Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 25th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Mr. Fergus, you have the floor for five minutes.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd also like to thank the witnesses who are with us today. What they have to say is very interesting.

Mr. Ishmael, first of all, I'd like to express my gratitude for the important work you do.

I'd like us to talk about what happened during the 2021 election.

We've heard allegations by the Conservative party that attempts at foreign interference swung ridings in the last election, particularly in the GTA and British Columbia. I'll get to that in a minute.

I think it's important first for members to recall that members of the panel who were responsible for alerting Canadians in the event of an incident that threatened the integrity of our elections confirmed to our committee that, if there had been an incident at the riding level that met the threshold, they would have alerted Canadians. As you know, that didn't happen.

We also heard from NSIRA that there were issues and concerns brought forward by the Conservative Party and that these were responded to thoroughly and that the intelligence did not support the information and the allegations that were made.

Now that I've gotten that on the record, I have my own thoughts on this matter of how all this came about, but I would like to hear your views on the information that had been brought forward to the committee that you were a part of in 2021 and how they were dealt with.

[Azam Ishmael]

I appreciate your appreciating our work.

Could you just clarify the question?

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I'd like to know your views on the matter in terms of how, when issues were brought forward to the committee that you were on, the national security committee, how they were dealt with.

[Azam Ishmael]

I'm guessing that it's in regard to the briefing that we received in 2021.

The matters that were brought to the committee or to me were taken back to the campaign office, and then I discussed them with two senior campaign staff.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Regarding any concerns that were brought forward about foreign interference, if they had been brought forward and you were made aware of them, did you feel that the intelligence bodies had dealt with them in an appropriate manner?

[Azam Ishmael]

That's an interesting question. It would be hard for me to confirm or deny anything that happened in the briefing without sharing that more broadly, but I would say that my interactions with the security establishment has only led to a further appreciation of the work they do and the challenging environment they operate in, because, as you can imagine, it's not easy work for them.

I would say that generally all our interactions were quite positive.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Broadhurst, do you have anything else to add?

[Jeremy Broadhurst]

It is difficult to sort of get at how I would talk without referring to the specific content of it, but I would agree largely with what Mr. Ishmael said.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

For either witness, I would like to talk about the steps that parties have taken to counter foreign interference. Given that so much of the work of the parties is online nowadays, can you speak to the measures that have been taken to bolster party cybersecurity?

[Azam Ishmael]

Without going into what is probably very sensitive details of our cybersecurity, I would say as a general matter that it is something that's reviewed on a regular basis with cybersecurity experts. We often bring in people with experience in breaches and leaks to talk with us as to what the best practices are. We ensure that our systems are secure, but we also do simple things like two-factor authentication. That seems obvious nowadays, but not everybody does it. There are more complex technical matters that I'm not really qualified to speak about because I don't fully understand them, but there are investments in firewalls, password protection and things like that.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Let me get back to my first question that I'd asked. Look—

Oh. It's five minutes, not six. I'm sorry—my mistake.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I'm sorry, too, but with that, our time is limited.

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

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Broadhurst, along the same lines, I'd like to talk to you about the way intelligence agencies provide you with information.

Were you simply provided with a set of raw data that you could analyze at your leisure, from which you could draw your own conclusions? Were you presented with the conclusion that a nominee’s candidacy was compromised? Did you get an explanation of how that conclusion was drawn?

[Jeremy Broadhurst]

Thank you for the question, which I will answer in English.

It's hard to give a generalization based on such a small sample size of occurrences of what happens, but we have seen information provided that is—

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Madam Chair, I raise a point of order.

I'm sorry to interrupt the witness, but there's no interpretation right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I will stop the timer.

Do we have interpretation now? Is it working?

Please continue.

[Jeremy Broadhurst]

Azam was present on the briefings as well, so I might turn to him to give you some concrete evidence, but you aren't looking at raw data and asked to come to your own conclusion. You're given a synopsis of information, but the conclusions—I can speak to this from the government side—are rarely concrete, right? It's often that “here's what we know and here's what we don't know”. That leaves gaps for people to decide what's the calibre of the information you have, but it's important for it to be shared so that you're not in the dark about it.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

After receiving the information in the form of raw data, who has the final word on the conclusion to be drawn from it? Is it intelligence agencies, or the person who receives the information? That would be you, in this case.

[Jeremy Broadhurst]

In my experience with it, rarely will intelligence agencies come with a conclusion that says, “This is concrete evidence of a fully formed plan of foreign interference.” They responsibly try to not make those types of conclusions. They just say, “here's what we know”, in terms of whether it's conversations that may have taken place or actions taken, but they don't necessarily speak to motive and conclusions if they don't know it for sure.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Did you get an explanation of the credibility level of the information sent to you? For example, were you told that some information seemed credible enough and some less so?

Is there any preliminary information analysis?

[Jeremy Broadhurst]

It's a difficult question, because there are different situations. I would cite David Morrison, who came before this committee and talked about how each piece of intelligence is part of the picture, and conclusions are reached in looking at the whole piece. Necessarily, what information is being provided to parties during an election campaign isn't going to be the entire picture, but it is enough to provide the party with the information that they need to be vigilant themselves.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Mrs. Blaney, you have two minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'll try again and, hopefully, do a better job of asking. I think it was clear, but there you go.

For my next question, we know the reality is that foreign interference in the elections period is changing very rapidly. Based on your testimony today, I hear the complexity of trying to gather information and to see a clear picture when things are not very clear.

I'm curious as to what internally has changed over this period of time in terms of how you talk to your campaigns. Has anything changed about how you do things in your campaigns in acknowledging that foreign interference could have an impact and in trying to find ways to address that pre-emptively?

[Azam Ishmael]

As the conversation has matured, which is maybe the right description of it.... The first time I thought about it, I thought about this uniquely in a cybersecurity setting, because that's what was garnering headlines around the world or the conversation that's going on around the world and how that's being changed.

I think it's how we talk to candidates about simple training, such as two-factor authentication, and also to say, “Hey, watch out for this” or “Be mindful of these types of things.” If somebody raises an issue, then they'll say something like, “Oh, hey, this might have happened to us” or “This is an anomaly.” Then maybe you want to dig one step deeper in the conversation as to what is driving that anomaly. So it's about being more mindful of the anomalies.

It falls more on the side of the staff, who are just dealing with it all of the time, versus the candidate. As you may know, some candidates are nominated into the campaign. During the first week of the campaign, there's a lot coming at them. The more permanent establishment of the party is more aware of the potential threats.