Canada-China Relations Committee on May 3rd, 2024

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fragiskatos.

Now we'll go to Mr. Bergeron for two and a half minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Fadden, thank you again for your testimony.

You raised something interesting a little earlier. As a member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, I am well aware that it is possible to reword classified intelligence in order for it to be accessible to the public. We do that regularly in our reports, with the assistance of the intelligence community.

However, it also calls for a culture change. We saw this in the government's reaction when it closed up like an oyster when the time came to share the documents concerning the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg. So this culture of transparency, which allows for alerting the public without necessarily sharing the details of the intelligence, still needs to be adopted, I am afraid.

In 2021, when you appeared before this committee, you put China's threat level at about 8 out of 10. At the time when you were the director of CSIS, where did you put the threat represented by China at?

[Richard Fadden]

I probably put it as something like 5 or 6, maybe 6 out of 10.

At the time, we were still trying to find a way of dialoguing with China. I think the big change that has happened in China over the last two or three years has been Mr. Xi's rise to power. As president, he really has taken a very proactive and negative stance toward the west, and that is when I think the situation really changed.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Do you think this change had started before, or is it really the rise of Xi Jinping to head of the Chinese Communist Party that triggered it?

[Richard Fadden]

The change had started before, but I think it is Mr. Xi who crystallized it.

He is the one who really, concretely, assembled all the elements and made a national policy out of them. But it certainly existed before he came to power.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

In 2021, you also drew our attention to the need to be concerned about the positions the people hold. You told us that someone who handles consular affairs in an embassy is not a problem, but when that person handles all sorts of other things it can become a problem. Would you therefore be in favour of creating a foreign agent registry, as Australia has done?

[Richard Fadden]

Absolutely. However, there are things that need to be looked into a bit. It is certainly not a miracle solution, but it is another tool that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, among others, could use to try to control foreign interference by China and other countries.

There are already ways to deal with diplomats and people in the consular services, but there is no way to identify people acting as agents of China and other countries. To go beyond your question, I think we should even consider making foreign interference a crime. One of the problems the RCMP has right now is that for it to be able to act, it has to find another crime that is connected with the interference.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron.

We'll now go to Ms. Blaney for two and a half minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you again, Chair.

My next question is this. Just in general, across the federal government—another question alluded to this—are there other key institutions that are at risk of interference from China that we should be alerted to?

[Richard Fadden]

I think it's fair to say that China's approach to acquiring information and interfering covers the waterfront. They are interested in governmental and strategic areas, critical infrastructure, technology and information. It really covers virtually anything, except my poor example of Heritage Canada, where I don't think there's a great deal of interest. It's anything that is slightly technological and any research and development that involves people who might either have or acquire influence with ministers and Parliament.

I don't really have a list in my mind, but a lot of them are agencies. I think ISED, for example—I always forget what the full name is—is probably underestimated as a source of interest to the Chinese, because of all the influence it has in issuing grants and contributions and in promoting particular parts of our economy. It's anything that has to do with science, technology and development and people who might eventually have influence.

It's a very large chunk, I would argue. The intensity may vary, but I think there's interest.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you for that. I think it goes back to that whole part about building awareness and finding ways to connect the dots so that you can identify those issues and keep those communications open.

Outside of the federal government.... This is a perfect example. Do you feel there is enough work being done in the federal government to build resilience in the key academic institutions? As we see research growing across our country in many institutions, how are we preparing for that to maintain some security?

[Richard Fadden]

The short answer is no, I don't think we're doing enough. I would expand my answer to include not just universities, but provinces as well. I don't see how we can have an effective national security environment in this country if we ignore the provinces, the private sector and civil society, because our adversaries are interested in all of them.

The current government, I think, is considering broadening the capacity of the public service to share information with universities, provinces and whatnot. You cannot expect these institutions to collaborate and understand the problem if we're not prepared to share some information with them.

I'm not suggesting that every manager in the Government of Manitoba should be given top secret clearance, but if we're not prepared to share a bit more than we are now.... I sit on a couple of boards. One of the complaints they have about the federal government relates to cyber. They say the government goes and talks to them about cyber-threats, but it's at a level of generality that is not helpful.

We have to find a way—and I say “we” as a country—to share more information that's concrete and real if the universities, civil society and the economy are going to play a part in promoting our national security.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you, Ms. Blaney.

Mr. Fadden, do you have a hard stop, or can we impose upon you until maybe five or 10 after the hour?

[Richard Fadden]

I can do that, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Excellent.

That gives us one more complete round. We'll do five minutes, five minutes, two and a half minutes and two and a half minutes. Is that good?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Excellent.

Mr. Kmiec, five minutes are yours.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

One of the great advantages, I guess, of going last is that I get to listen to everybody else's questions. Now, having heard all the testimony so far, I regret not having been here in person to ask you these questions and then follow up with you off camera.

There was a mention in your opening statement about the culture at PHAC. It was raised repeatedly by other members that there's kind of a complacent culture in some of the non-security agencies regarding foreign interference and foreign campaigns by other governments to obtain data and information.

The feeling I get having heard all of the testimony so far, especially from officials and the health minister when he came before committee, is twofold. It's the Leslie Nielsen defence: The house is on fire, but there's nothing to see here, everything is good—that meme that exists online. The second one, when I was listening to some of the officials, the DSOs and above, as you've pointed out, was basically the Sir Humphrey Appleby defence: Many lessons were learned, and we won't do as badly next time.

How can a culture change if nobody's held accountable? I don't mean necessarily people being fired, but that there be demotions and fingers pointed very openly at individuals who should be held accountable for rules that weren't followed, or for complacency in the workplace. How can the culture change if nobody is held accountable? That's my question for you, sir.

[Richard Fadden]

That's a very good question, I think, Chair. I think changing the culture will involve far more than that, but I take your point.

One of the difficulties we have in this country in terms of holding anybody accountable is that you can't talk about it publicly. The Privacy Act is very, very strict, and there are good reasons for that. If you're able to identify, in a particular time frame, people in positions who had responsibilities that could have been discharged better, that's one way of doing it. However, accusing somebody of doing something wrong in the lab without the possibility of a real investigation, of appeals and whatnot, is very, very difficult.

I really do believe that in this case, there are so many people who played a role on this file and did not do what they might have done that it's going to be hard to say, “It's this person, this person and that person.”

Nonetheless, I think it's something that the public service, eventually with ministers, should look at to determine whether or not it should be possible publicly to make the point without destroying a person's reputation. You know, for as long as I've been a public servant, this has been an issue. Many politicians have suggested to me that it's driven them to distraction that there's never been a public servant held accountable. I was talking to people in the private sector. You know what they do when somebody really does something wrong? They give them a very large cheque and they go away. Nobody ever talks about it. I'm exaggerating, but there's some truth in that.

We can't do that in the public service, so what we do is that we shuffle people, or they're reproved or, if they're an executive, their executive compensation is reduced and whatnot. If we're not prepared to talk about it, though, at least to some degree—and I would limit the degree publicly—it's not going to work, because it's an example that we have to get out. If people don't know that something negative can happen, you're right that it's going to be very hard to change the culture. However, I would prefer to use the carrot in changing the culture, to the extent possible, because, as I said, we're dealing with very smart, highly educated people, and if we don't bring them along it's going to be an uphill battle.

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

When there was discussion about what types of recommendations we could put together, there was mention of a committee being formed of public servants across government, with potentially two deputy ministers selected to be responsible at the end of the day for overseeing it.

My follow-up question, then, is this: How would you see that working? What would be the accountability mechanisms to make sure that if this happens again—and this is government after all, so I expect there'll be future parliamentarians having the same maddening discussion around this table at some future point—we can hold public servants accountable? Or, if we discover that this has happened elsewhere in government, what would these deputy ministers be doing? How would this committee be functioning? What would be the accountability mechanism?

[Richard Fadden]

Thank you, Chair.

In the first instance, I would say my idea of having a couple of deputy ministers would be to ensure the operationalization of those recommendations of this committee that the government has accepted. In other words, my understanding is that you will make a report to Parliament, and the government will then have to decide whether or not and which components to accept.

I would then say, whatever the government decides on, they would clearly tell the public service, the Clerk and the Treasury Board that we want these things done within the following time frame.

My experience suggests to me that if you just tell all deputy ministers to do this, it doesn't always work evenly, so you appoint an implementation champion. Maybe it's a deputy secretary in PCO—I don't know who it is—and you simply say to them very clearly that they have to establish a time frame for implementing all of these various recommendations. You have to report back to a committee of cabinet and perhaps a committee of Parliament. In doing that, it becomes easier to find out what's going on.

You can insist that the Treasury Board mandate audits. You don't have to have a problem before you mandate an audit. One of your colleagues asked a question about which departments and agencies we should worry about from a security perspective. Why doesn't the Treasury Board do three audits a year just looking at what the DSOs are doing on these departments? That's not punitive. It's preventative.

If they find problems, it's possible to then require the deputy head to do something about it. I wouldn't be surprised if the Auditor General did something like this at some point, as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Mrs. Lalonde for five minutes.

[Marie-France Lalonde, Liberal, Orléans, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fadden. Thank you for your attendance and your service to Canada.

You spoke particularly about culture, evolution and also economic access over the years by government in terms of moving forward with the relationship with China and the possibilities. I would like to hear you tell us a bit, based on your former role, about the role that CSIS plays in protecting Canada's research and the intelligence component.

[Richard Fadden]

CSIS fundamentally is an information-gathering institution. It's something that we tend to forget. We sometimes think there's a James Bond element whereby people swoop in and fix things. Fundamentally, it's an information-gathering institution.

It takes that information, it analyzes it and it distributes it. I would argue that—and I would say the same thing about when I was there—I don't think we did a good enough job to vulgariser, to make the information more generally available in language that people understand.

The main role that CSIS plays is informing government about issues that arise. They have no executive power. They have no powers of compulsion. All they can do is, if necessary, pound a bit on the table and ask that people take their views seriously.

If you're going to focus on CSIS and their role in protecting, it's important to understand that their role is to inform, and sometimes to prod, but they don't have much more of a role than that. It really then becomes the job of departments and agencies to find those parts of the intelligence that they feel need to be acted upon.