Evidence of meeting #72 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was campaign.
A video is available from Parliament.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
I'm going to pick up on that, because I think it is this committee's responsibility to provide sound governance recommendations and legislative changes based on your testimony as subject matter experts.
Mr. Juneau, you wrote the book, Intelligence Analysis and Policy Making: The Canadian Experience. In it you covered some recommendations on ways we can support our security apparatus.
I'll share with you that I co-chaired the Emergencies Act review committee. In that process, we witnessed during the insurrectionist occupation of Ottawa tens of millions of dollars flooding into the hands of people who were intent on disrupting our democracy. There seemed to be a pretty clear breakdown from our intelligence apparatus and our frontline law enforcement. The Rouleau commission provided an opportunity for a very thoughtful and thorough analysis, not just on the use of the Emergencies Act but on the preconditions and the failures.
Is it your opinion that for this particular allegation of Chinese foreign interference, an independent public inquiry might be the best non-partisan space to get facts that could be helpful in determining the extent and scope of this? To this moment we've only heard about Mr. Chong, but I understand there could be 10 more members. Would you be supportive of an independent public inquiry?
11:50 a.m.
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Thank you. I would just like to point out that I co-wrote the book you mentioned with a colleague, Stephanie Carvin, from Carleton.
On the issue of a public inquiry, I am honestly not convinced that it is the best way to go. I find that right now we have NSICOP, NSIRA, you and Elections Canada. We have a variety. Others—the RCMP and CSIS—have their own ways of dealing with some of this. The independent special rapporteur will have his own recommendations. I am not convinced that the value added, on top of all that, by an independent public inquiry—which would take a lot of time, cost money and drain a lot resources—would really bring more than a marginal value to everything we already have.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Is it your testimony here today that NSIRA and NSICOP could adequately deal with the allegations that have been made and provide adequate legislative frameworks in a minority government, where we could have an election within a year? Speaking of timelines, do you think that's adequate?
11:50 a.m.
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
NSIRA, NSICOP and the others going on.... Again, if you look at the record of NSIRA and NSICOP and read the reports, they are very good. They are independent. They are critical—
11:50 a.m.
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
They're not binding. That is a problem. I would agree with that.
11:50 a.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
Just to reiterate it and put it on the record here today, would it be your recommendation to this committee in this study that we provide a binding feature within those bodies to force government into legislation? In previous testimony, we were told CSIS only has to advise government. We were also told by the subject matter experts that every prime minister has been told, for the past 30 years, that this has been a problem, yet they've done nothing.
How do we have an independent, non-partisan, rights-based approach to this that doesn't weigh the economic interests of foreign trade with democracy domestically?
11:55 a.m.
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
As a small point of clarification, I do not agree with the statement that was made earlier and elsewhere that governments have done nothing to counter foreign interference. I certainly agree and have written that they haven't done enough, the current government and its predecessors. To say that they have done nothing, frankly, simply doesn't work.
On the issue of it being binding, I would agree with changes, for example, to NSICOP's mandate to make it a parliamentary committee, and what I mentioned in answer to a previous question is that the government has to respond to these reports. On making the recommendations binding, I am honestly not sure, from a technical perspective, how that would work, so I'm reluctant to say anything definitive on that.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
Matthew Green NDP Hamilton Centre, ON
I will share with you, quite frankly, that my concern in these very hyperpartisan times is that often the outcomes are lost. What is present in these partisan debates—and we hear it sometimes in testimony from witnesses—is chasing the ambulance of whatever crisis is in the moment without any clear reflective legislative changes. Sometimes it appears, between government and opposition, that there isn't necessarily a willingness to improve and strengthen legislation.
You've talked about greater transparency. We have a government that uses client-solicitor privilege, cabinet confidence, secret orders in council and obstruction in the production of documents at every parliamentary step along the way, and I think we can all agree that democracy is fragile globally. Right now we're in a bit of a crisis, given the allegations that are there, the deepening cynicism and the lack of participation in our elections.
Without putting all this on your shoulders, are there maybe three high-level recommendations that you think in the short term would help us address the cynicism coming out of this particular study and provide some legislative remedy?
11:55 a.m.
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Sure. I think I mentioned a lot of them in my presentation: more transparency generally, better engagement with parliamentarians, better engagement with civil society and, specifically on foreign interference, better engagement with diaspora communities. That goes through the creation of engagement units. These already exist within CSE and CSIS in particular. They actually do quite a good job, but I think they're too small, so broaden and deepen their scope and resources. On NSICOP, have government respond, and transform NSICOP into a parliamentary committee. I could go on.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Thank you. Just to get us to the top of the hour, we'll do one question for the Conservatives and one for the Liberals.
Go ahead, Mr. Calkins.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Given that I only have the opportunity to ask one question....
Mr. Leuprecht, in your opening remarks, you suggested that the Prime Minister may have misled Parliament. Would you give us the context in which you believe that the Prime Minister may have misled Parliament?
11:55 a.m.
Professor, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual
I believe that statements made over recent days and the way some of the communication has shifted with regard to Member Chong are highly problematic, and that in itself I think is reason to understand that, as I've reinforced, the legislative framework in place in our national security posture is insufficiently robust.
Many of these problems could be solved by an Australian approach that has an automatic five-year review built in. Our last systematic review of our national security framework, if you like, goes back to 1981 and the McDonald commission. Clearly, we need a more systematic approach.
It is not clear to me whether the Prime Minister's statements were with intent or were simply a function of the best information available at the time, but it clearly shows that in terms of inter-ministerial responsibility, there are some challenges in coordination between the Prime Minister and his own department and the statements that he subsequently has made on the matter.
May 11th, 2023 / 11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Going to Ms. Nancy Bangsboll, you mentioned at the beginning of your testimony that you do research. I wasn't able to find any articles.... It doesn't have to be books or anything like that, but I wasn't able to find anywhere where your research has landed and then been published. I was wondering if first you could explain where your research ends up.
My second question is, are you a member of the Conservative Party and are you a donor to the Conservative Party of Canada?
Noon
Independent Researcher, As an Individual
The reason you won't see anything published by me is that I don't publish. I share my research with individuals who do publish. I've done that deliberately for many years because I don't like the negative attention that you receive from individuals and organizations that don't want to be exposed. I've had no interest in exposing myself to that, but my research has been used by others.
What was your second...? Yes, I am a member of the Conservative Party.
Noon
Liberal
Noon
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Thank you for at least coming out publicly before this committee today. I'd love to learn more about your research in the future.
Noon
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
That's excellent. That actually landed perfectly at one minute and 28 seconds.
With that, on behalf of the PROC committee members, I would like to thank all of you for joining us here at committee. Thank you for the work you do.
If you have anything else you would like committee members to consider, please send it to the clerk. We will have it put into both official languages and shared with committee members.
With that, we wish you a good rest of the day.
The meeting is suspended until we come to our third panel.
12:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Good afternoon. I call the meeting back to order.
In our next panel, we have Ms. Jenni Byrne.
Ms. Byrne, you will have up to 10 minutes for your opening comments.
Welcome to PROC.
12:05 p.m.
Jenni Byrne As an Individual
That's perfect. Thank you.
Thank you very much for inviting me here today. The committee and the work you are doing are critical to protecting Canadian democracy, and there's no way around it. The facts that have come to light so far are extremely troubling. It is the most basic responsibility of the government to protect Canadians and our democracy from foreign interference, and it is increasingly clear that the government has completely failed in this responsibility, leaving our country vulnerable to hostile foreign actors. We now know, thanks to patriotic Canadians who are willing to ring alarm bells in public, that this government has been systematically turning a blind eye to illegal foreign interference from Beijing.
New evidence of this country's cavalier attitude and wilful blindness towards Beijing's interference in our country's electoral system seems to emerge every week if not every day. This government has been aware for at least two years that a PRC diplomat was targeting the family of Conservative MP Michael Chong in Hong Kong in an effort to silence him.
This is a genuinely shocking revelation and one that raises extremely serious questions about this government. Any intimidation of Canadians, whether directly or through their family members, by a foreign government is wrong, and in this case Beijing was specifically targeting an elected MP for the principled and courageous position he has taken in condemning Beijing's human rights abuses.
That kind of direct interference in our electoral system cannot be tolerated, but what did this government do to protect Canadians or MP Chong? They did nothing. They didn't expel the diplomat or protest to Beijing until they were forced to by incessant questioning from the Conservative Party. They didn't even tell Mr. Chong at all about what they knew was happening to his family until there were media reports.
Sadly, this approach of turning a blind eye has been the government's standard way of addressing this extremely serious issue. The government's silence has left Canadians and their family members overseas more vulnerable than ever to foreign interference activities, and their indifference has undermined our democracy.
Instead of doing their job and protecting Canadians, especially members of Canada's Chinese community who are the primary victims and targets of Beijing's interference efforts, the Liberals have spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort trying to stop any independent investigation into foreign interference from moving forward at all. They only gave in and allowed these hearings when the NDP, their coalition partner, finally forced them to. Since then, we've heard disturbing allegations in connection with the Trudeau Foundation.
Dr. Pascale Fournier, the former president and CEO of the Trudeau Foundation, raised the alarm over a donation that the Trudeau Foundation received from Beijing around the time that Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister, before Xi became president. Astoundingly, Trudeau even appointed the president and CEO of the Trudeau Foundation at the time of this donation to author a report on foreign influence in the last election. It is clear that the point of this donation by a billionaire with ties to Beijing was to try to influence the Prime Minister.
Dr. Fournier said there was evidence that members of the foundation's board worked with the donor to hide the true source of the funds. She also said she believed an independent investigation was needed but that the board members with deep ties to the Trudeau family refused. She resigned, but some of those board members remain in place. It has since been reported that foreign donations to the Trudeau Foundation increased by 10 times around the time Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister, and this while the Prime Minister's brother was an active member of the Trudeau Foundation.
All of these attempts at foreign influence are concerning.
Even more concerning is the government's obvious desire to sweep them under the rug. The Prime Minister couldn't even bring himself to call for an independent investigation into the problem. Instead, he appointed an old family friend, who also happened to be a member of the Trudeau Foundation, to look into the idea for him. It has become clear that this government does not take the threat of foreign interference in our political system seriously. If they did, they would be doing something about it. They would be trying to get to the bottom of these allegations.
Instead, they are fighting at every step to shut down hearings and delay investigations. It often seems as though this government and its friends are angrier at the whistle-blowers and the journalists who are reporting on foreign interference than they are about the serious threat to our democracy that this foreign interference poses.
As someone who's been involved in Canadian politics for more than two decades and who believes strongly in protecting our democratic rights and freedoms, I'm glad the Liberals finally were forced into taking a serious look at this issue, even if they had to be dragged here kicking and screaming.
I look forward to answering your questions.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Thank you for your comments.
We will now start the six-minute rounds, starting with Mr. Cooper.
Mr. Cooper, you have the floor.