Bill C-59 (Historical)

National Security Act, 2017

An Act respecting national security matters

Part 1 enacts the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency Act, which establishes the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency and sets out its composition, mandate and powers. It repeals the provisions of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act establishing the Security Intelligence Review Committee and amends that Act and other Acts in order to transfer certain powers, duties and functions to the new Agency. It also makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 1.‍1 enacts the Avoiding Complicity in Mistreatment by Foreign Entities Act to authorize the issuance of directions respecting the disclosure of and request for information that would result in a substantial risk of mistreatment of an individual by a foreign entity and the use of information that is likely to have been obtained as the result of mistreatment of an individual by a foreign entity.
Part 2 enacts the Intelligence Commissioner Act, which provides that the duties and functions of the Intelligence Commissioner are to review the conclusions on the basis of which certain authorizations are issued or amended, and determinations are made, under the Communications Security Establishment Act and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act and to approve those authorizations, amendments and determinations if those conclusions are reasonable. This Part also abolishes the position of the Commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment, provides for that Commissioner to become the Intelligence Commissioner, transfers the employees of the former Commissioner to the office of the new Commissioner and makes related and consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 3 enacts the Communications Security Establishment Act, which establishes the Communications Security Establishment and, among other things, sets out the Establishment’s mandate as well as the regime for authorizing its activities. It also amends the National Defence Act and makes consequential amendments to other Acts.
Part 4 amends the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act to
(a) add a preamble to that Act and provide a mechanism to enhance the accountability of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service;
(b) add new limits on the exercise of the Service’s power to reduce threats to the security of Canada including, in particular, by setting out a list of measures that may be authorized by the Federal Court;
(c) provide a justification, subject to certain limitations, for the commission of acts or omissions that would otherwise constitute offences;
(d) exempt employees of the Service and persons acting under their direction from liability for offences related to acts committed for the sole purpose of establishing or maintaining a covert identity;
(e) create a regime for the Service to collect, retain, query and exploit datasets in the course of performing its duties and functions;
(f) make amendments to the warrant regime that are related to datasets; and
(g) implement measures for the management of datasets.
Part 5 amends the Security of Canada Information Sharing Act to, among other things,
(a) emphasize that the Act addresses only the disclosure of information and not its collection or use;
(b) clarify the definition of “activity that undermines the security of Canada”;
(c) clarify that advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression are not activities that undermine the security of Canada unless they are carried on in conjunction with an activity that undermines the security of Canada;
(d) provide that a disclosure of information is authorized only if the disclosure will contribute to the carrying out by the recipient institution of its national security responsibilities and will not affect any person’s privacy interest more than reasonably necessary;
(e) require that information disclosed be accompanied by information about the accuracy of the disclosed information and the reliability of the manner in which it was obtained; and
(f) require that records be prepared and kept in respect of every disclosure of information and that every year a copy of every record prepared in the preceding year be provided to the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency.
Part 6 amends the Secure Air Travel Act to authorize the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to collect from air carriers and operators of aviation reservation systems, for the purpose of identifying listed persons, information about any individuals who are on board or expected to be on board an aircraft for any flight prescribed by regulation, and to exempt an air carrier from providing that information, or from the application of any provision of the regulations, in certain circumstances. It amends the Act to authorize that Minister to collect personal information from individuals for the purpose of issuing a unique identifier to them to assist with pre-flight verification of their identity. It also reverses the rule in relation to a deemed decision on an application for administrative recourse. Finally, it amends the Act to provide for certain other measures related to the collection, disclosure and destruction of information.
Part 7 amends the Criminal Code to, among other things,
(a) make certain procedural modifications to the terrorist listing regime under section 83.‍05, such as providing for a staggered ministerial review of listed entities and granting the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness the authority to amend the names, including aliases, of listed entities;
(b) change the offence of advocating or promoting terrorism offences in general, in section 83.‍21, to one of counselling the commission of a terrorism offence, and make corresponding changes to the definition of terrorist propaganda;
(c) raise one of the thresholds for imposing a recognizance with conditions under section 83.‍3, and amend when that section is to be reviewed and, unless extended by Parliament, to cease to have effect;
(d) repeal sections 83.‍28 and 83.‍29 relating to an investigative hearing into a terrorism offence and repeal subsections 83.‍31(1) and (1.‍1), which require annual reports on such hearings;
(e) require the Attorney General of Canada to publish a report each year setting out the number of terrorism recognizances entered into under section 810.‍011 in the previous year; and
(f) authorize a court, in proceedings for recognizances under any of sections 83 and 810 to 810.‍2, to make orders for the protection of witnesses.
Part 8 amends the Youth Criminal Justice Act to, among other things, ensure that the protections that are afforded to young persons apply in respect of proceedings in relation to recognizance orders, including those related to terrorism, and give employees of a department or agency of the Government of Canada access to youth records, for the purpose of administering the Canadian Passport Order.
Part 9 requires that a comprehensive review of the provisions and operation of this enactment take place during the fourth year after section 168 of this enactment comes into force. If that section 168 and section 34 of Bill C-22, introduced in the 1st session of the 42nd Parliament and entitled the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, come into force within one year of each other, the reviews required by those sections are to take place at the same time and are to be undertaken by the same committee or committees.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to begin our discussions this afternoon.

I must express my deep disappointment with the way we ended our last meeting three hours and twenty minutes ago. Mr. Cooper's comments were not befitting a parliamentary statement or the man I know. I offer him the opportunity to interrupt me at any time on a point of order to apologize to Minister Joly for his intemperate comments. I think it is important to do that. It's been over three hours since he made those comments, and I still haven't seen an apology on social media.

Let's get back to this amendment proposed by my colleague Mr. Turnbull. One of the reasons why it is important to focus on the individuals on the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force and invite the participants that my colleague is proposing is that this is a very important institution that was set up to combat foreign interference. In addition, members of all recognized political parties in the House of Commons can become members. All parties except the Bloc Québécois have taken advantage of this.

Not only did these parties have access to secret information related to foreign interference, but they also had the opportunity to speak with experts and the other members of this task force to ask questions, to bring forward their concerns, to pass on information that they or their candidates heard, and then to compare that with the information provided to the task force by the national security experts. That is very important and very helpful.

This is part of a long record of actions taken by our government after the 2015 election. We took these steps because it was clear long before that that state and non-state actors were trying to interfere with our elections and our democratic institutions. It is unfortunate that the former Conservative government did not take steps to reassure and protect Canadians from this.

The Harper government's former minister of democratic institutions offered an explanation this week. He said he didn't take action because the supposed government of China wasn't taking a stand for his party and therefore it wasn't in his party's interest to take action. This is ridiculous.

Not only did we create the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, but we also created the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. This is important because unlike all of our allies with whom we share security intelligence, especially those who are in the Five Eyes alliance with us, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, we were the only country that did not have a group of parliamentarians to review, question and receive information on the activities of our intelligence and security services.

Early in its tenure, our government created this very useful committee. I did not have the privilege of being a member of it, but I know that several people around the table had that privilege in previous Parliaments. From what I could gather without people divulging information, it was an interesting experience, to say the least. I imagine there were a number of issues that were discussed. Canada is facing real risks. We need to take action and our government has done that.

In 2018, we also introduced the critical election incident public protocol and launched the G7 rapid response mechanism.

In addition, two very important bills to counter the effects of foreign interference were introduced and passed. These were Bill C‑59, which became the National Security Act, 2017, and Bill C‑76, which became the Elections Modernization Act. And to complete all that, we created and supported the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.

All of these institutions and tools are designed to protect Canadians and their freedom from foreign interference. That is so important. That is why my colleague Mr. Turnbull's amendment is so important. It would give us a chance to bring forward the people who know what happened in the 2019 and 2021 elections.

When people come here, they won't be able to disclose secret information. That makes sense. However, they will give us as much information as they can, as will the people who came before the committee last Wednesday and Thursday. We had a chance to ask questions of excellent officials from the Communications Security Establishment and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, deputy ministers from Global Affairs Canada, people responsible for public safety, and the national security and intelligence advisor to the Prime Minister, Ms. Thomas.

These are dedicated experts whose sole purpose is to ensure our protection, and they find every way to do so. What was their conclusion? They acknowledged that information had been leaked in the newspapers, but they said that this information was not intelligence and did not paint a complete picture of the situation. They were careful to explain to us that while incidents may be reported, an incident does not necessarily represent the truth.

They said we need to put this in context first. Last week, I reminded people that text without context is just pretext. That means you have to look at the big picture. The so‑called findings that are published by some journalists do not present the big picture that would allow us to determine whether the findings are legitimate or not.

I can imagine my colleagues asking me why I don't want the chance to look at this information to get the full picture. This suggestion raises a couple of weaknesses or problems.

First, to get the full picture, you have to rely on national security information, which by its nature cannot be discussed in public. Second, I don't have that security clearance and I don't think most people around the table do either. However, the good news is that there is a committee whose members have that security clearance, and that is the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. These parliamentarians, our peers, our counterparts, have the security clearance to access this information. So why not entrust them with this study so they can have all the information?

Some will ask how Canadians can trust this work since it is not public. This is assuming that the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians does not publish reports. That is not true, because it does so regularly. I had the opportunity to read one of its reports. I have not read them all, but I have read at least one report in its entirety. I learned some things. That report painted a pretty important, comprehensive enough picture of the situation to allow me to draw conclusions.

We, as members of Parliament, need to have confidence in our sisters and brothers who serve on this committee. These people deserve our trust. They have undergone a very serious background review to ensure that they deserve the highest possible security clearance. I have confidence in them. That committee is the right place to have those kinds of discussions.

I said that my colleagues might ask me why we would not investigate ourselves here in the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The first answer is that we don't have the security clearance.

Secondly, and I say this with great sadness, I don't think Canadians who watch our deliberations in committee or in oral question period see the best of us. They see that we are too partisan, that we ask questions that we don't want answered, that we ask questions without giving others time to answer, and that when we get an answer, we don't accept it and we talk about something else. That's a shame. We are capable of doing better, but at this point I am not convinced.

I'm going to digress for a moment, if I may. Last night my goddaughter visited me with her brother and her parents. I took them to the House of Commons after the parliamentary session, and we chatted. They are 14 years old. They talked about oral question period yesterday. They were not impressed with the attitude of some members of Parliament, who were not up to the task. It's sad.

My goddaughter, whom I love dearly, knows the difference between the various political parties, but the vast majority of Canadians do not distinguish between Conservatives, Liberals, Bloc, NDP and Green Party members. To them, we are just politicians, and they see politicians that are not up to the job. So how can they trust us when we can't even ask a question and let people answer without braying like donkeys? That is what I had to say.

The third reason is that we have allies who share information with us. This is a very serious matter and it is important that there be a parliamentary committee to oversee these issues. However, none of the other parliaments, whether in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand or the U.S., conduct public inquiries using top secret documents; they leave that to specialized committees. That's the main reason I think this committee is not the right place to get to the bottom of this, which I assume is the goal of everyone around the table.

For these three reasons, I think this is the wrong place. Everyone says they are taking into account these leaks, which are not confirmed or corroborated by the experts and officials who have appeared here. This information, if it is legitimate, is by definition partial, incomplete. Witnesses have even denied some of the things revealed by these so‑called leaks.

I remember the first day of our debate, during which my colleague from St. Albert—Edmonton said that one could not question the credibility of the journalists who published this information. I agree with him. I'm going to assume that these people are acting in good faith. They are professionals, journalists. They are going to reveal information that was presented to them.

However, I started reading the report issued by the distinguished Justice Dennis O'Connor on the events surrounding the Maher Arar case. What is the conclusion of this report? The so‑called information leaks were not information leaks.

The judge was very tough on some people, some of them bad apples at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Communications Security Establishment, and on journalists who didn't take the time to verify their information, young journalists at the time, like Bob Fife.

I think it is important to remember this, because a great injustice was perpetrated against Mr. Arar. Not only did it destroy him physically, because he was tortured for a year, but we were complicit in it. Maher Arar claimed to be innocent and Judge O'Connor concluded that he was.

Not only do I have the great privilege of serving on the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, but I also have the privilege of serving on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. We will be talking about foreign interference there tomorrow, but we will approach it from a different perspective: We will look at its effect on diasporas in Canada.

I am not an admirer of everything the government of the day in Beijing does, but we have to be very careful about pointing fingers at China. Reputations are being destroyed with information that officials in our institutions responsible for the safety of Canadians say is not true. These officials have seen the big picture and have received information from both our allies and their employees, agents, Canadians who, in some cases, put their lives on the line to provide us with this information. All have come to the conclusion that what we are reading is not true.

Sometimes you have to trust the experts. If we only want to play partisan games, there are advantages to talking about these things as if they were the Good News, the kind found in sacred texts.

These claims are not entirely true according to the experts. I find it very frustrating that every time this is discussed, these claims are talked about as solid, truthful information, when they are far from it. The experts have told us that this is not the case, but the temptation to play political games is too great. The temptation to manipulate news and rumours to try to find political advantage is great.

We have to rely on what we have the capacity to do at this committee, and we have to do it while respecting the rights and privileges of others. One does not want to unnecessarily damage the reputation of others without justification.

I have colleagues of Chinese descent, who were either born in China and came to Canada when they were very young, or who have parents, grandparents or great-grandparents who were born in China. It's very hurtful for them when, on social media, people lose it and say anything.

Some of them have already received often hateful, sometimes threatening messages. This does not only affect the Chinese Canadian community, but almost all Canadians of Asian origin or with Asian ancestry. Unfortunately, there is a tendency to confuse people. I hope my colleagues do not do this, but some Canadians do not hesitate to do it. That's when we realize that there are consequences to what we are doing.

We have to be very careful and use words very carefully. We should not assume that everything leaked to the media is true, especially not when we ask questions of those responsible for national security and those people tell us that the information is not true. With the big picture, these officials were able to see that this information didn't hold up and that it didn't paint an accurate picture of the situation.

I remember the early days. In the newspapers, it was claimed that Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials had told the Prime Minister that electoral candidates had to be withdrawn because they were under foreign influence. However, experts said that this did not make sense and that the service did not do such things. Two days later, the reporters changed the story and said that part of their report was not true. Yet the damage was done and everyone believed the worst, when it wasn't true in the first place.

This really does sound like what Justice O'Connor had called a real injustice. You have to be extremely careful before you come to these hasty conclusions, and that's why we have intelligence agencies that cross-check all the information.

I recall Mr. David Vigneault, Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, saying that news reports were not intelligence sources. The Service has to put this in a broader context. They often receive information, but they have to be patient and put it all together before they draw conclusions, because they can't present the Prime Minister with partial or incomplete information. As much as possible, they must give him justifiable information. It is because of the vast experience of the service's staff that it has this ability.

It is really important to remember the wrongs done in the past. Justice O'Connor's report is lengthy, but it is important to read it. I don't want to say that it makes you feel uncomfortable, because it's more about wisdom, the wisdom of asking yourself if the information you have in front of you is complete enough to draw conclusions. That's very important. My mother always told me that you have two ears and one mouth, so you should listen more than you should talk.

I think it's the same with the information we're reading. We need to try to get a more complete picture. If we're not able to access that information, we have to trust those who are charged with doing that work. We had all the best sources in front of us. We had access to these people to ask them questions, and I think they answered them very frankly. Without giving away any secret details, they gave us a bigger picture of how they came to their conclusions. They determined that the information that was reported in the newspapers was very incomplete, and that the conclusions that many of them had reached were not correct, but wrong. That's one of the reasons I don't want this committee to get it wrong.

I am proud of our record on intelligence and national security issues. As I said, several important new tools have been made available to the government to combat foreign interference. They are not necessarily complete, but they are always being reassessed to see if there are new ones that could be put in place to protect Canadians, which is very important.

Before I conclude, I would like to say this: It is 5:23 p.m., and it has now been four hours since my colleague made disparaging remarks about the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He did not take advantage of my offer: He could interrupt me at any time on a point of order to apologize. It is disappointing that he has not done so to date.

I hope my colleagues will at least acknowledge that they have all these important and appropriate tools to get to the bottom of this and access all the information. It would be much more appropriate for them to use these tools to educate themselves. When they investigate foreign interference, they will come to the same conclusion as our experts, the men and women charged with protecting us.

I will stop here and hope that people will be convinced of the wisdom of my words. I also hope that my colleague will use this break to burnish his image, do the right thing, and apologize.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Democratic Institutions

[Marco Mendicino, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague knows well that this government takes the work of fighting against foreign interference very seriously. That is why we introduced Bill C-59, which gave CSIS the threat reduction measure powers it needed to address and mitigate that risk. That is why we introduced Bill C-76, to crack down on foreign funding that could interfere with our elections, but with the corresponding transparency to create the NSICOP and NSIRA, all of which ensures that we can be upfront with Canadians so we can defend our democratic institutions.

The Conservatives should rise above the fray and see that this is not a partisan issue—

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks, Madam Chair.

I'll start from the beginning. I move that the motion be amended by replacing the words after “in relation to its study of foreign election interference” with the following:

Invite the 2019 and 2021 National Campaign Directors of each recognized party in the House of Commons and the security-cleared party representatives to the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force during the 2019 and 2021 federal elections.

The French translation is there as well.

I'd like to speak to that and address some of the comments that were made by Mr. Cooper at the beginning of our meeting today, which I found quite troubling. I have taken the time to listen to and review all the information we've had at our disposal, as well as the multiple reports. I pride myself on researching and reading through the various documents that are provided and also in doing my own research on these topics, because I take these matters extremely seriously, especially when there are allegations flying around and quite a lot of political rhetoric that I think could be injurious to our democracy as a whole, in terms of undermining our democratic institutions.

In particular, one of the false claims that we keep hearing from the Conservative Party of Canada—over and over again they repeat the same thing—is that the Prime Minister and our government have done nothing when it comes to foreign election interference. This couldn't be further from the truth. Based on all of the documents I have in front of me, there is ample evidence from the very first days of this government, which I wasn't a part of in those days, to show a track record of significant work that has been done on this issue at least as far back as 2017. I think it's safe to say it goes back right to 2015, when the Liberal government that's currently running the country first got elected.

I would like to take some time refuting that claim, but I also want to talk about a couple of other assertions that have been made over and over again that are deeply troubling.

One is that the Conservatives keep saying, and some opposition parties seem to be chiming in with a chorus of support for this, that they're interested in “getting to the bottom” of this. What's interesting to me is that, when you look at all of the non-partisan and independent processes that have been set up by our government, and you look at this committee and how many witnesses have already come forward with significant expertise in national security, you see that we haven't heard anything to demonstrate that this government isn't willing to get to the bottom of this.

What strikes me as just pure political rhetoric and games, to be honest, is this claim that somehow we are not interested in getting to the bottom of these matters. Quite the contrary is true. In fact, our government has been getting to the bottom of these matters and has demonstrated a real dedication and commitment to addressing foreign election interference.

The other thing I found really troubling about Mr. Cooper's claims at the beginning of this meeting today was that somehow the PM has instructed us to do some obstructionary work. I think that is also 100% false. I know I speak for myself, and I probably can speak for all my colleagues, that we're here of our own volition. We take our work at this committee very seriously, and to imply that we're somehow being controlled by somebody else is insulting, to be frank.

I also want to say that there has been a significant shift in the messaging over recent days from the leader of the official opposition, who I would remind people was the former minister of democratic reform. If you look back on the record, you'll see, I'm sure, that not much was done on foreign election interference in the time that Pierre Poilievre was the minister of democratic reform.

The shift in messaging that I've seen is that the leader of the official opposition has gone from saying that, yes, there were attempts at election interference but their party stood by the results of the election, to some very recent remarks that are significantly different from that message.

Let me just read a couple of quotes here. I believe it was yesterday that the leader of the official opposition said that we've never seen an intelligence service so worried about the prime minister and “his collaboration with a foreign power”. He has also said that they are “so concerned” about how Canada is working against its own interests and for a foreign dictatorship's interests.

These claims are somehow implying that the Prime Minister is working against the interests of Canadians and in a way collaborating with a foreign power to undermine our democracy. That couldn't be further from the truth. I don't have words to describe how much I think that's inappropriate language. It's untrue and it's unfounded. It's really risking our entire democracy and the faith that Canadians have in our democracy by making such baseless claims. If they were founded, of course, those claims could be made, but they're unfounded.

The other thing I want to point out is that, further to my colleagues Mr. Fergus and MP O'Connell, both of whom I have great respect for and in their remarks today made some very compelling arguments, we have set up all these different mechanisms within our government's mandate to protect against foreign election interference. We know that, on the one hand, there are non-partisan senior public servants within the caretaker period who are part of the panel for the critical election incident public protocol and panel. They take part in that during the caretaker period. We also know that outside of that caretaker period, our government has implemented what Rosenberg refers to as an “electoral ecosystem approach”, which is an all-of-government approach to combat foreign election interference. This has four pillars—enhancing citizen preparedness, improving organizational readiness, combatting foreign interference and building a healthy information ecosystem.

What I want to say about this is that, on the one hand, our government has set up a process—i.e., the protocol and panel—so that even within an election period, in a writ period or where the caretaker convention applies, there is a rigorous set of non-partisan senior officials who have expertise and are informed by the SITE task force, which is composed of experts in national security from all of our agencies, which are providing them with regular briefings.

That's just within the caretaker period. Then we have an independent assessment done after every election. Let's also be honest. If we actually look at and evaluate from the James Judd report, which was an independent assessment, how many of the recommendations were implemented, we can see that the vast majority of them, if not all of them, were implemented. I think maybe one wasn't implemented. That's because the government didn't necessarily agree with that one or took a different approach.

Similarly, within the 16 or so recommendations that were made by Morris Rosenberg, which I take very seriously.... I read the report. I think there's a lot of substance there that this committee could be deliberating on. We could be really drilling down on those recommendations instead of playing political games.

To me, the original motion that Mr. Cooper put forward, which was to have political staffers here.... I mean, they're not national security experts. We have all the deputy ministers. We have the national security and intelligence adviser to the Prime Minister. We've had the director of CSIS. The list goes on and on. I actually have the list of witnesses here if you want me to read them out.

You couldn't ask for a better list of witnesses to come before this committee. I don't see what the rationale is when you have ministerial accountability outside of the caretaker period and you have the officials and experts who inform them coming to this committee. Then you have the non-partisan public servants who are doing the work within the caretaker period who are coming forward. What more information could you possibly really want?

If your motivation was truly to get to the bottom of this and to take this matter seriously, why wouldn't you be listening to the people who have the expertise?

That's not good enough for the official opposition. It's not good enough because they want to push a narrative that is counter to the interests of our democracy and our democratic institutions. It's one that tries to undermine our democracy and our institutions. That, I will not stand for.

I want to talk for a moment about the fact that our government took up recommendations from an extensive report that was done in 2018.

In 2018, the ethics committee did a study that produced a very significant report called “Democracy Under Threat: Risks and Solutions in the Era of Disinformation and Data Monopoly”. The chair at the time was Bob Zimmer. I know the Conservatives will know Bob. That report is over 100 pages. It has significant recommendations, many of which have been acted on. If you trace back to the government response to that report, you can see that many of the things that unfolded after that report was published were responded to by the government and actually implemented.

Again, it points to the fact that there is no basis for this absurd claim that our government doesn't take foreign election interference seriously and the false claim that the government has done nothing on this.

Let me stack this up a little bit in terms of what the government has done.

I'll go back to that ethics report, which I assume happened over the course of a significant period because it's a pretty extensive study. As we know, these things can take months—to hear from witnesses and then deliberate. What I can see from that is that in 2018 that report was published, a government response came in shortly after—I'm not sure I have the date on the government response, but it was shortly after—and many of these things were then acted on.

First, obviously the critical election incident public protocol and panel were set up. That was first established before the 2019 election. The plan to protect Canadian democracy, which is that four-pillar plan that outlines an all-of-government approach, was implemented as well. That's listed in the Rosenberg report. He takes the time to go through the various initiatives that unfolded and were implemented out of that, so I'd like to speak to those for a moment.

One of the pillars of that all-of-government approach, which is sometimes referred to as the electoral ecosystem approach.... Let's be honest. Foreign election interference can't be tackled with just one intervention. It's a systematic set of strategies and interventions that cut across all of our ministries and institutions that's required. There's a lot of collaboration with many of our other systemic issues. We know that we need an all-of-government approach, and I think all of us are familiar with calls on the government to have a whole-of-government approach. This is exactly what our government has been implementing, and there's evidence of this. For committee members to claim that the government hasn't done anything just ignores the facts.

When you look at pillar one of the plan to protect Canadian democracy, enhancing citizen preparedness is the pillar. There's been a digital citizen initiative led by Canadian Heritage, which supported skills development through the use of awareness sessions, workshops and learning materials. That's one thing that's been done in that pillar.

Another is Get Cyber Safe. It is another public awareness campaign about Internet security, which added content about cyber-threats to the Canadian democratic process. Again, this is raising awareness among citizens across Canada, because what we've heard from CSIS in our testimony, and others, is that this is not just about intelligence. Everybody has a role to play in protecting our democracy. Part of it means raising the awareness of our citizens so that they understand what we're up against, what to look out for and what the signs are of foreign election interference so that they can help us identify, report and, in a way, gather intel and information that may be helpful in preventing it from happening.

Prior to 2019, the government provided journalists with training on foreign interference and convened regular press briefings. We also helped essentially to inform and to train journalists. There were also changes to Canada's election laws that expanded the CEO information and education programs aimed at the Canadian public. I will just flip to some of the legislative changes that were made.

One was An Act respecting national security matters, Bill C-59. Bill C-59 was a piece of legislation that our government brought forward that provided both CSIS and CSE with the ability to engage in threat reduction measures, subject to legal authorization of course. We heard from the director of CSIS when he was before our committee that they do intervene and have threat reduction measures that they're able to use. Obviously when there's credible intel that's been analyzed, corroborated and evaluated such that they're obviously not acting on a partial piece of intelligence, which as the director said, was the case. Most of the time they were accumulating intelligence that came with significant caveats. However, it's good for us to know that they have threat reduction measures, and they use those where needed.

What's interesting, though, is that our government was the one that gave them those powers in Bill C-59. Again, what's interesting is that the Conservatives keep claiming that we've done nothing. CSIS has threat reduction measures that were given to them by legislation that was passed by our government. That's a direct conflict with what the Conservatives keep asserting.

Another one is BIll C-76, the Elections Modernization Act. Conservatives also claim over and over that the government hasn't done anything, as if they repeat this falsehood and people are going to believe it. I don't believe that Canadians are going to be fooled by the assertion of false claims over and over again. The Elections Modernization Act came into force in June 2019, and it adds a number of different interesting and important measures. One is that it prohibits foreign persons or entities from unduly influencing an elector to vote or refrain from voting, or to vote or refrain from voting for a particular candidate or registered party.

It also prohibits third parties from using foreign funds for partisan advertising and activities. It also prohibits foreign entities from spending on partisan advertising and activities during both the pre-election and election periods. It also requires online platforms to publish a registry of partisan advertising published during the pre-election period and all election advertising during the election period. It also has provisions that prohibit knowingly making or publishing a false statement to affect election results.

Those are five additional measures that were added in the Elections Modernization Act.

[Cherie Henderson]

You will all be aware, of course, that five years ago we did Bill C-59. It had some very important additions to our act, but as I said, it's very old.

Some nations do a regular review just to make sure it's all up to standard and can allow the agencies to engage and do what they need to do into the future as well. The CSIS Act has withstood the time, but it is time for a review and to have a good close look at it.

[Cherie Henderson]

One of the things that would help us greatly in this day and age is the ability to really access and use data. We did get changes to the data regime in Bill C-59, but from what we're experiencing it is still not as fluid. We want to ensure, of course, that we respect the privacy of Canadians. We are fully bound by the charter, but we need to find an ability to crunch and use data to help us assess threats as we move into the future.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you specifically to our witnesses for your amazing testimony. I really appreciate your views on the terminology being used to describe various types of extremism. The consistent message in all of this is hatred. That's the motivation behind all of the violence that we're seeing, whether it be hatred towards political views, towards religious groups, or hatred attached to certain ideologies. I thank you for boiling it down to what it really is as hatred.

I want to go back to my colleague Ms. Stubbs' question about some of the changes to Bill C-59. Both of your groups testified before the public safety committee on that. Some of the things that have changed and were very contentious were the removal of the propaganda and advocacy of terrorism as a criminal charge, and the limitation of security and intelligence or surveillance of protesters in anti-government demonstrations.

Now, you didn't get a chance to respond to that question, both Mr. Fogel and Mr. Farooq.

Should this legislation be revisited with a view to strengthening and actually dealing with the issues—as you both identified in your opening remarks and subsequent testimony—that have created more issues and more ongoing hatred online as a result? I ask because really, law enforcement ability to respond appropriately has been somewhat muted as a result.

[Shannon Stubbs, Conservative, Lakeland, AB]

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, both of you.

Related to your points about moving from words to action, and to your point also about security and safety, of course the national security laws have been revised a number of times.

Mustafa, I was thinking about this during your opening comments. The latest changes, of course, were in Bill C-59, which I know both of your organizations testified about. Particular policies in it that were contentious were the removal of the propaganda and advocacy of terrorism as a criminal charge, and also the limitation of security surveillance of protestors during anti-government demonstrations. I just wonder if both of you want to share some views or thoughts on whether or not those legislative tools should be revisited.

Sorry, Chair, maybe they'll be able to get back to that afterwards.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Right now, in Canada, when I look at everything that is happening with National Defence and various departments, I believe that there is an urgent need to consolidate our actions, because we work a lot in silos. Bill C-59 was passed two or three years ago to try to improve the situation, but perhaps the Canadian way of doing things is causing us problems. We often seem to think that we are nobody's enemy, but your report clearly shows that we are also under attack, not only from China, since we are here today to talk about China, but also from Russia.

The report also mentions that the possibility of attacks is linked to armed conflicts between states. Yet in the United States, pipelines have been directly attacked when there was no open conflict.

In Canada, could our oil and gas system be the target of this type of attack, even if there is no armed conflict?

[Artur Wilczynski]

Thank you for the question.

Again, I will just go back to CSE's core mandate, and SIGINT in particular, which is the collection of foreign intelligence. The types of activities that you mention in terms of our collection authorities are not necessarily consistent with the legislation we have.

In terms of the recent legislation, the passage of Bill C-59 and the CSE Act, we do have an active cyber-operations mandate. However, thresholds and proportionality are all very important considerations that we need to bear in mind. We are very cognizant of the importance of freedom of expression. There's a fairly high threshold that we have to look at. From CSE's point of view, we would be very cautious in that space.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I appreciate that. Thank you very much.

I want to ask again regarding Bill C-59, so probably Mr. Flynn would be the best fit to answer this.

It raised the threshold to apply for terrorism-based reconnaissance warrants and didn't change the legal requirements to have one granted. It essentially made it harder to apply for a warrant against a terrorist, but it's the same as before to get a warrant.

How many warrant applications are the RCMP or CSIS seeking per year under this new system? Do you have numbers for that?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much for that.

In recent Bill C-59, Conservatives proposed an intelligence-to-evidence legal process to allow intelligence into courts, to help get intelligence into evidence under a judicial review process without revealing sources, which we've heard is a significant challenge.

Would something like that make it easier for prosecutors to pursue convictions of those who would perpetrate terrorism and these violent extremist actions, especially with some of these transnational groups and various other hate entities?

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

I believe that you spoke to the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security two or three years ago about Bill C-59 and cybersecurity operations, among other things. Lately, as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, we've seen that our security agencies don't have highly offensive capabilities, compared to the CIA, to counter external threats.

Do you think that, in Canada, we should start considering other ways of dealing with threats?

[Shelly Bruce]

I can assure you that we are working very closely with the military. In the C-59 legislation, there was a new part of our assistance mandate that opened up our capabilities and allowed us to use them in concert with the CAF's and the DND's authorities. This is a new place where we can come together and work more effectively together.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Thank you, Major-General.

I'd now like to turn to Ms. Bruce, from the Communications Security Establishment, the CSE.

During his testimony, the minister spoke several times about amendments to the act. He was talking about Bill C-59, which I worked on when I was on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security. Offensive external response capabilities were assigned. We also identified an issue that wasn't necessarily addressed by the provisions of Bill C-59, which was strongly siloed operations. We currently have with us representatives from the Canadian Armed Forces, CSE, and the Canadian Centre for Cybersecurity. There are often communication problems between these organizations.

Has this situation improved? Can you say that there is currently close co-operation between the military and civilians in Canada?

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

But legislation is public by nature. I know that, two years ago, we passed Bill C-59 that laid out some new measures. However, you recently mentioned in your report that the act still presented a number of problems that were making your work more difficult. Can you provide some specifics on what would really make your work easier?