Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 15th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Mrs. Romanado.

Ms. Gaudreau.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I'd like to look to the near future. If you were the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Safety or the Chief of Staff, and there were only a few days remaining before the end of the parliamentary session, what would you do right now, for the future?

[Michel Juneau-Katsuya]

There isn't much time left, but we need to prepare right now to enact a foreign interference act. One of the major problems at the moment for the law enforcement authorities is that it's difficult to investigate these matters and to prosecute those responsible for their wrongdoing. That's because the Criminal Code and the Privacy Act are not giving us enough protection. There are provisions on economic and industrial espionage, and other things of that nature, but for foreign interference, by which I mean intimidating communities and recruiting politicians to work with them, we need legislation of the kind they have in Australia, the U.K. and the United States.

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

So to begin with, something has to be done from the legislative standpoint.

Mr. Jean, do you have another suggestion?

[Daniel Jean]

I fully agree. I believe we have to go beyond partisanship. There's a process to follow, and the parties are going to agree on it, but we need to fine-tune our instruments, and hence our statutes, like the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, sanctions for foreign interference, the registry, etc. Something has to be done on that side of things. That's exactly what the Australians did.

In 2017, the Australians were at their wits' end over the matter of foreign interference. They called upon a journalist who was an expert on China, John Garnaut. He went to Australia and worked with the Australian equivalent of CSIS, and produced a report. It was classified secret, but it's what led to all the measures taken by the Australians, whether their policies, their registry of foreign agents, their stiffer sanctions for foreign interference, and their measures to protect elected representatives. What we need, then, is a good strategy to deal with all these factors, and I think we have the means to get the job done.

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

It's something that could be done at the same time.

[Daniel Jean]

Yes, it has to be done at the same time, otherwise—

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

We can walk and chew gum at the same time, because we're asking for an independent public inquiry. We are here, on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. It's not a commission of inquiry.

Do you agree that a public inquiry is essential?

[Michel Juneau-Katsuya]

Yes, it has become essential because the people of Canada need to have clear measures and to see that its government is taking the problem seriously. As Mr. Jean just said, all the parties have to work together to deal with this problem, which is now affecting the security of all Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Madam Blaney.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm going to come back to Mr. Juneau-Katsuya.

I'm curious. When you were here back in May, you talked about the chain of command being a roadblock and how CSIS and RCMP reporting goes directly to the PM. Often, that's where the roadblock is. I think of the issues for members of Parliament, the realities of foreign interference and what that means for both themselves and their loved ones. I look at the diaspora community, what their needs are and the fact that we've heard a lot of testimony from people coming forward to talk about specific activities they've identified that they're very concerned about. They are often coming forward at great risk to themselves and their loved ones.

It gets stuck along the way. I am wondering whether you could talk a little about what this blockage is and how we can get to resolving it. Is that part of your vision around the foreign interference act, for example?

[Michel Juneau-Katsuya]

The foreign interference act is definitely an important element that needs to be given to law enforcement so they are capable of working on this.

Your question has several layers to answer.

When we talk about the community, it is our responsibility to protect the community. It is a responsibility of law enforcement, particularly the RCMP, to be capable of getting into the community, receiving grievances from the community, and addressing and hopefully neutralizing the overt actions against the community.

When it comes to the political process, the electoral process, being tackled, we also need to be capable of warning, as soon as possible, anybody who might be targeted because they are opposed to the vision of China. Let's not forget that China recruited some politicians. China recruited some people who now work on behalf of China. They are elected officials. We talk about the ones who are targeted, but we should also be talking about the ones who have been recruited intentionally—consciously or unconsciously—as what we call a “useful idiot”. We have to wake up a little here, on that notion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I have four or five minutes, so I want to put a motion on notice, then use the balance of my time, if there is any, to ask a question of Mr. Jean.

The motion I am putting on notice, which I think can be taken up—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I'm going to pause quickly.

Is there any way of our getting that in both official languages?

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

It's very short. I'm going to read it into the record and it will be distributed—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Do the interpreters have it?

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

I believe they do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

That's because we know it's the normal practice. The last time, I kind of let it happen, and then I got concerns raised to me. To keep us moving and knowing that we're close...I'm going to let you do this a second time. In future, I would like you to know that I need a copy to be given to the interpreters and we need it in both official languages.

I'm putting that on the record. Just because Mr. Cooper got to do it twice doesn't mean everybody else will. The expectation is this: If we're giving notice of a motion in this committee, I need it in both official languages and I would like the interpreters to have it.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

The motion reads as follows:

That the committee invite Zita Astravas, Chief of Staff to the Minister of Emergency Preparedness, to appear on her own for two hours, and that she be scheduled to appear within seven days.

Minister Blair, I believe, misled this committee when he, in answer to questions around the IMU concerning MP Chong and his family, not only said that he had not received the IMU, but made the patently absurd claim that CSIS had made an operational decision not to inform him about MP Chong and the fact that he and his family were being targeted by the Beijing regime.

Minister Blair's testimony was contradicted by the director of CSIS, who said, in fact, that no such operational decision had been made. On the contrary, that information had been sent up in the form of an IMU because the fact that the Beijing regime was targeting MP Chong was a matter of particular concern.

On that basis, I think it's appropriate that the chief of staff come before our committee to answer questions about what she knows, because in the face of the minister's testimony, it is relevant to hear from her, but also on the basis that she also had received a copy of that very same IMU.

The minister and his chief of staff, I believe, have much to answer for and as a starting point we should hear from Ms. Astravas.

Now, turning to Mr. Jean, through you, Madam Chair, in your opening remarks you spoke about the Australian model. I would note that Australia has criminalized assisting a foreign intelligence service, something that Canada does not have. Do you think that such a step would be helpful in countering foreign interference?

I will give you the balance of my time to elaborate on some of the points you wish to make about the Australian model.

[Daniel Jean]

I think there definitely need to be real deterrents, whether it's through criminalization or some other penalty that you have if you are involved in foreign interference.

When I speak about 2017 and how deeply they were in foreign interference, there was a senator who had allegedly shared classified information with China. They had all kinds of concerns of that nature.

If we're going to have a foreign registry, that's one thing, because a foreign registry will be good for the people who, because of their occupations—lawyers and people like that—will want to comply with the law. As long as there are not huge exemptions, as there are in other things, it will have some effectiveness so people will comply with the law.

There are people who will choose not to comply with the law. They need to be deterred and deterrence means penalties, whether it's criminal, whether it's monetary, but there need to be real deterrents. That's crucial.

You definitely need to do something about providing more ability. On problem number one with the surveillance and intimidation of the diaspora, I was really happy to hear the RCMP testimony this week. We need to work with the communities so that they feel confident they can come forward. Then when people are taking action and they are trying to intimidate people in the community, there should be actions taken against them. That's critical.

In the last couple of years in the work I do, I meet a lot of young Chinese people who say that their parents are dissidents. Their parents say, “I'm scared of what you're doing because either our family back home or we will be intimidated.” We need to be able to create space for Canadians who are harassed and intimidated to be able to come forward.

There are a number of measures and, as I said, I have a document that I would be happy to share with the committee. To me, yes, you're trying to shed more light on this, but please, to all parties, go above partisanship and focus on a strategy that can undermine foreign interference. It is in our national interest.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Excellent. I am going to thank you. You had seven seconds left to being completed in five minutes, but my sheet shows that more than seven extra seconds were provided.

I'll go with five minutes to Mr. Noormohamed and that will bring us to the end of today's meeting.

Mr. Noormohamed.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being with us.

I am going to ask one question and then give the rest of my time to Mr. Fergus.

At the ethics committee on June 2, Dean Baxendale, who is the chief executive officer of the China Democracy Fund, testified. He said:

Under the Harper government, a number of MOUs were entered into directly with the RCMP. This allowed some 25 China communist agents—we'll call them “policing agents”—to enter the country to look at repatriating supposed criminals from Canada. A number of them were deported during that period of time—about 290.

I think it's a safe assumption to make that these MOUs have encouraged this practice of policing or intimidating the Chinese community by folks coming from outside.

In your opinion, Monsieur Juneau-Katsuya, had the Harper government taken the consequences of this more seriously where would we be today? Would we be in a different place?

[Michel Juneau-Katsuya]

Definitely. When we allow the collaboration with the police in that perspective, we send the wrong message to the community. That's unavoidable.

From that perspective also, we know for a fact that during their stay, some of those Chinese police officers went into doing covert meetings with people. They were not supposed to be doing that. It was reported back to the Minister of Public Safety and back in China through our ambassador and everything.

It is a good example of the misguided policy or misguided decisions that are definitely questionable in terms of why we did such a thing. What was the gain for our nation to allow that kind of pursuit by the authorities when we can question the original intention of their pursuit? It was the same thing when certain companies were authorized to be bought by the Chinese here in Canada. That was given by many different prime ministers before.

We have a process with the Department of Industry to allow for national security to prevent the sale of certain assets. Unfortunately, it's not used enough, to my point.

[Taleeb Noormohamed, Liberal, Vancouver Granville, BC]

Thank you.

I yield the rest of my time to Mr. Fergus.