Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 25th, 2023

[Fred DeLorey]

I think that's accurate, from what I was debriefed on.

Again, we were told later that there were legislative gaps. It seemed to be that people don't know what to do with the information. This is a new process that was just created recently. It seems, to Mr. Marshall's point, that these entities don't understand political parties or campaigns.

It's similar to Elections Canada. You're all members of Parliament. You all deal with Elections Canada. No one at Elections Canada actually knows how campaigns work, which always causes major issues. That's going to be the same thing here until we get this ironed out.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Walied Soliman, who was one of our party's representatives and who had a security clearance, tweeted the following: “After the election and before the new government was sworn in, we spent more time providing everything we had to the Task Force and appropriate security channels. We were met with shrugged shoulders and complete ambivalence. It was truly unreal.”

I know you can't speak for Mr. Soliman, but you were the campaign manager, so surely you were involved in some discussions.

Would you agree with Mr. Soliman's assessment and can you elaborate on some of the issues and challenges that were faced following the election campaign when the campaign was providing tangible information to the task force?

[Fred DeLorey]

Well, I would of course [Inaudible—Editor] one who briefed me as well. He was one of our representatives on the task force, so the information flowed through him.

I would concur that's what happened.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

You cited legislative gaps. What are those legislative gaps?

[Fred DeLorey]

It has not been made clear what those are.

I have my own opinions on what we can do, but the task force did not say what the gaps are.

We can assume there seems to be a lack of communication between authorities. There are a lot of different things that need to be ironed out here and investigated further on what the mechanism is and what these entities do when they get information.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Morris Rosenberg, in his report on the 2021 critical election incident public protocol, states the following on page 39, regarding briefings to political parties by SITE task force representatives: “The party representatives were pleased with the thoroughness of the briefings and the openness of the NSA representatives.”

Again, recognizing that you weren't there for the briefings, but from everything you know about the information that was provided, I take it that does not accurately reflect the experience of the Conservative campaign of the 2021 election.

[Fred DeLorey]

I believe that would be an inaccurate statement that he made in that report.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Through you, Madam Chair, you said that you have certain opinions or observations regarding legislative gaps or other issues.

Could you elaborate on that?

[Fred DeLorey]

I think there is an opportunity here for this committee and NSICOP to work together on trying to find out what these actual issues are and get to the crux of it. I know we're spending a lot of time trying to find out who knew what, when and where.

I feel that a lot of effort, as legislators, should be going into putting together legislation to plug these holes. We're all under threat here. All parties could be impacted by this in the next election. It could come from different entities or different countries and I really wish we could see a more collaborative approach to really drill down on what the issues are and how we can solve them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being here today.

Mr. DeLorey, I'll start with you.

In a recent interview with David Herle you had mentioned—and you've mentioned this today in your opening remarks—that there were unclaimed, anonymous ads attacking Erin O'Toole in the last election. You said “this was all passed along to the task force”, which I think implies that during the election, you or someone from your party passed along those complaints to the SITE task force at the time.

Is that right?

[Fred DeLorey]

That's correct.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

My understanding is that the complaints about political ads that are not identified should also be made clear to the commissioner of Elections Canada. Did you report it to the commissioner?

[Fred DeLorey]

I don't know if that was reported to the commissioner by local campaigns. They tend to deal with those more first-hand than the national campaigns when you see different, unauthorized tags on literature, mail-outs or advertisements.

Because it appeared to be part of the foreign interference, the decision was to send it through to the task force.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

It's interesting that you should say that, because when Jody Thomas was here at the committee, she said:

Again, I was not on the task force or the panel at that time. We have very clear documentation from that representative of that political party

—she was referring to the complaints that were made— asking questions and stating concerns, along with a very detailed response back to him on or about October 22, 2021, indicating that the allegations were being taken very seriously but that we did not see evidence in the intelligence to support the claims....

Now, there have been claims since then, and we're reviewing that information to understand the full picture as broadly as possible....

I think what we heard from Jody Thomas was that there was not an ability to identify whether the ads, etc., and interference were coming from a foreign source.

Is that what your understanding is?

[Fred DeLorey]

I don't know what decisions she made or what criteria they looked at to determine that. I think part of the legislative gaps that we have is that we can't drill into this. We need to be able to ensure that we have the tools to look into this.

If we can't determine where it comes from, we have a problem.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

In a recent Toronto Star article, you definitely extolled the benefits of NSICOP's looking into these matters. Would you say that is the most appropriate forum?

[Fred DeLorey]

Absolutely. I maintain that view.

I think NSICOP is a very legitimate committee. It has all-party representation, and I think it could really drill into this and....

I am really concerned about the next election, not the past one. I would obviously love to redo the past one and try to win it again, but that's not going to happen. Let's worry about the next one and what we could do to ensure that we—

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

You also wrote this, in a Toronto Star article:

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.

Do you still stand by that claim? Those are your words from that article.

[Fred DeLorey]

Yes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Okay. Great.

I note that you used the phrase “without a shadow of a doubt”, which sounds like you're very certain. What gives you that level of confidence?

[Fred DeLorey]

Based on what we saw, there seems to be a concern that there may have been possible foreign interference. However, if you look at the seat difference between us and the Liberals, if you change every seat that could be up in the air, the Liberals are still the government.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I have one more question, hopefully.

We know that the Conservative Party registered these complaints with the SITE task force, as you mentioned in your opening remarks.

We know that the national security and intelligence adviser testified that the registered Conservative Party of Canada liaison, who I understand was Walied Soliman—who's not here today and, unfortunately, can't confirm or deny this—was sent “a very detailed response back to him on or about October 22, 2021”, and that “he was given a very thorough response at the time.”

Can you confirm that the Conservative Party of Canada received this response that Jody Thomas referred to in her testimony?

[Fred DeLorey]

I cannot confirm that.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Would Walied Soliman be able to confirm that?