Information & Ethics Committee on April 30th, 2024

[Jakub Kalenský]

Okay.

What is the course? For Russia, this is seemingly a non-military measure to achieve military goals. They are very obvious about this. For them, it's a measure to facilitate military operations. The annexation of Crimea, to which there was close to no reaction, is probably the biggest example of that, but we have also seen them succeed in influencing our decision-making following the full-scale invasion in 2022. Russia is very open about the fact that their pseudo-journalists are part of the rank and file of the military. They are receiving military awards for their work. Russia is openly telling us that.

The fourth line I did not mention is about limiting, punishing and deterring the information aggressors. Whereas in the first three lines we are focusing on ourselves, on building up our defence, in the fourth line we are actually trying to catch the aggressor. The first three lines are about building up our immunity and focusing on exercise and eating healthy. The fourth line is about trying to arrest the person who is shooting people in the head.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Kalenský and Mr. Bridgman.

Mr. Bridgman, could you follow up on Ms. Gaudreau's request and send the survey results to the committee clerk by Friday? I think that would give you enough time.

[Aengus Bridgman]

Yes, of course. We've already published one study on this topic and we could also write something for you that provides further details on this issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Bridgman.

We are going to go to Mr. Green for six minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Green.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have to say, I feel as though I've been living in a bit of a parallel universe when Mr. Bridgman states that he doesn't view this as an existential threat.

I wonder, Mr. Bridgman, whether through your work there was any study of the phenomenon that happened with the truckers' takeover of our capital, the shutdown of ports and bridges, and the civil unrest that was caused coming out of COVID, largely based on conspiracy theories regarding vaccines, misinformation and disinformation, both domestic and foreign. I wonder if you could speak to that. Did your studies take that into account?

I have to tell you that later on tonight I'm going to be working with a group that is dealing specifically with the Emergencies Act. The Emergencies Act was one of the most severe measures in our democracy, triggered by what I would say, after almost two years of reflection, was the high prevalence of misinformation and disinformation.

Can you comment on the work you're doing and whether you covered that local phenomenon, including many of the foreign actors who were involved in that campaign?

[Aengus Bridgman]

Yes, I fear I've given the impression that I don't think misinformation and disinformation are potential existential threats. Instead, what I'm saying is that today in Canada, from what we've observed in terms of the impacts of incidences of misinformation and disinformation, it hasn't yet risen to the level of election threat or existential threat to democracy.

You raised the trucker protest. That's a great example of a mix of two phenomena occurring. One involves misinformation and disinformation. Again, I am happy to provide this to the committee. I published several academic papers looking at misinformation and disinformation during COVID-19. They were, in particular, about the influence of a lot of the misinformation circulating in the United States and its profound impact on the digital ecosystem up here. I certainly have observed that. It does matter. It is consequential.

There is also the other dimension, of politics. We can't confuse the two. We can't say, just because there is misinformation and disinformation behind a political phenomenon or as part of a political phenomenon, that the political phenomenon wouldn't exist without that misinformation and disinformation, that it wouldn't have occurred absent those, and that the solution to that political movement is to stamp out, reduce, remove or counter just the misinformation and disinformation part. It's not necessarily true that we can just—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'll interject for a moment.

While I appreciate the distinction between correlation and causation, I think it's safe to say that we wouldn't have ended up in a scenario that resulted in invoking, for the second time in our history, the War Measures Act, or the Emergencies Act in this iteration. There was a conspiracy based on clear misinformation around vaccines tied to tropes about world control via the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization. Indeed, we certainly have political actors—particularly among our friends in the Conservative caucus—who continue to espouse these types of conspiracies.

I would put to you that it's my assertion that it's an underlying pressure on this. Had that topic not been perpetrated in that way, the politicians at the end of the continuum wouldn't have had the material for the kind of ridiculous rhetoric that led to the shutting down of our country and, ultimately, the extreme measures that were taken vis-à-vis the Emergencies Act.

Going back to this, logic says that if there's no misinformation or disinformation to hang their hat on, malicious political actors on the other side wouldn't have the material to fan the kinds of flames that end up being existential threats. I say that because, while it is true there was a relatively peaceful de-escalation of that moment, it is also true that it led to an insurrection on January 6 in the United States of America. There are numerous examples around the world where disinformation is used to fuel genocidal rhetoric.

We've heard about a lot of different state actors here. We'll get into more in further rounds. I'm wondering, however, how you reconcile that.

[Aengus Bridgman]

I have two quick things.

I absolutely agree that misinformation and disinformation can exacerbate political anger in a huge way and generate moments like January 6 and the trucker protest. These can be strongly linked to misinformation and disinformation.

Misinformation and disinformation are consequential. In fact, one thing we have repeatedly shown in our studies is that they don't need to reach the broader population. You just need to reach a small but active enough segment and have a small but highly dedicated group of individuals who have misperceptions and enormous political anger—which is partly born of misinformation and disinformation. That can have a huge political impact.

I completely agree with you there.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

When I talk about an existential risk, it is clear that misinformation and disinformation are used to target minority communities. I'll give you an example.

White nationalism and neo-Nazism in this country vilify Muslims, minorities and trans folks, resulting in perpetrated violence occurring. I would share with you the fire bombing of the Ibrahim Jame mosque right here. People are radicalized online by misinformation and disinformation campaigns.

I would also put to you that the events that occurred around the trucker convoy made it feel unsafe for parliamentarians to show up to work. Just a week ago, I had a rock thrown through my window. The violent political climate we're in is an existential risk to our democratic institutions.

Would you not agree?

[Aengus Bridgman]

The phenomenon you've described is absolutely an existential risk. All I can say is that in terms of linking directly to election-level outcomes, we've not seen that yet. It doesn't mean that misinformation is not potentially deeply harmful or damaging to democracy in other ways.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

We're going to start our second round for five minutes.

Go ahead.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thanks very much, Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here.

Mr. Chiu, the information you've provided this committee certainly shows an astounding double standard that existed between the way the Prime Minister's Office treated a perceived threat of disinformation targeting their political fortunes versus the political fortunes of their political opponents—and that is not just the Office of the Prime Minister, but the establishment of government and the massive resources that exist, whether they be directly with the security establishment and intelligence apparatus or the communications capacity of a government the size of the Government of Canada.

Is that something you'd agree with? Also, would you have any further comments on that double standard?

[Kenny Chiu]

I certainly get that impression myself, as well. The panel of five and the SITE task force are decision-makers who aggregate and assess based on aggregated information that is provided to them, so they are very far from where disinformation and misinformation happen locally.

Canada has 338 ridings right now. There are many communities and ridings that are relatively isolated, perhaps. Steveston—Richmond East, for example, is in the city of Richmond, where the population is more than 55% ethnic Chinese and the other 45% is also composed of multicultural communities. There are ample opportunities for ambitious foreign actors to sway the result and change people's minds.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

If I could, for the last 90 seconds or so, I'll pass it over to my colleague Mr. Brock.

You spoke about attacks on your integrity. Would you be willing to share with the committee some of those personal attacks and what you experienced?

If you can keep it to about 45 seconds, then I'll pass it over to my colleague.

[Kenny Chiu]

Absolutely. Even until recently, when I was summoned to the commission hearing, there was still disinformation being spread on CRTC-regulated airwaves that said I was a liar, that said there was zero proof of the Uyghur genocide that I advocated against, and that said my proposed registry for foreign interference was entirely designed to persecute Chinese people.

These attacks continue. I imagine they are concerned about my running again and, therefore, harming their ability to propagate these attacks.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much for being honest with this committee. I cannot imagine, especially for somebody with your background, the challenges you and your family faced as a result of those attacks.

I'll pass it over to Mr. Brock.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chiu, your experience is extremely disturbing and alarming to parliamentarians and Canadians. I'm very sorry that you experienced the misinformation and disinformation campaign of the PRC and that your own government failed you miserably.

What I'm interested in, though, is more information with respect to the Liberal candidate who won the election. You talked about his amplification of the misinformation and disinformation. Can you give me more examples as to how he did that?

[Kenny Chiu]

From what I've gathered, it was by attending radio interviews and community events where he publicly announced that he was not going to support what he called this “anti-Asian foreign interference registry”. There was zero clarification as to what exactly Bill C-282, which I had proposed, would have done. There was no mention of any country whatsoever. The fact is that it was to inject transparency into political lobbying activities, but these subtleties and intricacies were not clarified during those opportunities. By doing that, and by not helping me to clarify my character, he perpetuated and continued the assassination attempts.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Did that continue for the entire writ process?

[Kenny Chiu]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you.

We have Mr. Fisher for five minutes, and then we have two and half and two and half. Then we're going to switch over to the second panel.

Go ahead, Mr. Fisher.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of our panellists for being here.

Mr. Kalenský, I'm very concerned about how disinformation goes from the dark recesses of the Internet to the mainstream. It starts with a lie, presumably on the Internet. It gets amplified by fake accounts and junk media outlets. Then it becomes a hashtag. Then it becomes a bit more legitimate when ideological news outlets pick it up. Eventually, it lands in mainstream media or in a political party's platform or speeches.

In 2019, when a Syrian family in Halifax died in a very tragic fire, the Prime Minister retweeted my condolence post, and all of a sudden, my social media blew up with racist conspiracy theories and hate about this family and this tragic occurrence. Clearly, bad actors and bots descended on the story and spread hateful disinformation.

It makes me think about Alex Jones leading a campaign in America to dismiss the slaughter of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He claimed that it was staged and that grieving parents were actors. Memorial pages for the young children who were killed were inundated with vitriol towards the parents and mourners.

He recently said that he knew what he was saying wasn't true; however, and this is shocking, in 2022 a poll in The Economist found that almost 20% of Americans believed that mass shootings like the Sandy Hook massacre had been staged to support gun control.

Mr. Kalenský, how does this happen? How does something like this, a despicable lie from a garbage conspiracy theorist, so fully entrench itself in the minds of mainstream citizens?

[Jakub Kalenský]

I'm afraid I will have trouble fitting the answer in the limited time frame, because this is a very complicated subject.

I cannot tell you what the level of coordination is between Alex Jones and the very big disinformation players, by which I mean mainly Moscow; however, it seems very much like exactly the kind of work that Russia loves to do everywhere in the world. Whenever there was a terrorist attack in Europe, be it Brussels, Paris or London, every time you would see the pro-Russian channels spreading exactly the same: It was staged. It was staged for the purpose of imposing greater control on the population.

What Alex Jones was doing here was basically Russia's work. I don't know whether he was doing it because he was paid for it. I don't know whether he was doing it because he's just a useful idiot abused by Russian disinformers, but he was essentially doing that.

The way these campaigns achieve such a magnificent result is mainly through the sheer numbers. It's not just social media; it's also the traditional media. The Russian state-controlled ecosystem, the proxy ecosystem like Infowars, Breitbart, ZeroHedge and similar outlets are always saying that they are the only independent alternative to the mainstream, but they usually parrot Russian disinformation.

Also, there are local actors who are helping them to amplify this, be they paid agents or not. There's a lot of evidence that Russia pays hundreds of millions annually to cultivate these people to spread their disinformation campaigns: politicians, social media influencers, etc. It might also just be ideological allies; it might be just useful idiots. In certain cases, it might just be cynical individuals who know that they are lying, but it helps them for their political purposes or other goals.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. Chiu, you heard the story about the Halifax family, the Syrian family that passed away. You heard me talk about Alex Jones dismissing the slaughter of children in schools.

Would you accept an endorsement from Alex Jones, or would you reject categorically that endorsement?

[Kenny Chiu]

I'm not fully aware of what he said. In fact, I don't pay much attention to Alex Jones.

The only consideration I have is imagining what would happen if disinformation were being spread on WeChat in a language that is not one of the official languages and what kind of discourse we would have. What kind of response are we going to have?

Parliamentarians won't even be aware of the disinformation and misinformation being spread. That's why I keep saying, on WeChat, on TikTok and on Douyin, that these are platforms that are problematic for us. They are controlled by foreign actors. These are dictatorial regimes that are interested in harming the very peaceful harmony that we have in Canada.