I'll start from the beginning. I move that the motion be amended by replacing the words after “in relation to its study of foreign election interference” with the following:
Invite the 2019 and 2021 National Campaign Directors of each recognized party in the House of Commons and the security-cleared party representatives to the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force during the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
The French translation is there as well.
I'd like to speak to that and address some of the comments that were made by Mr. Cooper at the beginning of our meeting today, which I found quite troubling. I have taken the time to listen to and review all the information we've had at our disposal, as well as the multiple reports. I pride myself on researching and reading through the various documents that are provided and also in doing my own research on these topics, because I take these matters extremely seriously, especially when there are allegations flying around and quite a lot of political rhetoric that I think could be injurious to our democracy as a whole, in terms of undermining our democratic institutions.
In particular, one of the false claims that we keep hearing from the Conservative Party of Canada—over and over again they repeat the same thing—is that the and our government have done nothing when it comes to foreign election interference. This couldn't be further from the truth. Based on all of the documents I have in front of me, there is ample evidence from the very first days of this government, which I wasn't a part of in those days, to show a track record of significant work that has been done on this issue at least as far back as 2017. I think it's safe to say it goes back right to 2015, when the Liberal government that's currently running the country first got elected.
I would like to take some time refuting that claim, but I also want to talk about a couple of other assertions that have been made over and over again that are deeply troubling.
One is that the Conservatives keep saying, and some opposition parties seem to be chiming in with a chorus of support for this, that they're interested in “getting to the bottom” of this. What's interesting to me is that, when you look at all of the non-partisan and independent processes that have been set up by our government, and you look at this committee and how many witnesses have already come forward with significant expertise in national security, you see that we haven't heard anything to demonstrate that this government isn't willing to get to the bottom of this.
What strikes me as just pure political rhetoric and games, to be honest, is this claim that somehow we are not interested in getting to the bottom of these matters. Quite the contrary is true. In fact, our government has been getting to the bottom of these matters and has demonstrated a real dedication and commitment to addressing foreign election interference.
The other thing I found really troubling about Mr. Cooper's claims at the beginning of this meeting today was that somehow the has instructed us to do some obstructionary work. I think that is also 100% false. I know I speak for myself, and I probably can speak for all my colleagues, that we're here of our own volition. We take our work at this committee very seriously, and to imply that we're somehow being controlled by somebody else is insulting, to be frank.
I also want to say that there has been a significant shift in the messaging over recent days from the leader of the official opposition, who I would remind people was the former minister of democratic reform. If you look back on the record, you'll see, I'm sure, that not much was done on foreign election interference in the time that was the minister of democratic reform.
The shift in messaging that I've seen is that the has gone from saying that, yes, there were attempts at election interference but their party stood by the results of the election, to some very recent remarks that are significantly different from that message.
Let me just read a couple of quotes here. I believe it was yesterday that the said that we've never seen an intelligence service so worried about the prime minister and “his collaboration with a foreign power”. He has also said that they are “so concerned” about how Canada is working against its own interests and for a foreign dictatorship's interests.
These claims are somehow implying that the is working against the interests of Canadians and in a way collaborating with a foreign power to undermine our democracy. That couldn't be further from the truth. I don't have words to describe how much I think that's inappropriate language. It's untrue and it's unfounded. It's really risking our entire democracy and the faith that Canadians have in our democracy by making such baseless claims. If they were founded, of course, those claims could be made, but they're unfounded.
The other thing I want to point out is that, further to my colleagues Mr. Fergus and MP O'Connell, both of whom I have great respect for and in their remarks today made some very compelling arguments, we have set up all these different mechanisms within our government's mandate to protect against foreign election interference. We know that, on the one hand, there are non-partisan senior public servants within the caretaker period who are part of the panel for the critical election incident public protocol and panel. They take part in that during the caretaker period. We also know that outside of that caretaker period, our government has implemented what Rosenberg refers to as an “electoral ecosystem approach”, which is an all-of-government approach to combat foreign election interference. This has four pillars—enhancing citizen preparedness, improving organizational readiness, combatting foreign interference and building a healthy information ecosystem.
What I want to say about this is that, on the one hand, our government has set up a process—i.e., the protocol and panel—so that even within an election period, in a writ period or where the caretaker convention applies, there is a rigorous set of non-partisan senior officials who have expertise and are informed by the SITE task force, which is composed of experts in national security from all of our agencies, which are providing them with regular briefings.
That's just within the caretaker period. Then we have an independent assessment done after every election. Let's also be honest. If we actually look at and evaluate from the James Judd report, which was an independent assessment, how many of the recommendations were implemented, we can see that the vast majority of them, if not all of them, were implemented. I think maybe one wasn't implemented. That's because the government didn't necessarily agree with that one or took a different approach.
Similarly, within the 16 or so recommendations that were made by Morris Rosenberg, which I take very seriously.... I read the report. I think there's a lot of substance there that this committee could be deliberating on. We could be really drilling down on those recommendations instead of playing political games.
To me, the original motion that Mr. Cooper put forward, which was to have political staffers here.... I mean, they're not national security experts. We have all the deputy ministers. We have the national security and intelligence adviser to the . We've had the director of CSIS. The list goes on and on. I actually have the list of witnesses here if you want me to read them out.
You couldn't ask for a better list of witnesses to come before this committee. I don't see what the rationale is when you have ministerial accountability outside of the caretaker period and you have the officials and experts who inform them coming to this committee. Then you have the non-partisan public servants who are doing the work within the caretaker period who are coming forward. What more information could you possibly really want?
If your motivation was truly to get to the bottom of this and to take this matter seriously, why wouldn't you be listening to the people who have the expertise?
That's not good enough for the official opposition. It's not good enough because they want to push a narrative that is counter to the interests of our democracy and our democratic institutions. It's one that tries to undermine our democracy and our institutions. That, I will not stand for.
I want to talk for a moment about the fact that our government took up recommendations from an extensive report that was done in 2018.
In 2018, the ethics committee did a study that produced a very significant report called “Democracy Under Threat: Risks and Solutions in the Era of Disinformation and Data Monopoly”. The chair at the time was . I know the Conservatives will know Bob. That report is over 100 pages. It has significant recommendations, many of which have been acted on. If you trace back to the government response to that report, you can see that many of the things that unfolded after that report was published were responded to by the government and actually implemented.
Again, it points to the fact that there is no basis for this absurd claim that our government doesn't take foreign election interference seriously and the false claim that the government has done nothing on this.
Let me stack this up a little bit in terms of what the government has done.
I'll go back to that ethics report, which I assume happened over the course of a significant period because it's a pretty extensive study. As we know, these things can take months—to hear from witnesses and then deliberate. What I can see from that is that in 2018 that report was published, a government response came in shortly after—I'm not sure I have the date on the government response, but it was shortly after—and many of these things were then acted on.
First, obviously the critical election incident public protocol and panel were set up. That was first established before the 2019 election. The plan to protect Canadian democracy, which is that four-pillar plan that outlines an all-of-government approach, was implemented as well. That's listed in the Rosenberg report. He takes the time to go through the various initiatives that unfolded and were implemented out of that, so I'd like to speak to those for a moment.
One of the pillars of that all-of-government approach, which is sometimes referred to as the electoral ecosystem approach.... Let's be honest. Foreign election interference can't be tackled with just one intervention. It's a systematic set of strategies and interventions that cut across all of our ministries and institutions that's required. There's a lot of collaboration with many of our other systemic issues. We know that we need an all-of-government approach, and I think all of us are familiar with calls on the government to have a whole-of-government approach. This is exactly what our government has been implementing, and there's evidence of this. For committee members to claim that the government hasn't done anything just ignores the facts.
When you look at pillar one of the plan to protect Canadian democracy, enhancing citizen preparedness is the pillar. There's been a digital citizen initiative led by Canadian Heritage, which supported skills development through the use of awareness sessions, workshops and learning materials. That's one thing that's been done in that pillar.
Another is Get Cyber Safe. It is another public awareness campaign about Internet security, which added content about cyber-threats to the Canadian democratic process. Again, this is raising awareness among citizens across Canada, because what we've heard from CSIS in our testimony, and others, is that this is not just about intelligence. Everybody has a role to play in protecting our democracy. Part of it means raising the awareness of our citizens so that they understand what we're up against, what to look out for and what the signs are of foreign election interference so that they can help us identify, report and, in a way, gather intel and information that may be helpful in preventing it from happening.
Prior to 2019, the government provided journalists with training on foreign interference and convened regular press briefings. We also helped essentially to inform and to train journalists. There were also changes to Canada's election laws that expanded the CEO information and education programs aimed at the Canadian public. I will just flip to some of the legislative changes that were made.
One was , Bill . Bill C-59 was a piece of legislation that our government brought forward that provided both CSIS and CSE with the ability to engage in threat reduction measures, subject to legal authorization of course. We heard from the director of CSIS when he was before our committee that they do intervene and have threat reduction measures that they're able to use. Obviously when there's credible intel that's been analyzed, corroborated and evaluated such that they're obviously not acting on a partial piece of intelligence, which as the director said, was the case. Most of the time they were accumulating intelligence that came with significant caveats. However, it's good for us to know that they have threat reduction measures, and they use those where needed.
What's interesting, though, is that our government was the one that gave them those powers in Bill . Again, what's interesting is that the Conservatives keep claiming that we've done nothing. CSIS has threat reduction measures that were given to them by legislation that was passed by our government. That's a direct conflict with what the Conservatives keep asserting.
Another one is BIll . Conservatives also claim over and over that the government hasn't done anything, as if they repeat this falsehood and people are going to believe it. I don't believe that Canadians are going to be fooled by the assertion of false claims over and over again. The Elections Modernization Act came into force in June 2019, and it adds a number of different interesting and important measures. One is that it prohibits foreign persons or entities from unduly influencing an elector to vote or refrain from voting, or to vote or refrain from voting for a particular candidate or registered party.
It also prohibits third parties from using foreign funds for partisan advertising and activities. It also prohibits foreign entities from spending on partisan advertising and activities during both the pre-election and election periods. It also requires online platforms to publish a registry of partisan advertising published during the pre-election period and all election advertising during the election period. It also has provisions that prohibit knowingly making or publishing a false statement to affect election results.
Those are five additional measures that were added in the .
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Kudos to Mr. Nater for getting that in. I'm sure he won some points with somebody somewhere.
Anyway, I'll go back to what I was saying, which was that we have this four-pillar plan and I've only spoken to one of the pillars so far, but there are three other pillars to speak to.
I was just speaking to two pieces of legislation that enhanced both CSIS's and CSE's abilities to combat foreign election interference, but also how Bill , the Elections Modernization Act, also enhanced our government's ability to tackle this very important issue.
The second pillar of the plan was improving organizational readiness. It says, “Government departments and agencies were briefed on how to identify threats, emerging tactics and systems vulnerabilities in order to strengthen security practices and behaviours.” That's important. Again, that all-of-government approach means actually educating and training people across government departments, which was done. Those briefs, that training and that capacity and awareness development did happen, and I'm sure it continues.
It continues, “Political parties and election administrators were provided with technical advice”. This one I find particularly interesting: “Political party representatives were also provided with classified briefings on threats.” This is interesting because Rosenberg refers to this in his report, which clearly demonstrates again a willingness and ability to work on these issues across party lines and to make sure that all parties have adequate information, that they're briefed, that they understand the threats and that they can weigh in on those discussions.
I'd also like to refer to the fact that, in terms of organizational readiness in 2018, our government established the Canadian centre for cybersecurity with a budget of $155 million over five years. CCCS is responsible for monitoring threats, protecting national critical infrastructure against cyber-incidents and coordinating the national response to any incidents related to cybersecurity. That organization didn't exist prior to 2018 and was established by our government. Again, it's another example of a body, an entity, that works across government and is tasked with one piece of the overall ecosystem approach or whole-of-government approach.
I think we can all agree that cybersecurity in the age of disinformation and data monopoly, referring back to the ethics report that was done in 2018, highlights how vulnerable the Canadian public is to disinformation. The use of online platforms for the dissemination of that information certainly has a real impact and changes the threat environment for anyone looking at national security and the seriousness of foreign election interference.
The other pillar that I'd like to refer to is combatting foreign interference. Our government established the security and intelligence threats to election task force. This is the SITE task force. It's the coordinating body and is comprised of the Communications Security Establishment, CSE; the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS; the RCMP; and the rapid response mechanism housed in Global Affairs.
SITE builds awareness to threats to Canada's federal election processes and prepares government to assess and respond to those threats. Each agency brings its unique information and expertise to the table to support the panel by providing up-to-date intelligence and information. The SITE task force has met regularly since 2019 and now meets on a monthly basis. It met daily during the 2021 election.
I think it is really important that the security agencies that are tasked with monitoring and collecting intelligence and identifying threats to Canadian democracy have been doing their work since 2019, meet regularly, meet on a monthly basis and then, during the elections, have daily meetings.
The information they are collecting is being relayed to government officials outside of the caretaker period, and then within the caretaker period, it feeds right into the panel. I don't know how anyone can claim that our government hasn't taken foreign election interference seriously.
That is not to say, Madam Chair, that we shouldn't be constantly improving and evolving our systematic approach and our comprehensive approach over time. That is what our national security advisers and experts have been saying to us, which is that we need to continue this work in a non-partisan way, in a serious way, in a way that respects Canadian democracy, and in a way that really tries to protect information that's highly sensitive and classified and to make sure that we don't put at risk our reputation with Five Eyes partners or other institutions.
I also want to speak to the fact that our government set up the rapid response mechanism with G7 countries at the 2018 G7 summit in Quebec. Its purpose is to strengthen the coordination across the G7 countries in identifying, preventing and responding to threats to G7 democracies. The rapid response mechanism supports the SITE task force in providing regular briefings to the panel of deputy ministers. You can see how, if you actually draw a picture of the flow of information, the rapid response mechanism basically shares information and coordinates efforts across the G7 countries such that we should find out about foreign threats to Canadian democracy in advance.
It's an early warning system, to my understanding, that feeds right into the SITE task force. That SITE task force then relays that information and briefs deputy ministers on the panel during an election, so this works as a comprehensive set of mechanisms that can identify threats to Canadian democracy.
I'd also like to say that, within the plan our government launched in 2019, which was the plan to protect Canadian democracy, again we acknowledged the need to work with external partners. Those include academia, industry and civil society to support information integrity in elections. These partners often have a unique role to play, it is safe to say, but it's an important role because they provide a unique perspective on the evolving threat environment. They help educate the public, and they alert the public to attempts at interference both before and during the campaign.
It is important that within a whole-of-government approach we also consider the fact that there are external partners that also play a very important role.
The other pillar, the fourth pillar, is building a healthy information ecosystem. One of the things that are obviously important is the degree to which Canadians get information online today. Our government launched the “Canada Declaration on Election Integrity Online” in 2019, and it was updated in 2021 prior to the election. Again, these are actions our government is taking. These are relevant to our work and our study and are exactly the reason why, if we actually look at the facts and information and if members opposite are actually concerned about what's being done, we have to acknowledge and affirm that lots has been done.
The commitment by online platforms and the Government of Canada to “safeguard elections from malicious interference and create a healthier online ecosystem” was endorsed by Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. Again, that was updated before the 2021 election.
I'm not claiming that's the be-all and end-all of election integrity online. I think there's a lot more work to be done. However, I would say that going right back to the 2018 report, when there were many recommendations made about how to protect Canadians from consuming disinformation online, it's great to know that our social media platforms were in agreement and endorsed that declaration, and that they were willing to do it again before the 2021 election.
There's also something that was implemented called the Canadian election misinformation project. This is on page 20 of Rosenberg's report. They did an analysis of the role that social media platforms play in spreading false information. They found that “notwithstanding more assertive moderation and election integrity policies, large social media platforms continued to be home to widespread misinformation.”
This is an area where we could do a lot more, deeper work, calling witnesses and looking within a writ period—but also outside of a writ period—at how we ensure that Canadians aren't consuming vast amounts of misinformation online. Our online platforms are saying that they're committed to that, but the independent research is saying, no, those online platforms, although they're committed to that, still continue to be home to widespread misinformation.
There's a whole area of our work that we need to take seriously that doesn't involve calling political staffers. It involves calling more witnesses who are relevant to the study, and some of the experts who have written these fantastic reports that I have here.
I have one really good one on misinformation and disinformation during the 2021 Canadian federal election from March 2022. It's relatively recent. It's from the media ecosystem observatory, made up of McGill, the University of Toronto, the Max Bell school of public policy and the Munk school. All of them are collaborating on writing these insightful reports that demonstrate that we need to do more work in that area.
I think there is an opportunity there, so why are opposition parties not focusing on that, when these are clear indications coming from experts? It's clear work that needs to continue to happen in order to protect Canadians, yet members on the opposite side don't seem concerned at all with that. Maybe that would be something that we could focus on in our work to come.
The thing that is really not sitting well with me is the fact that we keep hearing these very false assertions made over and over again. I think we have to be really honest with ourselves. We have to be honest and say, if you really want to step outside of the partisan antics, get down to the truth and take foreign election interference seriously, let's stop playing games and trying to win political points by calling political staffers who don't have expertise in national security. Let's start listening to the experts who have come before this committee. Instead of repeating three or four times the same motion with slightly tweaked language, so that we're here debating it over and over, ad infinitum.
I can do it forever. I'm happy to talk about this topic, because I'm reading and consuming information and I care about it. I'm happy to continue talking about this if that's what opposition members really want. However, I don't see why we would waste our precious time. The public has elected us to do important work, and we want to protect Canadian democracy. It's clear from everything I've said so far that our government has a track record. I could paint you a picture of it. It's so clear to me.
I could lay it out in a diagram for any of the opposition members. I just don't see why they would continue to deny the real facts and information that are clearly laid out in multiple reports. There's lots of information to substantiate what I'm saying.
I'm not making this up. I think the Conservatives have a duty, if they are going to make false claims, to back them up with evidence, because they are not doing that, in my view. They are just spouting off things that they think will win them some political points or a little uptick in the polls or something.
I really believe there is a need to continue to adapt our approach to foreign election interference. I think we have heard that loud and clear. If there's a silver lining in all of the partisan antics, it's to say, okay, well let's do deeper, more meaningful work in this area. I think the has made that clear in his announcement and press conference, at which he gave us some substantive actions—some more substantive actions, I should say—that our government is now taking.
I think just before I get to that I would like to point out a few other things. I want to sum up.
An independent review was conducted after the 2019 general election, and changes were made. Removal of a reference to the specific election in order to make the protocol continue in perpetuity, hopefully.... I think the protocol, its panel and that work are all essential. I think we can all agree. I'm sure it could be strengthened, but it should continue, so that change was made.
The change was made to align the protocol with the caretaker convention.
Explicit provision for the panel to consult with the CEO of Elections Canada as appropriate...that change was made after 2019.
Provision for the ability of political parties to alert security agencies of incidents: Listen to that. The Conservatives keep saying that their concerns weren't taken seriously. Well, our government set up the panel and the protocol and then amended them based on James Judd's independent report that was done and the assessment that was done to add a provision so political parties could alert security agencies regarding incidents. That was added by our government.
They are not even listening, Madam Chair. The Conservatives have tuned out because they don't like what I'm saying. They don't like hearing facts and information that substantiate very real truths and claims about what our government has done on this issue.
Another one is recognition of the panel's ability to examine domestically driven interference. That change was also made. The original protocol and panel focused exclusively on foreign election interference. We know that domestic interference is also important, and the panel was expanded to include domestic-driven interference.
Recognition of the panel's ability to receive information from other sources at its discretion was also added. An independent review of the protocol no longer includes an assessment as to whether to establish the protocol on a permanent basis because, of course, our government made it permanent.
I also want to mention budget 2022. Again, this all goes to the false claim that we have heard over and over again by the and the members of the Conservative Party who are making false claims every day they are out there in the House and saying—
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Sure. I appreciate the intervention. I think I made my point.
I would really like to hear the Conservatives—maybe one of the people filling in for today—at least inform us of whether or not he regrets making the comment that the openly had a candidate who is an agent of Beijing and whether or not they think that's appropriate. Quite frankly, I don't.
For to say that and then to not address the issue in committee, in the House or anywhere for that matter, is extremely troubling. I would like to ask him questions about that. What does he base that information on? Why does he thinks that claim is accurate? I think there's a lot of explaining to do. I just note the conspicuous absence of in this committee and that he is not addressing the issue. That would be my first thing.
I do know that Mr. Berthold is interested in ensuring that Conservative MPs' reputations are upheld. Perhaps he wants to weigh in, through a point of order at any time, on 's comments. I would be more than anxious to hear what he has to say about that. Nobody from the Conservative bench has brought up or addressed that. They're even very skeptical of calling me out on a point of order in regard to my discussion about it. Nobody wants to touch that one with a 10-foot pole. Quite frankly, I don't blame them.
Let's get back to Mr. Turnbull's amendment. I think the amendment is very germane. I think it is the proper amendment because it's asking people who were on the ground during the election to weigh in. The reason you can have an open, frank and honest discussion about this with those particular individuals—the campaign directors—is they would not have been privy to any information other than what they obtained publicly. You can have an open and public conversation with them.
I heard what Ms. Blaney had to say a few moments ago. I respect her position on this, and I will address some of her concerns in a few moments, specifically those about how to go about dealing with classified information and where the proper venue is. I'll express why I don't think the public forum, through a public inquiry, is the best venue. Although I totally empathize here and totally agree and understand that Canadians are charged with wanting to understand this—and they have the right to—I just don't think the vehicle or venue being proposed by the NDP and the opposition is the right one.
I'll go back to the individuals Mr. Turnbull is asking to come forward through his amendment. These are people who know specifically about what they witnessed on the ground during the election. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody that the Conservative MPs here would not be interested in listening to what any of them have to say, including Mr. Fred DeLorey, who ran their campaign in the last election. He said, “I can confirm, without a shadow of a doubt, that the outcome of the election, which resulted in the Liberals forming government, was not influenced by any external meddling.”
There are a number of Conservatives who would also say they believe that, although the rhetoric they use in other conversations certainly doesn't support the fact that they agree with that position. I think this is where the rest of the Conservative MPs on this committee depart from Mr. DeLorey. He says, “public inquiries can be highly politicized and become more focused on scoring points and blaming...parties, rather than finding solutions.”
That's what Mr. Fred DeLorey, the Conservative campaign manager in the 2021 election, had to say about where this particular issue should be dealt with. It should come as no surprise to anybody that the Conservatives would be against listening to their own campaign manager from the election less than two years ago and having him sit at the end of this table to basically repeat those words to their faces.
He also went on to say—because that's not where it ended—in a CBC Power & Politics interview that it feels like opposition parties are only interested in “political theatre”. This is Mr. Fred DeLorey. This is the Conservative campaign manager who said this on Power & Politics. He said the opposition parties are only interested in political theatre.
I mean, I can understand why it's tough to swallow that when it's coming from one of your own, from literally the individual who led the Conservatives through the last election. That's a hard pill to swallow. You certainly wouldn't want him sitting at the end of this table repeating that to your face.
He also said that he has concerns with security issues being treated like this. He rightly should. But Mr. DeLorey wasn't only critical of his own MPs in his statements in both his op-ed and his discussions in the various interviews he's had. He was also very constructive. I'll give you a constructive quote from him. Again, this is Mr. Fred DeLorey, the Conservative campaign manager for the 2021 election. He said that “one committee that is well-suited to fulfill this role is Canada’s National Security and Intelligence Committee”.
Once again, the Conservative campaign manager would have been responsible for funnelling any information regarding what was going on in foreign interference that their team, the Conservatives, witnessed during the last election back to the panel of experts who were monitoring the election. He has first-hand knowledge. He should have the complete picture of what any Conservative candidate witnessed in the last election. This individual, who has access to that, who would have been able to see the public part of it and who would have been able to compile and report that back to the expert panel, is the one saying the best place for this is in NSICOP.
Just for the record, the Conservative campaign manager, who would have seen all that and relayed all public foreign interference actions the Conservative Party recorded back to the panel monitoring this during the election, is saying the Conservatives are playing politics, they shouldn't be doing that and this issue should be dealt with at NSICOP. It should come as absolutely no surprise to anybody sitting around this table right now that the Conservatives would be against Mr. Turnbull's amendment. Why on earth would they want to have such damning testimony come from one of their own at this table, sitting right here?
Having said that, the Conservative Party continues to go down a road further and further to the right. It's a little more extreme every day. They appear to be even too extreme for Mr. DeLorey, who ran their last campaign. It should tell Canadians something about the Conservative movement in Canada, and how it's really taken on the role of getting further and further into the extremes, that an individual who ran their campaign less than two years ago is already really concerned with how those who were elected are acting.
I want to read something else to you that I found very, very interesting, Madam Chair. This came out of question period on Monday. There was an exchange, and I don't know if people really caught this. I do know there's some video circulating right now about it. I think it's very telling of the 's position and how he treats his role now, and indeed how he would have treated his role when he was minister. I think it also provides a bit of insight into how he would treat his role if he were to become the Prime Minister.
There was an exchange between and . Can I say his name?
The Chair: Yes, you can.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: I can say his name, but I can't reference his absence, so some parliamentary rules extend here but not all. Is that right?
The Chair: Yes.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Okay, so I can say his name—“Mr. Poilievre” is okay—but I just can't reference.... I just want to make sure I understand where I am here.
In response to a question, said:
Mr. Speaker, it will come as no surprise to you that I disagree with the opposition leader's false claims that the government did nothing. As soon as we came to power, we took action against foreign interference in our elections. Ours is the only government ever to have done so.
When my friend, the opposition leader, was the minister responsible for democratic institutions, he did nothing when intelligence agencies raised the issue over 10 years ago.
That's what Mr, LeBlanc said. What is so telling—and I almost fell out of my seat when I heard him say this—is the way the replied. He's under no obligation to answer questions. One would think he would have just jumped into another question. Instead, because he's too tempted to reply, he said, “Mr. Speaker, we did not have to, because the Communist dictatorship in Beijing was not helping the Conservative Party to get elected.
, the Leader of the Opposition, said that when he was in government, he didn't have to bother trying to deal with interference because others weren't trying to help them. Is that what the Leader of the Opposition thinks his job is? His job is only to be there. His job is only to protect from foreign interference when it's related to the Conservative Party. Who says that?
It provides such great insight into the Conservative Party of Canada and its leadership, and obviously what trickles down to the MPs, when the leader fully discloses that he didn't think—and he said this in question period, on the record eternally in Hansard—they had to worry about foreign interference because it wasn't affecting the Conservative Party. That was what he was saying.
To think that any representative doesn't realize that when they form government, their responsibility is to Canadians and the whole entire system, not just Conservatives, is absolutely mind-boggling. It's a great tell, because it provides great insight into and how he sees the role of government.
I don't think that will fade away lightly. I don't think that's something people will quite easily forget. I think it really is a tell into his character and his personality and what he views the role of government to be.
With this whole issue, I find that I can't help but think back to what I quoted Mr. DeLorey as saying, which is that Conservatives are just playing politics and this is about “political theatre”. Quite frankly, I can't think of an issue that requires more attention to being as non-partisan as possible and as collaborative as possible than protecting the fundamental institution that provides for everything else that we value so deeply in our country, and that's democracy.
The said something in his press conference. I believe it was on Tuesday night, but maybe it was Wednesday. Was it Monday?
Voices: It was Monday.
Mr. Mark Gerretsen: Okay, it was Monday, and he was 45 minutes late. Now I remember. We have to do something about that.
On Monday, at one point in his press conference, the said that the institution needs to outlast every single member of Parliament. That needs to be the focus of everything we do when it comes to analyzing, assessing and making recommendations about how to protect our democracy.
We have to remember that the institution absolutely must outlast every single one of us, so when we play politics—as Mr. DeLorey, the campaign manager for the Conservatives, is suggesting the opposition party is doing—and when we spend so much time going down that road, quite frankly, in my opinion, we're not doing that service. We're not doing everything we can to ensure that our democracy will outlast every member of Parliament.
I like to think that everybody here agrees with that. I would never cast aspersions otherwise and suggest they don't. I don't think it's in our best interest to be having these heated exchanges to try to score political points. It's much more incumbent upon us to find solutions and to work together.
This brings me to why I support Mr. Turnbull's amendment, as opposed to the motion. We're respecting the domain in which the conversation can be had. We can have a conversation in this room about public information and what was known to the public.
Mr. Cooper and others from the Conservatives are hell-bent on trying to drag staff before this committee, but even if those staffers, whomever they are, have various levels of clearance and are able to discuss information, they will not be able to say anything more than what we heard from Jody Thomas, which was it's important that we respect the fact that different pieces of information have to be treated differently, and we can't have open conversations in a forum like this about classified information. Her main concern when she came before this committee was about having similar open conversations in a public inquiry.
When we talk about ensuring there is an opportunity to have these conversations, I think what we should be having in this room are conversations that have more to do with the public aspect of this. What did those campaign managers experience? Those conversations are the ones we need to have in this room.
I would like to hear from Mr. DeLorey. I'd like to hear from the campaign managers of all political parties about what they experienced. That's public information. To Ms. Blaney's point, if we want to try to strengthen our institutions, we can get real recommendations from these individuals, which we can then relay back through a report to the House and to the government on how they can make changes. I think that is what we can do in this venue. We can't drag staff before this venue, even if they are in a position to answer the questions, and ask them to answer questions that Ms. Thomas has said are outside the scope of what can be discussed in a committee like this and in a public forum like this.
I want to find ways that we can further strengthen the institution. I want to hear from Mr. DeLorey. I want to hear from the campaign managers of all the political parties so they can make recommendations to us.
I also think this was very interesting. Ms. Thomas made a point, and this is what I wanted to address after what I heard Ms. Blaney speak about a few moments ago. These were Ms. Thomas's words; I wrote them down. She said that intel often doesn't convert into evidence. I think that's very important.
We heard from Mr. Morrison, the deputy minister of foreign affairs, a couple of weeks ago as well. I'll get into what he said about this. He specifically went on about it. He was trying, in any way he could, to caution the committee about going down this road and being careful about information that is received. He made very clear the difference between intel and evidence. More importantly, all of them made very clear how you get from intel to evidence and how you get from intel to arresting somebody for doing something.
I want to read to you what Mr. Morrison said in committee. I think this is very important and that it has been glossed over by the committee. He said:
...I will not be commenting on any individual media reports, but I wish to acknowledge—as members of the committee are well aware—that there is an active debate going on right now about how reputable media organizations could be reporting that highly classified intelligence documents describe how a foreign power did this or that to influence the most recent Canadian elections, including by engaging in patently illegal activity, such as funnelling money to candidates. How could that be going on while, at the same time, others, including me, maintain there was no foreign interference detected in 2019 or 2021 that threatened Canada's ability to have a free and fair election nationally or at the level of individual ridings? How can these two sides of this ongoing debate be reconciled?
I believe much of the answer lies in the questions recently addressed on social media by professor Stephanie Carvin of Carleton University. These same questions form the crux of a recent interview given by former clerk of the Privy Council Ian Shugart, who, as you know, was a member of this panel in 2019.
This is where it really gets interesting. He said:
The key questions are these: What is intelligence, and how is it used? Without repeating all the points made by Dr. Carvin and Mr. Shugart, let me simply say that intelligence rarely paints a full, concrete or actionable picture. Intelligence almost always comes heavily caveated and qualified in ways designed to caution consumers such as me from jumping to conclusions, while at the same time helping us at least to gain a little more awareness.
An example would be a report based on “an uncorroborated source of unknown reliability”. In layman's terms, I would call this a report based on rumour.
Those were Mr. Morrison's words, and I found them really interesting because, during my opportunity to question him at that meeting, I specifically asked him about his thoughts on that. I remember painting an example. I said that he might have various reports based on “intel”—for what that's worth—come across his desk. Then he assesses that intel and makes the decision on what to move forward, what not to move forward, what to act on and what the proper course of action on each piece of intel is. He said to us that some pieces of intel end right there.
To Ms. Blaney's point earlier in the debate when she was talking about intel, I think it's really important to remember that, first of all, not all intel is real, not all intel is true, not all intel converts into evidence and not all intel even goes anywhere beyond a report about intel. As he said, there are many caveats. You have to look at the source. You have to look at the context in which it's being said. You have to look at the reliability of the information, and then they make decisions and move them on.
One thing we also heard them say repeatedly.... The RCMP said this when they were here at the same meeting: It has no active investigations going on right now. I mean, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to read between the lines that intel comes in, decisions are made with respect to that intel and then action is taken. We heard that no action was being taken. To me that says that any intel that may have been picked up through a leak by Global or somewhere else was not actionable. I'm making those assumptions because they can't even confirm or deny any of that, but I'm at least able to read between the lines.
From my position, this doesn't in any way suggest that Canadians shouldn't be concerned. That's not the case at all. I think Canadians should be concerned. A certain part of me is glad to see that we are having these conversations—although not necessarily that we're running around in circles—and, more importantly, that Canadians are having these conversations on this very important issue. That says to me that Canadians are aware of this, they're paying attention to it and they care about it. I think that's very important.
What I'm looking to get out of this is how we ensure that Canadians are getting what they want and what they need. How do we ensure that they get information in a public forum, that they get feedback and that they get the confidence they need while still respecting the classification and highly sensitive nature of the work that CSIS and the other agencies do? That's where the line gets drawn. All members are concerned about foreign interference. I think the line is between those who want to actually do something about it and those who want to use it for political opportunity.
I genuinely feel as though the NDP and the Bloc want to use this opportunity to do what's best, so I'm not against the idea of having the public weigh in and making sure the public is aware of what's going on. I just don't think a public inquiry into a Global News article is the right way to do it. I think the right way to do this is by putting the information in the hands of those who are tasked to do it.
To that end, I'll go back to 's comment, which I referenced earlier. He said that we've done a number of things, and indeed we have. I think it's important to reflect upon them in the context of this discussion.
The first is that we established the National Security Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, or NSICOP. This is a committee of parliamentarians—Liberals, Conservatives, Bloc and NDP—and some senators who have the opportunity to review information that has come forward, review all intelligence and work hand in hand with CSIS and NSIRA to get to the bottom of this and get questions answered. They do have to do this in a manner that respects the confidentiality of the information.
The unfortunate part about it is that it has to be done in a way that respects the classification of the information, but NSICOP does report to Parliament. I'm sure my colleagues sitting around the table have taken the opportunity to read all of the NSICOP reports that have come forward from the committee and made sure that they're fully aware of everything that's contained within them, because there's a lot of good information. Just because NSICOP has to evaluate information behind closed doors does not mean that it cannot make recommendations. It does not mean that it cannot report to Parliament and provide insight into what it has come to conclusions on. NSICOP does do that.
To suggest that NSICOP is not the right venue because the information just goes into a black hole that nobody ever gets to see isn't true. What happens is NSICOP and its members—in particular the parliamentarians and senators who sit on that committee—will review the information. They get to ask questions of those who gathered the information. They get to dive deep into it. Mrs. Romanado mentioned that Mr. Ruff is one of the members on that committee. I believe Mr. Motz, a Conservative, is too—or at least he was previously.
These are individuals who had the opportunity to put their eyes on this information and then, working with the committee, make recommendations back to Parliament. They've done that and have reported to Parliament already based on what they have been able to gather through that intelligence-gathering exercise.
That's a perfect venue for this information to be analyzed. That's why Mr. Fred DeLorey, the Conservative campaign manager from 2021, agrees with that assessment. He agrees with the fact that that's the best place to assess the information. I'm inclined to support him on that. I never thought that I would have such a close alignment on what we should do with the Conservative campaign manager, but I do. That's the one thing we established.
I will remind members of this committee that NSICOP, which was created by the government and which Stephen Harper, the former prime minister, was not interested in, is unfortunately a committee that the Conservatives have a history of playing politics with. Look back to the previous leader, the member for , who by all accounts looks like a centrist now. What did he do? He pulled his members from that committee out of defiance, in order to somehow suggest that they were not going to keep their membership on that committee because it doesn't serve Canadians.
Conservatives have a history of playing politics with NSICOP, and unfortunately we're seeing that again. As I indicated in a previous intervention, maybe a week ago, it's unfortunate, but Conservatives seem most interested through this exercise in just ensuring that they have sound bites and opportunities to continually bring up this issue through a public inquiry. In my opinion, they're more interested in the politics of it than in genuinely coming to any kind of solution. That's why I find it very troubling that they would treat this committee in such a partisan way.
The other thing this government did, which I think is really important to point out, and this was in time for the 2019 election, was to establish a group of independent experts who would review in real time and have the authority to respond in real time to foreign interference that was occurring during a writ period. I think this is very important, despite the fact that Mr. Cooper, when the witnesses of the panel were before this committee, was berating them at length and treating them as though they had done something that in my opinion they hadn't. I think we're very lucky to have a group of experts in the field of foreign interference who include bureaucrats, top civil servants, who by nature of their employment are non-partisan and whose interest is in ensuring that our democracy remains free, fair and transparent during election periods. It always makes me worried about foreign interference specifically in an election period, because the policy-makers, the members of Parliament, are busy in the election campaign, working on connecting with constituents in their ridings, running around doing the incredibly time-consuming work and, by default, they don't have the ability to also be monitoring this stuff very closely.
Knowing that we have this panel monitoring this in the background, a panel that Mr. DeLorey and other campaign managers could funnel what they're seeing on the ground back to and reply if necessary, knowing that this is going on, I think, is something that all members of Parliament should take great pride in, namely, that we have individuals who are trying to safeguard our elections while the elections are ongoing. Having that panel in place, something that this government brought in, is extremely important.
What's more important is that after the election is over, a third party works with the panel and provides a report. That won't stop Mr. Poilievre from making comments, as he recently did, that the only thing we did was hire somebody to write a report and, at the same time, making disparaging comments with regard to these dedicated public servants who have worked for decades, suggesting they're somehow corrupt or politically motivated. It doesn't stop him from attacking them, but the reality is that we do have individuals who care deeply about our democracy and through their work and through the work that's being reported back, we were able to learn that no interference occurred that jeopardized our election and that our election and its results were free and open and occurred properly.
It's incumbent upon us to reflect on the fact that they do incredible work and that we're obligated to ensure that we give them the supports they need moving forward. Rather than dragging in and trying to dig up dirt and making more unsubstantiated claims, why aren't we focusing on that? Why aren't we focusing on talking to the panel and asking what we can recommend to the government to allow them to do a better job? That, in my opinion, is what our job as policy-makers is.
I talked about NSICOP and about the special panel that was set up for the writ period, but we even did something before that, and that was Bill . Even before any of that, we brought in Bill C-76. One of the things that Bill C-76 did right off the bat was to make it easier for individuals to vote. This was in response to the minister at the time, who happens to be the now, who, when he was the minister of democratic institutions, brought in legislation that made it more difficult for Canadian citizens to vote. When you try to limit the ability of people to participate in democracy, I think Canadians should be taking great notice of that as well. I think many of them did, and perhaps that contributed to why the Conservative Party lost the trust of Canadians and Mr. Harper wasn't re-elected.
However, the reality is that Bill did more than just undo some of what Mr. Poilievre did through his legislation when he was democratic institutions minister. Bill C-76 also tightened up rules around financing and, in particular, foreign interference and foreign financing, to make sure that we could limit that to the best of our ability, because we don't want individuals funding our elections who are not from within this country. What I find really interesting about Bill C-76 is that the Conservatives voted against it in 2018, despite the fact that they sit at the table, throw their arms up in the air and raise all hell about foreign funding in elections. We had a bill, parts of which made it more difficult for foreign actors to participate in the funding of our elections, and the Conservatives voted against it, yet they sit here today from a place of all high and mighty suggesting that they are the authority when it comes to looking out for democracy.
It really goes back to my point, and Mr. DeLorey's point too, about how Conservatives are just using this as political theatre. They're using the opportunity here just to try to ensure that, at all costs, they can do whatever they can to try to smear the government. They don't appear to care about what the genuine impact is on our democracy—at least not from my perspective.
Madam Chair, I talked about the three main things that we have done since we came to power: Bill with respect to foreign funding, NSICOP, and the expert panel we established for the writ period. These are three major things this government has done when it comes to combatting foreign interference.
I find it very rich, as I think I read from Mr. Poilievre's intervention a couple of days ago, that he says we haven't done anything. That's simply not the case. We've done more than what I've just indicated, and we're proposing to do even more, because there is a legitimate concern out there right now, whether it's fuelled by Conservative rhetoric or by unsubstantiated reports or by Global News articles based on what could be just rumours. As a witness before this committee said, there is genuine concern out there. As Canadians, if there's anything to be concerned about, we should obviously take concern.
I'm actually really happy in some regards about the Conservatives, who have finally come on board and said, “Hey, maybe we want to have something to say about foreign interference too, because we voted against Bill , we stripped our committee members from NSICOP and haven't really shown an interest in this”—and now they do. That's great. They're here. They're here at the table, better late than never, and it's great to see Conservatives interested in foreign interference.
The question is, how do we make it better? How do we change the processes we have in place, because we always have to be changing, as the threats are always going to change? Is a public inquiry the best way to do it? Are we going to get out of the public inquiry anything of substance, according to Mr. DeLorey? No. According to all the experts who came before this committee, we won't. But what we can do is work with NSICOP and with the legislation that's already in place. We can identify where we can improve it.
One thing I forgot to mention about the public inquiry, and I think Mr. DeLorey said this himself.... Gosh, I never imagined that I would say the name of a Conservative campaign manager so many times in this speech, but here we are. He hit all the points and hit the nail right on the head. The other issue that I heard him bring up, and I've heard others bring it up, is with respect to the time a public inquiry would take. If there were to be a public inquiry—which Ms. Blaney seems to be in favour of—the average public inquiry takes two to four years. What are we going to get in terms of recommendations? Will it even report before the next election, if the NDP stays true to its word on working with this government? I guess if we're on the short end of those two years, we would get that just before the election, but if we are on the long end of that, it would be after the next election.
Notwithstanding that fact, Madam Chair, so much can happen between now and then. New threats come along and suddenly this public inquiry is almost out of date because it's not even addressing the threats of the day. There's the issue of time, which I think is something we need to be very concerned about.
These aren't my words; I didn't come up with that. I didn't go and research how long the average public inquiry takes and what the pros and cons are. I'm genuinely listening to the experts. As a matter of fact, if I'm being totally honest with you, Madam Chair, because I do like to do that, I'm going to come clean with you. It's time to do that. When the idea of a public inquiry first started floating around, there was a part of me that said, “Hey, why wouldn't we do this?” It kind of made sense. I really had an open mind about it. I thought it might be something that would put a lot of.... Why wouldn't you do that, if it's so easy and if it would provide Canadians the comfort they're looking for?
Then I started listening to the experts, and expert after expert—and top security advisers, NSICOP, the people who had been on the panel, the people who are tasked with holding this information and gathering this information—started to say, “No, no, you can't do this in a public forum because we can't give the information to the public as it would jeopardize our sources.” I started to think to myself that maybe that does make sense. It's never an easy position to take, because you want to be as open and transparent as possible, but the reality is that, according to what they were saying, you have to be careful with that information. Quite frankly, they even said.... I think Ms. Thomas said at this committee that she couldn't share any information with a public inquiry that she couldn't share with this committee, because this is an open forum. That makes sense. Then I started to change my mind. I thought that makes sense—it's obviously not going to be the most comforting thing for people to hear, but it does make sense.
Then I started to hear people like Mr. Fred DeLorey, the former campaign manager for the Conservatives, say exactly the same thing. I thought it kind of makes sense and I understand. I know it doesn't put Canadians' minds at ease with respect to what's going on with the entire situation, but it certainly does make a lot of sense. It made a lot of sense to me when I heard them talk about that. I very quickly came to agree with what the experts were saying.
I find it interesting that expert after expert will come before the committee and tell us that, yet there are members of the committee who are just so blatantly willing to disregard it, with all due respect to my NDP and Bloc colleagues, and just toss aside the information. You have people coming before you saying, “This is vitally critical information.” This is me reading between the lines. “If we share the information with the public, we can burn our sources; we can reveal our sources; we can jeopardize the integrity of being able to work with our allies.” Can you imagine if our allies knew that we would hold a public inquiry and just share all of the information? Our allies would say they are not sharing anything else with us ever again, and that kind of makes sense.
Ms. Blaney brought up the point when she was speaking earlier—and I heard her colleague Mr. Boulerice say this as well when we were on a panel together—that you can put some information in closed session, and some information in public, and you can operate it like that. The problem is that the vast majority of the information you need to hear, notwithstanding the fact that people don't have the proper security clearance to hear the information, would have to be held in such a manner. So what's the point of having a public inquiry if the majority of the information that's being shared and talked about in that inquiry is not accessible to the public? This is where it goes back to the comments from Mr. DeLorey and from the experts and from all of those before about why it's so important that the information be treated and used in the right venue.
I think it's very important for us to reflect on that, and I think it's also important for us to reflect on this concept of interference not being new. Perhaps the manner in which interference occurs now is changing; it's evolving. It has probably changed a lot in the last 20 or 30 years with the Internet and the ability to influence situations and influence public opinion. It's something that has certainly been talked about a lot more and in different venues, but it is not something that is brand new. Foreign interference is something that has been going on in one form or another for a long time, and governments have been seized with this for a long time, both Liberal and Conservative governments throughout our history.
The part of this that becomes very alarming is more specifically with respect to how we can allow it to happen in a way that perhaps is much more covert and therefore so much easier to hide. That's why we have put in place the mechanisms we have, the mechanisms of allowing the members of NSICOP to look at all of the intel so they can see it themselves in an unclassified manner and, for the first time ever, a panel that monitors in real time.
This is the point I was trying to make. With the advent of technology, we see the ability to interfere more quickly and in a much more covert manner. That's why we need rapid response mechanisms that are able to deal with this in real time. That's where the panel comes in, but the panel has to review the information. Quite often it's in a classified manner. Then the panel has to report back to the public after the election. That's what we see them do when they bring that information forward later on, and they can provide it to us in a manner that does not jeopardize the classification of the information that went into making it. It is important to reflect on the fact that foreign interference in some capacity or another is not something that is brand new.
I will now turn, Madam Speaker, to the last meeting we had, at which we did have the individuals who came forward to the committee—we had Foreign Affairs, and before that we had CSIS, and it started off with Elections Canada. I think it is important to reflect on the number of times Elections Canada has come to this committee. They are interested in working with us in an open and transparent way. That's a vehicle for us to give recommendations as to how we can make changes and how we should suggest changes. We need to be doing more of that.
To Mr. Turnbull's amendment here, what he's basically trying to do, in my opinion, is to say let's strip the politics out of this. Let's put aside the political rhetoric, let's have the individuals who were receiving the information, any who were on the ground in the last election and who would have been subject to receiving information from their candidates in terms of foreign interference, and let's hear what they have to say. It's actually a really good group to listen to, not to hear their partisan spins on everything but just to hear about what they were experiencing at the time. That's what Mr. Turnbull's motion is attempting to do, Madam Chair.
We know the Conservatives want to bring forward every staffer they think they can get a sound bite out of. They want to drag them before the end of this table and subject them to the same aggressive attack style that Mr. Cooper had with government officials. If he is willing to do that to non-partisan public servants, we can only imagine how he would treat an individual who came before the committee who actually worked in the office of a minister or of the .
We're not going to gather much intel and much information from them in order to make recommendations. We would be better off if we were to have information about what was going on in the last election on the ground. His amendment specifically says to invite the 2019 and 2021 national campaign directors of each recognized party in the House of Commons and the security-cleared party representatives to the security and national intelligence threats election task force during the 2019-21 federal elections. That would provide more insight for this committee if the objective of the committee really is to get down to understanding what was going on and how we can provide meaningful input into ensuring that there are substantial recommendations that we can make through a report back to Parliament and to the government on what they can do.
When we reflect on how we've gotten to this point, Madam Chair, I know I talked about NSICOP and the special panel and Bill C-76. We've also heard from a number of experts at this committee. We've heard from Global Affairs and CSIS, who came before the committee and provided us with as much information as they could. They confirmed that there were no active investigations going on, or at least the RCMP in the same panel did.
We also heard from the RCMP and CSIS in their panel, specifically that their job is to collect secrets and keep secrets. They are very interested in protecting their sources. I think it is very easy for us to point fingers and try to suggest that there's some kind of nefarious activity going on. I know that the opposition wants to try to suggest that the is covering something up. But the reality is that any information that has been relayed back to us, at this end of the table, by the experts who have come before has been that they have no information that suggests there was any foreign interference. That's what we heard Ms. Thomas and others say at this end of the table.
Madam Chair, I think I have made the majority of the points that I wanted to contribute to Mr. Turnbull's amendment. I think that he brings forward a good amendment in terms of trying to gather information that we can genuinely use and that can be useful to us in order to provide our recommendations.
I will perhaps end my discussion today where I began, and that is with respect to the manner in which I've been witnessing members of Parliament treat other members of Parliament and disparaging their character. Specifically, I reference attack on and the manner in which he treated him, the manner in which he attempted to stir political division—or to fundraise or to do whatever he was doing—by suggesting that a sitting member of Parliament is an agent of Beijing. I think it's extremely unfortunate.
I think Mr. Berthold can defend 's claims and what Mr. Poilievre said of the . I think he can do that. I think he can skate around and try to explain away what Mr. Poilievre said—which he already did in this committee—but I don't think he can explain away what said. I think it's extremely unfortunate when we go down that road of accusing other members of Parliament, basically, of treason, of working on behalf of another entity by calling them an agent of Beijing. They're saying that their loyalty is not to Canada, their loyalty is not to their constituents, but rather their loyalty is to a foreign country. And that's exactly what Mr. Calkins did.
I think it's extremely unfortunate that we would tolerate this. I think it's unfortunate that has not come forward and explained that, apologized for it, retracted it and deleted the video that he posted regarding that. I think it's extremely unfortunate that his colleagues who sit at this table don't try to, at the very least, say that it was wrong for him to have said that. I think that if they're genuinely in this, not for the political gain of this, they would do that, unless of course they felt the same way and therefore felt as though they didn't need to say that.
I really hope that when my Conservative colleagues contribute to the conversation today they could address that point. They could address why, according to the minutes of the agenda, name doesn't appear to be on any of them since a number of meetings ago. Is that in order, Madam Chair? It's a printed document. His name wasn't on the document from the minutes, so I think that's in order.
I think it's very telling. I think the Conservatives are nervous about the fact that he said that. I don't think it's appropriate. They need to own up to it. It would be great if one Conservative colleague on that side of the table could actually do that. I think it's important for us to respect the fact that we are all honourable members. To suggest that somebody is working for another country, I think, is extremely unfortunate.
With that, Madam Chair, I've said my bit for now. I do have more to add, but I think for now that may be all I have to say. Were members expecting a little bit more? Is everybody good? Okay.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
It was really nice to hear what I think was my colleague's preamble to the full speech that we'll hear later on when we reconvene this meeting or continue this meeting. I know he's just getting started. That's like the famous words of David Christopherson at PROC back in the day. I always used to admire his ability to bring passion and a lot of insight to any debate. He would also say, “I'm just getting started” after we had heard from him for countless hours at times. That was very interesting.
I'm going to focus some of my initial comments around some of the things my colleague said and some of the things I've been hearing from various sources, whether the Conservatives or the media, as the debate grows about having a public inquiry versus what the has announced and the misinterpretation as to what a public inquiry might result in and what a special rapporteur is and the jokes and all the stuff we've been hearing lately.
First, we've been hearing the demands for a public inquiry. I've stated here before, and I'll state it here again, that I'm not fully convinced but I'm not fully against the idea either. I think we have been given a great opportunity at this committee to continue to hear from our experts on public safety and security in this country—the agencies and ministers who might come forward today and in various other meetings—as to what the best course forward might be. We will also be hearing about a special rapporteur; that will be decided on and announced in the coming days as well. He or she will have free rein to decide whether a public inquiry is the right route to go or not. I'm not fully convinced, but I'm still open to the idea.
One of the arguments I've been hearing coming from the Leader of the Opposition, , is about the many mechanisms that Mr. Turnbull and Mr. Gerretsen have highlighted—and I'll highlight in the second portion of my talk the misinterpretation that's been happening as to all the steps, or the misinformation that's been put out there. The criticism has been, “Oh, well, NSICOP is not a parliamentary committee. How dare some people call it an actual committee?” I've been hearing those remarks in question period quite a bit. Well, it is a committee of parliamentarians. It may not be a standing committee of the House of Commons. However, it is a committee of all parties. Members from all parties are on this committee—the Conservatives, the Bloc, the NDP and the Liberals—and they have top secret clearance so they're able to take a look at these documents.
I was looking on the Government of Canada's website to really understand better how a public inquiry would be created. What I've heard is that NSICOP is created by cabinet, appointed by the through an order in council, and therefore maybe what they are alluding to, and outright saying at times as well, is that this committee is not independent. For some reason, we are seeing the Conservatives especially question the integrity of the chair, who has a lot of integrity. I think most people across party lines would say that Mr. McGuinty, who has served here for many years, has a lot of credibility as a parliamentarian. David McGuinty, who is the chair of NSICOP, and the other members take their work very seriously.
What's very interesting is that, in order to set up a public inquiry, a commission would be established by the Governor in Council, which is cabinet. Cabinet would be establishing this public inquiry. Of course, they would be giving this public inquiry a mandate to fully and impartially investigate issues of national importance, in this case one that is of extreme importance to me and I'm sure to all members of this committee, and especially the : foreign interference. It has had a great deal of importance to us since we formed government in 2015, immediately, having learned from even that election and from previous elections that it was already out in the public that interference is a real thing, not just in Canada. We saw shortly after, in the 2016 elections in France and the U.S., that this was a growing problem in the world.
That's the first point: that this inquiry would be created in the same way, through an order in council, as was NSICOP, that committee. Does that now make this public inquiry that we may have impartial? Or does it make it partial? I don't know. The Conservatives have been implying that somehow NSICOP is partial and not fully independent because it's created in a similar fashion. We would hope, of course, that this inquiry would be led by an expert judge who, just like the special rapporteur, would have the ability to bring forward witnesses and bring forward testimony and all those things that a special rapporteur is also given the ability to do in his or her investigation.
I'll get a little bit into the definition of a special rapporteur, because I know the Conservatives find it very humorous and have been laughing quite a bit because of the lack of understanding as to what it means. I think it's only fair to educate all parliamentarians and the public as to what the difference might be—what a special rapporteur is and what a public inquiry is—and actually how similar those two things could be, especially given this context.
I know that in some contexts we've had people come before us and give public testimony on a lot of issues, but when you're dealing with an issue that is of a sensitive nature like this, I don't think the public inquiry would end up being the great revelation that most people would expect of a public inquiry. That's my one concern: that perhaps we are over-promising Canadians in some way that this public inquiry will be the answer to all the questions they have. They have good questions and they have a right to have those questions. Many of us have those questions as well.
However, I think many responsible parliamentarians do understand the different committees and the protocol that has been set and put in place in order to evaluate these sensitive issues. We have respect for those who have served as public servants for a long time and we know they would be impartial in deliberating and giving us advice, just like our analysts and our clerk. We have great respect for them as well—to be able to guide us through our committee reports and to give us good procedural advice and make it impartial—and I don't think any of us, as long as I've been here, have ever questioned that. That's the first thing.
I also came across a study as to what the public perception is of public inquiries and what the expectations are of public inquiries. The study is really interesting. It took a broad sample size of about a thousand people or so and really delved into what the public's expectations are of a public inquiry. This study was done in 2022. We have seen a growing number of public inquiries being done in the U.K. and the U.S. Here, we've had many public inquiries. We just had one not too long ago, which was legislated that we must have, after the protests and the convoy that took place here on Parliament Hill. That was a must. We had to have a public inquiry after the use of the Emergencies Act.
We've seen in other inquiries before—and the survey makes it quite clear as well—that many people have expectations that a public inquiry is somehow a trial of some sort, where the judge or the person presiding over the public inquiry would have great powers to subpoena and also to maybe criminalize and punish those who are wrongdoers or actors through this public inquiry. At times, we have seen that public inquiries, although they can vindicate some people, can also be disappointing to others who thought that once the information was out in the public they were going to get some kind of criminal justice out of the public inquiry. That's not always the case. We've also heard, as my colleagues have mentioned in some of the testimony that has come before our committee, that oftentimes—and actually always, until it gets to a certain point—it's not evidence and it would not necessarily lead to investigations or charges.
We've also seen times when charges are laid based on intel received through CSIS and through American intelligence agencies as well. We had an example here before of weapons of mass destruction. All the intelligence was pointing towards weapons of mass destruction. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, after all of the intelligence that was being fed in by Five Eyes partners. I think many of us have a lot of respect for the amount of resources and tools that the U.S. has at its disposal and especially that its federal agencies have. Even they got it wrong. Even they got it wrong with the amount of resources and the sources they have to be able to get something right. They got it wrong, and they advised the government in the wrong way at the time.
When people have looked at stuff like this, it doesn't surprise me that the results of the survey are such that there are a lot of questions around what a public inquiry would end up resulting in. It says that over 45% of the public doesn't know if a public inquiry would actually explain the issues to them as the inquiry unfolds, so there are always questions left.
I think you heard what the said, and some comments about what the Prime Minister said yesterday, some critiques, fair or unfair, about some of the words he said around the issue of how there may still be questions, no matter what he may or may not say about this issue. There may always be questions surrounding foreign interference and the security of our democracy. I have to agree with him. No matter who the Prime Minister is, whether it's a Conservative prime minister, perhaps an NDP prime minister or a Liberal prime minister, these issues will continue to exist, and there will always be questions around the top secret work that these agencies do.
I think it's always been intriguing. I think that's why so many movies are made about these types of issues: because the public wants to know. The Conservatives have done no favours in the area of sensationalizing this issue. They've made it into a movie of some sort so that the public can digest and feed its curiosity and intrigue, but that's a dangerous game to play. This is not for entertainment. This is a serious matter, the risk to our democracy.
The survey did result in a large sample of the public saying that they weren't sure what public inquires necessarily result in. Another thing that was very interesting in the survey was whether they believed or didn't believe certain elements of a public inquiry. They were asked whether a public inquiry has a jury: 35% didn't know whether a public inquiry had a jury and 25% thought it was true. Those are high numbers of people who don't even know, people who think it's actually true that this is some type of trial or jury that is going to take place. Forty per cent knew that wasn't true. The majority either didn't know or thought it was true that a public inquiry has a jury.
Some other questions were asked as true-or-false questions: “Does a public inquiry have the power to award people compensation?” Did you know that 45% of the respondents in the survey answered “yes”, that a public inquiry had the power to award compensation, and 32% didn't know? Only 23% said that was false. I think that's really interesting, because the expectation and what's being built up to be consumed by the public right now, I would contend, is a false narrative that is being built up.
There are some good things that can come out of a public inquiry, but I think there are some good things that could come out of NSICOP and some great things that have come out of Mr. Rosenberg's report, which, by the way, was informed by our top intelligence officers. The committee that took a look at the issue of the 2021 election and whether it was free and fair had the clearance to go through all of that information, and those people are top public officials, non-partisan public officials. They obviously received that information in private or in secret. As the Conservatives keep saying, so many of these things are being done in secret. Well, they're being done in secret because they are looking at top secret documents, so it's no surprise that those things are being done in secret.
What the public may not be aware of, however—as some of our witnesses have informed us here, and as I think, on many panels, experts have come forward and also said—is that in a public inquiry the person who would be presiding over that inquiry would also see these things in secret. NSICOP sees things in secret. The protocol committee saw things in secret. The rapporteur will probably have to see some things. He will see them all himself—sorry, I should say “he or she”. We just had International Women's Day. I feel like I've been programmed since I was a young child myself to constantly say “he”. I have to un-program myself. I really hope that it would be a prominent female to lead this investigation.
On the inquiry as well, that stuff would be in secret. We're hearing the words “in camera” being used. Our committee goes in camera at times as well. When we go in camera, that stuff is a secret. That's a parliamentary committee, a standing committee of the House of Commons that has members of all parties and that, at times, due to sensitive reasons, has to go in secret. That doesn't mean you're up to something dubious or nefarious or whatnot, as the opposition parties have tried to imply and even outright state in many of the press conferences I've been seeing. They are letting Canadians know that somehow, because there's sensitive material that's being viewed and it gets viewed behind closed doors or in secret, that's a bad thing. Well, that's not a bad thing. That is done in order to protect all of us and to protect our country.
The very fact that the opposition parties sometimes want to.... I have to give them the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes I think that maybe they just want to see this place burn; maybe they don't. Maybe they're not interested in the truth. Maybe they just really want to see the world burn, and I'm not interested in that. I honestly want to figure out how we can get the best result.
We'll hear from ministers today and other witnesses at this committee. If somebody convinces me that a public inquiry is the way to go because somehow we will have a better result or outcome, or Canadians won't be left with any questions after a public inquiry and all their questions will be solved, even though a lot of the stuff that is going to be presented at a public inquiry will be done in secret—at a public inquiry, in secret—then I'm for it.
I've heard some things about the special rapporteur: that this could take years, until the next election, that it could take all the time in the world to have a special rapporteur look into this matter. Well, I was looking at the UN. The UN is most popularly known for appointing special rapporteurs for many different things, and I'll get into having that discussion and making sure that everybody is aware of all the different human rights categories that they appoint special rapporteurs for. I think I counted 60 or 70 different areas and 13 different countries that currently have special rapporteurs appointed for extremely heavy investigations surrounding human rights concerns, war crimes and many things.
They're generally appointed for a year in a term. There are public inquiries that have gone on for much longer than that. I think my colleague also mentioned in a previous meeting that the average public inquiry could go on for four years or so. Is the public ready for an inquiry of four years? That's a possibility. It's not necessary, but I'm going to put it out there because I think the public deserves to know the other side of this. We deserve to know all the pros and cons to this issue, because the Conservatives are definitely getting out there and talking about all the cons to having a special rapporteur. Therefore, I think we should weigh it and make sure that we give all the pros and cons to both. There are cons to both, and there are pros to both as well.
The average amount of time could be four years or more for a public inquiry. That's the type of stuff they've been implying. I've even heard the media mention that the special rapporteur could go on forever and we may not have a result. Well, it's the same thing for a public inquiry, so let's just make it clear so the public understands that they may be in the same position.
I was also looking at costs, Madam Chair, the costs of what a public inquiry can be. I'm not against—especially when it comes to the security of our institutions in this country—putting our money where our mouth is to make sure that we have robust, safe measures in place and that we have a good system that would alert us and indicate to us when there is a foreign threat—or an internal threat. I think I've mentioned before misrepresentation and disinformation campaigns. I'm going to get to an issue that happened to me in the 2015 election, which was quite concerning, regarding some things that were very parallel to what happened to Kenny Chiu. Stay tuned for that. That's an interesting story that I'll share with all of you today.
I was talking about the cost of a public inquiry. The cost for just the public inquiry that's being done regarding the Ottawa LRT.... The LRT for Ottawa is a small issue in comparison to foreign interference. Some Ottawa members of Parliament might disagree. They might think that's the end-all and be-all issue of importance, but the LRT doesn't even run, from my knowledge of it, in all that large of a geography.
However, the last time I could find a calculation—last November, in November of 2022—the public inquiry that is being done for the Ottawa LRT has cost $14.5 million. That's $14.5 million. I think that's going to make it hard for the Conservatives to sleep tonight. I really do. That's because I know they are fiscally responsible, or they at least claim to be fiscally responsible. They claim to be fiscally responsible, but they're saying that there is no option that could be a viable or good option other than a public inquiry. That could be costly, could be done in secret and could result in Canadians still being dissatisfied at the end of the day, because there are so many secrets in a public inquiry.
A really extremely tragic event that shook our nation was the 2020 mass shooting. That public inquiry cost $25.6 million. It was $25.6 million. I can only believe the numbers for the LRT inquiry and the mass shooting inquiry. A lot of the issues were not the top secret intelligence type of information, so they were able to share a lot of information in the public inquiry for the mass shooting. That cost $25.6 million, so I can only imagine what this public inquiry is going to cost the taxpayer. This public inquiry will definitely cost the taxpayer a lot more than that, because it's going to take a lot of work to start from scratch again.
Why start from scratch? That's the other thing that I've mentioned before, and as I get into talking a bit about the proposal the outlined a few days ago, I think the proposal is complementary to a lot of the work that's being done. Also, it's a step further, and it gives the special rapporteur power to make the final decision on how this should be dealt with and the best avenue and course of action.
I think this committee is going to do something similar as well. This has become such a big issue that we are having to replicate a lot of processes, and the public inquiry also will be another replication of a lot of processes, in part, because NSICOP is doing the work they're doing and we have the critical protocol for the work that's done during election time. We've heard testimony regarding the limitations of that work. We've also had the critical election incident public protocol report recommend that the scope be widened so that we're not just looking at the writ period but beyond the writ period. I think that's important, and it's important for us to also give Elections Canada more powers so that they can look at things beyond the writ period.
Those are some things that I think are very important to highlight: the cost, the fact that a lot of things might still be in secret, the duplication of so many processes and the dissatisfaction that the public may still be left with.
You also know, according to this study that was done about public inquiries, that when people were asked whether they can send people to prison—whether a public inquiry, themselves, as a result of the public inquiry, can actually send people to prison—28% of those answering thought that this was true and 32% didn't know. Only 40% of the people thought that was false.
Once again, with the majority, a lot of disillusionment and a lot of questions still surround what a public inquiry would or would not do. It sounds good. A lot of things often sound good, but that's why we've been elected and put here in Parliament. When I talk to my constituents about a lot of issues, sometimes I get really great feedback and other times I get comments that we need to delve into those issues because “that's why we elected you and put you in Parliament”.
Yes, overall, we have a duty, I guess I would say. We have a role and responsibility in our democratic system for things to go both ways. We do have a huge role to play at election time, but I would also say throughout as well, especially in an open democratic system of the kind we have, to consult and to talk to our constituents. Oftentimes I've heard them say, “Ruby, this is a very serious matter, and we expect that parliamentarians are going to study it and come out with the right conclusion. They're going to determine, and government will make the right decision.” A mandate is given to a government to really investigate, and they put trust in parliamentarians to look out for Canadians' best interests and make those decisions on behalf of Canadians.
What was really disturbing, as my colleague was talking about just a little while ago, were the outright assertions made that the somehow does not have Canadians' best interests at heart, and I would say any prime minister. I'm not just saying that because this prime minister is a Liberal prime minister, but I do think that most people come here for the right reasons, I really do.
Every time I'm asked this question.... I was just at CIVIX the other day, doing a video. I think that about 70 parliamentarians went to CIVIX to talk about the things that people don't know about politics that we'd like to share with Canadians. Well, I will share that again today here. One of the things that a lot of people don't know, I feel, is that we generally work really well around the committee table. What you see in question period is not necessarily always what happens in committee. Here there is a lot of collaboration, and we do deliver really good insights and reports into very heavy topics at times, and always in treating topics.
For most people.... Before getting into politics—although I've always loved politics since I was young and I was fascinated by government and how it makes decisions for Canadians—I was also definitely a bit of a political activist for many of my young years. Most of my time was spent protesting things, but eventually I wanted to be on the People want to be at that decision-making table.
What I was surprised about was that politics wasn't necessarily like a lot of the movies I had seen. You come in with your guard up, thinking, “Oh, my God; everyone here is going to....” You think you have to really watch out for yourself because everyone is going to be evil, as depicted in the movies and all of that stuff.
We do get carried away at times, and I think the has definitely gotten carried away lately, especially when he has made comments that are so dangerous about the trust people would have as to whether their and their government are working in collaboration with foreign actors or whether members here are foreign agents. All these types of assertions that are being made are really disgusting. It is extremely disgusting and disappointing, but still, on average, we go through these times. Those who have been here for a while see that there are ups and downs in government, even in Parliament and even in this PROC committee.
I've been here since 2015 in this committee, and I'm so lucky, but I've seen a lot of ups and downs about issues that sometimes we really have to talk through to work out. We do usually get to a good place at the end of the day. There are issues that come very quickly and naturally to us, and we can agree on. I have seen those.
I would still conclude, having seen all these things and being disappointed right now in the , that most people come here to do the right thing. They come here to do the right thing, and I've met a lot of really wonderful people in politics. I think they are some of the best people I've ever met. I thought I met a lot of cool people in law as well, but more questionable people there too. Some of the best people I have met have been here.
For the most part, I think the public trusts us to make the right decisions for them, because people can't understand a lot of these words. They wonder what they are going to get out of a public inquiry, what they're going to get from a special rapporteur. That is important for us to really delve into and to take a look at.
I'm going to finish up with one more thing, but I do want to be put on the list again for this, because I didn't get into the second part of my talk. My second part of my talk is really on what the has proposed, what a special rapporteur does and what special rapporteurs in the UN have done. I really want to delve into a lot of that, but my colleagues are eager to also get their thoughts in. Because they're eager to get their thoughts in, I think I should give them that, and I'll return to my comments later.
What I will leave you with is that—and I think my other colleague shed some light on this—many Canadians, as we know, do believe that Chinese interference had a role to play in our institutions. No one is denying that. We are all saying yes, that's absolutely true. The only thing that we also all agree on is that it didn't have the impact that we think and that our last elections in 2021 and 2019 were free and fair.
What's really interesting is that even the national campaign manager for the Conservative Party has said, “If people lose faith in the fairness of our elections, they will lose faith in the legitimacy of our government as well.” He stated:
...it’s important to clarify one critical issue. I can confirm, without a shadow of a doubt, that the outcome of the election, which resulted in the Liberals forming government, was not influenced by any external meddling.
I think that's really important. He too believes that it could be extremely dangerous for our institutions to be going down this line. He also said that he has “watched with interest the growing calls for a public inquiry”, and while he understands “the concerns behind these calls”, he said:
...I must say that I have serious reservations about the effectiveness of such an inquiry.
Election interference is a complex issue, involving national security and intelligence, and a public inquiry would likely result in much of the information being redacted, rendering it useless to the public and the likely outcome will be everyone wondering why we wasted so much time and money on an inquiry in the first place.
Secondly, a public inquiry will be slow and bureaucratic, and by the time the inquiry is over, the situation may have changed and the solutions found may no longer be relevant.
Additionally, public inquiries can be highly politicized and become more focused on scoring points and blaming individuals or political parties, rather than finding solutions.
That really sums up a lot of what I was trying to get to.
My first point that I wanted to get out and on the record is that we may be selling a false narrative to Canadians that they are going to get what they are looking for out of a public inquiry. It's going to be costly. There's still going to be dissatisfaction. I think we should just do the right thing at the right time, and that is something I will delve into the next time I make my comments: what the right thing is and what that timing is.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to begin our discussions this afternoon.
I must express my deep disappointment with the way we ended our last meeting three hours and twenty minutes ago. Mr. Cooper's comments were not befitting a parliamentary statement or the man I know. I offer him the opportunity to interrupt me at any time on a point of order to apologize to Minister Joly for his intemperate comments. I think it is important to do that. It's been over three hours since he made those comments, and I still haven't seen an apology on social media.
Let's get back to this amendment proposed by my colleague Mr. Turnbull. One of the reasons why it is important to focus on the individuals on the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force and invite the participants that my colleague is proposing is that this is a very important institution that was set up to combat foreign interference. In addition, members of all recognized political parties in the House of Commons can become members. All parties except the Bloc Québécois have taken advantage of this.
Not only did these parties have access to secret information related to foreign interference, but they also had the opportunity to speak with experts and the other members of this task force to ask questions, to bring forward their concerns, to pass on information that they or their candidates heard, and then to compare that with the information provided to the task force by the national security experts. That is very important and very helpful.
This is part of a long record of actions taken by our government after the 2015 election. We took these steps because it was clear long before that that state and non-state actors were trying to interfere with our elections and our democratic institutions. It is unfortunate that the former Conservative government did not take steps to reassure and protect Canadians from this.
The Harper government's former minister of democratic institutions offered an explanation this week. He said he didn't take action because the supposed government of China wasn't taking a stand for his party and therefore it wasn't in his party's interest to take action. This is ridiculous.
Not only did we create the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, but we also created the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. This is important because unlike all of our allies with whom we share security intelligence, especially those who are in the Five Eyes alliance with us, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, we were the only country that did not have a group of parliamentarians to review, question and receive information on the activities of our intelligence and security services.
Early in its tenure, our government created this very useful committee. I did not have the privilege of being a member of it, but I know that several people around the table had that privilege in previous Parliaments. From what I could gather without people divulging information, it was an interesting experience, to say the least. I imagine there were a number of issues that were discussed. Canada is facing real risks. We need to take action and our government has done that.
In 2018, we also introduced the critical election incident public protocol and launched the G7 rapid response mechanism.
In addition, two very important bills to counter the effects of foreign interference were introduced and passed. These were Bill , which became the National Security Act, 2017, and Bill , which became the Elections Modernization Act. And to complete all that, we created and supported the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.
All of these institutions and tools are designed to protect Canadians and their freedom from foreign interference. That is so important. That is why my colleague Mr. Turnbull's amendment is so important. It would give us a chance to bring forward the people who know what happened in the 2019 and 2021 elections.
When people come here, they won't be able to disclose secret information. That makes sense. However, they will give us as much information as they can, as will the people who came before the committee last Wednesday and Thursday. We had a chance to ask questions of excellent officials from the Communications Security Establishment and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, deputy ministers from Global Affairs Canada, people responsible for public safety, and the national security and intelligence advisor to the Prime Minister, Ms. Thomas.
These are dedicated experts whose sole purpose is to ensure our protection, and they find every way to do so. What was their conclusion? They acknowledged that information had been leaked in the newspapers, but they said that this information was not intelligence and did not paint a complete picture of the situation. They were careful to explain to us that while incidents may be reported, an incident does not necessarily represent the truth.
They said we need to put this in context first. Last week, I reminded people that text without context is just pretext. That means you have to look at the big picture. The so‑called findings that are published by some journalists do not present the big picture that would allow us to determine whether the findings are legitimate or not.
I can imagine my colleagues asking me why I don't want the chance to look at this information to get the full picture. This suggestion raises a couple of weaknesses or problems.
First, to get the full picture, you have to rely on national security information, which by its nature cannot be discussed in public. Second, I don't have that security clearance and I don't think most people around the table do either. However, the good news is that there is a committee whose members have that security clearance, and that is the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. These parliamentarians, our peers, our counterparts, have the security clearance to access this information. So why not entrust them with this study so they can have all the information?
Some will ask how Canadians can trust this work since it is not public. This is assuming that the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians does not publish reports. That is not true, because it does so regularly. I had the opportunity to read one of its reports. I have not read them all, but I have read at least one report in its entirety. I learned some things. That report painted a pretty important, comprehensive enough picture of the situation to allow me to draw conclusions.
We, as members of Parliament, need to have confidence in our sisters and brothers who serve on this committee. These people deserve our trust. They have undergone a very serious background review to ensure that they deserve the highest possible security clearance. I have confidence in them. That committee is the right place to have those kinds of discussions.
I said that my colleagues might ask me why we would not investigate ourselves here in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The first answer is that we don't have the security clearance.
Secondly, and I say this with great sadness, I don't think Canadians who watch our deliberations in committee or in oral question period see the best of us. They see that we are too partisan, that we ask questions that we don't want answered, that we ask questions without giving others time to answer, and that when we get an answer, we don't accept it and we talk about something else. That's a shame. We are capable of doing better, but at this point I am not convinced.
I'm going to digress for a moment, if I may. Last night my goddaughter visited me with her brother and her parents. I took them to the House of Commons after the parliamentary session, and we chatted. They are 14 years old. They talked about oral question period yesterday. They were not impressed with the attitude of some members of Parliament, who were not up to the task. It's sad.
My goddaughter, whom I love dearly, knows the difference between the various political parties, but the vast majority of Canadians do not distinguish between Conservatives, Liberals, Bloc, NDP and Green Party members. To them, we are just politicians, and they see politicians that are not up to the job. So how can they trust us when we can't even ask a question and let people answer without braying like donkeys? That is what I had to say.
The third reason is that we have allies who share information with us. This is a very serious matter and it is important that there be a parliamentary committee to oversee these issues. However, none of the other parliaments, whether in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand or the U.S., conduct public inquiries using top secret documents; they leave that to specialized committees. That's the main reason I think this committee is not the right place to get to the bottom of this, which I assume is the goal of everyone around the table.
For these three reasons, I think this is the wrong place. Everyone says they are taking into account these leaks, which are not confirmed or corroborated by the experts and officials who have appeared here. This information, if it is legitimate, is by definition partial, incomplete. Witnesses have even denied some of the things revealed by these so‑called leaks.
I remember the first day of our debate, during which my colleague from said that one could not question the credibility of the journalists who published this information. I agree with him. I'm going to assume that these people are acting in good faith. They are professionals, journalists. They are going to reveal information that was presented to them.
However, I started reading the report issued by the distinguished Justice Dennis O'Connor on the events surrounding the Maher Arar case. What is the conclusion of this report? The so‑called information leaks were not information leaks.
The judge was very tough on some people, some of them bad apples at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Communications Security Establishment, and on journalists who didn't take the time to verify their information, young journalists at the time, like Bob Fife.
I think it is important to remember this, because a great injustice was perpetrated against Mr. Arar. Not only did it destroy him physically, because he was tortured for a year, but we were complicit in it. Maher Arar claimed to be innocent and Judge O'Connor concluded that he was.
Not only do I have the great privilege of serving on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, but I also have the privilege of serving on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. We will be talking about foreign interference there tomorrow, but we will approach it from a different perspective: We will look at its effect on diasporas in Canada.
I am not an admirer of everything the government of the day in Beijing does, but we have to be very careful about pointing fingers at China. Reputations are being destroyed with information that officials in our institutions responsible for the safety of Canadians say is not true. These officials have seen the big picture and have received information from both our allies and their employees, agents, Canadians who, in some cases, put their lives on the line to provide us with this information. All have come to the conclusion that what we are reading is not true.
Sometimes you have to trust the experts. If we only want to play partisan games, there are advantages to talking about these things as if they were the Good News, the kind found in sacred texts.
These claims are not entirely true according to the experts. I find it very frustrating that every time this is discussed, these claims are talked about as solid, truthful information, when they are far from it. The experts have told us that this is not the case, but the temptation to play political games is too great. The temptation to manipulate news and rumours to try to find political advantage is great.
We have to rely on what we have the capacity to do at this committee, and we have to do it while respecting the rights and privileges of others. One does not want to unnecessarily damage the reputation of others without justification.
I have colleagues of Chinese descent, who were either born in China and came to Canada when they were very young, or who have parents, grandparents or great-grandparents who were born in China. It's very hurtful for them when, on social media, people lose it and say anything.
Some of them have already received often hateful, sometimes threatening messages. This does not only affect the Chinese Canadian community, but almost all Canadians of Asian origin or with Asian ancestry. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to confuse people. I hope my colleagues do not do this, but some Canadians do not hesitate to do it. That's when we realize that there are consequences to what we are doing.
We have to be very careful and use words very carefully. We should not assume that everything leaked to the media is true, especially not when we ask questions of those responsible for national security and those people tell us that the information is not true. With the big picture, these officials were able to see that this information didn't hold up and that it didn't paint an accurate picture of the situation.
I remember the early days. In the newspapers, it was claimed that Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials had told the that electoral candidates had to be withdrawn because they were under foreign influence. However, experts said that this did not make sense and that the service did not do such things. Two days later, the reporters changed the story and said that part of their report was not true. Yet the damage was done and everyone believed the worst, when it wasn't true in the first place.
This really does sound like what Justice O'Connor had called a real injustice. You have to be extremely careful before you come to these hasty conclusions, and that's why we have intelligence agencies that cross-check all the information.
I recall Mr. David Vigneault, Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, saying that news reports were not intelligence sources. The Service has to put this in a broader context. They often receive information, but they have to be patient and put it all together before they draw conclusions, because they can't present the Prime Minister with partial or incomplete information. As much as possible, they must give him justifiable information. It is because of the vast experience of the service's staff that it has this ability.
It is really important to remember the wrongs done in the past. Justice O'Connor's report is lengthy, but it is important to read it. I don't want to say that it makes you feel uncomfortable, because it's more about wisdom, the wisdom of asking yourself if the information you have in front of you is complete enough to draw conclusions. That's very important. My mother always told me that you have two ears and one mouth, so you should listen more than you should talk.
I think it's the same with the information we're reading. We need to try to get a more complete picture. If we're not able to access that information, we have to trust those who are charged with doing that work. We had all the best sources in front of us. We had access to these people to ask them questions, and I think they answered them very frankly. Without giving away any secret details, they gave us a bigger picture of how they came to their conclusions. They determined that the information that was reported in the newspapers was very incomplete, and that the conclusions that many of them had reached were not correct, but wrong. That's one of the reasons I don't want this committee to get it wrong.
I am proud of our record on intelligence and national security issues. As I said, several important new tools have been made available to the government to combat foreign interference. They are not necessarily complete, but they are always being reassessed to see if there are new ones that could be put in place to protect Canadians, which is very important.
Before I conclude, I would like to say this: It is 5:23 p.m., and it has now been four hours since my made disparaging remarks about the . He did not take advantage of my offer: He could interrupt me at any time on a point of order to apologize. It is disappointing that he has not done so to date.
I hope my colleagues will at least acknowledge that they have all these important and appropriate tools to get to the bottom of this and access all the information. It would be much more appropriate for them to use these tools to educate themselves. When they investigate foreign interference, they will come to the same conclusion as our experts, the men and women charged with protecting us.
I will stop here and hope that people will be convinced of the wisdom of my words. I also hope that my colleague will use this break to burnish his image, do the right thing, and apologize.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm sorry that I had to be away from the committee for a few minutes, but I'm glad to be back. I'm glad to still get my turn to speak to the amendment I put forward.
Again, it is quite reasonable to ask the campaign directors to come before the committee as additional witnesses. We've had a whole host of credible witnesses. In terms of our study, we've heard from the majority of witnesses, some of them more than once, and they've given us some very compelling testimony. I don't think it gives the Conservatives what they're looking for and I think that's why they continue to push us to have to debate this topic.
This is really clear-cut. Our government has been acting on foreign election interference since 2015. We know that the past government, prior to that, did absolutely nothing on foreign election interference. That's a fact. I've never heard a Conservative say otherwise. In fact, in the House, we heard an exchange between and the . Minister LeBlanc said:
When my friend, the opposition leader, was the minister responsible for democratic institutions, he did nothing when intelligence agencies raised the issue over 10 years ago.
response was:
Mr. Speaker, we did not have to, because the Communist dictatorship in Beijing was not helping the Conservative Party to get elected.
I don't know how anyone can hear remarks like that and not fully understand that the Conservative motivations here are clearly partisan.
When we heard at the committee today, he made reference to this statement, calling it a “perverse” sense of how a minister would take their responsibility. For the , who was formerly responsible for democratic institutions, to say such a thing really speaks to the true motivations of what the Conservatives are trying to do. They are well known for this as a party, because they have done this over and over again.
We've seen this. It's not that surprising. Many Canadians know that this is the new Conservative Party of Canada, a party that is constantly becoming more extreme, trying to stoke more division and trying to question our democratic institutions, and they won't let any of the facts get in the way of their partisan games.
We also know what said this week in English, and this will be a direct quote, contrary to what Mr. Cooper said in our previous meeting today. Pierre Poilievre said, “They are so concerned about how the Prime Minister is acting against Canada's interest and in favour of a foreign dictatorship's interests”. He then said in French—I'm quoting the English—“we've never had an intelligence service so worried about a Prime Minister and his collaboration with a foreign power”.
For me, this is morally reprehensible. It's disgusting. It reeks of partisanship. It is really calling into question the motivations of our , who, like all of us, stood for office and is doing this for the benefit of the country and is giving so much to this country.
It is utterly disgusting. I don't even have words to describe how I feel about it. It actually makes me sad to think that this is the kind of politics we have in this country today.
When you add in the comments that Mr. Cooper made earlier to , which I found very offensive.... I really wish Mr. Cooper would realize just how gender-biased his remarks were and how disempowering that would feel. I can't put myself in the minister's shoes, but I can say we totally expect tough questions, of course, to ministers when they come before this committee. Holding the government to account is the responsibility of all of us, and it's something we all take very seriously, but when you are a complete and total jerk about it, and are offensive and are basically putting on display for everybody that you're gender-biased and discriminatory in your perspectives, you're just embarrassing yourself. It would be nice for him to actually “man up” and apologize for those comments.
Anyway, I'm sure we'll keep waiting for that to happen. I'm hopeful that he will find in his better judgment, at some point in the near future, a way to come back to us and hopefully apologize for those remarks.
Look, I've spent a lot of time talking about how much our government has done on foreign election interference and I've been very careful to also say that we should never allow ourselves to think that we've done enough. We need to evolve and do more. With respect to the threats from our adversaries, we've heard the same thing from multiple witnesses. I think every member of the government who's come before this committee, whether public servants or ministers or deputy ministers, has said the same thing: Canada needs to take these threats seriously. We are doing that, but we also need to constantly reflect and consider how we can strengthen the many different strategies we have currently.
I think it's important to give an overview, a more condensed summary. It would be really nice to hear some acknowledgement of that. It would really go a long way in our debates and conversations on a study that's so important, if parties....
I don't have a lot of hope, obviously, for the Conservative Party, because I've just given you quotes about how hyperpartisan they're being about an issue, on the one hand claiming they want to get to the truth and then, when they hear from the security experts and intelligence experts who are the most prominent figures in their fields—who are coming and telling us the things that we should be doing—not being willing to listen to that. They're not taking those things into consideration, and then they're even ignoring what they're being told and what the reports are saying. They're ignoring the facts.
I think my job is to continue to confront their partisanship with facts and information, which we have plenty of. I don't think that's being unreasonable. I think that just extends our debate, of course, and I think we need an acknowledgement that our government has been doing a lot on foreign election interference. Just because the Conservative Party woke up to this recently doesn't mean that our government has been inactive.
Going right back to 2017, we passed the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act and then formed NSICOP, with members from all parties. We all know this. We all have members of our parties who sit on that committee of parliamentarians. That's just one thing. I realize if that were all we had done, fine, you could perhaps criticize, but....
I'm not saying that we can't be critical. We should be critical, and that's fine, but when you're ignoring the facts, that's not being informed based on the information we've been given.
I think to respect the process, we really need to review those facts until, in my view, people acknowledge that those things are all real, positive, sizable steps forward in protecting our democracy.
I mentioned the 2018 ethics committee report on threats to democracy and the substantive government response to that, which came shortly afterward. We established the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security with a budget of $155 million and we announced the rapid response mechanism at the 2018 G7 summit. Those are three sizable things. The ethics committee wrote a report of more than 100 pages, and the government responded. Then the government did some things that relate to foreign election interference, one of them being setting up the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, giving it a budget to do its job and setting up the rapid response mechanism with other G7 partners. I think those things have to be acknowledged. They are significant.
Then in 2019, there were many more steps taken. There was a major report that a committee did in 2018, and then some things were immediately done that year. Then in 2019, a whole host of other things were done. Before the 2019 election, there were six or seven major steps taken. One was the announcement of the plan to protect Canadian democracy. I mentioned this before, but I am referring back to it to say that four-pillar plan really represents an all-of-government approach.
If we look at the details of that plan, we could actually check off the things that have been done as a result of that plan. Conservatives always seem to say that the Liberals just talk about things and they don't do anything. No, these things got done. You can't deny that. I can give you very specific examples, and I'd be happy to do that. Mrs. Block, I see you shaking your head, but these things got done. Again, I'm not saying that they're perfect, but I'm saying none of these things were in place before our government came to power.
This isn't a rose-coloured glasses moment for me. These are real, tangible steps that have been taken. We set up the SITE task force, which includes CSIS, the RCMP, the rapid response mechanism and the Communications Security Establishment, CSE. We passed Bill , the Elections Modernization Act, which added protections for third parties to funnel funds into partisan advertising, in addition to a bunch of other things.
It's important to keep in mind, of course, that Bill was tabled in the House in 2018, and it took until almost the end of 2019, I believe, to actually get passed through the House. That Elections Modernization Act added a whole bunch of things that I think are really significant. I went through some of those in my previous comments, but just to summarize, a whole bunch of things were added to strengthen our process.
We also passed Bill , which was tabled in the House in 2017. That's an act respecting national security matters. That act gave CSIS and the CSE new threat reduction measures. Again, when we had CSIS come before us, the director said they do intervene and use threat reduction measures. Obviously those powers were given to them through an act that our government tabled in the House of Commons. It took two years to get through the House and came into force in 2019, but it shows significant progress. Between 2017 and 2019, there were multiple legislative things that took place. There were numerous bodies that were set up, including the SITE task force. Again, the critical election incident public protocol and the panel were also established before the election.
We also have examples like the Canada Declaration on Electoral Integrity Online, which was a commitment that all of the major social media platforms and online platforms made. That's another sizable undertaking. It's not as though we just threw that up and people just agreed to it. A lot of work went into it. Again, for the opposition parties to keep claiming that we've done nothing just shows ignorance of the facts.
The other thing I was really happy to read about earlier this morning, which I just happened to dive deeper into, was the digital citizen initiative through Canadian Heritage. Again I would like to take time tonight to demonstrate to you this all-of-government approach that involves multiple departments all working together on foreign election interference—both primary prevention and early intervention, which involves educating the public. It involves people being more aware through things like the digital citizen initiative, which really is trying to educate people on digital literacy. That was composed of 23 projects over nine months, and it reached 12 million Canadians. That's 12 million Canadians who learned about digital literacy—in other words, how to question the content that they consume online, which we know is the most common way in which people consume information today. Those 23 projects over nine months reached 12 million Canadians. That's a significant undertaking. It didn't just happen overnight. Lots of work went into that. Canadian Heritage led that work, and it had an impact.
We can ask ourselves how much of an impact it had and we could ask what else we need to do on that front. I would suggest that we need to do more. What's interesting is that if I look at budget 2022, I see more resources for initiatives like that as well. Again, I'm being critical of my own government and reflecting and asking what we haven't done yet, but when you're not operating in the realm of reality or fact, then how are you making a judgment? I'm looking at the information we've been given and informing myself based on that. It seems that at least the Conservative members don't seem willing to do that, which I think again reeks of partisanship, because it's just wilful ignorance of the facts. We have to look at the information we've been given and the testimony of the security experts and intelligence experts whom we've heard from.
Another initiative was the Get Cyber Safe program, which is a national public awareness campaign to inform Canadians about cybersecurity. Not only did we do digital literacy training; we also did a major public awareness campaign. That was led by the Communications Security Establishment, and it's an important part of an overall strategy that links it to another major strategy of the government called the national cyber security strategy. This, I feel, demonstrates very clearly how there's kind of a whole-of-government approach.
I've described so far how we've launched a four-pillar plan called a plan to protect Canadian democracy. We set up the SITE task force, which includes CSIS, the RCMP, the rapid response mechanism and the CSE. We passed two bills. We set up the public protocol and panel for the writ period, within the election period, and we did a declaration on election integrity online, the digital citizen initiative and the cyber-safe initiative. That was all in 2019, before the election.
Again, for anyone to claim that we didn't do anything or that we weren't taking foreign interference into account or taking it seriously, that just shows ignorance of the facts. In 2020 there was an independent assessment done. We all know that was done. An independent person named James Judd was appointed and produced a report. I have it here. There are some really good analyses and suggestions, most of which have been followed through on. The vast majority of them seem to have been implemented, and obviously the government has to assess what the best way forward is.
There's evidence that the report was taken seriously, that the independent advice of Mr. Judd was taken into consideration and that there were measures, mechanisms and initiatives implemented based on those recommendations. Again it shows responsible leadership from a government that took the independent advice into consideration. It demonstrates how the government is taking this threat seriously, so I just don't understand how anyone can claim....
Maybe we could find consensus in some way if the Conservative Party of Canada would just live in reality and come to terms with some of the facts about the things that our government has done. Maybe a member of that party could pipe up today on a point of order and say they recognize that the government has done a lot on foreign election interference and they all now want to reflect on how we move forward and what else we can do. Then we could have a constructive, non-partisan, committed conversation, because I really believe that when it comes down to it, we all really do care about our democracy. We want to protect the health of our democracy. I know I do. I really care about our democracy, so for anyone to claim that our party, our leader, I or anybody else does not take this seriously is just deeply offensive. It is deeply offensive, and I won't stand for it, because it's not true, so cut it out. Let's work together. Let's work together on the things that we know we need to do.
We have 16 recommendations from the newest independent report from Morris Rosenberg. Morris Rosenberg wrote a really substantive report. I would say it's even better than the first report after 2019, the Judd report. I feel as though the Rosenberg report has even more substance in it, more things we can do or consider doing. I know the has already made an announcement asking and the Privy Council to, within 30 days, look at all of the reports that have been done, say they are going to implement them and come up with an implementation plan. To me, that shows a responsiveness. It shows that there was an independent assessment done. It shows that we care and that we're considering that independent advice.
I don't know how parties like the Bloc Québécois can criticize, because they didn't even show up for the briefings during the last election. I mentioned this earlier, because I'm dumbfounded by this little fact that was in a footnote. I came across this and thought, first of all, that it's difficult to understand how the Conservatives, the NDP and others can claim that they didn't know about things and almost claim ignorance when they were part of these briefings, but then, on the other hand, the Bloc never came to the briefings. It just seems very rich for them to then accuse the government of not being transparent enough. They didn't even come to the briefings on foreign election interference in the 2021 election. It's clearly said in the report that Rosenberg wrote.
Again I feel frustrated by the fact that our opposition parties don't really want to work on this issue, in my view, but just seem to want to push some political agenda they have. I hope we can get through that logjam and come to terms with the fact that there are facts in the matter and that we should be taking those into consideration.
I mentioned 2020 and 2021. I am establishing a timeline and a pattern of responsible leadership. I know nobody wants to listen to that, it seems, but that's the truth. Responsible leadership involves having all of these different initiatives to tackle foreign election interference, and as the threats to Canadian democracy are evolving, our government is responding to each step along the way. You can see it, year over year.
That's not to say it's perfect. I'm not claiming that, and we have to seriously look at it, but that's exactly what we've been doing. With every step, every year, there is a track record of progress. If you're denying that there has been progress, I don't know how we come to terms with moving forward on a study when you won't look at the information and facts we have been given.
That is our job, as a committee. Our job is to come to these studies and do this work in good faith for the benefit of Canadians. We're not benefiting Canadians when we deny the facts and the information that we've been given. To me, we're avoiding our responsibilities, in a sense. We're not taking this work seriously if we're not willing to look at the facts. It's unfortunate, but that's what we're seeing today.
In 2021, our government worked on updating the Canada declaration on election integrity online, and that got updated. It was done again for the commitment for the online platforms. I think Rosenberg quite rightly says it's great to have that declaration, but social media companies.... I could quote the quote if you would like, but I remember it off the top of my head. I will paraphrase it, so I apologize to the folks in the committee if they remember verbatim what Rosenberg wrote. He basically said that online platforms, even though they have signed this declaration, are still the major source of misinformation and disinformation, and those platforms are where Canadians are consuming a lot of that information.
Could we criticize and say that maybe the declaration doesn't go far enough? Maybe we need to do deeper work with online platforms around foreign election interference and the dissemination of disinformation on their platforms. We've talked a lot in different committees about this issue of disinformation being so widespread and how much of an impact it has on Canadians.
Yes, we can see that there were instances of disinformation in the last election, both foreign and domestic. There was quite a lot of it, I'm sure. If we were to have our experts in this area come before us, they would showcase many examples of online campaigns that featured information that was not quite accurate or that put a spin on things that could potentially influence voter behaviour and voter intentions.
It is very difficult for us to establish a direct link. We've heard that. One of the challenges that we all have to come to terms with is that we don't know the extent that disinformation out there is impacting Canadians' sense of disenfranchisement and perhaps their level of anger and frustration with Canadian democracy and their feelings toward different parties and their policies. We don't know the direct causal links, because people consume so much information and get so many different impressions upon which they then base their decisions.
A lot of that is not even conscious for many Canadians. You see something, you react to it, you relate to it in a certain way, you associate it with something else and you internalize it. Some people are able to block it out. Other people are not. How does that resonate with you over time? Everybody is slightly different. Ms. Block may not react to things the same way that Ms. Gray does or Mr. Barrett does, or anybody else on this side does. We're all quite different in how we internalize the information that we're consuming, whether it's online or not.
The point I'm trying to make here is that even though a declaration on election integrity online has been a positive step and has been updated and social media platforms at least have expressed a commitment to protecting our elections, perhaps we can go a lot further and a lot deeper on that work. I'd be happy to get into a constructive debate on how we move forward in relation to foreign election interference by tackling the challenges that come naturally with online platforms having so much power in our democracy today.
This goes right back to the 2018 report, which was done by the ethics committee. I note that Mr. Fergus served for quite some time on the ethics committee, and I know it's done great work. I notice that Mr. Fergus participated in some way in that report, even though I don't think he was on the ethics committee at the time.
I've looked at the report. I haven't had the time to read all 100-and-whatever pages, but I look forward to reading it. I read the government response. The government response is very substantive. The recommendations coming out of that report really dig into online disinformation. Even the title of the report is all about looking at how our whole democracy is shifting, with online platforms disseminating so much information that people consume and having more power over the Canadian public because of where people are getting their information.
To me, it highlights the importance of this area. We could be digging into that, and I would invite that. Out of this study, we could have some very serious conversations about how to move forward, and I would be really happy to deliberate on that with my opposition colleagues and talk that through with the very substantive reports that we have. We can use them as background information to make some determinations as to what we can do.
In budget 2022 in particular, our government made additional commitments. Again, this showcases a track record of progress. Our government, after 2021, didn't just rest on its laurels and say it couldn't do more or become passive in this regard in any way. We made additional commitments and rolled out new supports and measures to tackle foreign election interference. I have mentioned some of these before, but I'll quickly condense them into a very short summary here.
We committed to expanding the rapid response mechanism and offering more resources to it. When I think about G7 countries all tackling the very same issues in terms of threats to their democracy, I really think that they're going through the same things. The more we share information and collaborate and the more we strengthen our early warning systems for foreign election interference by working with our G7 partners, the better. I am sure everyone here agrees that this is a positive step. First of all, our government setting up the rapid response mechanism in 2018 was a good thing. I am sure everyone agrees that collaborating with G7 partners on identifying foreign actors and their strategies to intervene in or interrupt our elections in any way is a good thing. I'm sure everyone agrees that adding more resources and expanding that initiative is also positive. I'm sure everyone would agree with that.
I would also note that we enhanced cybersecurity activities to protect against disinformation. That's also a positive step moving forward.
We funded more research to support public institutions to continue to look at foreign election interference and understand how they can protect themselves.
We also added resources to the Privy Council Office to coordinate, develop and implement government-wide measures. That, to me, is really positive. The Privy Council plays a key role in all of this. We heard today from , and we've noted it before in terms of the public protocol and how important the Privy Council Office is in coordinating, developing and implementing government-wide measures.
I also mentioned the 2023 independent assessment. Again, the Rosenberg report has 16 recommendations. I'm sure all the members of this committee have read those recommendations and are considering them. When I asked today when he was here, he was very clear about saying yes, we will be implementing what is recommended in the Rosenberg report. Obviously there's a process there to look at what's been recommended. Perhaps the government will say, “Well, on one or two we may take a slightly different path”, but the point is that many...and it is the same with the Judd report. Many of the recommendations were implemented.
Again, it shows a very clearly laid out track record of concern for Canadian democracy, for progress, for taking tangible, important steps forward in ensuring that we're protecting and doing our utmost to protect Canadian democracy.
Lastly, for this timeline overview that I'm giving, we have the announcement, which we've all heard about by now. I'm sure many of the members took note of the more important and sizable next steps that the Prime Minister outlined.
He had a conversation with NSICOP's chair, our good colleague, , who I think is a fantastic chair and a really great parliamentarian. I've benefited from many conversations with him since I got here in 2019, and I really think he's doing a great job. I know he takes his role on that committee very seriously. I trust that he's doing his utmost to recommend and implement strategies and measures that will help protect Canadian democracy from foreign interference.
I note that the , in his remarks, asked the chair of NSICOP and the head of NSIRA to start work on foreign election interference, and I think that's a really good thing. I think that work is starting very soon.
We also note that there's an appointment that will come soon, in the coming weeks. I think it was pretty clear in the remarks that the made that an independent special rapporteur will be appointed to assess the situation and make recommendations on protecting and enhancing Canadians' faith in our democracy. That special rapporteur will independently look at what we need to do, assess all of the allegations that have been made and the information that's out there that Canadians are concerned about right now, and identify gaps in our systems and our mechanisms that have been set up by our government. I trust that will be a non-partisan, impartial process that will give us that outside perspective that's not coloured by any partisan politics and will offer really good, thoughtful, fact-based suggestions on how to move forward. Whether a public inquiry is a recommendation or not, we'll have to see. I think, again, based on the testimony that we heard, that there are a lot of people who don't agree that a public inquiry is the best way forward, and I take them very seriously.
I know that my colleague , when he was here earlier today, spoke to the fact that the previous campaign director for the Conservative Party in the last election, Mr. DeLorey, said that he didn't think that a public inquiry was the best way forward, and I have his remarks here.
He said, “A public inquiry is not the best way to address the issue of election interference. No meaningful solutions will come from it.”
I feel like I should read that again. I'm not sure anyone's listening. He said, “A public inquiry is not the best way to address the issue of election interference. No meaningful solutions will come from it.” He then said, “A multi-partisan committee, working with security officials, is a better way to identify and address the problems and find lasting solutions to protect our elections for the future.”
For me, this corroborates what we heard from security and intelligence professionals like Jody Thomas and David Morrison, who pointed to the fact that these highly sensitive documents and information that would need to be reviewed need expertise to be interpreted, because they come with so many caveats, are only part of a picture and are sometimes misleading. We require trained professionals.
Also, there are some significant risks to Canada's national security and the individuals who make up that community. Let's not forget that the national security community is made up of real people who are doing work on behalf of Canadians as well. We can't hang them out to dry because the Conservatives think we should be exposing all of the intelligence that the national security community has.
If Fred DeLorey agrees with security and intelligence professionals, perhaps the Conservatives could consider that even one of their own—not just anybody, but their previous national campaign manager—is agreeing with the national security and intelligence professionals, all of whom seem to be saying the same thing, which is that you're not going to get what you want out of a public inquiry.
We all agree, and I think everyone agrees, that this issue is important to the public. They need to be aware that it's an issue. They need to be aware of what the government is doing. They need to be more aware on an everyday basis to know what to watch out for. That's why there is that initiative around raising online awareness—the public campaign that I talked about—for Canadians who are reading and consuming information online. How many of us are consuming information online every day?
My daughter did something the other week. She said, “Daddy, you spend a lot of time on social media.” I said, ”No, I don't”. I was in denial about it. She's a smart kid. She's 11 years old. She pulled out my phone and went into the screen time portion of it. I had spent 11 hours of screen time in one day on my phone. It wasn't all on social media, but can you imagine?
How much information are we consuming online on a daily basis? I've seen evidence to suggest that Canadians, on average, are spending over an hour on social media alone. It really is important to consider how online information consumption is impacting the public and how important it is to make people aware of what they're looking at, to improve digital literacy and raise awareness around what foreign election interference looks like for the Canadian public when it's done online.
What the Rosenberg report shows is that the main examples of things that qualified as attempts at interference coming from foreign state actors were disinformation campaigns online. It highlights the importance of how this is shifting Canada's democracy and shifting that overall threat environment that we need to take seriously, and we are. Nobody can doubt that we are. You can, if you want to ignore all the facts, but I would suggest that if you do some reading and look at the lived reality, you would be able to have a good, thorough debate and discussion based on the information that we have at our fingertips.
The 's remarks also included a number of other tangible next steps. One was that the will launch the consultation on a new foreign influence transparency registry in Canada. This is something that every party has said might be a really good thing to do. Australia and some other countries have done it, and the United States has too, if I'm not mistaken.
If our government is starting to move forward on a consultation process, this is another substantive step that shows we are taking this seriously and that we really want to keep up with the threats to our democracy and ensure that we are protecting Canadians and our democratic institutions as well as we can.
Also, the was tasked with immediately establishing a national coordinator position for countering foreign interference. This is another important step. I already mentioned the importance of the Privy Council Office in terms of coordination across government, but having a foreign interference coordinator in Public Safety is also an extremely positive next step, because we know that every government institution, every ministry, every part of government needs to be protected from foreign interference. It's not just our elections. What we've heard from the Rosenberg report is that a lot of the public protocol focuses just on the writ period and that we should be extending our focus outside of the writ period into the pre-writ period. In a minority Parliament, what is pre-writ? It's all the time. It's the whole time. An election looms at every moment.
Taking the report and the independent assessment that Rosenberg has done seriously, in my opinion, the has quite rightly tasked the with establishing a coordinator position on foreign interference as another positive next step forward.
Last, in terms of this timeline, the other really big tangible step forward that the made was to task and the Clerk of the Privy Council with reviewing all of the reports that have been done on this topic. NSICOP is one. The Rosenberg report is another, but any other reports that have been done should be reviewed. The way it was phrased in the Prime Minister's remarks was that there should really be a comprehensive review of recommendations and within 30 days an implementation plan should be in place.
That is responsible. It's a very compressed timeline for the number of recommendations that are in those reports. It starts to move from basic recommendations to how we are going to actually implement these things. That is important.
I did strategic planning for a living for quite a number of years, and that's how I would approach it. I would identify recommendations and a strategic plan and then quickly develop implementation plans and then divide those up into implementation plans or action plans for each of the ministries and then have ministers who are accountable for those take them on, with timelines attached to them.
To me, that's how you get things done. You don't just wave a wand and say, “Oh, we're going to make this happen.” You actually have to do a comprehensive review of all of the recommendations that are in those reports, pull them all together, and then decide and deliberate on which ones make sense and which ones may not, because there's always an opportunity to decide what the best way forward is.
A good role for our committee to play that would be really constructive would be to look at all of the reports and recommendations ourselves and then be recommend things out of our study and our work that and the Clerk of the Privy Council could consider. That would be a great contribution to the next steps that Minister LeBlanc has been tasked with developing in the next 30 days. That would be a really positive next step.
I would wrap up here by saying that I've established a timeline of progress and tangible steps that have been taken on foreign election interference. It's clearly laid out in the Rosenberg report, so no one can say they don't have this information. We all have the information that I've gathered. I've taken the time to do that. I would invite other members to look at the facts, the timelines and the information.
If members would like, I'd be happy to send them an overview of what I've worked on here, to make sure that they feel they have the information at their fingertips. We can make sure that in the future, we all start our conversation from the point of view of facts, evidence, living in reality and looking at the information and the progress that's been made, which has been substantive. I don't think there's any questioning of that.
That's it for me, Madam Chair. I really appreciate the time and the attention of my colleagues.
It's a pleasure to be back on PROC. As some of you will remember, I was on this committee in the 42nd Parliament. This is a committee that, certainly in the time I was on it, did some really good work. Part of the reason for that is that this committee has always been full of members who really put the institution first. I think there's a bit of a lack of that right now. We as legislators are the front line of democracy. We are the ones who have to look at safeguarding the institution and the processes.
Many of you know that before I got into politics I was working internationally on democratic development and parliamentary strengthening. I worked with UNDP's global program on parliamentary strengthening. I worked with OSCE in very difficult places, where legislative oversight of the security sector was very difficult, such as Bosnia and Kosovo. We developed some best practices.
What I'm concerned about today is the way in which and the venues through which this kind of oversight is happening, where it should happen and where it shouldn't. We anticipated things like this election interference or, might I even say, interference in our democratic processes writ large. As many of you know, I'm a member of SDIR, of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. I was chair of that committee when we studied the Uighurs, and, as many of you know, China has sanctioned not only the members of that subcommittee, because of the report saying that what was happening to the Uighurs was a genocide, but also the entire committee.
Yes, I want the committee to know where I'm coming from. This is a very serious issue, and I don't think there's anybody here who doesn't take this issue very seriously, whether we're talking about interference by China, by Russia, by Iran or by anybody else, or interference in our entire democratic process, including our own committees and our own committee processes. That's just to tell you where I'm coming from as someone who has been sanctioned by China.
Having said that, I think we need to look at where the best place is to have these conversations. Obviously the Canadian public, everybody, would love to know what our intelligence institutions, our executive branch of government and our cabinet knew, when they knew it, how they knew it and what they did about it. Do you know who else would like to know that? China. China would love to know what we knew, what we didn't know, how we found that out and, more importantly, what we did about it. These are not things that can be talked about in a public and open forum.
However, this is a dilemma that legislatures all around the world have. You can go online and find numerous reports of the United Nations development program of OSCE, or of DCAF, the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance, that talk about best practices with respect to where the best place is for legislative branches, for people like you and me, for members of Parliament to oversee these kinds of things. If in a public committee like this one, or in a public inquiry, we call, let's say, Katie Telford or any other government official and ask them about classified materials, we know ahead of time that they won't be able to answer about anything that's classified.
Then the answer has to be, “I can't discuss that. I'm not at liberty to say. That is classified.” We know ahead of time that we're putting them in that position. I can't imagine why as parliamentarians we would want to put officials into a position where they have to either break the law or be in contempt of Parliament or look like they're obfuscating.
The only reason to do that is if you want it to look as though they're obfuscating, if you want it to look as though they're covering up something. Even if those people who testify have all the answers that could explain everything and would actually make them look very good, they can't talk about it, so why, if it were about the institution, as I know this committee has always been—if it were really about protecting our democratic processes—would we put officials in that kind of position, unless it was to try to make them look bad and to try to make it look as though there is something to hide?
In that case, trying to make it look as though there's something to hide and casting doubt on people's faith in the processes, in the integrity of our democratic system—I'll be very honest—is something that would probably make China very happy. Then the question becomes what we do about it. If not here, if not in public, how is it that we as legislators...? It is very legitimate for legislators to have the right to oversee everything the government does.
Even more importantly, I've worked in very fragile states. I've worked in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where the president has his own republican guard that has absolutely no oversight by any civilian or other body, and I know how important it is that legislative branches are able to do this. There are entire reports of DCAF and UNDP that cite NSICOP as a global best practice as to how legislators can oversee the security sector. That's why I feel as though, yes, we anticipated this, and, yes, we know.... I don't think there's anybody who doesn't believe that other countries make attempts to undermine democratic processes. We are in a world today where the split is not east-west as it was in the Cold War, or right-left. The split is not north-south. The real divide in the world today is democracy and authoritarianism. Authoritarian states are learning from one another. They are working together. I see colleagues here who are on the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. We know that full well, because we hear testimony day in and day out.
Right now, we're hearing from women in Iran and we're hearing about what authoritarian states do to their citizens. That divide is something about which we have to be very, very careful. Canada has always been a bit protected in history because of our geographic boundaries. We have a democratic country to the south and essentially oceans around the rest, so in a world where the dangers are geographic, where wars happen through physical contact across borders, Canada has always been a bit protected. The problem today is that while warfare is happening, obviously, physically, the real danger right now is hybrid warfare. The real danger is cyberwarfare.
The problem with that—I heard just last week that China has an entire military wing on cognitive domain operations—is that it is something and it's not new. Russia has always had propaganda. If you talk to people in places like Estonia and Lithuania, they say they've always known; they've had that critical thinking because they've always known that was there.
Our problem, because we have been somewhat innocent throughout our history and because Canada hasn't been subject to having nefarious actors on its borders, is that we don't live along a geopolitical fault line like the Balkans, which is a place, as I said, I've spent several years working in. Therefore, we haven't necessarily anticipated it enough over the last number of decades, but the fact is that they can get right into our living room. They can get right into our child's device or our phones. This is a real threat, and I want the public who might be listening today to know that absolutely, we take that threat very, very seriously.
Having sat now for seven and a half years on the government side, I have seen how seriously we have taken that threat. As someone who has been sanctioned by both China and Russia, I know personally that this is something we should not take lightly, but I'm not seeing this being taken seriously as a threat in the discourse that has been happening over the last few weeks. What I'm seeing is—and you've seen it—even today, former senator Hugh Segal talking about “gotcha” politics. There seems to be an interest in trying to make it look as though one party over another is not taking it seriously.
Frankly, I found it really difficult to sit in the House the last few weeks and hear suggestions that as legislators, as Canadians, we're not acting in the best interests of our country, because I believe fully—and I've always been an MP who has worked very closely across party lines—that if we sit and work together, we can have the processes that allow for legislative oversight.
NSICOP, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, was created for exactly this kind of situation—so that it can be depoliticized, so that opposition members can have secret clearances that will allow them to get access to things that, in almost every other country, only the executive branch would have access to. You have members from both houses, from the House of Commons and the Senate. You have members of all the recognized opposition parties and government members present who work in the way that, I think, Parliament should always work, where you are looking at the national interest first and where you put aside your party hat and actually work to make sure that, where there are changes that need to be made, you can make those changes.
Are the processes perfect? No. In fact, NSICOP itself has put together a number of recommendations over the years about how these processes can be improved. The fact is that you have a place where you can ask those questions, where you can get the secret information, where somebody who comes to testify can actually offer what they know and can offer that secret information in an environment where even the opposition is present.
That committee can then make reports that are ultimately made public. That committee can make reports that will not say, “This is what the government knew and this is how they knew it and this is the person who told them,” because this could put a lot of people in danger. Instead, it makes reports that say, “We've had access to the materials. The government gave us full access—or didn't give us full access. The government acted—or didn't act—on the materials that it was given,” and then it makes that available to the public.
In fact, what that does is make it so that you have incentives for the government to ensure that it is providing those materials. This is a committee that is actually almost unique in the world. A number of reports have used Canada and our NSICOP as a case study, because, as you can imagine, there are a lot of governments out there that don't want to give secret information to opposition members. This is something that we probably would have put in place if we could have seen ahead exactly what's happening right now with these allegations of election interference. If we had actually looked ahead and said, “We need to create something that will involve a process whereby we can actually respond to this,” NSICOP would be precisely the committee we would have created.
The U.K. has intelligence and security agencies. The U.K. Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament can scrutinize other bodies that form part of the management and structure of the U.K. intelligence community, including things like the Joint Intelligence Organisation, the National Security Secretariat, the Cabinet Office, the office for security and counterintelligence and the Home Office. It's not quite structured in the same way ours is. In fact, it's more like our Liaison Committee. It has the chairs of other parliamentary committees on it.
If you look, for instance, at Spain, they have a commission on the Congress of Deputies. I won't go into details about all of that, but I can just give some examples of what other countries have. In France, for instance, they have the Parliamentary Delegation for Intelligence, which also is a bicameral parliamentary committee. It has eight members. It's responsible for monitoring the performance of the French intelligence agencies, and it can take testimony from the Prime Minister, ministers and heads of agencies, and call for papers.
In the U.S., they have the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
In fact, in Australia, in 2017, they did an entire report on the Five Eyes, and they actually said what the Five Eyes, including Canada, do when it comes to legislative oversight of the security sector. That was right after NSICOP was first formed, and they listed what Canada was doing in a very positive light and had some recommendations for going forward.
We talked already about the U.S. and the U.K., but it also talks about New Zealand and Australia.
In Australia, the six agencies that comprise the intelligence community are overseen by a parliamentary committee that examines their administration and expenditure. That's a bit of a different role, because of course we have different mechanisms in committees that oversee expenditures of the intelligence, security and defence sectors.
I'll probably come back to this a bit later, but as you can see, there are a number of different examples around the world of this kind of thing. New Zealand, in 2017, created something whereby the security agencies are overseen by a parliamentary committee that can look at policy, administration and expenditure. If you look at some of these international examples, every one of them talks about Canada and says why Canada has one of the best practices.
Looking at the permanent members of this committee, I just don't understand why, when we have one of the best mechanisms to do exactly what needs to be done right now, which is legislative oversight in a space that does not put at risk any of our security agencies or any of our intelligence operatives—that does not reveal to adversaries in the world exactly what we know, how we know it and what we don't know—we are having this almost deck-chairs-on-the-Titanic kind of debate about whether it should be a public inquiry or whether it should be here at PROC. The fact is that we have the mechanism.
That's one of the reasons I wanted to come today. Many of you know that I did work internationally. There are numerous reports that I could talk about, but what many people don't know is that, in between, I also worked in the House leader's office under the Paul Martin government. In 2004, one of the things many of you might know is that Paul Martin gave a speech at Osgoode Hall, when he was running for leadership.
At that time, one of the key platforms in his leadership campaign was democratic reform, strengthening the legislative branch vis-à-vis the executive branch. As we have all seen and as is now well documented, over decades the executive branch and the Prime Minister's Office in Canada have gained more power vis-à-vis the legislative branch. One of the things Paul Martin wanted to do was to create a democratic reform action plan that would rebalance and give more power to the legislative branch.
At that time, I was in the Liberal research bureau, and I happened to be the researcher for the Liberal democracy caucus. A lot of the ideas in that Osgoode Hall speech actually came from the democracy caucus.
One of those ideas was to create a national security oversight committee of parliamentarians. That's something we were talking about already in 2002, and then, in 2003 and 2004, when Paul Martin first became prime minister, he established the first-ever minister of democratic reform. It happened at that time that it was also the House leader. We've had some phenomenal ministers of democratic reform and House leaders since then.
I was then brought in. I was director of parliamentary affairs in that office of the House leader and minister of democratic reform. Specifically, my role was to work with the Senate, with the House of Commons, with PROC at the time, with parliamentarians and with civil society experts to help to turn those ideas that he had put forward during his leadership campaign into an actual action plan. We worked with PCO and actually did get through cabinet and table in the House of Commons a democratic reform action plan. This was in February 2004. It included the national security committee.
I will read you the bullet of what the recommendation was. It stated, “The government will seek the support of Parliament to create a National Security Committee of Parliamentarians. Members would be sworn-in as Privy Councillors so they could be briefed on national security issues.” The one thing we haven't done is swear in members as privy councillors, which is something we can all maybe have a conversation about, because there is always room for improvement. The fact is, though, that was in February 2004. I have been working on this file for 20 years.
We started working on this when I was in LRB in 2002, and then in 2004 we created this democratic reform action plan. Unfortunately, there was an election shortly after, and when we went into a minority government, a lot of these things didn't actually happen, but what is the first thing we did in 2015 when we formed government? We created NSICOP. We created the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, and in the interim I was working overseas, working specifically on parliamentary oversight, on strengthening legislative branches.
This is precisely the kind of work that I have literally been doing for 20 years, and so I guess I'm a little disappointed, because I was very proud when we created NSICOP. I was actually very proud that Canada created something like that, because this issue of interference is not going away.
I know that for a lot of Canadians it's something they're only reading about in the newspapers right now, but for those of us who have been working in this sector—and also when I was parliamentary secretary for defence, which includes oversight of CSE—for 20 years or more, this is not something that is new. It's not something that is not anticipated, and it's something that we—certainly I, both in Canada and in countries around the world—have been working very hard for decades to find processes whereby we can resolve that dilemma of how to have oversight of things that are secret.
How do you have the legislative branch of elected parliamentarians—who are responsible for overseeing the government and representing citizens—have that at the same time as knowing that certain things have to be classified and certain processes cannot be made public?
I have more to say, Madam Chair, and I might get on the list for later, because what I'd like to do is actually talk about some of the recommendations from some of these reports over the years that, in fact, have exactly what Canada has done. We have the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance, which says it must have the authority to conduct inquiries and interrogate members and senior officials of the security sector, to be able to deal with a specialized committee, preferably a permanent or standing committee that is resourced, that has members who demonstrate strong commitment and expertise—which I actually think our NSICOP does—which has sufficient resources, which has adequate time and personnel, logistical support, technical support, expertise among the members and membership that is balanced so that their responsibilities are not overextended and they can dedicate sufficient time.
Maybe some of my colleagues will elaborate on this, but I can go through a number of these recommendations over the years and, in fact, that's exactly what Canada is doing. We are recognized globally as being a leader in this.
I guess what I would leave with is that I don't know why—and I haven't been on the committee to follow the debates that led up to this, but when I look at the motion and the amendments, I don't really understand why we are not using NSICOP. In fact, we've gone beyond that, because the has even said, beyond what is the international best practice, that we're going to have a special rapporteur.
People make fun of the word “rapporteur”, which is a little juvenile, to be honest, because it is used everywhere internationally. When the Secretary General of the United Nations wants to send somebody who is going to be independent and who is going to look at all the facts and have access to everything and report back to the Secretary General, they are called a rapporteur. That is the name.
A special rapporteur will then look at all of the reports, including the work being done on NSICOP—the security committee of parliamentarians—and look at NSIRA, which is a different kind of review—an expert review by independent experts who are able to look at the security sector, which is another thing that has been put into place—and then say, “Okay, I've looked at it all and I don't believe that NSICOP is able to do this. I don't believe that NSIRA is able to do this. I think there's more here. I think we do need a public inquiry, because the government isn't doing what it's meant to do. The processes that are in place aren't working.”
The has said that in that case, he would be open to a public inquiry, but the fact is I don't think it's going to come to that. Maybe I have a little more faith in some of these processes, and certainly I have faith in the members of NSICOP. We get elected to this place, and one of the things.... I'm a process person, and when I did democratic development overseas, when I worked in Parliament, I was a senior adviser to the Parliament of Kosovo when it became a Parliament. When Kosovo became independent it had a small rubber-stamp assembly that was essentially under the authority of the United Nations mission in Kosovo, so it didn't have any real authority. It was an advisory body that could recommend what to do to the UN mission, which had executive and legislative authority at the time.
When they declared independence, overnight that small rubber-stamp assembly had to become a national Parliament. I was the senior adviser with OSCE to the Parliament of Kosovo when it became a Parliament. When I look at those sorts of things and I look at what we put in place in terms of best practices, I would say that the Kosovo assembly probably still has a ways to go. In fact, it could use Canada's model, but the fact is these are the kinds of things that Canadians are going around the world and working on.
I will go through some of the international best practices, because I think it it is important that Canadians understand that nothing is perfect.
We can always learn and improve on the processes we have in place. When I look at NSICOP, I truly think the result of the rapporteur is going to be that we have processes in place, that NSICOP does it. We as MPs want to make the country better. Certainly, when I got elected, I believed very firmly in Canadian democracy. I believe it is resilient. Yes, of course there are many others; there are authoritarians out there who don't want Canada to be strong and resilient in its democratic institutions, and it is our institutions that make us resilient.
When I got elected, I came here with the idea of making this place more democratic, making it function better. One of the first things I did, partly because of the work that I did overseas, but also having been a staff member in the House leader's office, having been a staff member who did all the research for MPs and gave them materials that they could then use and make decisions from—and, by the way, let me tell you the staff of our committees are phenomenal. I don't think any of us would be here and able to do what we do if it weren't for our staff. Having been in that position, after getting elected I wanted to use the voice and incredible privilege of being a parliamentarian to make this place better, and that is something that I still feel very strongly. I see members even on the other side who actually became members of the all-party democracy caucus in the 42nd Parliament.
The reason I reached out across the aisle to create a democracy caucus was specifically that I know there are members, some of whom are process-oriented like me, who really see the institutions and the limitations of the institutions and oversight of the executive and see the threat over decades that has been widely documented, where executive power has grown in comparison to legislative power. I reached out and we created this all-party democracy caucus which still exists— is the chair this time, but at that time I was the chair—so we could talk about how to make this place better, so that we could work across party lines and put our parties and hats aside, and the incentives in this place.
If I were coming in as OSCE or UNDP and looking at the way our Parliament functions, our Parliament is actually very top-down compared to some of the ones like Kosovo, where we were able to learn from all over the world and benefit from what works well and doesn't work well. The people of Kosovo created their Parliament, but when we as advisers were able to bring to them some of these practices from around the world, they were able to put some of those in right at the outset.
The fact is that the Canadian Parliament has been here for over 150 years, and some of the things we do are still the way they were 150 years ago, when you had a number of, usually, older white men who would take the train, come here to Ottawa—I'm talking about in the 19th century—and decide amongst themselves what was best for the plebeians across the country. There was very little discussion with constituents. There was very little dialogue. Most of it was people who came here, and they wouldn't be able to go back and forth, given the nature of travel at that time. It was a very centralized Parliament. It was in fact a very masculine and adversarial Parliament, which over the years we've been able to change somewhat, but the fact remains that our Parliament needs to work on that.
The incentives here are more about a “gotcha”. They're more about making the other guy look bad than reaching across the aisle and talking to each other.
Even the physical space in this place.... When I want to talk to a member of the opposition, there's almost nowhere we can go. It used to be that the lobbies where we ate were combined. Peter Milliken will tell you about this. We had our own lobbies, but when we went for our meals, we had to talk to each other. Peter Milliken has said...and I firmly believe we should go back to that, because I can tell you, if I'm going....
Certainly, when I was chair of SDIR, I always tried to fight for consensus. This space right now is not a place where we're fighting for consensus. NSICOP is a place where that can happen. Sadly, in part, it's because the cameras are off. I think a lot of us would say that we're able to talk to each other much better and come to common solutions sometimes, when those cameras are off.
It's not because we're not transparent, but it's because there's such an incentive.... If I'm saying something today, there's a sense of, “We're going to get her, we're going to quote that and we're going to make sure that particular thing she said goes on Facebook or YouTube and makes her look bad.” That's the problem with this place. It is about making the other guy look bad.
I've seen that. The motion that's here today.... A lot of this is about making the other party look bad, but the fact is that's not why we got elected. I don't think that's why any of us got elected in the first place. I think we want to work together.
By the way, if you want to look at models of committees that work well together, look at the status of women committee. I'm not an essentialist. I don't think women are by nature somehow better, but the fact is that the status of women committee has had almost entirely consensus reports. It's a committee in which sometimes, when we're talking and asking questions, you wouldn't know who is in what party.
The other one is the Subcommittee on International Human Rights. I think it's because the members of that subcommittee, when we're looking at these kinds of global threats, are looking at them from one place, which is that we are all Canadian. We're looking at them as Canadians and where our place is vis-à-vis other countries that want to do harm to our democratic processes and, frankly, to human rights defenders who find sanctuary here in Canada.
I believe that this particular discussion is better off happening in a place where you're not always talking to the camera and you're not always trying to do “gotchas”. If a good idea comes forward, but it comes from another party, you have to shoot it down just because it's coming from another party.
Sadly, the incentive structure in this place.... There are things we can do, and I could go on about what we can do to make that a bit better, but I think looking at something like NSICOP is precisely the way we can do that.
I'll give you an example. When I was parliamentary secretary for national defence, and covering the CSE as well, I naively saw an NSICOP report that was rather critical.
By the way, look at the NSICOP reports, because a lot of them are actually very critical of the government.
I was getting briefs. I looked at this report, and my first instinct was to go to one of our Liberal members who was on the NSICOP committee and say, “What are you doing? Why didn't you come and talk to us?” She got very defensive and said, “That's not what NSICOP is about. We don't take our direction from the minister's office, or from the parliamentary secretary for that matter. We are an independent committee. We do our work very much according to the evidence and across party lines, but we don't have a parliamentary secretary sitting on the committee, asking us questions about why we're doing it.” She was very resentful that I even did that. I learned my lesson at that time, because I realized that this is something they guard very well.
It's the reason NSICOP is powerful and that it works. It's because the members of the committee take it very seriously that they are independent and that they do not work on behalf of the government or their party. Frankly, I think it would be better if more committees were like that in this place.
I am going to go through some of the things in some of these international recommendations, because I actually think Canadians need to know. Canadians need to know that we have put in place—and it took us a long time, as I said. We put it forward in 2004, and we didn't put it in place until...I think it was 2016, when NSICOP was first created, but the fact is we put in place a mechanism for this kind of discussion, to hear these kinds of witnesses.
I'll say, for instance, in 2021, the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance, which is colloquially referred to as DCAF—I know many people who think DCAF is funny—
An hon. member: Like decaf coffee?
Ms. Anita Vandenbeld: Decaf coffee—right. I can assure members that this is not decaf. I don't think I could talk this long if I had decaf.
I know many people who have worked for DCAF. When I was in Kosovo, they relied very significantly on the Balkans in that period of time, when there was a transition, not only post-conflict, after the war in Yugoslavia, but also post-communist, because these were countries that were going through a transition from communism. It wasn't a matter of restoring a democracy; the democracy had never existed. When I was in Kosovo and trying to ensure that the parliament of Kosovo became a national parliament, it wasn't to recreate something that had existed before the war, but to build it from scratch.
DCAF is known around the world, with some of the best security experts, intelligence experts and parliamentary experts. Many of the people I worked with when I was in Kosovo had either worked at DCAF or went to work with DCAF afterward, and a lot of the best practices that we had were taken from this institute. I would encourage members to go on its website and look at some of the reports from over the years, because I'm not here just trying to say NSICOP is perfect and it's the only mechanism we need. The fact is there are ways we could improve NSICOP significantly, and we need to look at some of these comparative reports, look at what's worked in other countries, look at what hasn't worked in other countries and look at unintended consequences of creating certain processes and institutions, especially among the Five Eyes, because we have very similar security interests.
Might I say that we're in a position, in Canada, where we are asking for classified information in public settings. It's going to be harmful, not only in terms of some of the people out there who work in the security sector, who risk their lives for Canada, but also in terms of danger to other members of the Five Eyes. We need to think about what it is that we want to air publicly when we are a member of the Five Eyes. We have an alliance. When we're sworn in, when somebody is sworn to secrecy.... There is a list of people who are allowed to get information from the Five Eyes, and there are parliamentarians on that list, and I worry about the impact that might have.
Again, going to international best practices, I'm not saying that we can't oversee it. I would be the first to say that, because I've seen countries in which the security sector, behind the veil of secrecy, does tremendous overreach, and I've seen places where people can disappear.
I have a very, very good friend now, someone who at the time was a constituent, who was picked up in the Democratic Republic of Congo by the Republican Guard. He was at the airport. This was before I was elected. I was working at that time with the National Democratic Institute, which is another organization that does incredible work on parliaments and parliamentary strengthening. When I was in the Democratic Republic of Congo, this person from my riding, whom I knew well, who had been working with the opposition at the time, was on his way back to Canada. He was a Canadian citizen.
He went through security at the airport, and he was on the phone with his family. All of a sudden they heard something that sounded like he was being physically grabbed or taken, and then his phone went off. They checked on the flight, and he wasn't on the flight. That was, it turns out, the Republican Guard, which responds only to the president, at that time President Kabila. My friend had been picked up, and there was absolutely no oversight in this case. Because I knew him when I ran in 2011 and I had also been the head of NDI, I got a call from his family in my riding. At that time—and I have to give him credit—I called John Baird, because he was the MP. I had run against him in 2011, and he had won.
Again, here's an example. When it comes to things that matter in terms of the security and safety of Canadians, you can work across party lines. To his credit, John Baird immediately contacted our embassy, which put in a query to find out what had happened to this young man.
The first 24 hours are always absolutely critical. When I was working in Congo, we all knew that if people disappeared, after the first 24 hours you wouldn't see them again. Because the government at the time, which was the Conservative government, acted so quickly and John Baird acted so quickly, they did produce him. They put him in a prison. There's a book about this, by the way, Noël en prison, if you want to read it. They put him in prison and they charged him with insulting a general or something like that. Fortunately, because of the Canadian government's pushing, several weeks later, after a horrible experience, he was able to come back home to Canada.
The reason I'm talking about this is that I have seen first-hand what happens in countries where the security sector doesn't have oversight, where you don't have mechanisms and where, for those that represent the public, members of Parliament and security oversight agencies, there is a secret veil. I am the last person on earth, having seen this first-hand, having been sanctioned by China and Russia, who would ever say that we want to bury these things or that we don't want processes that are going to protect against the overreach of the security sector.
Look at everything I've done, not just as a parliamentarian but in my career, right from when I was a student. I was in the civil liberties association of Alberta when I was a grad student at the University of Calgary. I have been talking about the potential for overreach under the veil of secrecy and national security throughout my career. I feel comfortable, as somebody who is coming from that position, that NSICOP right now is the best place. It has the tools and the mechanisms to get access to secret materials. It has opposition members on it. That is the best place.
I would also say that we probably could improve it. I'm not here wearing a partisan hat. I'm here wearing the hat of what is best for our country. Back in 2002 and 2004, we suggested—in fact it was approved by cabinet at the time—that members of NSICOP be sworn in to the Privy Council and that they have access to cabinet materials. I would probably be the first to say that's something we may want to look at in order to strengthen the process. I'm not here because I'm parroting the government line or because I'm a Liberal member. There's a lot of cynicism out there. I hope my constituents at least know, and I think opposition members know, at least those whom I've worked with on committees, that if something's good for Canada, I don't care who gets credit.
I'm willing to push the envelope a bit on what our government is doing, put forward good ideas and fight for those good ideas in order to make the processes better, because at the end of the day I'm a process person. I firmly believe if the processes and the institutions function well, then you will end up with good results. I still firmly believe that our processes and our institutions function well. I have no doubt about the resilience and the strength of Canadian democracy. I think that we can maybe improve it. Like I said, if NSICOP were able to be sworn in and get access to those kinds of cabinet materials, to be sworn in as privy councillors, again, that would be unprecedented in the world.
First of all, we have a committee through which we allow top secret information to get to committee members and to members of the opposition unfettered. I can tell you, having worked in many places in the world, that if I had suggested as an international expert that they create a committee and allow members from the opposition access, I probably would have been kicked out of the country persona non grata, because they would have said there was absolutely no way they could ever do this, let alone swear them in and give them access to cabinet materials.
It comes down to trust a bit, and our government has trusted the opposition members who are on that committee. You saw some of the former members of the committee. Vern White was in the newspaper this week. I have exactly what he said. He said it is “BS”—that was the term in the newspaper—to say this isn't a committee that works well. He told CBC's The House, “Our work was done unfettered, totally unfettered.”
Here you have a senator from the opposition who is saying exactly the same thing that my colleague said to me when I was the parliamentary secretary. I tried to talk to her, as a parliamentary secretary, and she pushed back.
I would venture that all of the members of that committee want to make sure they are using the committee responsibly. We are trusting opposition members with top secret information, and I think we could use a bit of trust back.
We, as members of the government side, are fighting every day for Canada. We are putting in everything we have to do what is in the best interests of Canada. The fact that we've created that committee, which allows the opposition to have that kind of information, to be able to ask those kinds of questions and get those answers, suggests that we also believe that the opposition members are fighting in the interests of Canada as well.
Like I said, I meant to go through some of these international best practices. I care so much about this issue that I haven't even gotten to that, but let me go through one of the reports. It's called “The Contribution of Parliaments to Sustainable Development Goal 16 Through Security Sector Governance and Reform”, linking good security sector governance to SDG16.
For those of you who don't know what SDG16 is.... As many of you know, I'm the parliamentary secretary for international development now, so the SDGs are fundamental. However, I was also working at the UN when they called them millennium development goals, because we hoped we would achieve some of these by the millennium, or by 2015. The SDGs are the sustainable development goals, and these are things that, hopefully, we'll be able to achieve by 2030, although with COVID.... I call them the three Cs: conflict, COVID and climate.
There's a crisis happening in the world that is making it much harder to achieve those sustainable development goals, but the one that's relevant to the discussion today is SDG16, which says that we “promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels”.
This is the one that specifically addresses what I've been talking about today, which is those institutional processes. This report from 2021 talks about a number of recommendations. It's a long report, so I'm going to talk only briefly about the key recommendations, but some of my colleagues can elaborate on that a bit later.
The first recommendation is to:
Ensure that committees possess sufficient authority to fulfil their SSG/R—
That is the security sector governance and reform, but I'll say “SSG/R” because it's easier.
—oversight functions, to contribute to SDG 16. This includes the authority to conduct inquiries, interrogate members of the executive and senior officials in the security sector, and conduct site inspections; and implies broad access to information, with any exceptions based on national security concerns limited as much as possible.
That last bit about the exceptions that are based on national security being limited as much as possible, I think, is really the crux of the division that we have today. Are those exceptions limited too much, or are those exceptions reasonable? I would say that in an environment like this, those exceptions have to be in place.
We cannot have discussions about classified materials in an open setting like this. To a certain extent we can, but as it says here, those exceptions have to be based on national security concerns and have to be limited, whereas having a committee like NSICOP does allow for those.
In fact I don't know if there are exceptions as to which materials NSICOP can access. I think they're able to summon papers and all of the things it says here. They're able to conduct inquiries. They're able to interrogate members of the executive and senior officials in the security sector. I'm not sure if they've ever done site inspections. That's something I would have to ask the members, or maybe they wouldn't tell me because they really guard the process.
I would imagine if they wanted to do a site inspection, I know for a fact that as members of Parliament we can go to any military base in Canada and we're allowed access, something that actually, during the Harper years, was denied to members of Parliament. When we came to power, we actually said that as members of Parliament we should be allowed to go to a military base and, within reason, visit it and see it. Again I think our government has actually opened things up significantly from what was the case under the previous Harper government. I might go into some of those details later, but I really want to stick to the crux of the motion here today. Maybe on another day I can elaborate on some of those things. Conducting site inspections is something MPs have a right to do, and I would imagine NSICOP does too—although I don't know of any examples of where they have done that—and that implies broad access to information.
That is precisely NSICOP. That is precisely what that National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians is there to do. I would say that for the most part, recommendation number one is something that we have here in Canada. One of the things, as I said before, is that they don't have access to cabinet documents. Again I think there are pros and cons to that, but certainly if this committee, by the way, were to take on an issue that would actually have tremendous impact.... If I were still on the committee, I might suggest that we talk about how we can make committees like NSICOP stronger. It might be by hearing from other countries around the world about their processes. Also, maybe there's room to hear from experts on what might be the intended and unintended consequences of swearing in the members of NSICOP to the Privy Council and giving them access to cabinet materials. That's something I would say would be a good role for this committee, whereas what's being discussed in this committee now would be better done in NSICOP, which might even be strengthened based on the recommendations from this committee. As I said, when I was on this committee, we did tremendous work.
We did the entire family-friendly Parliament study. Once again, we weren't trying to make the other side look bad. When a good idea came from others—and I remember it was David Christopherson who was on the committee for the NDP and there were times when we clashed a bit, but the fact is he had a good idea—we weren't going to turn it down just because it came from the opposition. Frankly he had a lot of good ideas. He had been here a long time and he had a lot of good ideas as to how to make this place work better. If you look at the history of what our has done and what our government has done since 2015, we have consistently tried to open up and consistently tried to make the processes better, but I think that if PROC were to study anything right now, it might be whether or not there are models out there in the world that would be better or improve what we have in NSICOP. The fact is the rest of the world is looking to our model.
We might be a bit hard pressed to find models that are better, but as I said, the members of the U.K. Parliament are all committee chairs. I think that would be more difficult, because one of the recommendations is that members have the time and are able to dedicate themselves to that kind of work. As any of you who know some of our colleagues who are on NSICOP know, it takes so much of their time. It is all-consuming. In fact, sometimes, given the number of hours they sit and the materials and the briefs they have to read through, the members have to have the capacity and the time and not be pulled by being on other committees and certainly not by chairing other committees. I think that would be a little more difficult. In fact in that respect I think we're better than the U.K.
That's recommendation number one.
Then we have the second recommendation here, which is this:
Establish standing committees to oversee the implementation of the [sustainable development goals]. In order to prevent a siloed approach to implementation of the SDGs, parliaments should create specialized committees, preferably permanent or standing committees....
That's exactly what NSICOP is. In fact, we went one further. It's not even a standing committee. It is a specialized committee of parliamentarians, and it's not just the House; it's also the Senate. Because there are senators there, they aren't always looking at how to score a point for the next election. Yes, absolutely, having accountability is vitally important, and we are thinking about how things are going to reflect on us in our constituencies—at least I hope we're all thinking about that—but senators have a bit more of an ability to take a much longer-term approach.
Rather than looking to the next election, senators can look 10, 20 or 30 years ahead. In fact, if we look 10, 20 or 30 years ahead, I think what we're talking about today is going to be the greatest threat. It's not just the hybrid warfare, the interference, the cyber-interference, the influence mechanisms, the cognitive domain and the attempts to undermine democratic processes and pluralism and, I would say, to undermine the very openness of democratic countries that means there is inclusion and that means we have pluralism.
We heard in the SDIR committee just this week that there is a global anti-feminist, anti-human rights, anti-gender narrative that is happening right now, which is being put out there by countries like China, Russia, Iran and many other authoritarian countries. I think that if we look at the long-term view, as the senators on this committee do.... Hopefully we do too. I wouldn't say that none of us are looking 20 or 30 years down the road. I think most of us want to create a better place for our children and grandchildren. If we look at that, I'm very concerned, because I think the hybrid warfare and the threats we face right now aren't just to the elections and aren't just to committees—like I said, our committee was sanctioned by China, so talk about interference in a democratic process. The threats are also to our infrastructure, to our grid, to our communications, to our banking systems, to....
I have the old Nortel campus in my riding. It's now DND, but before DND could move in—and I'm citing media sources; I don't know this first-hand—it was reported that they found all kinds of listening and spyware devices on that campus, because someone was stealing intellectual property.
What we need right now is not this really partisan attack, saying, “That party tried to work with China to manipulate elections.” What we need is a very serious, non-partisan view of what the threats are.
It's not to overstate them, either, because one thing I know, having been the parliamentary secretary for defence, under which the CSE falls, is that I have tremendous respect for the work of our intelligence institutions. Our intelligence agencies, certainly the signals intelligence, are incredibly capable—some of the best in the world.
Yes, we need oversight. Yes, we need to make sure we guard against overreach, but not just overreach. Sometimes it isn't overreach. Sometimes it's that you're so focused on a task that you want to see that task accomplished, so you're not thinking about the transparency.
The fact is that's not the job of our intelligence agents. That's our job as parliamentarians. It's our job as people who obviously care deeply about our democracy, because we ran for office in this democracy. It's our job to make sure we set those limits and the criteria, that we create the balance between transparency and secrecy, so that, to the extent possible, we can ensure there is not overreach on rights.
Unfortunately, I'm going to have to bring my mom to the hospital shortly for a minor procedure. She's okay. It's a minor procedure, but it's been almost a year that she's been waiting to get this procedure, so I have to take her to the hospital.
I have to leave in a few minutes, but I want to leave with one last piece. Hopefully, I'll be able to come back and maybe elaborate more, or some of my colleagues can talk more about some of these other recommendations.
I am really concerned about the tone and the nature of what's happening. I think, frankly, that if China was trying to cause people in Canada to lose faith in democracy and in our processes, to turn on each other and to become polarized.... This is what we're doing. I came here today because I really wanted to put on the record that I think we can do better. I think we can work together as parliamentarians, put aside this pointing of fingers and saying.... God, none of us are working with China. Please.
I think that when you take intelligence, which.... By its nature, intelligence is partial. That's why you have to keep on gathering more. With intelligence, if it's partial, it's overheard and it's bits and pieces, you can come to the wrong conclusion, which is why people who work in intelligence rarely come to conclusions. They present it and then it's something that we can look into, try to find evidence and try to find.... When intelligence in its partiality and in its raw form is made public, it can utterly destroy lives.
Just look at Maher Arar. I've worked closely with Monia Mazigh, his wife, over the years. Look at what happens when assumptions are made about an individual person based on intelligence that was not gathered to make that assumption. It was gathered to show...and it continues to be gathered.
When those things happen, as soon as you say that someone is disloyal to this country and as soon as you say that someone is working with foreign agents for a foreign interest—not just that individual, but their families and their communities—their life is ruined, because once you say that about someone, how do you prove a negative? How do you prove that you're not?
I am fortunate. I can go back to my constituency and tell people, first of all, that I am white; I'm of Dutch descent and I am sanctioned by China. I can go back and I can say that, obviously, I'm not working for China, as I've been out there on the Uighurs. However, what if I was Chinese? What if my parents were Chinese? I think people should look at what said in the press conference this week, because the impact on communities in our ridings, when you start taking intelligence and treating it as if it's fact, can be extremely dangerous.
I have spent my life on human rights. This is one of the ways that human rights defenders are discredited. When I worked in other countries, sometimes if I went to the office of a member of Parliament or an elected member there, because I am Canadian they would be accused of operating with Canadians or with foreigners. One time I was accused, when I was with NDI, of being a member of the CIA.
There's distrust. They would say, “Please, let's meet in your office,” because they didn't want the perception that they were meeting with foreigners. This is what is used by authoritarian states to discredit civil society, feminists and LGBTQ activists. They discredit them by saying, “You are a foreign agent and you're working in the interests of the other.” I don't want Canada to get into a situation in which we're saying those sorts of things.
Again, my mom's appointment is in half an hour.
Frankly, if this committee were to go down that road and start asking questions in public, or if there's an inquiry where these questions.... Sometimes a person might say something, not realizing. It seems like an innocent, small fact, but it might be the little piece that a foreign government was waiting to get that puts everything else together and allows them to clue in to what the whole picture is.
We don't know what is useful to another government. That's why I am exceptionally concerned about the tone and about the nature of the way this debate has been playing out in the House of Commons, in this committee and in the motions before this committee right now.
I think we all need to take a step back. I'm looking at my opposition friends now. Let's remember why we ran. Let's remember what it was that made us want to be members of Parliament. If we do that, we will get to a place where we can work together and get to a place where perhaps this committee can look at how we strengthen the processes that we have, but we'll still use the processes that we have. That's exactly why the NSICOP committee was put in place.
I think this discussion would be much better if it were to happen in a place like NSICOP. That's why we have a rapporteur who will come back to the public to say whether that process is working well or not. He'll come back to the . At that point, if he says it isn't, then we have to look at that again very carefully, but I don't think he will say that.
I think Canadians should have comfort and faith that all of us, as elected members, are working very hard to make sure that our democracy is protected. I can tell you that it's my life's work. It's almost my religion. It is what I'm here for.
Again, I'm getting messages that my mom is waiting for me to take her to the hospital, so I have to go, but I hope that I'll be able to come back. I'm going to also make sure that some of my colleagues have a chance to elaborate on some of these international best practices, because I think it is important that Canadians know that our institutions are strong.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Reluctantly, I have to go.
Just let me start by saying I'm happy to be here, on the one side. On the other side, I'm disappointed that we're actually here doing what we're doing today.
Let me start with this. I'm going to read this out. A solution in search of a problem is “A proposal that does not solve any problem or provide any value; or one that is intended to fill a need which does not really exist.”
I appreciate what PROC has debated over the last week or so. I've listened in with great interest. We're certainly in a different world. We know that. We see what's happening in Europe, Ukraine and China. We have challenging times in front of us. We all know that. I'll be honest. It's difficult to see us, as parliamentarians, doing what we're doing right now.
There's no question that we have foreign entities that want to interfere, that want to interfere in democracies all over the world, as we all know, and certainly not just in Canada. The objective of these foreign entities is to sow chaos, to sow fear and to interfere. That's what they want to do. Obviously, social media reigns supreme. All of us, as MPs, are very active on social media. We see the posts. We see the comments. We see the algorithms. We recognize absolutely that it's much easier to try to get in and interfere or influence through social media. It's sad, what we do see. Does any of us around the table or on this Zoom think that there are entities that are trying to do this to us? Absolutely. I think we all agree on that. They've tried. They've tried in the past and they'll try again. That's their objective. Their objective is to sow doubt.
I live in a riding, Saint John—Rothesay, in which, I will say, when I entered politics, back in late 2014 as a candidate—and I ran in 2015, 2019 and 2021—there was a lot of skepticism about politics, politicians and government. It wasn't just on the Conservative and Stephen Harper side. There was, I think, skepticism about politics in general. People were tired of what they were seeing at the federal-provincial level and there was skepticism.
One thing I wanted to do as a member of Parliament...and I can remember it like it was yesterday. Actually last week I posted a picture on my Facebook page of me in November of 2015, so obviously it was shortly after the election.
I believe, Madam Chair, we came up for some training or maybe we came up to get sworn in or what have you.
I remember those days and I'm starting to fully realize how big a responsibility we all had. My objective with respect to Parliament was certainly to bring a breath of fresh air to politics to show people that we don't all have agendas. We want to do good. We want to represent our constituencies. We want to represent our provinces. We want to be good representatives. We want to work together and we want to show Canadians—I was certainly determined to show the constituents of Saint John—Rothesay that I could do politics differently—we could do politics differently. We started to replace the apathy, distrust and what have you that so many Canadians had for politicians in general, and you can see that in voter turnout at times.
There have been bright spots where I think there have been bipartisan or team Canada approaches to things. I think, when we need to, we've shown we can work together. We can advance the interests of our constituents. We can do good things.
One of the main reasons I ran.... My background before that was hockey, and I know you're all probably going to cringe saying, “Oh no, he's not going to mention the Saint John Sea Dogs again.” Well, I just did.
We want to work together and do good things. I know I'm proud of what we've done, obviously, very quickly—things that make a difference in the lives of Canadians. That's why we're there. We're not there to play partisan games and do things for the clip on the news or the gotcha moment. We're there to enhance and better the lives of Canadians, to come up with transformational programming, such as with the Canada child benefit, the child care program, the dental program or the support for Canadians, and to help Canadians.
That's why they send us to Ottawa. Don't ever forget that. They send us there to work together, to get things done and to better their lives. What they're seeing now is, in my opinion, a who loves to join in on this chaos, who loves to sow fear and who loves to rile people up. You'll say, “That's his job.” Sure it's the job of the loyal opposition to challenge government, and as my colleague MP Romanado just said, we need to be challenged. We don't always get it right. We don't. We're learning. Good government is understanding that, when you make a mistake, you move forward, address it and work with other parliamentarians to do the best for our country.
From what I've been hearing over the last while, you would think that NSICOP is a group of Liberal parliamentarians, period. The last time I checked, it was all parties. Why is there skepticism? Why are there objections to letting NSICOP do its job? Its members receive top security clearances. They're bound to secrecy under the Security of Information Act. Let them review it.
Actually, Madam Chair, it took me about an hour to say that correctly, but the rapporteur.... Hopefully I did say it right.
I think those who know me know that I'm not afraid to speak up and speak my mind. I'll be blunt: Do I wish we had come forward and said we were going to appoint a rapporteur a little sooner? Sure, but guess what—we didn't. That rapporteur is going to be an independent person who's going to have the ability to recommend an inquiry. What am I missing here? Why is it, again, as I said, a solution in search of a problem? Let's let the rapporteur do their job.
Let's see who's appointed. Maybe we're going to be surprised. Maybe members of the other party will say, “Oh, geez, okay”, but let that happen. We've watched inquiries on TV for years. Obviously we've just gotten through watching an inquiry with respect to the “freedom convoy” in Ottawa. We know how much time, organization and planning it's going to take. It could take a year easily. We don't need that. We don't need that right now.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the leaders of every party have said that they recognize that there was nothing that changed the election result. Why is there the continued “we need an inquiry”? Obviously we're debating the amendment, but I see the main motion here that the committee, in relation to its study of foreign election interference, “invite Katie Telford, Chief of Staff”. If you want to replace that with “invite the 2019 and 2021 National Campaign Directors of each recognized party of the House of Commons and the security-cleared party representatives to the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force during the 2019 and 2021 federal elections”, what's wrong with that? Why are we debating this?
My constituents understand about the rapporteur and understand that's the way forward. Maybe my office is in some kind of a bubble, but my phone isn't ringing off the hook here. They see what's happening now. They see what the has done. They see what the Prime Minister is recommending. I'm not being overwhelmed with people saying, “We need more. We want an inquiry.” I'm not getting that at all. I dare say that none of you is getting that either, if you'd be honest about it.
I have obviously sat in my seat and watched question period and watched the dynamic back and forth. Again, I respect fully that the opposition, the , has a job to do, but the way he is going about it, the way it's happening, is not fair. It's not proper. It's not parliamentary. Think about it: He has all but accused the of Canada of treason. It's shameful.
If anybody thinks that there's a foreign entity that's controlling the , that is really disheartening to me. It's sad to think that, as parliamentarians, we have digressed to that level. It's just disappointing to me. Again, I ran and I wanted to be a parliamentarian my constituents could be proud of. I have great relationships with MPs from all parties, and I enjoy working with them. The first committee I was on was actually HUMA. I'm still on HUMA. We got to travel the country. We were very instrumental in the poverty reduction strategy and the housing strategy. I worked alongside great MPs, and we got some good stuff done.
Madam Chair, that's always where I'm most proud, when I sit side by side with people with different ideologies, different ways to approach things or different thoughts on this or that, and in the end, we can work together to get things done for Canadians.
That's why we're here. I had a constituent come into the office the last time I was in my riding, a week and a half ago, and ask me straight up, “Is it really like we see in question period? Is that what it's like every day?” I said, “Yes and no.” Yes, question period is intense. I always think about the Bugs Bunny cartoon in which the sheepdog and the wolf go in and they punch their cards and they say hi to each other, and then they go through their routine; they leave and they chat, and it's all good. That's what I explained a little to this constituent. I said you see the show; you see the parties trying to get on the five o'clock news, or The National or what have you; you see the clips, but what you don't see is the camaraderie, the great work that happens on behalf of all Canadians when we work together.
I want the constituents of Saint John—Rothesay—and I know every MP would say this—to be proud of the work I'm doing. I'm saddened by what I've seen over the last several weeks, to think that's where we are. I know politics has changed. I know all of us would say there's a very different tone. I am part of the “Class of 2015”, and I think a lot of you around the table are too. It's hard to believe we're in our eighth year, but, man, what a change we've seen in the discourse from 2015 until now. It's like night and day, but we have work to do. We have a job to do.
To continue to want this person called and that person called....
Look, I'd be the first to say, well, let's shine more light, but we're appointing a rapporteur. Let that process work. Let NSICOP work. Has there been interference? Have there been countries that want to interfere in our democracy? Absolutely. Let's not forget that Canada is one of the greatest democracies in the world. It's one of the most stable democracies in the world. We show that time and time again around the world and on the world stage. This is exactly what foreign entities want. It's exactly what they want, Madam Chair. They want to sow the seeds of doubt, sow the idea that maybe the election was “stolen”. Let's be careful with what we know is not true. Let's be careful on that.
We see first-hand what happened and what's happening to the south of us with respect to disinformation, with respect to doubt being sown in America and in democracy. We cannot allow that to happen here, Madam Chair. We cannot. We are better than this. We are much better than this.
Madam Chair, I know we're debating the amendment to the main motion. I'm obviously coming in halfway through this. I haven't heard everybody's speech, so I'm not sure if there's support for the amendment, but let me appeal to other parties on this amendment: Support it. Let's move forward. The rapporteur has the power to appoint...or to recommend a full public inquiry. Call a spade a spade. In every public inquiry I have ever seen, one side will say, “Oh, look, here's the result of the public inquiry.” The other side will be like, “Well, the brother's uncle's mother's cousin's son of the chair of that public inquiry, the guy who was appointed, drove by Joe Biden's house once three years ago, so there has to be bias there.” Where are we going here? Where are we going with this? Let the rapporteur do their job. Let's see what happens.
If you're not happy—if people aren't happy when the rapporteur is appointed—somebody may scream, “Oh my gosh—there's unbelievable bias here!” We know that's not going to be the case here. Anyone would be crazy to appoint somebody who is going to be in conflict here. Of course not. I think we should let this process unfold and do the right thing.
I want to contribute to this debate. I want to speak more. I want to express my feelings, but I do sincerely hope that at the very least, people around the horseshoe, the table, or on Zoom want to do the right thing and want to work together and move this forward. Let's see what the rapporteur says. It's somebody whom everybody respects. Can you imagine? Let them do their job. Let them check it out. Why are we so hard and fast with, “Well, no, just because the suggested this, it can't be a good idea. No, we can't do that”?
Again, I get that this side wants this and that side wants that. I get that, and I understand the questioning, but the suggestion that there's manipulation or that somebody is under the control of a foreign entity is just not right. It's not right, and that's why we need to move forward, in my opinion.
Madam Chair, let me say this: Does it surprise me that a foreign entity has an agenda to try to sow chaos in western democracies? Absolutely not. I'm not surprised at all. They've always talked about China potentially. China can play the long game. Western democracy has changed. Every so many years, am I surprised to think that China or Russia would love to see democracies fall in the west, in Europe? Absolutely not.
Can they try to manipulate and influence voter intentions through disinformation and Facebook posts and false names and so on? Yes, I can see that. Am I surprised? No. Let's be clear: This certainly isn't something that's new to 2015, 2019 and 2021—come on. No, we all know that. We all know that existed in 2015 and whenever the election was before that, in 2011 or what have you. We know that.
Before politics, I was in aquaculture, which I love to talk about at length, but not on this committee, and I was in hockey. Did I really pay a lot of attention to what was going on in Ottawa? No. To be transparent, no, I didn't. To think, though, that the was the minister of democratic institutions—I think I said that right—and clearly he was the minister of, probably, families and children, because I still remember him handing out cheques with his Conservative golf shirt on. I remember that much. At that time, though, when he was the minister of democratic institutions, what did he do? Where was all the proactive movement at that point? Well, of course there wasn't any. He was briefed. We know he was briefed. What did he do?
Now, all of a sudden, it's a massive scandal. My colleague before me asked if we have done everything right. No. Are we perfect? Do we make mistakes? Yes, but do I for one second or do my constituents for one second think that there's some gross behind-the-scenes manipulative agenda? Come on. No, my constituents don't think that. They don't.
Can I just caution all of us, and on our side too, to cut down on the rhetoric? Let's not turn more Canadians off. Let's show Canadians. This should be a team Canada thing. This should be all parliamentarians standing side by side saying, “You're trying to interfere in our country? We're going to show you we're united. We're going to show you we're going to do the right thing and put the right checks and balances and procedures and policies in place to make sure we have control of the situation,” because they're going to try again and again and again. I will guarantee you, Madam Chair, that there is some entity in some backroom somewhere just laughing at this and saying, “Look at what we did. Look—this is perfect. We've got everybody disagreeing. We've got parliamentarians tied up. We've got question period in the House of Commons 90% consumed with the idea that there's some foreign plot, when they should be talking about the challenges Canadians face.” That's what our constituents, what Canadians, want to see out of every one of us. They want to see us debating.
They want to see us talking about, as the Conservatives like to say, the price on pollution. They call it “scrap the tax”. Just as a funny aside, really quickly, Chair, I'm going to talk about the price on pollution here really quickly. I had a constituent who came in and was like, “On this price on pollution you guys are doing nothing for Canadians.” I sat down with them and we went through their gas bill and stuff. I said, “How many litres of gas do you use a week?” He said, “About 40.” I said, “Okay, that's $4.75 a week for the so-called crippling carbon tax—$4.75 a week and $230 or $250 a year.” I said to the constituent, “Do you realize you are going to get a rebate that's basically going to cover that, if not more?” He said, “We are?” I said, “Yes, in New Brunswick.”
at one point wanted us to get back to the federal backstop. We got back. He's my colleague here, and we have a good back and forth all the time. That's what Mr. Williamson wanted. Straight up, he said, “Too bad New Brunswick didn't have the federal backstop, so constituents could get their money back.” I was actually sitting in the House of Commons at that point, and I said, “Yes, he's right that that's probably not going to happen.” Premier Higgs was keeping the rebate for the province to do things with. The premier himself came out here about a month ago and said, “No, the best way to get Canadians back money is to go back to the federal backstop.” I said, “Oh, wow—that's great.” Anyway, I'll go back to the story.
This constituent was basically going to be in for $20 or $30. I said, “Do you understand this?” He said, “Oh, I understand it better now,” and I said, “By the way, Mr. Constituent, you said we're not doing anything for Canadians and that the Conservative Party would fix all of that.” I said, “Do you realize that we just came through with a child care program that's going to save the average family about $1,000, $1,500 or $2,000 a month? Do you realize we just came through with dental care that's going to save thousands of dollars, in particular for kids and those in need? You know, the Conservatives voted against those.”
Yes, I know they're trying to save you $230, but you're going to get $250 back, and they voted against the thing that's going to save the average family $20,000 or $15,000 a year. How does that square?
That was just a sidebar. That's what constituents want to talk about. They want to see us being challenged by the Conservatives and the NDP and the Bloc and my new seat colleague, . I was on one side of the House. Now I'm on the other side of the House. I have a different view, Madam Chair. I think actually I'm behind you a bit now. I think you're down my side too, but I'm down that side. That's what Canadians want to see. They want to see us as government being held to the fire, as we should be. Absolutely—I like holding us to the fire at times too. It makes for good government.
Madam Chair, what they don't want to see is this. I watched last week when you had some words for what occurred there, and I won't repeat those, but I saw a sitting minister basically challenged. That's not what Canadians want to see. They want to see us working together.
I will be honest: I've learned a lot through this process too. Now I know what NSICOP is. Now I know how it works. Again, sometimes you hear this talk that NSICOP is some kind of influenced partisan group. Geez—it wasn't the last time I saw it or the last time I read about it. I will quote:
The committee was set up in 2017.
No—it was set up under us. Okay, it was because we saw a problem. Clearly the leader of the opposition didn't when he was in charge of democratic institutions.
The committee was set up in 2017 to provide parliamentary oversight of Ottawa's intelligence operations. It completed a report on foreign interference back in 2019, which called on the government to “do better”.
Why all of a sudden is this not adequate? Why? I don't get it. I don't understand. Maybe somebody who speaks in the future can clarify that for me. Why isn't it good enough now? Why isn't the rapporteur good enough, especially when they can recommend a full inquiry, Madam Chair?
That's what bothers me. I just don't like to see what I'm seeing. I don't like trying to create a scandal where a scandal doesn't exist. I'm not naive enough to say there's nothing, that this never happened or not to worry. I know there are foreign entities. I get it. I get that there's foreign interference. If as parliamentarians we open that Pandora's box, if we start to show Canadians that even we can't stand together on this and we start to sow seeds of doubt, that will not be a good thing. It's not a good thing. Here in Saint John—Rothesay, I hold these things regularly called AMAs, and I think you all do too. They're not wrestling events or boxing events. They're called AMA—“ask me anything”.
I have actually gone back and done my first live one. I hadn't done them live in a few years, but I did them live, obviously, on Facebook. When I do them, I always get the skeptics who do not really understand Ottawa or understand the role of the MPs or trust. What we're doing now, Madam Chair, sadly, is confirming a lot of the doubts and distrust of Ottawa, of the Ottawa machine, of the Ottawa bubble.
I know some people bristle when I say “the Ottawa bubble”. Obviously you can't answer this, Chair, but around the table and on this screen, are any of us, if we're honest with ourselves, totally seized in our constituency offices with this foreign entity controlling our...? Are we really there? No, we're not. No, we are not, and if people think we are, I would challenge them. I'm in my constituency office. I've gotten the odd email. I get hundreds of emails on other issues. I receive thousands of emails. Let's not create a problem, or let's not create a scandal where a scandal doesn't exist. It doesn't exist.
Let the rapporteur do their work. Truthfully I can't wait to see who is appointed, because I'll bet you it's going to be somebody, hopefully—I'm knocking on wood here—about whom all parties are going to be able to say, “Oh, okay, we respect them.” We've just wasted a week and a half of PROC here. Let's try to move forward and let the rapporteur do their work.