing some tools to haul people to the mat who are interfering in our democracy. Is that the problem?

I'll really quickly echo what my colleague from the RCMP said, which is the requirement to address intelligence to evidence. That is an obstacle for us. Our inability to translate intelligence that's collected in a very covert way into an evidentiary arena that can assist law enforcement is a challenge for us.

(1240)

The Chair:

Thank you so much.

For the record, when the “beep beep” happens, that means you've run out of time. It's the end of the time.

Ms. O'Connell, you have up to five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, through you to our witnesses, I'm going to make a couple of comments first, and then I'll get to my question.

One of the frustrating pieces of this study.... I was a member of NSICOP and had that security clearance, so I do understand how difficult it is to receive that clearance. I understand the quality of that information. I understand the sensitivity of it and all of the protections that go along with it. I highly recommend that, if other members have the opportunity from their party to be part of NSICOP, you absolutely do it, because you learn a lot. It's done in a way that is sensitive and secure and in a way that protects our national interests.

There's always this debate around what should be shared publicly so Canadians can know and prepare themselves but also the risks of sharing that information, because then our adversaries also get that information. Sometimes it's not the specific details; it's operational information. It's frustrating. I'm sure you'd love to answer these questions and give all these details, but in doing so, in providing that to Canadians, you're also providing that to China or Russia or other foreign state actors. Even I sit here frustrated sometimes.

What's also a little frustrating is the nature of these conversations. Because they are so sensitive, they become a political opportunity for some to hold up documents that are redacted. How salacious. What a public prop that can be. There's also an opportunity to call in witnesses and ask them to tell what they heard in a meeting, knowing that it was a classified meeting and that those details can't be shared. How salacious and how political it is to look for this smoking gun instead of talking about.... I give credit to all my colleagues across the floor, too, for trying hone in on some recommendations for how to improve the system in Canada.

I don't think anybody has said that everything here is perfect and there are no improvements to be made. Of course not. It's going to be evergreened because the nature of threats is constantly changing.

I also want to point out some of the areas we're criticizing. How well does SITE work? How well does the critical election incident public protocol work? Is NSICOP the right place to look at this stuff?

I remind this committee that none of those things existed prior to 2015—none of them. Security threats and foreign influence didn't just begin in 2015, but there have been things put in place to make that better, to give parliamentarians more opportunities to access this information and to allow Canadians to see more. Seeing the CSIS director's public comments, CSIS has come a long way. If you follow any of these things—and I did for a long time—and read those speeches, they have come a long way in sharing information. Can they go further? Yes, I think so, but how do we have that conversation?

I've used a lot of time, but I want to ask about the details of that balance of sharing that information versus the very real risks. That can include things like how we collect information. What we don't know could be useful to adversaries.

Ms. Henderson, because I called out CSIS for clearly making a distinction, what is your thought process on that balance of risk versus communicating with Canadians?

(1245)

That is a very important question.

I can honestly say that it's a very difficult balance to strike. Whenever we are doing assessments or sharing information, we are trying to look at what we can say that will still enable us to get the messaging across but also protect our sources, our techniques and our tactics, so we aren't giving too much to an adversary but we are still able to inform Canadians the best we possibly can, without harming them through making weaknesses in our national security structure.

It's a balance we try to strike, and we're constantly learning and evolving as we go. I appreciate your comments that we have come a long way.

The Chair:

Thank you so much.

[Translation]

Ms. Gaudreau, the floor is yours for two and a half minutes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to say that I'm sorry for leading the witnesses down a slippery slope. As we can see, the government isn't doing very well.

I'm going to ask some questions, because I'm thinking of people back home and, in any case, I'm one of those who doesn't seek power. So I'm sincere.

When we talk about the level of infiltration of the United Front and the Chinese Ministry of State Security, in relation to political parties, do the witnesses think it would be necessary to have a look at the registry, including volunteers, constituency workers, in fact, any individual or platform that revolves around the candidate?

I'd like to know what you think, Ms. Ducharme.

Thank you.

If I understand correctly, your question is about the foreign agent registry.

[English]

Where do we stop and where do we start?

Again, this is a discussion that is under way right now with our senior policy-makers and in consultation with our experts at applicable global security and intelligence agencies. We'll provide input into that, but ultimately the discussion at that level will be what the appropriate scope is. What's the appropriate breadth and width of where the registry will start and stop?

[Translation]

Madam Chair, given that we've only heard from one witness, would it possible to ask the witnesses to provide us with additional information on proposed amendments or changes to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and on what can be done to amend the protocol or on the urgency of setting up a registry?

We can draw inspiration, we don't need to reinvent the wheel. We can fast-track this.

I think I have 30 seconds left. I'd like to hear Mr. Fisher tell us if he agrees with his colleagues about the registry.

[English]

Yes, I agree with what's been said by my colleagues with regard to a registry.

I think it would be a useful tool that would bring some baseline transparency. As has been mentioned, it's something we're discussing with the policy departments that lead the development of tools in response to the threat.

The Chair:

Thank you so much.

Ms. Blaney.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This has been a very interesting conversation. It is frustrating. I think we're just trying to get clarity. I reflect on the fact that, if this was easy and not complex, wouldn't that make life a lot easier for the process?

I really appreciate the comments made during testimony about the fact that this is evolving. Adapting to that evolution is a key part of this process.

I'm hearing a lot about what's happening in terms of monitoring the foreign interference. I'm curious about the other side, which is what's happening around deterring that. Is there any place where actions are happening, but there are no laws? Technically that means nothing is happening that is inappropriate, but there's a concerning trend. How are we going to address that? Are there gaps in legislation that could help address those things?

What I'm really trying to wrap my head around is where the slippery slope is. Do we have the appropriate rules in Canada to deal with that slippery slope so that we don't get to the part where we're over the edge? In terms of that, is it a question of creating more transparency like other countries have done with tools like the foreign agent registry?

I hope that makes sense. I'm just trying to figure out where the gap is and how we can start to fill that.

How do we use those processes to inform Canadians in a more fulsome way, not necessarily of the details but of the processes in place to protect politicians, people who are running to be politicians and the country at large, and for addressing foreign interference?

(1250)

Thank you very much for the question. There are no simple questions in this. I appreciate that.

I would say that one thing we haven't spoken about too much—I think I mentioned it earlier—is that the service does engage its threat-reduction mandate. You will not be aware of that. It is behind the scenes, but it is one way that we are able to engage and mitigate the threat in some areas. We do that. That's legal. We do everything legally and respecting the rights of Canadians and people within Canada.

I think we're out of time. I apologize. I heard the buzzer.

The Chair:

We are sorry too. Thank you so much.

We will go to Mr. Cooper.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I will be moving a motion at this time. I will first read the motion into the record. I move:

That, given the Global News report published by Sam Cooper on February 8, 2023, revealing that national security officials drafted a warning for the Prime Minister in June 2017, alleging that Beijing agents were assisting Canadian candidates running for political offices and included well-documented evidence of Beijing’s efforts to infiltrate “all levels of government,” the Committee,

add additional meetings as required to its study on foreign election interference;
invite the following witnesses to testify in public on the contents of the report: Katie Telford, Chief of Staff to the Prime Minister; Michael Wernick, Former Clerk of the Privy Council; and Daniel Jean, Former National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister; and,
order the production of all memoranda, briefing notes, e-mails, records of conversations, and any other relevant documents, including any drafts, which are in the possession of the government, with respect to the matters referred to in the Global News report, provided that the documents, which may be redacted to protect the identities of employees or sources of Canadian or allied intelligence agencies, shall be deposited with the Clerk of the Committee, in both official languages, within two weeks of the adoption of this motion.

The Chair:

Is there any discussion?

Mr. Turnbull.

Madam Chair, I didn't have an opportunity to speak to my motion. I moved a motion.

You moved it, so....

Now I would like to speak to it. That is the normal process.

On a point of order, the normal process is also to share motions in both official languages, and I would like to request that from Mr. Cooper, because we'd like to actually read the motion. I need to see it in writing.

I would also ask, Madam Chair, if possible, if we could have a little bit of time to discuss the motion as a team, just a very short recess to take a look at it.

The Chair:

Let's get this motion circulated first. I'm not sure who all has it. It is in both official languages. We'll just get that circulated.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.

(1255)

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This is a relatively straightforward motion. It arises from yesterday's Global News article that reveals that Katie Telford, chief of staff, had requested a memo that was then prepared by Daniel Jean, the former national security and intelligence adviser to the Prime Minister. That in turn was passed on to Michael Wernick, the then clerk of the Privy Council. The contents of that memo note that there is well-documented evidence of an active campaign of interference by the Beijing regime, which threatens the national security of Canada and which involves the corrupting of politicians, including by assisting Canadian candidates running for political offices.

In light of this report and given the scope of the study, I think it's appropriate that we hear from the three individuals named in the report.

The Chair:

Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

Just to confirm, there is no relation between you and Mr. Sam Cooper....

There is no relation, I can assure you.

The Chair:

I just would not want you to have any unintended consequences.

Mr. Turnbull, the floor goes to you.

I would just ask for a short recess to have a team huddle and talk about this. We haven't had a chance.... We had no notice. We didn't know this was coming. It would be helpful to have that time.

The Chair:

Ms. Blaney would like to huddle too.

[Translation]

Do you agree, Ms. Gaudreau?

[English]

We'll pause for a couple of seconds. If we could come back quickly, because we do have an informal committee—

Madam Chair, can we release the witnesses?

The Chair:

It was a pleasure to have the SITE task force here. I know you might want to stay because it's exciting. I see some nodding of heads in all directions.

With that, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for your service. We do appreciate all that you do. Have a great day.

(1255)

(1300)

The Chair:

I'm calling the committee back to discuss the motion that's on the floor.

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

Madam Chair, I'd like to propose an amendment to Mr. Cooper's motion.

I'll read it into the record:

That, given the Global News report published by Sam Cooper on February 8, 2023, revealing that national security officials drafted a warning for the Prime Minister in June 2017, alleging that Beijing agents were assisting Canadian candidates running for political offices and included well-documented evidence of Beijing's efforts to infiltrate “all levels of government,” the Committee,

add additional meetings as required to its study on foreign election interference; and
invite the following witnesses to testify in public on the contents of the report: Michael Wernick, Former Clerk of the Privy Council; and Daniel Jean, Former National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister.

The Chair:

There is an amendment on the floor. We want to focus. Let's do this quickly.

The amendment on the floor removes the first name from (b) and all of section (c). I want to make sure we're all on the same page.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.

(1305)

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I say, without hesitation, that I oppose this amendment, which would significantly water down the motion.

Katie Telford, chief of staff to the Prime Minister, is a material witness to the report and memo. She is the person who reportedly requested that the memo be prepared. It is also unclear, from the report, whether that memo was completed, date-stamped and sent to the Prime Minister, or whether he was made aware of it. In order to get to the bottom of the memo and what the Prime Minister knew—whether he failed to act—it's important that we hear from Katie Telford.

It's similarly important that, in order to ask questions of the three material witnesses, we have a production of documents to inform our questions to those witnesses.

This is just an effort to—let's say it for what it is—cover up the facts.

The Chair:

With no other people on my list, I am going to call the question on the amendment.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5)

Ms. Rachel Blaney: I'm frustrated that I didn't get a chance to speak.

The Chair: I was looking around to get a signal for names. I apologize for that.

We'll go on to the main motion as amended. Is there debate on the main motion as amended?

Go ahead, Mr. Nater.

Mr. John Nater (Perth—Wellington, CPC):

It's disappointing to see the motion effectively gutted, including all the relevant documents. I'm just putting that on the record.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Translation]

The Chair (Hon. Bardish Chagger (Waterloo, Lib.)):

That was before the vote. I wanted to try… We're looking for consensus, we just talked. I had good arguments, but there you go. Thank you.

[English]

The Chair:

The question is on the motion as amended.

(Motion as amended agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

The Chair: I understand from the analysts that we anticipate the draft report in both official languages coming to us hopefully late tomorrow, and then hopefully next week on Tuesday we can get into looking at the draft report for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Stay tuned. If it's not here to us by late tomorrow, then we'll revisit next week's schedule.

With that, we have an informal committee visit. I look forward to seeing you all.

Have a good weekend. Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.

Transcript of Study Meeting of Emergency Meeting (February 21, 2023)

STANDING COMMITTEE ON PROCEDURE AND HOUSE AFFAIRS

NUMBER 054

1st SESSION

44th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2023

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

(1505)

[English]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 54 of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The committee is meeting today pursuant to Standing Order 106(4) and at the request of six members of the committee to discuss expanding the scope of the current study on foreign election interference.

The clerk and I will maintain consolidated speaking lists of members wishing to address the committee.

Mr. Cooper.

Madam Chair, I would like to bring forward a motion, and so at this time I will have it distributed in both official languages.

The Chair:

That's excellent. Then we'll also get it online for members who are participating virtually. What I am going to do is suspend for a couple of minutes until it is passed around. Once I get signals that it is there, I'll pass the floor back to you, Mr. Cooper.

(1500)

(1510)

The Chair:

My understanding is that we'll continue with our meeting, since everyone has received electronically the motion that Mr. Cooper is presenting. Can I just get a signal from our colleagues online?

That's perfect. Thank you so much.

Mr. Cooper, it's back to you.

Madam Chair, I will first read the motion into the record:

That, given the recent Globe and Mail reports written by Steven Chase and Robert Fife, which brought forward shocking revelations regarding Beijing's strategy to interfere and influence Canada's democratic institutions, the committee, for the purpose of addressing this significant threat to our democracy,

extend its study of foreign election interference by as many meetings as required to investigate these reports and, to that end, schedule at least one meeting on February 23, 2023, and at least two meetings during the week of February 27, 2023;
invite senior officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service; the Communications Security Establishment; the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; Elections Canada, including the commissioner of Canada Elections; the security and intelligence threats to elections, or SITE, task force; the critical election incident public protocol, or CEIPP, panel; and the Privy Council Office, to testify on these reports;
invite Katie Telford, chief of staff to the Prime Minister, to appear alone for a two-hour meeting;
invite the Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to return to testify on these reports;
invite the Honourable Marco Mendicino, Minister of Public Safety;
invite the Honourable Dominic LeBlanc, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, to return to testify on these reports;
invite Jody Thomas, national security and intelligence adviser to the Prime Minister;
invite the Honourable Marc Garneau, former minister of foreign affairs;
invite the Honourable Bill Blair, former minister of public safety and emergency preparedness;
invite Vincent Rigby, former national security and intelligence adviser to the Prime Minister;
invite David Morrison, former foreign and defence policy adviser to the Prime Minister;
hear each of the foregoing witnesses in public; and
order the production of all memoranda, briefing notes, emails, records of conversations, and any other relevant documents, including any drafts, which are in the possession of any government department or agency, including SITE, CEIPP, any minister's office, and the Prime Minister's office, containing information concerning efforts by or on behalf of foreign governments or other foreign state actors to interfere in the 2019 and 2021 general elections, including the documents which were quoted in the Globe and Mail reports, provided that
1. these documents be deposited without redaction with the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel, in both official languages and within three weeks of the adoption of this order,
2. the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall promptly notify the committee whether the office is satisfied that the documents were produced as ordered, and, if not, the chair shall be instructed to present forthwith, on behalf of the committee, a report to the House outlining the material facts of the situation, and
3. the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall make as few redactions to the documents as are necessary to protect the identities of employees or sources of Canadian or allied intelligence agencies and, as soon as reasonably possible, provide the redacted documents to the clerk of the committee to be distributed to all members of the committee.

Madam Chair, that is the motion.

I bring it forward to expand the scope of the study that this committee is undertaking with respect to foreign election interference in light of the shocking Globe and Mail report last week by Steven Chase and Robert Fife, which is reportedly based upon their review of CSIS documents that reveals a sophisticated strategy on the part of the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, to interfere in the 2021 election.

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The Globe and Mail report characterized the Chinese Communist Party's interference campaign in the 2021 election as “an orchestrated machine”. The report from The Globe and Mail indicates that this sophisticated strategy, this “orchestrated machine” on the part of Beijing to interfere in the 2021 election, had two overriding objectives. The first was to see that the Liberal Party was re-elected with a minority government, and the second was to see that certain Conservative candidates deemed unfriendly to Beijing were defeated.

According to the Globe and Mail report, a CSIS report quoted an unnamed Chinese Communist Party consulate official as saying, “The Liberal Party...is becoming the only party that the PRC can support.”

This campaign of interference reportedly involved the active participation and coordination of Chinese Communist Party diplomats in Canada, including Beijing's then consul general to Vancouver, Ms. Tong, along with another former consul general to Vancouver, Wang Jin.

According to The Globe and Mail, CSIS characterized the activities of Ms. Tong and Mr. Wang as being involved in efforts to discredit, to rally support for the Liberals and to target Conservative candidates and work to see those candidates defeated. It was also reported that Ms. Tong and Mr. Wang, among other methods, used CCP “proxies” to achieve those objectives. Ms. Tong reportedly even boasted in 2021 about how she helped defeat two Conservative members of Parliament, including an MP whom she described as “a vocal distracter” of the Chinese Communist Party.

The scope and sophistication of this reported campaign of interference is troubling in terms of the multi-dimensional approach that Beijing took, which involved such tactics as funnelling money to candidates through illegal “undeclared cash donations”; “having business owners hire international...students” on the basis that they were being hired to work for those businesses when in fact they were being illegally paid to work for election campaigns “on a full-time basis” for certain Liberal candidates; active “disinformation campaigns” specifically targeting Conservative candidates; and collusion between political campaigns and this Chinese Communist Party “foreign interference” network.

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Let me repeat what is being reported and what happened: illegal cash donations, disinformation targeted against Conservative candidates, collusion with Liberal candidates, the widespread use of proxies to advance the Chinese Communist Party's objective of helping the Liberal Party, and working to defeat certain Conservative candidates—all coordinated and directed by Chinese Communist diplomats on Canadian soil.

If these reports are true—and there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of these reports from The Globe and Mail, which were reported by two well-known and widely respected journalists, Robert Fife and Steven Chase—this campaign of interference is not trivial. It is not a case of one or two bad actors—not that one or two bad actors is something to turn a blind eye to. If established, what this amounts to is an all-out assault on Canadian democracy by the Chinese Communist regime in an effort that raises questions about the integrity of the election in 2021 in certain ridings targeted by Beijing.

This should alarm every Canadian, and it most certainly should alarm those who are entrusted with and have the responsibility to protect Canada's democratic institutions, including the Prime Minister and his ministers. More than alarm, it should have prompted immediate action on the part of the government, but that did not happen. More than 18 months after the 2021 election, there is no evidence that any action has been taken by the Liberal government. There have been no charges laid and no diplomats expelled.

The Conservative Party and Conservative candidates who were targeted by the Chinese Communist Party were not informed about this campaign of interference and that they were targets. Instead, they were kept in the dark, including by the government's election panel, the very panel that this government pats itself on the back for establishing. They were kept in the dark.

The government's election panel kept the Canadian public in the dark about this interference. Indeed, we would not have known about interference in the 2021 election but for the Canadian press, through access to information, having obtained reports that showed that the rapid response mechanism at Global Affairs had identified interference activities and a disinformation campaign, through proxies and through the use of social media platforms, targeting Conservative candidates, including then member of Parliament and now defeated member of Parliament, Kenny Chiu.

When it comes to the Prime Minister, I have to say that it's worse than inaction. Since Global News first reported back in November about a vast campaign of interference by Beijing in the 2019 election, involving at least 11 candidates, the Prime Minister has consistently failed to heed the advice that CSIS has provided him with respect to countering for interference, advice that the Prime Minister received, for example, in a CSIS memo dated January 21, 2021, which, according to the CBC, advised the Prime Minister as follows: “Canada can make use of a policy that is grounded in transparency and sunlight in order to highlight the point that foreign interference should be exposed to the public and clandestine practices are not equivalent to public diplomacy.”

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The Prime Minister has been anything but transparent. He has refused to answer basic questions about what he knows about Beijing's interference in the 2019 and 2021 elections and when he first learned of that interference. He has deflected and engaged in political spin, using, among other things, carefully crafted language, such as saying that he was not briefed about candidates “receiving money from China”, even though, based upon the briefing document that Global News reported on back in November, no one was alleging that candidates received money from China, as if Beijing just writes a big fat cheque to individual candidates. Rather, what was at issue—and what is at issue—is a reported vast campaign of interference in the 2019 election campaign and, now, a vast campaign of interference in the 2021 election campaign.

The Prime Minister, again using carefully crafted words, talked about how the last two elections were “not compromised”, as if to say that anyone is alleging that those elections were compromised. That's a very different question from what appears to have happened, which was interference targeting certain ridings and certain candidates. The fact that the overall result of an election was not compromised does not negate the fact that there are serious issues of interference that may have had an impact on the outcome of the election in certain ridings.

Canadians deserve to know why, in the face of this reported vast campaign of interference by Beijing, the Prime Minister and ministers in his government continue to obfuscate and downplay the seriousness of this interference and have failed to take any meaningful action to protect our democracy against this serious threat. It seems as if the Prime Minister is content to turn a blind eye to this interference because this interference benefited the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party.

In the face of the obstruction, the non-answers and the lack of transparency on the part of the Prime Minister, and in light of the very shocking new facts that have been reported about what happened in the 2021 election, it's important that this committee, in order to get to the bottom of election interference, expand the scope of its study. It's important that we call in responsible ministers so that they can be asked questions and be held accountable, and so Canadians can learn what Canadians deserve to know, which is about the scale and scope of Beijing's interference in the 2021 election campaign. It's also important to work to ensure that interference of the kind that has been reported—or any interference, for that matter—is not repeated in future elections.

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I hope this committee will move forward to pass this motion so that we can, as expeditiously as possible, expand the scope of the study and hold hearings.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair:

Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

Just so we're all on the same page, I have Mr. Berthold, followed by Ms. O'Connell, who will be followed by Mr. Fergus. If there is anyone who wants to be added, just give me a signal.

Monsieur Berthold is next.

[Translation]

Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (Pickering—Uxbridge, Lib.):

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Esteemed colleagues, thank you for coming, even if, normally, on a week like this, we'd be working from our riding offices. I'm convinced that, like me, you already had a lot on your plate. Nonetheless, you agreed to allow the committee to hold an emergency meeting to discuss how to extend the scope of our current study on foreign election interference, specifically with regard to the 2021 general election.

Over the past few months, there have been some alarming reports in the media. In November 2022, Global News reported that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had been informed by Canadian intelligence services that the Chinese communist regime had led a vast campaign to influence the 2019 federal election.

That article stated that the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister's Office had been informed that the regime in Beijing had targeted the election campaigns of 11 federal candidates. When the Prime Minister was questioned on this, as usual, he first tried to shift the focus to all the dictatorial regimes spreading misinformation in Canada. Next, he quoted sources who said that the integrity of our elections hadn't been compromised in 2019 or 2021. Then, he accused the Conservatives, denied having been informed, and went on to blame his ignorance on the non-partisan committee of senior officials responsible for deciding when information on foreign interference must be released.

That's been the Prime Minister's MO since November 2022, meaning since revelations on foreign interference were first made public by Global News and the red flags started to go up. In fact, those weren't the first red flags; just the first ones to clearly show that the Prime Minister had been made aware of the situation.

Despite mounting evidence, such as reports and documents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency confirming attempts by the Chinese communist regime to interfere in the Canadian democratic process, the Prime Minister of Canada said he knew nothing, except for trivial, unclassified things.

It's important to remember that the Prime Minister is accountable to voters for ensuring national security and, above all, the integrity of our democratic system. As he indicated, he regularly attends security briefings. However, there was no mention of digging deeper and getting more information. What worries us is that the Prime Minister doesn't seem to want to ask more questions. It's as if the Prime Minister didn't have access to sensitive information or, even worse, as if he wilfully turned a blind eye.

The House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs did its job. We asked for documents, and we received hundreds of heavily redacted pages, such as those on the desks of my employees and the staff at this meeting. Despite the redaction, those documents unequivocally demonstrated that the allegations of interference were not only founded, but that transparency alone could've stopped the repeated attacks on our democracy. My colleague, Mr. Cooper, read an excerpt from those documents, which demonstrated that only light, openness and transparency would allow us to deal with foreign interference.

Ministers who testified before this committee said the same thing over and over: The integrity of the election wasn't compromised. However, when we asked how to tell whether an election had been compromised or not, it was more difficult for us to get an answer.

If a foreign regime, such as the Chinese communist regime, manages to change how even one Canadian votes, is that enough? In how many ridings must that interference change the outcome: one, two, three, 10, 20 or 30? We didn't get an answer to that very important question.

All the intelligence agencies told us that they investigated and submitted their reports to the appropriate officials, meaning to the committee of senior officials responsible for determining whether information on foreign interference should be made public or not.

We heard from a number of witnesses and talked to a number of candidates, but it seems that neither the public nor the candidates involved were told that they were the targets of a vast campaign of interference by the Chinese communist regime.

Despite all those red flags, all those clues, nothing was done to give a clear signal to the regime in Beijing that Canada wouldn't tolerate any interference in its democratic process. The ambassador wasn't summoned, no diplomats were expelled, no one was arrested and no legislation on identifying foreign agents was introduced. Absolutely nothing was done, despite all the reports and all the red flags.

(1535)

It's as if Canada had sent the following message to foreign powers looking to interfere in our democracy: Come in, have no fear, because our eyes are shut tight. At least, that's the clear message being sent by Liberal politicians, and it seems to have been welcomed by the Chinese communist regime, which employed the same strategy with a vengeance in the 2021 federal election.

Which leads me to today's meeting. According to some troubling, shocking, and even worrisome revelations published in The Globe and Mail, not only did the Chinese communist regime persist in its attempts to interfere, but it refined those methods.

The article in question, published on February 17, 2023, stated that China employed a sophisticated strategy to disrupt Canada's democracy in the 2021 federal election campaign, as Chinese diplomats and their proxies backed the re‑election of Justin Trudeau's Liberals, but only to another minority government, and worked to defeat Conservative politicians considered to be unfriendly to Beijing.

The full extent of Chinese interference operation is laid bare in both secret and top-secret CSIS documents viewed by The Globe and Mail that cover the period before and after the September 2021 election that returned the Liberals to power. The CSIS reports were shared among senior government officials and Canada's Five Eyes intelligence allies, namely the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. Some of this intelligence was also shared with French and German spy services.

So we're meant to believe that information about this foreign interference operation was then shared with senior government officials, Five Eyes allies and other like-minded nations, but wasn't provided to the Prime Minister or cabinet? Canadians aren't fools. These are serious allegations.

The Globe and Mail article stated that the documents illustrate how an orchestrated machine was operating in Canada with two primary aims: to ensure that a minority Liberal government was returned in 2021, and that certain Conservative candidates identified by China were defeated. The documents say that the Chinese Communist Party leadership in Beijing was pressuring its consulates to create strategies to leverage politically active Chinese community members and associations within Canadian society. Beijing uses Canadian organizations to advocate on their behalf while obfuscating links to the People's Republic of China. The classified reports viewed by The Globe and Mail reveal that China's former consul general in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, boasted in 2021 about how she personally helped defeat two Conservative MPs. The word “personally” doesn't appear in the article; I added it.

I'm going to focus on two or three very important points in the article. It stated that CSIS also explained how Chinese diplomats conduct foreign interference operations in support of political candidates and elected officials. Tactics include undeclared cash donations to political campaigns or having business owners hire international Chinese students and assign them to volunteer in electoral campaigns on a full-time basis. Sympathetic donors are also encouraged to provide campaign contributions to candidates favoured by China, donations for which they receive a tax credit from the federal government. A key part of their interference operation is to influence vulnerable Chinese immigrants in Canada. The intelligence reports quote an unnamed Chinese consulate official as saying it's easy to influence Chinese immigrants to agree with the PRC's stance.

Not only is it interference in our elections, but this is intimidation of residents and of Canadian citizens by a foreign communist regime. There's so much information in these revelations that the committee can't just sit idly by. We must extend our study to the 2021 federal election and, above all, go back, with a number of witnesses, to the start of the operation to understand why the lessons learned in 2019 didn't safeguard the 2021 election whatsoever.

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Once again, this government did nothing and let a foreign regime try to influence election results in specific ridings because it didn't like certain candidates and their positions.

My colleague's motion contains some key points. In order to address this significant threat to our democracy, what we're asking and what the committee should ask is to extend our study on foreign election interference by as many meetings as required to investigate these reports, and to hold at least one meeting this week and two the following week, for starters.

We also want to invite senior officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Communications Security Establishment, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Elections Canada, including the Commissioner of Canada Elections, the security and intelligence threats to elections task force, the critical election incident public protocol panel and, of course, the Privy Council Office.

The critical election incident public protocol panel is the committee that I mentioned earlier. As this committee is well aware, it's the committee to which CSIS and RCMP experts report when they discover foreign interference. So those experts report to the critical incident public protocol panel, which must then determine whether it's in the public interest to advise targeted candidates or the public of a significant threat of foreign interference during an election.

It seems that none of the candidates were made aware of those quite troubling facts, reported in various newspaper articles since last November. However, it's important that the aforementioned individuals come tell us how high the bar is and when a candidate or a political party should be informed that a foreign country is disrupting an election to make them win or lose. Either way, it's not acceptable.

We're also asking that Katie Telford, Justin Trudeau's chief of staff, appear as a witness for two hours, because the Prime Minister has been claiming all along that he hadn't been informed or made aware. We learned, however, that the Prime Minister's Office did receive several reports. So we need to know who intercepted those reports, who didn't want the Prime Minister to know. We need to know whether it's true or not. We need to know what the Prime Minister knew and what he didn't know.

As I said earlier, ultimately, responsibility for our democracy in Canada rests on our Prime Minister, who was elected by all Canadians. It's our right to expect the Prime Minister to be responsible for ensuring the integrity of our democratic process. Consequently, we need to know what he knew and what he didn't know. If he didn't know, we need to know why. If he knew, we need to know why he wilfully turned a blind eye to the situation.

We also want Mélanie Joly, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, to return to testify before this committee. For obvious reasons, we want to invite Marco Mendicino, the Minister of Public Safety. We also want the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities to return to testify on these reports. For obvious reasons, we also want to invite Ms. Jody Thomas, national security and intelligence advisor to the Prime Minister.

We want the Hon. Marc Garneau, former minister of foreign affairs, to come tell us what happened when he was in office. He needs to tell us if he was informed, if he knew anything, if he told anyone, and whether he intended to do something or just planned to turn a blind eye. We want to invite the Hon. Bill Blair, former minister of public safety and emergency preparedness; Vincent Rigby, former national security and intelligence advisor to the Prime Minister; and David Morrison, former foreign and defence policy advisor to the Prime Minister. We want to hear from each of these individuals in public.

I won't read this part of the motion, but we want the committee to order the production of all the documents mentioned by my colleague in reaction to last Friday's revelations. This time, we want the documents to be deposited without redaction by the government, by the very institutions who drafted those documents. We want them to be deposited without exception with the parliamentary counsel, who shall determine what information can be made public or not.

I think that this is important. It makes no sense when people are asked to provide documents, but they're told that they're free to redact anything they want so they don't incriminate themselves.

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We deserve transparency to ensure the future of our democracy. The Conservatives aren't the only ones saying that. We heard almost all the witnesses and all the intelligence agencies who testified here say so. They were all in agreement as to what we need to do: first and foremost, transparency is essential. We need all the facts, and we need to know what happened. We also need to send a message that we won't tolerate interference.

That's why these documents are crucial. The fate of our democratic system is at stake. If Canada can't send a clear message to the regime in Beijing that such interference is unacceptable, it'll happen again.

The lack of transparency by the Prime Minister and his apparent indifference to this scandal are helping to undermine Canadians' faith in democracy. As a result of his secrecy or his wilful blindness, the Prime Minister is lending credence to allegations that he turned a blind eye because the Liberals were the flavour of the day for the regime in Beijing. That's truly deplorable.

No matter which political party or candidate is targeted, not only must foreign interference be publicly denounced, but those responsible must also be prosecuted and even expelled from the country.

It's essential to understand what happened in order to find solutions. That is why we're here today, to determine how to get to the bottom of this situation and how to prevent it from happening again.

For those reasons, it's important to hear from all witnesses on the list we provided. I hope that all the parties will support this motion, so that we can get to the bottom of this situation and, above all, as I indicated, to prevent it from happening again in Canada.

It's particularly important to do so now, because I note that this is a minority government, and it's being propped up by a coalition. As with any minority government, the best-before date is not the date set out in the Canada Elections Act. Indeed, a general election can be called at any time, so it's important for us to do this as quickly as possible.

Thank you very much.

[English]

The Chair:

Thank you, Monsieur Berthold.

On my list are Ms. O'Connell, Mr. Fergus, Madame Gaudreau and Mr. Julian.

I'm just going to note the sound of this room and how nice it's been to be able to hear these important comments. I would expect the sound level to stay the same as I pass the floor to Ms. O'Connell.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks for the opportunity to speak on this.

I want to cover a few areas mentioned by some of the previous speakers. First, I want to read something into the record:

Canada's system of government allows Canadians to elect their representatives and for all members of Canadian society to engage in free and open debate about the direction of the country. However, this system and the sovereignty of Canadian decision-making is under direct threat from interference activities of foreign states and their proxies.

The threat faced by Canada's governance and decision-making institutions is not only a federal problem. Elected and public officials across all orders of government are targeted.... Foreign interference operations target the electoral process at all stages.... Once holding public office, elected and appointed officials, their staff, and employees of the legislative assemblies can also be targeted by foreign states. At the federal level, this includes all three major political parties.

Foreign states will seek to influence deliberations and decision-making, and to curb initiatives deemed contrary to their interests.... In other cases, foreign states may seek to interfere with policy actions by attempting to discredit or attack senior public officials.

Madam Chair, do you want to know what I'm reading from? This is the NSICOP 2019 annual report, tabled in the House in March 2020.

I can go on and read other excerpts. They talk about foreign interference targeting elections, targeting officials and targeting staff, the seriousness of it and the way foreign state actors use this as a way to discredit democratic institutions.

Why I raise this and what's so interesting about this is that this was tabled, as I said, in March 2020, yet the Conservatives sit here today and say they're just waking up to the issue of foreign interference. This was tabled nearly three years ago, and the Conservatives are saying that it's only since recent media reports that they feel that any of this information has come to light.

Foreign interference is persistent. It's serious. It did not just start in 2015. It did not just start after the 2021 election, as Conservatives would like you to believe. That NSICOP report I was reading from.... Interestingly enough, Mr. Chiu won the 2019 election, when foreign interference by the PRC was very active as well. Mr. Chiu also lost in 2015. The Conservatives seem to be very selective about when they care about foreign interference, and that is after they felt an election was lost.

They talk about transparency. Meanwhile, there are the facts of foreign interference hiding in plain sight of the Conservatives. The information that has been reported in the media is extremely serious, but it's something that has never been denied by the fact that these reports have been tabled in the House of Commons.

This is, sadly, not new information. The only thing that's new is that the Conservatives I guess are not happy with the other business that PROC is doing and they simply want to talk only about this because they have one candidate in particular who they feel has been affected by this. However, foreign interference isn't about one candidate or 11 candidates. It's about Canadian institutions, and this is the same Trump-type tactic, to question election results moving forward.

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What I'm curious about is where the Conservatives were after 2019. Where were they in 2020 and 2021? They are raising it only now, in 2023.

This information has been tabled time and time again. Making sure our institutions are strong is something that all Canadians should be united about and non-partisan about, but it seems to be topical only when the Conservatives feel it is to their political benefit.

I can't remember now which Conservative asked why, during the election, the Prime Minister didn't say this was happening. This is precisely why the critical election task force was created. Do you really want the issue of foreign interference to be a decision of a partisan member? I know that, as a candidate in 2015, I would not have trusted Mr. Harper to come forward to talk about foreign interference. Oh, wait, he didn't talk about foreign interference, even though this is not a new phenomenon.

This is a phenomenon that we're seeing in several countries. In fact, if you continue to read the NSICOP 2019 annual report, you'll read excerpts from New Zealand about the issue of foreign interference, so while the Conservatives want to blame everything on Justin Trudeau, the fact remains that we have an opportunity to uphold our democracy, uphold our democratic institutions, but it's not going to be done because the Conservatives want to look at documents in a non-secure manner, which is, frankly, absolutely reckless. While the Conservatives want to look at these documents, I'm sure the People's Republic of China would also love to get their hands on secret or top-secret CSIS documents, but the Conservatives just want to continue this in a way that's unhelpful, in a way that doesn't actually strengthen our institutions.

I've spoken before about several of the things that we as a government have done to strengthen democratic institutions, things like having election security, creating the critical election incident public protocol, tightening fundraising loopholes, cracking down on advertising that had been really unchecked and on the integrity of the voters list to make sure those registering to be on the voters list are actually Canadians.

What is interesting is that the Conservatives continuously voted against all of those measures. The Conservatives then say, “If foreign interference is so serious, how come no one is doing anything about it? How come the Liberals aren't doing anything about it?” Meanwhile, I just outlined several different measures we have taken.

In addition to that, the Prime Minister, in the December 2021 mandate letter to the minister of democratic institutions, the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, specifically asked that he:

Continue to lead an integrated government response to protect Canada's democratic institutions, including the federal electoral process, against foreign interference and disinformation, working with domestic and international partners. You will also lead efforts to consider the interplay between technology and democracy.

Once again, it's the Conservatives who are just waking up to this issue.

Now, are there ways that we can improve? As has clearly been noted in the minister's mandate letter, there are things we still need to do on this file. That is important work for PROC. It is important work for all parliamentarians. In fact, I would welcome some of those recommendations. I'm sure the minister would as well. We started to talk with some witnesses about a foreign registry. What are the other ideas? The suggestion that nothing has been done, that we've never spoken about foreign interference, that we deny it exists for some partisan benefit is ludicrous.

You don't even have to believe me. All you have to do is look at the record. Look at what was tabled in the House before the 2021 election. Look at the minister's mandate letter. We have been talking about foreign interference and the fact that it's a very real threat, and we put in place measures, as I said.

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Some can say that it's not enough, or the threat has changed, or it's more pervasive in one way or another. I think that anybody in this space realistically will recognize that foreign interference—even the threat from media disinformation—will continuously change, so I think no government will be able to say, “We did everything we needed to do and everything is secure and we never have to look at it again.” I think that would be naive.

I've sat through this study, and I think many members on this committee have been genuinely trying to get information on the record from witnesses about how we can make improvements in securing our electoral institutions and making sure they remain free and fair, but that's not what this motion talks about. This motion is, once again, a fishing expedition by Conservatives. They weren't successful previously, and that's the irony. They said that we need these people to come and appear.

Well, you had Minister LeBlanc and Minister Joly. You've had CSIS. You've had SITE committee reps. You've even had Mr. Judd, who actually oversees and reviews the critical election process to say whether it is working or not.

Again, some could say there need to be improvements. These are relatively new measures being put in place to monitor foreign interference and how best to handle it in a non-partisan way, so I get that there could be suggestions to make improvements to those mechanisms or those policies. We've heard in terms of the election that the parties have had access to that critical election committee or the SITE committee with top security clearance to allow them this information. Maybe we can make improvements to that, I don't know, but that's not what the Conservatives have been pulling out of witnesses.

By recalling witnesses, we can.... If that's what this committee is going to do, I would love to have a report at the end of all this that says, “Here are some key areas to continue to strengthen democratic institutions. Here is what you need to do. Here are some things the government should seriously consider.” But that's not what we hear.

Time and time again, it's this partisan hack-type stuff being thrown around, that the Prime Minister has closed his eyes. No, he has not. If he had closed his eyes to foreign interference, it wouldn't be in mandate letters. If he had closed his eyes to foreign interference, he wouldn't have spoken about it in the House. If there had been some way to hide this and shove it under the table, you wouldn't see reports tabled in the House.

It's just an issue of the Conservatives actually not really paying much attention to it until they felt that maybe it would benefit them in some way. I think it's dangerous for Canadians to go down this road because, as I said, we've seen our neighbours to the south and what happens when you start demonizing democratic institutions and when you start undermining their legitimacy.

I think what we should also talk about is that if you want to refer to Mr. Fife's recent article, one of the areas that I noticed Mr. Cooper didn't read out was that in his article he also said this:

CSIS Director David Vigneault told Mr. Trudeau that there was no indication that China’s interference efforts had helped elect any of them, despite the consulate’s attempts to promote the campaigns on social media and in Chinese-language media outlets.

The question that is concerning for me is this: Do the Conservatives trust the boasting of a PRC representative, or do they trust the CSIS director? I know whom I trust. I don't think representatives from PRC have Canadians' interests in mind. I don't think they sit around and talk about election outcomes because they believe in holding up Canadians' democratic institutions. They want to rip our institutions apart.

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Whom I believe and whom I trust is the non-partisan national security community, who sat before this committee time and time again saying that Canadians determined the 2021 election and Canadians determined the 2019 election. That doesn't mean there isn't a pervasive threat. It means we'd better get to work and deal with how we strengthen democracy.

If we want to hold more meetings to discuss that, I'm all ears, but if we're holding meetings to take partisan jabs at the Prime Minister, I think all we're doing is undermining our democratic institutions. We're doing China's bidding by saying we believe the PRC representatives and their bragging over our CSIS director and over our national security community when they said that although foreign interference exists and is persistent, Canadians decided the election.

I can go on and on, but I know there are other speakers and I don't want to take up all the time. However, the point remains. I hope we get to a place where we can continue this study but do so with a mindset that we all agree that foreign interference happens, that it has been happening continuously, that it's not new to our government, that it's not new to Canada and is around the world, and that if we're going to come together, as Canadians would expect, we are doing so moving forward on recommendations on how to strengthen some of these institutions. How can we make some of the measures we put in place stronger? How do we add additional measures?

What I noticed in the Conservative motion was that there wasn't a request for how other governments around the world are handling this. There wasn't a request for democratic institution experts on how to strengthen our institutions. There wasn't a request for electoral lessons learned from France, which had serious issues. We all remember Russia's foreign interference in the U.S. How come we're not hearing from experts on how they strengthened and moved forward with recommendations?

Why? It's because Conservatives don't care about strengthening democratic institutions. They see this as a partisan issue. They are reckless with national security. You can see it in black and white in their motion, asking for unredacted top-secret documents in a public forum.

If we want to talk—and, as I said, call in some of those witnesses—about how other places are handling this and how Canadians can build strength and build trust in our institutions, I am all for it. However, if this is just going to be some political hatchet job of personal attacks and not actually doing the work that Canadians expect, I think Canadians are going to see through that.

I agree with the Conservatives on one thing. Canadians are not idiots, and they are going to see who is working to uphold institutions and who is looking to work like the American-style politics of building mistrust in our democratic institutions for their own political reasons.

I'll leave it there, Madam Chair. I look forward to finding a way we can continue this study, but a way that delivers some concrete recommendations on how to strengthen and how the government can move forward on strengthening.

(1605)

The Chair:

Thank you.

Go ahead, Monsieur Fergus.

[Translation]

Ms. Marie-Hélène Gaudreau (Laurentides—Labelle, BQ):

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Since I see that all my colleagues from each of the political parties would like to speak to this matter, at this point I will cede the floor to Ms. Gaudreau.

However, Madam Chair, I would ask you to add my name to the bottom of the speakers' list.

[English]

The Chair:

Go ahead, Madame Gaudreau.

[Translation]

Good day, everyone.

We are accountable to the public, among others. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I'm here. I cancelled a number of meetings because I was told that it was important for me to be here.

We're concerned. We need transparency. We're convinced that this committee will get to the bottom of this situation or, at least, that's our hope. That way, in the future, we'll have the necessary means to prevent an attack on our democracy.

Public confidence has been eroding for years. I started in politics in 2019; it's now 2023.

Until proven otherwise, we can rely on various experts and professionals. Other countries, including Australia, have also followed suit. My colleagues will know why I named that country.

We've been told that there are numerous solutions. I won't repeat all the comments or everything we've all read, but, today, it's important for us to come to an agreement. We can't stop now. We heard the answers from senior officials and from the various ministers who've appeared before this committee. The media also sent us information that we weren't even able to understand. We need to go further and to find solutions.

Today, we're discussing an important motion proposing many things, namely, to search for evidence that could help us. The goal isn't necessarily to identify who's at fault.

If anyone here is non-partisan, except when it comes to defending the interests of Quebeckers, it's me; that's my trademark.

The government and the official opposition are only doubling down on each other's comments. It's not a contest.

We're not looking for power, but rather for solutions. Ultimately, power means being independent. Now, we can talk about sovereignty, but, personally, I consider this to be democratic sovereignty.

Are we able to tell the public that we can guarantee the integrity of our democracy? I can't answer that question right now. I have my doubts. Obviously, it's my duty to agree to examine this situation and dig a little deeper.

I believe that this motion may constitute a strategy to find someone to blame. Obviously, when it's my turn to ask questions, the main focus is on finding solutions. We heard from experts who touched on those solutions, but we ran out of time. Perhaps they're already preparing documents for us on what is out there and their recommendations. I even think that some countries will call us to tell us what to do or not do.

I see this happening in the near future. In fact, since this is a minority government, we can't take our time, because things can change quickly. That's why this was urgent.

(1610)

I came across an interesting motion. I thought of it because I'm hearing some people say that the Conservatives aren't focusing enough on the issue of interference. Others are saying that they're transparent and that they really want to move forward.

I'm going to read the motion, and then I'm going to stop so that you can judge for yourselves. This motion was adopted not too long ago, on November 18, 2020, two and a half years ago.

That, given that (i) the People's Republic of China, under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, is threatening Canada's national interest and its values, including Canadians of Chinese origin within Canada's borders, (ii) it is essential that Canada have a strong and principled foreign policy backed by action in concert with its allies, the House call upon the government to: (a) make a decision on Huawei's involvement in Canada's 5G network within 30 days of the adoption of this motion; and (b) develop a robust plan, as Australia has done, to combat China's growing foreign operations here in Canada and its increasing intimidation of Canadians living in Canada, and table it within 30 days of the adoption of this motion.

This motion passed by a vote of 178 to 146. I checked; I did my homework.

That's why I think that, perhaps, we may reach agreement today in the spirit of doing better, because even our colleague Ms. O'Connell voted in favour of that motion.

I'm eager to hear what my colleague opposite will say about the desire for few subamendments, because I think that we're all prepared to stay here late tonight. We need to remember that the goal, other than the pursuit of power—because it's nice to have power—is to think about our democracy. Let us think about the people we represent, let us think about our constituents.

(1615)

The Chair:

Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau.

[English]

Go ahead, please, Mr. Julian.

[Translation]

Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP):

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'm pleased to be here with you today.

Ms. Blaney is with her constituents. As you know, her riding covers half of Vancouver Island. She often has no access to Internet or wireless service when working with some constituents.

I'll start by saying that all the parties want to prevent foreign interference in our elections. In addition to the revelations in The Globe and Mail, we need only think of Moscow's interference in the 2016 U.S. election, with the involvement of the Internet Research Agency or foreign interference in the Brexit referendum. Without a doubt, the committee needs to study this matter.

The motion put forward today is quite detailed and wasn't provided in advance, contrary to our usual practice, which generally gives us a few days to reflect and comment before we propose amendments. The motion is quite broad and touches on many aspects. In my opinion, it doesn't help the committee understand what it needs to do.

Even if I really enjoy listening to Mr. Berthold and Mr. Cooper, they spent nearly half the time available for this meeting just proposing this motion. In my opinion, that's not an attempt to find a solution or put in place the fundamentals to extend the study. To that end, I must start by saying that I'm in favour of extending the study.

This approach leaves much to be desired. In my opinion, it's critical to propose a motion that seeks to identify possible solutions, rather than starting a debate.

[English]

I believe very strongly, as does Rachel Blaney, who is currently with her constituents in the north part of Vancouver Island, out of Internet range, that we have to crack down on the kind of foreign interference involved in Trump's election in 2016, or in Brexit, which was pushed by Conservatives. These are all cases that I think illustrate the importance of the issue. Given the fact that this motion, which is so detailed, was tabled at committee rather than a couple of days in advance, which is our normal way of proceeding, and that almost half of the time for speaking was taken up by Mr. Berthold and Mr. Cooper—I don't object to their taking that time—obviously the intent was more to speak than to find a resolution.

I will have some proposals to put on the table in a moment. It is something that this committee has tackled with the seriousness that it entails, that it demands. This is extremely important. I was disappointed by Mr. Cooper because, despite the fact that he spoke very eloquently, he neglected to point out something that I think is vitally important. It comes from the Globe and Mail article that said that Liberal and Conservative candidates were favoured by Beijing, according to a national security source.

This issue is not limited to one party. This involves a number of parties, a couple of parties, both Liberals and Conservatives, whose candidates have been targeted, apparently, by foreign interference. Now, Mr. Cooper didn't comment about how the Conservative Party has reacted to this. Were those Conservative candidates who were allegedly supported, according to the news article, elected? We don't know this. We know nothing regarding the extent to which the Conservative Party headquarters has followed up to find out who those candidates were.

(1620)

This is something that is of equal importance. When you have two parties that have had candidates supported, it is something that we all must take seriously. It shouldn't be partisan finger pointing, because ultimately we all have a responsibility in making sure that our electoral system functions, and that it functions free from foreign interference. In this very long motion that was tabled at the beginning of the meeting, there are a number of elements that I support.

First is extending the study. I think that is something we can all agree on.

For additional meetings, there's no difficulty there. The size and scope of the Globe article demands that this committee, though I know it's a very hard-working committee, schedule those additional meetings.... Whether that's next week or in subsequent weeks, I think that's a matter of discussion, but it is something that we favour.

As far as having the ministers who testified previously back to testify on the new revelations is concerned, that is something I support as well. Having foreign ministers is something I support.

Now, the extensive aspect touching on staff and documents.... I don't feel that the motion deals with the document issue in the serious way in which it needs to be treated, and I find that unfortunate. Because of the length of the initial two speeches, I don't know if we'll have time to work through that today.

I caution on the issue of inviting staff. I wanted to cite a number of people for the record, Madam Chair, if you'll permit me. Around the issue of political staff, as opposed to having ministers being brought forward to testify, I support having ministers come forward to explain what they did and what they knew, and what actions they've taken to ensure that this never happens again.

First, I will read a quotation from a former House leader, who said:

There is a clear case to be made that the accountability of political staff ought to be satisfied through ministers. Ministers ran for office and accepted the role and responsibility of being a minister. Staff did not.

I'm quoting from Jay Hill, a former Conservative government House leader.

Secondly, another member said:

Mr. Speaker, we believe that cabinet ministers are responsible for what happens in their names and responsible to Parliament. This is called ministerial responsibility and it is one of the oldest traditions here in our country.

The Liberal leader wants to do away with this tradition. Instead, he wants to import a foreign U.S. committee system that is used as a political weapon to bully, to intimidate, and to humiliate opponents, something that I believe should never happen.

Ministerial accountability is the reason why cabinet ministers answer questions in question period and it is why they appear before committees to answer for their offices.

We hope that all opposition committee chairs will follow the rules and procedures....

This is the member for Grande Prairie—Mackenzie and the current Conservative deputy whip, speaking about the importance of not involving staff but ensuring ministerial responsibility.

This third quote, I think, is very germane, as well, to this conversation. It is, “The hon. member knows very well that for hundreds of years, the principle of ministerial accountability has been paramount here in the House and in its committees.” This member was speaking, again, about the idea of inviting political staff, rather than ministers.

That final quote is from the member for Carleton, who is currently the leader of the official opposition in the House of Commons, so Conservatives have said very eloquently in the past that we should not have political staff brought forward, and that the issue of ministerial accountability is fundamental.... I agree with them. I agree with them on that.

Therefore, with this very extensive motion that was dumped on this committee with no notice, I would certainly say that for the first four elements I'm in support. For the treatment of documents, I find it is not up to the degree to which we need to treat documents of high sensibility that are related to national security. As far as staff are concerned, I will go with numerous Conservatives who have said very eloquently in the past that it is to the importance of keeping ministers accountable, not staff, that parliamentarians should be directed.

(1625)

I hope the Conservatives will be willing to work with other members around the table to find a workable solution.

I find it unfortunate that the meeting has gone by and that the first half of the meeting involved the two Conservative movers speaking to the motion rather than working to find that common ground. However, we in this corner of the committee room take very seriously the issue of foreign interference, and we fully support an accounting by those ministers, given this new information, ensuring that we as a committee extend the study to make sure that, ultimately, all of the recommendations lead to a resolution that we will have no suspected, alleged or real interference in any future Canadian elections.

Thank you.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Next we have Mr. Calkins, followed by Mr. Fergus, followed by Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Calkins, go ahead, please.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I listened intently to the interventions that have been made by my colleagues here at the table. I'll kindly remind my friend in the NDP, Mr. Julian, who was here when some of the quotes that he just read into the record were put forward, that his former colleague Mr. Siksay moved numerous motions to invite staff to appear before various parliamentary committees. Some of those staff remain here on the Hill today.

I'm not going to get into the hypocrisy of the notion that's before us, but there is one staff member in this motion, Katie Telford, who is the chief of staff to the Prime Minister. There is no minister to whom she is accountable, other than the Prime Minister, who we have not asked to come before this committee in terms of ministerial accountability.

We did not invite any of the other ministers' staff. We invited the ministers directly, Madam Chair.

To compare inviting staff like Dimitri Soudas and others, who were not chiefs of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the previous administration, to inviting Katie Telford is comparing apples to oranges. It's simply not relevant. It's not a relevant comparison to make.

As a matter of fact, the NDP members were so insistent on calling certain staff members forward during the Harper administration that they brought it to Speaker Milliken for a ruling in the House of Commons. They argued that not being able to call staff before a committee was an infringement upon the privileges of parliamentarians.

How convenient for the NDP, now that it is in an agreement-supplying confidence motion literally supporting the government of the day, when the government's under question and under scrutiny from members of the media, when there are leaked documents calling into question the credibility of the government and today, when it comes to handling the foreign interference.

This committee's job, however, is to find out just how in depth the involvement of foreign state actors, and all foreign actors for that matter, is in the electoral process. This is something that's becoming, obviously, a relatively new phenomenon. We didn't hear much about this in the previous administration. I'm not saying it wasn't there. We certainly didn't hear about it the way we're hearing about it now.

The media interest that is generated in this, the fact that there are leaked documents and the fact that there's a Prime Minister who is seemingly more concerned about the fact that these documents are being leaked than what they actually contain.... I think that a Prime Minister who had the best interests of Canada at heart instead of his own best interests at heart would be taking these leaked documents at face value.

For us, as Conservatives, we simply want to know where things went wrong. Yes, we know some of our colleagues were affected. We know that money has flowed from the Communist Party in China through operatives here in Canada to various political actors. These are disturbing things.

These are things that all Canadians ought to be concerned about, because moving the needle in even just a few ridings—as has been mentioned by witnesses who have appeared before this committee before—undermines the integrity and the validity of the institutions that oversee our electoral process.

I'm not calling into question the general results of the last two elections. I don't think anybody here is making that assumption. However, it is certainly evident that a few ridings have been affected. It is completely reasonable for members of this committee to find out just how much a foreign state actor can move a needle, particularly in ridings that have large diasporas, wherever those foreign state actors might be coming from that those diasporas could influence an electoral outcome in a particular riding.

I will remind my colleagues around this table that sometimes elections are very close. Sometimes the difference between a majority government and a minority government is fewer than 10 ridings. There are already 11 that were called into question in the Toronto area alone in one of the past two elections.

(1630)

The article by Chase and Fife and the leaked memo that Sam Cooper put out a little while ago make it very clear that somewhere along the line, although the Prime Minister and the ministers who have testified before this committee have said that they didn't know anything about these kinds of details.... The leaked memo appears to have gone all the way to Michael Wernick, and it would have gotten there only by going through.... As a matter of fact, the article itself says that Katie Telford personally asked for these documents, asked for these reviews, which means it is only reasonable that we would hear from her to ask her some very pointed questions, and she could point this committee to what could possibly be wrong with the state of the laws in this country.

The professionals from our security establishments who have testified here have said that there are insufficiencies in the current legislative framework. Why wouldn't we have that conversation? Why wouldn't we ask questions of the people and the actors who are directly involved? What advice could they possibly give us so that we could actually do our job as members of Parliament and make meaningful recommendations at this committee, so that we could protect our institutions? If we don't get this right, a problem that seems to be growing and getting worse as it goes along will only continue to get worse and will embolden foreign state actors to continue to interfere in our democratic process. This is very alarming, Madam Chair.

I will just go to the last line in the Global News story. It states:

One official who was not authorized to speak publicly called it “inexcusable” that Trudeau's office has yet to move forward with new laws despite years of “interactive” dialogue with senior intelligence officials regarding China's incursions into Canadian elections.

“The floodgates have been opened in the last five years. There has been ample evidence placed in front of the Liberal Party of Canada, and they have done essentially nothing.”

If the government is not going to do anything, then why doesn't this committee do its job? Why doesn't this committee have a fulsome, open debate to the extent it can and make reasonable recommendations to the government of the day? If it continues to ignore this issue, as is being alleged not by Conservatives but by Global News, Fife and Chase, and Sam Cooper.... These are the people who are making these observations. Just because Conservatives bring them to committee and take these matters seriously, that is not a reason to castigate or chastise or assume political motivation. I would assume that everybody who sits around this table is a patriotic Canadian and wants to see the best thing done for our country, so let's get to the bottom of it and let's invite the people.

Our motion, which my colleague Mr. Cooper has put forward, is reasonable. It brings back to the table people we haven't heard from or people we have heard from previously but haven't heard from since new revelations have been made public, which is a justifiable reason to invite back ministers who have already been here. It's also a justifiable reason to invite people who are former ministers with the same responsibility, to invite national security advisers, both past and present, and to invite the chief of staff for the Prime Minister, who has been here supporting and advising the Prime Minister since he became the Prime Minister.

Canadians deserve to know what their government did or didn't do or is or isn't doing. Members of Parliament certainly should have the right to know whether or not the government is holding up its end of the bargain and whether its actions actually match its words, because, from where I'm sitting, Madam Chair, there are only two possible rationales: the government knows—even though it won't expressly admit what it knows—the level of severity of the interference in our democratic systems, and has chosen not to do anything, or, even worse, Madam Chair, the government knows and has made a calculated decision that it is in its net best interests to ignore the problem for political gain.

(1635)

That is a very serious thing, Madam Chair, and it's something that Canadians ought to know. The only way we'll find that out is if we do not amend this motion and if we actually summon the people who are there so that we can get to the bottom of why, for the last two elections in Canada, foreign interference has continued to grow.

If we don't do the right thing, if we don't make the recommendations to the government before the next federal election, then one can only assume that these foreign state actors will be even more emboldened and will continue to expand their network of influence and undermine our democratic institutions.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair:

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Fergus.

[Translation]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I've been listening with great interest to all the comments from the different political parties. My spouse, who's a theologian, repeatedly told me during her studies that a text without context is a pretext. I thought of that while I was listening to the comments being made by my colleagues, particularly Mr. Julian and Ms. Gaudreau.

I think it's very important to establish a broader context to assess all the documents and all the newspaper allegations about foreign interference. This would ensure that Canadians will be well served by our study. I hope that it'll be a serious and non-partisan study, for all the reasons my colleagues mentioned. I think that all members are concerned about the integrity of our elections, with the exception, perhaps, of some members of the official opposition, based on what we heard.

(1640)

[English]

Madam Chair, if it were truly up to me, I think the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians would be the best place to get full access to unredacted documents, but I sense that there is perhaps a consensus developing around this table, so I'm going to try to be helpful.

I've sent to the clerk for distribution an amendment to Mr. Cooper's motion, as follows:

That the motion be amended by deleting subparagraphs (c), (h) and (i), amending subparagraph (l) to add after the word “public” the words “and any other witnesses the committee members wish to hear from”, and by replacing the words—

[Translation]

The Chair:

Mr. Fergus, forgive me for interrupting you.

[English]

The amendment has been shared with the clerk and has just been shared around here. You have it in both official languages so that you can follow it however you prefer. Sophia has hit “Send”, so it should be in your inboxes.

I see thumbs up and heads nodding. That's excellent.

[Translation]

Forgive me for interrupting you, Mr. Fergus. You may now continue.

That's fine, Madam Chair. Thank you very much.

I'll continue reading the amendment:

[English]

—in subparagraph (m) with the following, “the committee order the production of all memoranda, briefing notes and any other relevant documents which are in the possession of government departments or agencies containing information concerning efforts by, or on behalf of, foreign governments or other foreign state actors to interfere in the 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2021 general elections, provided that: (i) the department and agencies tasked with gathering these documents apply redactions according to the Access to Information and Privacy Act; (ii) these redacted documents be deposited as soon as possible with the clerk of the committee to be distributed to all members of the committee in both official languages.

[Translation]

I'll—

The Chair:

One moment, Mr. Fergus.

Is there a problem?

There's no translation.

The Chair:

Right. We'll provide it to you in a moment.

[English]

Sophia just said that it's been circulated.

[Translation]

Did you get the email?

[English]

Many members do have it, because I'm getting the thumbs-up.

Mr. Cooper does not have it.

[Translation]

Do you want me to read the amendment in French, Madam Chair?

The Chair:

I think that our colleagues were just asking for a copy of the French version of the amendment, rather than for the amendment to be read in French.

[English]

I have it in my inbox. If I have it, we all have it. That's perfect.

[Translation]

We can continue.

I'm going to read the amendment in French, so that it's clear. As a Quebec MP, bilingualism is extremely important to me. It needs to be respected here, in Parliament.

First, I move that the motion be amended by deleting subparagraphs (c), (h) and (i).

Then, I propose amending subparagraph (l) to add after the word “public” the words “and any other witness the committee members wish to hear from”.

And finally, I propose replacing the words in subparagraph (m) with the following:

(m) order the production of all memoranda, briefing notes and any other relevant documents which are in the possession of government departments or agencies containing information concerning efforts by, or on behalf of, foreign governments or other foreign state actors to interfere in the 2011, 2015, 2019 and 2021 general elections, provided that,

(i) the department and agencies tasked with gathering these documents apply redactions according to the Access to Information and Privacy Act;

(ii) these redacted documents be deposited as soon as possible with the clerk of the committee to be distributed to all the members of the committee in both official languages.

I'm open to any friendly amendment that Ms. Gaudreau would like to suggest.

(1645)

[English]

The Chair:

We have an amendment on the floor.

I'm going to continue with the same list, if that's suitable.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Let me say that this amendment put forward by Mr. Fergus is an effort to gut the motion that I put forward. It would shield the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister's office and ministers in the government who were in relevant portfolios at the time of the 2021 election from accountability and from having to come here to tell this committee—and, through this committee, tell Canadians—what they know about Beijing's interference in the 2021 election campaign.

What we have is a gutting when it comes to the production of documents. I trust the law clerk to make redactions to protect national security. The parliamentary law clerk is someone who has full national security clearance. He is independent. That, for Mr. Fergus, is a problem, because a production process in which the law clerk is left in charge to independently assess issues of national security gets in the way of what Mr. Fergus, I believe, would like to do. That is to cover up the inaction that the Liberals have taken in response to serious interference by Beijing.

They would like to whitewash and hide from this committee material evidence and provide a production that leads to redactions like this or this. How about this, or this? Here's Liberal transparency. Here's another page. Here's some more Liberal transparency for you. It's another blank page. There's another blank page here. There's another blanked-out page there.

(1650)

I have a point of order, Madam Chair.

The Chair:

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

I wanted a point of clarification. Mr. Cooper is holding up some pages. I believe that's a prop. I'm not sure.

Maybe you could clarify for us whether members are allowed to hold up props in committee proceedings.

The Chair:

Mr. Turnbull, it's interesting that you would ask that. I hear some commentary—perhaps from people who would like to be chair in the future—but the rules that run the House actually do help govern committees as well. We don't do props here.

Mr. Cooper, I believe we've had a somewhat productive meeting. I believe there is some agreement as to where this committee can go with the study, which you state is important. If we genuinely want to find that spot, then we should try to land that spot.

I will provide the floor back to you, but I would really like to avoid having points of order called. We are people who are helping to govern a country. This is really serious stuff.

I will pass you back the floor. I know that you know the rules better than most.

With that, go ahead, Mr. Cooper.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Page after page after page of blank pages in the way of production, that's the kind of production Mr. Fergus envisions with what he has put forward in his amendment. That's completely unacceptable. It doesn't do justice to getting to the bottom of what happened.

It's par for the course with the Liberals. We have ministers who come before this committee and claim that they know nothing, that there is nothing to see here, that everything was more or less above board. Oh, there was a little bit of interference, maybe. The Prime Minister, when he was asked about the latest allegations based upon The Globe and Mail's review of CSIS documents, said there should be a hunting down of people at CSIS. That was what his reaction was. He was more concerned that this story was coming to light than expressing any concern about what happened.

What happened was a sophisticated campaign involving illegal cash donations, involving disinformation, involving collusion with political campaigns, and involving officials and diplomats in Canada—

The Chair:

Yes, Mr. Julian.

Mr. Peter Julian:

On a point of order, Madam Chair, Mr. Cooper is filibustering when we should be voting. We have a motion before us. We have an amendment before us. We have seven minutes left. I call the question.

If the Conservatives are legitimately concerned, as we are, about the issue of foreign interference, they shouldn't be filibustering out this meeting. They should be allowing the vote so that we can get going on extending the study and calling the witnesses.

The Chair:

I think we can all function, guys. We're all here, as elected officials, on a Tuesday of a constituency week. Opposition members chose to bring us here, so let's get this done.

Mr. Cooper, the floor goes back to you.

With the greatest of respect to Mr. Julian, I'm speaking to an amendment to my motion that guts my motion. I am explaining the problems with that. I think that's entirely necessary.

I would just ask, given that we are coming up close to five o'clock, if we could suspend briefly for two or three minutes. We just want to review a few issues with respect to the amendment.

The Chair:

I have somebody else on the speaking list.

I appreciate your suggestion. It's a question, so I will get a sense of where the room is at.

With that, I will go to Madame Gaudreau.

[Translation]

Thank you, Madam Chair. This will help me reflect on the amendment.

I have a question about the proposed amendment.

The original motion, in subparagrah (m), point (i), asks that the documents be deposited with the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel. The amendment before us asks instead that they be deposited with the clerk of the committee.

What is the difference between a clerk and a law clerk? Legally, which one is officially non-partisan and can give us the facts?

(1655)

[English]

I've had a quick conversation with the clerk, and the clerk has confirmed that if the clerk needed to consult with the law clerk, the clerk would do that. It's not necessarily one or the other; it's kind of all in the same entity, to get the information.

Is that an accurate reflection? Thank you.

[Translation]

I hope that answers your question.

[English]

I'm not getting an overwhelming desire to see a suspension, but I have come to the end of my list, so I am calling the question on the amendment. I'm going to call the question on the amendment, and then we'll vote on the main motion.

Mr. Luc Berthold:

No, you didn't ask for it.

Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC):

I just called the question, and the clerk will now do the roll call. Thank you.

Mr. Cooper never ceded his time.

Mr. Blaine Calkins:

He asked to suspend; you said no, and then you gave his time away. It's unacceptable.

I have a point of order, Chair.

You can't call the question when a member is seeking the floor.

My list is exhausted.

No. You asked us in good faith if you could take a question before there would be a suspension. Mr. Cooper hadn't ceded the floor, but on your urging us to all be adults and to get through this, Mr. Cooper was looking to suspend to consult with other parties to seek a resolution.

If we're going to play dirty tricks.... You need to follow the rules, Madam Chair, and you are not following the rules.

Mr. Barrett, first of all, I will not be spoken at. Second of all, you can watch public meetings of this committee on multiple different occasions, and when I have a list and somebody is on the list, they will always get the floor in this committee. When there is agreement to suspend, I will get agreement amongst members to suspend. I did not find that agreement today—

You didn't canvass the room.

Mr. Luc Berthold: You didn't ask.

Ms. Ruby Sahota (Brampton North, Lib.):

I said I would see if there is agreement.

I will do you the favour, Mr. Barrett, because you feel that you can do this today.

Ms. Sahota, would you like to suspend?

No.

There's no vote being called. He's seeking the floor.

I'm not doing this. If you have a concern with the chair, you can deal with it.

I know that I don't have agreement to suspend. My list has come to an end, therefore I have called the question.

I have entertained what you would like to do for long enough. I am calling the question.

On a point of order, that's not how this works.

I'm suspending for a minute. Done.

(1655)

(1715)

The Chair:

I call the meeting back to order.

Welcome back to the committee.

I will pass the floor to Mr. Fergus.