Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 27th, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 15 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3), the committee is meeting on its study of foreign election interference. We will go in camera at 12:30 to consider a draft report titled “Forms and Procedural and Interpretative Guidelines from the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner”. It's an excitingly titled report.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Before I continue, I would ask all in-person participants to consult the guidelines. They are, of course, on the cards on the table. There is a short video; please watch it. All this is for the health and safety of everyone here, especially our interpreters.

I will remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair.

If there are members on Zoom—which I don't believe there are—please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can.

I would like to welcome today's panel. We have Charles Burton, senior fellow at Sinopsis; Emerson T. Brooking, director of strategy and resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council; Aaron Shull, managing director and general counsel at the Centre for International Governance Innovation; and Aengus Bridgman, director of the Media Ecosystem Observatory.

Each witness will have five minutes to make their opening statement.

We'll start with Mr. Burton, please.

[Charles Burton, Senior Fellow, Sinopsis, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I've been asked to focus my presentation on the implementation of the foreign influence transparency registry. This is a subject I've covered extensively—from my June 2015 Globe and Mail piece, “The murky world of Chinese influence”, to five commissioned reports for global think tanks since 2017. More recently, I've detailed these issues in my book, released last month, entitled The Beaver and the Dragon: How China Out-Manoeuvred Canada's Diplomacy, Security, and Sovereignty.

Civil society groups, particularly the Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project and the Canada Tibet Committee, have long lobbied for this registry. They viewed Australia's Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act 2018 as the model for what Canada could do, but the stakes are personal. Last December, Beijing sanctioned 20 Canadians associated with these groups, including me.

When Bill C-70 passed in June 2024, our reaction was enthusiastic. The Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China, chaired by Alex Neve and Cheuk Kwan, and the Canadian coalition for a foreign influence transparency registry, led by Gloria Fung, engaged constructively with Public Safety Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

I'm sorry to interrupt you. When you're moving your papers, watch that you don't hit the mic. It really affects the interpreters, who are listening.

Thank you so much.

[Charles Burton]

Early meetings with associate assistant deputy minister Sébastien Aubertin-Giguère regarding the legislation were promising.

We expected a commissioner to be appointed rapidly via an order in council to begin the work of interpretation and implementation. We thought this would happen in the fall of 2024. Public Safety assured us that the registry would be operational by June 2025, a year after the law was passed unanimously in the House of Commons.

Instead, no commissioner was named in the fall of 2024. A year later, in August 2025, the Minister of Public Safety indicated that an appointment would be announced in September. That didn't happen either. We're now hearing that an appointment may occur before Parliament's winter break.

Recent briefings by Public Safety suggest a troubling shift. The commissioner may not have the kind of independence from the minister described in the legislation, Bill C-70, that would make it fully effective. We fear that the government will avoid making the strong senior appointment this role demands. I hope I'm proven wrong about that.

For the coalitions I work with, these unexplained delays feel like cynical stakeholder management rather than sincere consultation with Canadian Chinese and other stakeholders. There is growing sentiment in these groups and in the Chinese Canadian community in general that the government is cavalier about the impact of foreign interference on diaspora communities. The concern is that institutional resistance—or murky forces within the establishment—is stalling the registry. It appears that some current and former members of Canada's political elite fear transparency, lest it expose how they've been induced to serve a foreign state's agenda against the interests of Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

We'll go to Mr. Shull next.

[Aaron Shull, Managing Director and General Counsel, Centre for International Governance Innovation]

Thank you, Chair, and members of the committee.

I'm going to focus my remarks on three things: first, the threat environment that led us to this moment and discussion; second, the core features of the made-in-Canada registry model; and third—probably most important for what I'm going to recommend that you focus on—key considerations for an effective, fair and timely implementation of the registry.

What led us here? I don't need to tell anyone in this room that there's mounting evidence of foreign interference, covert efforts to influence elections, intimidation and harassment of members of Parliament and diaspora communities, and covert funding networks and pressure campaigns. These are deceptive, coercive and covert activities done by foreign states and their proxies in Canada. To be clear, this is distinct from legitimate and open engagement, normal diplomacy, transparent lobbying and advocacy that's identified and accountable.

The central problem is not, therefore, foreign engagement per se, but foreign engagement that is covert, deceptive or coercive, and this is what the registry is designed to catch. The point is this: If you are acting in Canada at the direction of a foreign state to influence our political or government processes, the public has a right to know.

What are the core features of the made-in-Canada model? You addressed this in Bill C-70, and I thought you did a good job. There are three important features that I would call your attention to: one, a broad scope; two, an independent commissioner; and three, strong penalties.

The broad scope is that, if a person or entity in Canada enters into an arrangement with a foreign principal and carries out specified activities, they have to register. This is intended to capture both direct lobbying of public officials and indirect influence campaigns, which Justice Hogue specified, in her lengthy report, as one of the big areas. It's about closing gaps in Canadian law, so that's great.

The independent commissioner would administer the registry, issue guidance, conduct investigations, impose administrative monetary penalties and refer serious matters for criminal enforcement. This arm's-length model is a good one, and I testified on Bill C-70 a couple of times.

The strong compliance tools are administrative monetary penalties and criminal offences. The penalties for the criminal offences are no joke. They're not symbolic. The registry is designed to have real consequences for those who deliberately conceal foreign interference.

Now I'll go to the important parts for this committee: the implementation status and the practical challenges. Parliament provided a strong legislative framework, but the challenge is this: How do you implement it effectively?

I think there are a couple of key tasks you should focus on. Watch the establishment of the office of the commissioner to make sure they have sufficient resources, investigative capacity and technical support, and to make sure the regulations are finalized. How will things be reported? What exemptions exist? How will penalties operate in practice? Build a secure and user-friendly online registry for filing and public search, and then develop information-sharing practices among the commissioner, intelligence agencies and law enforcement.

I would recommend that you, first, clarify and make sure there's simplicity of obligations. Potential registrants need to understand, in super plain language, who has to register, what counts as an arrangement, what activities trigger registration and when and how to file. There must be clear statutory guidance, detailed regulation and practical examples.

Second, protect rights and avoid stigmatization. Many diaspora communities are both targets and victims of foreign interference, so make sure the registry is implemented in a way that focuses on behaviour and transparency, not ethnicity or origin, includes ongoing outreach to affected communities and provides clear avenues for questions, corrections and redress if people feel they've been treated unfairly.

Third, a big one, is to make sure there are adequate resources, staffing and investigative expertise; the ability to work closely—within legal constraints, of course—with CSIS and the RCMP; and clear policies for when to use administrative monetary penalties and when to do criminal referrals.

Last, but certainly not least, monitor the regime. Parliament should treat this regime as a living instrument and review it periodically, adjust the regulations if needed and, if necessary, amend the law to close any loopholes or to respond to evolving foreign threats and interference tactics.

I'd be pleased to answer any of the committee's questions or to assist in any way that supports the effective implementation of this regime.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

We'll now turn to Mr. Brooking for five minutes, please.

[Emerson T. Brooking, Director of Strategy and Resident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council]

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before this committee today regarding the threat of foreign interference in the 2025 federal election. I'm especially pleased to offer my perspective as director of a U.S.-based research centre that counters online foreign interference and someone who has spent years working to uphold Canada's digital sovereignty, most recently as an associate member of the Canadian Digital Media Research Network.

I've overseen several election defence efforts this past year, including in France, Moldova, Poland and the United States. Canada's was unique. Canada is not the nation most targeted by foreign interference, but it has become a clear test bed for AI-enabled manipulation, and it is especially vulnerable to changes in the policies of large social media companies. Rules set in Silicon Valley have a clear and disproportionate effect on the Canadian public.

Let me give you an example. In July, the DFRLab identified 42 AI-generated YouTube channels posing as Canadian news sources and focusing extensively on allegations of voter fraud and especially on Alberta separatism. These channels used low-quality AI imagery, AI voices and AI scripts. One video, titled “Mark Carney Tears Up As Governor General Makes Shocking Ruling On Election Results”, received 220,000 views—a shocking number given the specificity of the topic.

I cannot say that this was a Russian or Chinese network. In fact, given the adjacency of these assets to Canada-related cryptocurrency scams, it may well have been financially motivated. What I am certain of is that this network—and there are many other examples like it—had more impact on Canadian public perception than activity by the Youli-Youmian WeChat account, which was the largest known state influence effort this election cycle, as attributed to them in April by the SITE task force.

Moreover, YouTube was slow to take action against this election delegitimization network and only did so after revising its policies on AI-generated content. It did not take action against this network because of any violation of its election integrity policies, although such a violation had almost certainly occurred.

Other platform policies compound these issues. If you were browsing Facebook in the lead-up to the election, the so-called Meta news blackout would have kept you from finding useful information from the CBC about election safeguards. Instead, you would have found AI-generated slop from the network I just discussed or even more damaging falsehoods. Our study of the spread of another YouTube video on Facebook, which falsely claimed to show Canadian poll workers stealing ballots, created a narrative that bled into X and generated at least 32,000 mentions and 135 million impressions on X between April 27 and April 30.

These were not exactly foreign influence operations. They were certainly the narratives that foreign actors found most compelling and would therefore amplify. Among foreign observers of the election, they also resonated disproportionately with Canadian election watchers in the United States. As this audience engaged with them, the narratives were amplified by algorithms of predominantly U.S.-based social media companies and served to a Canadian public that, in some cases, had been banned from accessing their own news sources.

Finally, because I've spent years studying U.S. election protection systems and Canada's parallel development of the rapid response mechanism and SITE task force, I want to conclude by acknowledging the judicious approach of Canada's election defenders. Even when you've identified clear state-linked activity, it is often the case that acknowledgement of that activity can have a worse impact on public confidence than the activity itself.

I believe that Canada's approach to public disclosures in 2025 compared favourably to that of the United States in 2024. Emerging election defence efforts in the European Union under the democracy shield would do well to look to Canada's example.

Thank you again for the opportunity. I look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

We'll move to Mr. Bridgman, please. You have five minutes.

[Aengus Bridgman, Director, Media Ecosystem Observatory]

Thank you to the committee for the invitation.

I'm pleased to be here on behalf of the Media Ecosystem Observatory and the Canadian Digital Media Research Network, two entities that monitor the Canadian information environment, with a particular focus on trying to understand overall trends and information manipulation. My remarks are focused on the information environment generally and not on the foreign agent registry more specifically, given my expertise.

My hope is to talk about two things today. My first purpose is to talk about the 2025 election—with the scope and scale of foreign interference, as we typically think about it, and to contextualize it a little bit. My second purpose is to talk more generally about the vulnerabilities in the Canadian information environment—Emerson just alluded to some of them—that make this a pretty important moment for continuing to invest in and focus on protecting the information environment against foreign interference and, more broadly, information manipulation.

During the 2025 election, foreign interference was top of mind for Canadians. This came, of course, out of the commission on foreign interference. Over half of Canadians were particularly concerned about foreign interference—yes, from China, India and Russia, but the number one country was actually the United States. There was real concern.

We documented and catalogued different instances of foreign interference and information manipulation during the campaign. Overall, I would say the impact on the election was minor. There were several efforts, but they were small, sporadic, low-engagement and generally ineffective efforts. There's an important caveat that I'll talk about in a couple of minutes.

Generally speaking, U.S. political content coming from influencers, from officials and from the structure and shape of the information environment was far more impactful in the Canadian political discourse during the election. It was really the U.S. channel, and Canadians can correctly name that and are concerned about it.

That said, there were a number of institutional improvements during this past election, including the SITE task force and the regular communication with Canadians, the work of the research network, and the continuous monitoring and updating of the Canadian population, which were real strengths of the Canadian response. They helped blunt the limited FI activity. However, we are in a state today in which, while we can look at the past few elections and say there may not have been a determining impact on the election results, there are clear structural vulnerabilities.

There is a real crisis and failure of platform governance. There is very poor data access, very weak and inconsistent enforcement, and almost no transparency coming from the platforms. There's been a retreat from meaningful co-operation with civil society and government. It's a huge challenge. There are of course domestic vulnerabilities that amplify some of the FI risks: partisan echo chambers; online influencers without accountability, who are spreading huge amounts of misinformation in our information environment; and increasingly cheap and widely available digital manipulation tactics. This is part of technological acceleration.

We can talk about AI. We can talk about the ability to cheaply procure bots and artificial accounts across social platforms. Finally, we can talk about poor transparency, reporting and detection by platforms.

These are all vulnerabilities that we live with and that make work in this space incredibly difficult. They create an environment in which even small interference attempts can have second-order effects that rapidly change the discourse and potentially have huge impacts on the outcome of an election.

I have a single recommendation today—out of many. We are in a state in which there is such poor data transparency that, as the entity with the best data and the best ability to monitor FI.... I'm saying to you that we do not have sufficient access. It would have been very possible during the last election for something to occur that we were not able to detect. A major platform in the United States could have made a decision. There could have been a major campaign by Russia or China that was dissimilar to ones we've seen. I urge the committee to take mandated transparency seriously.

I'll leave it there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you to all of our witnesses for being well within the five minutes.

We'll now turn to questions. We'll start with Mr. Cooper from the Conservative Party for six minutes, please.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I'm going to direct my questions to Mr. Burton, regarding the endless delay around the implementation of the foreign influence transparency registry.

As you noted, Mr. Burton, the Liberals promised the foreign influence transparency registry would be up and running one year after Bill C‑70 received royal assent. One year was up in June of this year. June came and went. It wasn't up and running. The minister said it would be up and running by September. September came and went. He then said December, yet we are almost in December, and no commissioner has been appointed. We have no registry.

I would note that under the legislation, the leaders of recognized parties in the House and the Senate must be consulted on the commissioner, and the appointment of the commissioner must be ratified in the House of Commons and in the Senate. A number of processes haven't happened.

Given that, it would seem to me that we have no idea when the registry will be up and running. Is that fair?

[Charles Burton]

Yes. The minister said it would be coming by the end of the year, in his most recent statement to a parliamentary committee. The Public Safety people have been briefing us that it will be coming next spring. There's a suggestion that there are long delays in appointing the commissioner, with the need for top secret security clearance and so on. When the government needed a fentanyl czar, they seemed able to do an order in council and get that person in place pretty quickly, so I'm puzzled as to why it takes so long for a commissioner.

I see the commissioner as key. If we get a strong commissioner, they can interpret the legislation—things like Senator Woo's concern about “in association with” and being clear on what it means.

What about people anticipating future benefits in the Chinese regime if they go along with a Chinese agenda, when they're in a position of public trust in the civil service or in Parliament? What about secondary influence? In other words, what if a Canadian company has extensive dealings with Chinese Communist business networks and then sponsors a research institution?

There are a lot of questions, and they really need a strong commissioner, in my view, on site and fully qualified to be able to sort them out. What seems to be happening now is that Public Safety is trying to come up with regulations and interpretations, which I believe will inhibit the potential independence of the commissioner in making the registry effective and getting names on the registry.

With that being said, in talking to John Garnaut, who was an adviser to a former Australian prime minister when they put together their act, the simple existence of a registry seems to have a dampening effect on politicians who might be induced to get into situations in which they become beholden to China or another foreign power, so we need this to exist.

We had an election after we heard from a security committee that a significant number of MPs, and a slightly larger number of staffers, appeared to be under the influence of a foreign power. It is outrageous to me that the election happened when we didn't have any means to go into it in a fair way. There was no way to ensure that Canadians were aware of people who may not have been entirely uninfluenced, who were unable to avoid the temptation of benefits from a foreign power or who were subject to very sophisticated engagement by Chinese entities.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

First it was June. Then it was September, and then it was December. Now you're saying that, according to Public Safety officials, it will be in the spring. Who knows if it will be spring?

The Liberals have a long track record of opposition to setting up a foreign influence registry. They campaigned against it. They amplified Beijing's disinformation against Kenny Chiu after he brought forward a private member's bill to establish such a registry.

It seems to me that after years of opposing a registry, the latest tactic from the government is one of obstruction through endless delay. Is that fair?

[Charles Burton]

There is probably concern at the centre of government about prominent Canadians, possibly former senior officials, who might have to register because of ongoing relationships with the Chinese state. I have a notion of people who might fall into that category, but as long as we don't have a registry, we can't say for sure. It's a suspicion, but we really need a registry that makes it clear.

Let's bear in mind that nothing stops you or, say, the large number of prominent Canadians who suggested we should release Meng Wanzhou from putting a statement in the newspaper to that effect. We found out that Jean Charest was the recipient of a retainer from the Huawei company when he was involved in this activity; that's information I would have liked to know at the time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much, Mr. Cooper.

We'll go on to Mr. Louis.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you to all the witnesses.

It's clear that foreign states are actively seeking to influence Canadians and disrupt our elections, including through new technologies such as generative AI and deepfake impersonations.

During the 2025 election, for the first time, Canadians received weekly technical briefings from senior security officials, providing transparency and addressing concerns about foreign interference in real time. We also strengthened the legal framework by passing the Countering Foreign Interference Act, and we have the SITE task force, which expanded preparedness measures, and it runs scenario exercises, engages political parties directly and enhances monitoring. We hear today that the threats are evolving quickly.

I appreciate your time because we want to explore what we can do to secure our elections.

We've also heard in previous testimony and a study before about potentially labelling AI for political content, banning deepfake impersonations during campaigns, preventing foreign funding through third parties and closing loopholes that allow untraceable donations. I look forward to hearing and learning from your experiences and your research about what works, what can continue to work and where the gaps are.

Maybe I shall start with Mr. Shull from the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

I appreciate your thoroughness. You summed it up quite nicely. We need a broad scope, an independent commissioner and strong compliance tools with penalties and consequences.

Maybe I'll start with some things you talked about for implementation. You talked about more information sharing between organizations. Can you give some examples of what has been working and some examples of things that can be improved, where there was not the right level of information sharing?

[Aaron Shull]

Sure. Information sharing in the national security environment is always a bit of a tricky thing. This is partly owing to its historical nature and partly due to the fact that the goalposts have shifted. It used to be spy versus spy; now Canadians—individuals—are in the crosshairs of foreign adversarial actors. That is a new phenomenon. For businesses, especially when it comes to cyber-espionage and cyber-enabled intellectual property theft, this is also relatively new. We're now in a moment when the tools of the trade are shifting, and maybe they are shifting a little bit slowly.

The point I would raise for this committee is, if you're focusing on what you can do.... I appreciate my colleague's point about surveillance capitalism and the business model of large platforms. If we could deal with that, we would have done so. What you can do practically is put pressure on to get the registry set up. The biggest piece of advice I would offer is to make sure it's resourced properly and you have good investigative capacity.

As for your question on information sharing, make sure the information is flowing between the agencies and the commissioner's office. The absolute worst possible outcome is that we go through all of this effort, we get Bill C-70 passed, we do these thoughtful studies and then the first prosecution collapses. The message this would send to adversarial state actors is not good.

I would say to put the pressure on and get this thing set up. You never want to deliver a birthday cake the Tuesday after a Saturday birthday. Let's get it done and make sure it's resourced properly.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

You mentioned the online registry. You talked about balance—about protecting rights and avoiding stigmatization while at the same time making sure Canadians are protected. You said we need to be very clear on who has to register, when to register and how to register, and to give examples.

Is someone else doing this, so we can look at a model? Do you have ideas in that sense?

[Aaron Shull]

The models everyone will go to are those of the United States—they've been doing it since the thirties—Australia and the U.K.

When it comes down to it, it's about being crisp about the fact that we're not talking about communities; we're not talking about individuals. We're talking about people who are in association with a foreign principal to undertake activities in Canada. It is country-neutral; it does not matter which country we're talking about. That's the thing we need to make clear.

As for my point about the online portal and registration, we have to make it practical; we have to make it doable and easy for people to do, because what we want to be able to do.... It's like Al Capone. They didn't catch Al Capone for murder; they got him on tax evasion. The point is to figure out who's doing this stuff, and then you can nick them for not registering. Make the process easy so that there's no possible defence, such as that they couldn't possibly have registered because the website didn't work.

Make it super easy so that you can find out who's not registering, and then hit them as quickly as you possibly can with an administrative monetary penalty, a notice of non-compliance and then, if they mess around, a criminal sanction.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I appreciate that.

Another thing you mentioned was that this needs to be reviewed periodically. As we're hearing from all of our witnesses, this is a fast-changing ecosystem. How is it possible? Is it through regulations? Is it through an order in council? How do we adapt and change? What are some of your suggestions in a system that, as you said, is moving so quickly?

[Aaron Shull]

There are three things.

The first is that having a thoughtful commissioner is a great way to do it. The Privacy Commissioner is a good example. When the Privacy Commissioner of Canada introduces an interpretive bulletin under PIPEDA, people pay attention—they're good. We should have a thoughtful commissioner who can interpret some of the grey areas in a crisp way.

The second is regulation and making sure you have the requisite regulatory authorities. The third is not being scared to revisit the law. We tend to treat laws like tombstones—they're never going to change. The point is that the world is changing at a good clip, so don't be scared to revisit them if you need to.

Out of all the laws that are currently and have recently been on the books, this is the one that every single party has an interest in. It is about democratic integrity. It is about the future of the country and the state of Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Before I turn to Madame Normandin, I'll note that questions will be coming in French, so all the witnesses should either have their earpiece in or be tuned to the English channel in Zoom to make sure English is coming through if you need interpretation.

Ms. Normandin, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here. We appreciate it.

Mr. Bridgman, it's good to see you again. We crossed paths at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Parliamentary Assembly a year ago.

You talked about the fact that the United States is a major player when it comes to foreign interference; people tend to forget that. My question may be a philosophical one, but I'd like to hear your opinion on the nuance between foreign interference and foreign policy. You talked about the importance of having access to data and transparency, among other things. Is the distinction between foreign policy and foreign interference based on the container, that is, the media used to send the information or the source of the information?

I would like you to give me a general answer.

[Aengus Bridgman]

That's a very good question.

I think the difference is whether or not it's done in secret, whether or not it's visible, or whether or not Canadians know what's going on.

Finally, we have a general idea about the platforms and the influence that comes from the United States. My team and I work very hard every day to discover the dynamics and processes. However, at the end of the day, we're very limited by the access the platforms give us. That said, we can get a sense of it. I'll give a very good example: When it comes to platforms, there have been two major changes in the past two years.

The first is the removal of traditional media from Meta, Instagram and Facebook. There isn't any news on those platforms anymore. This was an important decision that had huge impacts on our democracy, on the way Canadians consume information online. However, unless you do very extensive research, it's impossible to know which media is there, which media is included and which is excluded. It changes all the time. Many small news groups or small news organizations provide information on those platforms. It's hidden, it isn't transparent.

The second is the change to the social media network X. A report we released this year showed that conservative voices on that platform had increased by about 50%. That dynamic is unique to that platform. It's true that it's partly due to the change in Canadians' behaviour, but it's also due to a change in the platform's algorithm. That didn't happen just in Canada; it also happened in Germany and the United States. Those are changes for which there isn't any transparency. That gives the United States tools to transform our system. However, there is no oversight and no governance. This is the exception, but it's an unregulated industry, and we're living with the consequences of that right now.