Canada-China Relations Committee on Feb. 24th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

—and a deal with China is that they don't necessarily follow the rules.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Genuis, you have five minutes.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Fragiskatos doesn't appear to have liked my last line of questioning, but Mr. Tiberghien, this is, I think, an important one to follow up on because I have a couple hundred pages of emails exchanged between members of the China council at UBC over a couple of months in early 2019. Those were obtained under a FOIPPA request in British Columbia. These are important things to highlight, because I asked you if professors on the China council at UBC ever consult with administrators before speaking publicly, and if you ever ask for speaking points before offering public comment.

You said, “No”, but after receiving an email from a reporter at the UBC student newspaper about Huawei and Canada-China relations on January 18, 2019, you wrote to Adriaan de Jager, associate vice-president of government relations and community engagement, and Murali Chandrashekaran, co-chair of the China council, and you asked, “Any advice on how I should respond to this request? Thanks Yves”.

Adriaan de Jager responded, “Looping in Kurt Heinrich who will share our response to media regarding Huawei.” He's a senior director of media relations for UBC.

You replied:

Thanks Adriaan

For Kurt: I can of course provide my expertise on the analysis of the larger Huawei event and Canada-China relations. But I will be asked about impact on UBC and UBC's reactions. So, it is good for me to know well the official response...do you encourage me to do this interview?

Thanks!

Yves

Earlier that month, on January 2, you wrote to Paul Evans and others asking for his notes from various meetings. One of the co-chairs of the Canada-China Council—

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Mr. Chair, I didn't raise a point of order during Mr. Genuis's last line of questioning mainly because I thought the witness was doing a very good job of responding to all the questions. However, I believe that in the last round of questioning Mr. Genuis did go well beyond the mandate of this committee into an issue that was not related to the mandate given to us by the House of Commons.

We are to look at the relationship of Canada and China. I don't think the internal workings of one institution are in the particular purview of this committee. I believe it's amounting to both an attack on a person who is a witness and has graciously given us his time and on an institution that has its own priorities.

I am concerned that we are veering beyond—

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Mr. Oliphant, I think this....

Look, I do remind members to stick to the mandate. However, I think this is primarily debate—

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Mr. Chair, if I could just speak to the point of order before my—

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I'd like to have you go on with your questions, if you don't mind, in terms of time for all members.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

This is a question of the integrity of our research and the advice we are receiving, and it is very telling that Mr. Oliphant is uncomfortable with these questions.

I'm reading from an internal email in which one of the co-chairs of the China council wrote—

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I have another point of order.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

More points of order...? Mr. Oliphant is very uncomfortable.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

On a point of order, I would like to know what it is telling of, because indirectly this—

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I'm sorry. This is debate. You're getting into debate, Mr. Oliphant. I appreciate—

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Then it's a point of privilege, not a point of order.

On a point of privilege, not on a point of order, I would argue that the member is impugning my character by saying that something is “telling” of what I am doing when I am simply trying to raise a point of order.

For me, that's a point of privilege, not a point of order. If the member has an accusation he is wanting to make, he should make it but not impugn my character.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you, Mr. Oliphant.

I'm going to go back to Mr. Genuis.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and again, very revealing.

The email references an official UBC point of view:

I would recommend we have one meeting in which all players are present.

Yves—you should trigger that meeting sooner rather than later....?

You wrote back saying, “I just sent the general email triggering the message.”

Another question I asked of you is if professors on the China council are involved in commercial negotiations with Huawei. You said no. I have here an email you received from Paul Evans on on March 9. It reads as follows:

Meigan set up a very good session for me on Wednesday with six of her...applied science colleagues. Crisp and informed discussion about experiences in working with China, Huawei related matters in particular, and the changing environment for future collaborations.

Reconciling national security concerns and related risks with advancing research and science is a complicated issue that they are all thinking about. So far there has been no interaction with Ottawa on this but clearly an interest in doing so.

I've suggested a second meeting with the same or a slightly enlarged group or the smaller UBC group (four of five were with us) negotiating with HW now. Meigan made the case that this is an issue where UBC could play a national leadership role. She'll do some internal consultations. Gail has informed.

I had asked you as well if the China council played a direct role in university fundraising or in providing advice related to fundraising. You said not in many years.

On March 20, 2019, you sent an email to various colleagues called “Strategic follow-up action items UBC-China” in which one of the items is the presidential advisory council on China. About this advisory council, you said that Jack Austin, one of the co-chairs of the China council, remained very excited about this process and thought that it held the key to a higher quality relation of UBC with China, but also to fundraising related to China.

The minutes from the September 12, 2018, meeting of the China council say, “Community engagement and PACC: to complete the President's Advisory Council on China...to incorporate top...societal leaders (and future fundraisers), as this could have tremendous impact in terms of the university's reputation, networks, and fundraising.”

I asked if decisions about awarding honorary degrees were discussed at the council. You said no, but according to the agenda for January 18, 2019, UBC awarded an honorary degree to Kevin Rudd, former prime minister of Australia.

I asked if CSIS had issued warnings about the risks of collaboration with Huawei. You said, not that you were aware of, but on January 22 of last year Paul Evans wrote to you and said, “CSIS has issued warnings already about the risks of research and other collaboration with Huawei in particular.”

Mr. Chair, I'd like to, in light of this, give notice of the following motion:

That the Committee undertake a study of no fewer than four meetings into the relationship between Canadian Universities and Chinese government-controlled entities, and that as part of that study the committee hear from the Co-Chairs of the UBC China Council, and that the Committee report its findings to the House.

This is a notice of motion. I'm not moving the motion, just providing the verbal notice of motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Genuis.

I will explain to the witnesses that members have the right to use their five-minute period in any way they wish. They can make comments, as Mr. Genius did after his first question, or they can ask questions. I would encourage members, if they ask questions, to allow reasonable time for witnesses to respond and therefore not to ask questions at the end.

The next speaker is Mr. Dubourg.

You have five minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Mr. Bergeron, are you raising a point of order?

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Yes.

I understand what you've just explained very well and I totally agree.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

However, given the nature of Mr. Genius' remarks, Mr. Tiberghien should be given an opportunity, at least as a courtesy, to respond and explain his point of view.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Bergeron. However, I will leave it up to the other members to give a portion of their time to do that, if they wish.

Mr. Dubourg, you have the floor.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I'd like to acknowledge all the witnesses who are here and thank them for their presentations.

Our relationship with China is at an impasse. It is a difficult situation and your expertise, gentlemen, is extremely important to us so that we can see how to improve this relationship.

Mr. Tiberghien, I want to give you time to answer, if you have a comment to make following this long statement.

The floor is yours.

[Prof. Yves Tiberghien]

Thank you, Mr. Dubourg.

Of course, I'd like to answer. It's an important matter.

I want to first thank the member for those questions.

I want to preface by saying this is really taken out of context. This is picking one little thing out of a hundred others, so you pick a lot of noise.

First, it is not representative of the usual function. Out of 200 interviews I may have given in three years, this one may be the one where I asked for some thoughts, but I received none and I spoke freely afterwards. You must put this in a larger context.

Second, I did say that I had not heard directly from CSIS, but that I had heard from Paul Evans. This is exactly what you find in the emails.

Third, when it comes to the PAC, the presidential advisory council, this is an old idea that goes back to 2014 or 2015. It has been kicked around in the council, but so far, it has led to nothing. Nothing came out of it. Primarily, the idea was to create an advisory group. It's not primarily about fundraising. You picked a little bit of noise here, but we have to look at the primary goal.

I also want to make it clear that the China council played a role in, for example, convincing the president not to have a Confucius Institute at UBC. We did the research. We did interviews with government, and found that this was risky. We pushed back and we advised against having it. We played a role in ensuring the Dalai Lama came to UBC. We are very neutral. We are pretty happy and are very proud of the role we play in hearing all sides. It's very important to state that the elements picked up here were not representative.

There was a discussion, as noted in the emails, about Huawei that was triggered by the hearings with Paul Evans in Ottawa. They were hearings at GAC, not at CSIS, where we heard there were concerns in Ottawa so we did trigger the meeting. The issue was not about managing media. It was about responding to what we heard from government. We had a very fair discussion. We decided to monitor, to watch what was happening and to be very careful.

Also, one consequence of that was that the officer in charge, the vice-president of research, Gail Murphy, went to Ottawa and was briefed. She did it not as a China council member but as vice-president of research, so she is the lead person managing that.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Tiberghien.

Since we're talking about Huawei, my next question will be for Mr. Paltiel.

I know that in June 2019 there was a meeting to discuss difficulties and solutions. You organized a summit and a conference.

One of the key questions addressed was “The fate of Huawei and Canada's next generation 5G communications network. How do we arrive at the right decision?"

You know the background related to Ms. Meng Wanzhou. In your opinion, should we make a decision on Huawei now or should we wait?

Finally, what impact would one decision or another regarding Huawei have on our relationship with the Group of Five?