Canada-China Relations Committee on March 11th, 2021

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Okay. The previous minister of public safety indicated in May 2019 that a decision was going to be made before the 2019 election. He then indicated in July of that year that a decision would be made shortly after the 2019 election. We're now a year and a half since the election and there's still no decision yet.

People are wondering how long this study is going to take, because the government has continually said it's studying the issue. We've been studying it for years now.

I guess maybe a different way to ask the question is: Has the CSE completed its study, and it's just with the cabinet now for further study, or are CSE and other elements of the Canadian security establishment still studying this?

[Shelly Bruce]

As you can appreciate, it would be inappropriate for me to speak about advice and guidance that we are giving to the government on any of these matters.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Okay, so maybe this is a more specific question. What is your view of Huawei providing network switches for the core of the network that connects four national data centres under the Compute Canada Federation?

[Shelly Bruce]

I can speak more broadly to the program that is running right now under the security review program. That really is related to the distribution of equipment and security in the 3G, 4G and LTE space, if that's of interest, because there is a—

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

No, I'd like to get to specifics of Huawei.

Maybe I'll ask Mr. Vigneault of CSIS.

Several years ago, Mr. Vigneault, I believe in December 2018, you warned of increasing state-sponsored espionage through 5G networks. While you didn't explicitly mention China, you identified 5G mobile technology as one of the five critical areas of threat that Canada is facing. Do you still hold that view?

[David Vigneault]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr. Chong.

We have been referring to a number of threats. The threat environment, unfortunately, is getting more complex and more complicated. The number of threat actors and their capabilities are increasing. Yes, any advanced technology and advanced communications networks are lucrative targets, as my colleague said, so we are indeed concerned about the integrity.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

One thing that's a bit confounding for those of us who are following this issue closely is that we know that CSIS talks regularly to Canadian universities and business organizations about state-sponsored threats to Canada. For example, last August, Canadian universities were warned about using Alibaba for Zoom-type technologies. Last August, they were also warned about the thousand talents program. You mentioned 5G as being a threat from foreign actors. Clearly, there's only one country and one company that is the embodiment of that threat.

Yet, last month one of the elements of the Government of Canada, NSERC, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, awarded an almost $5-million grant to partner with Huawei in Canadian universities. NSERC says that it doesn't see a problem with the grant. Canadian universities have indicated that they've not been warned against working or collaborating with Huawei, that they've not received any direction or guidance from the federal government in this regard.

Has CSIS given guidance to Canadian universities about the 5G threat?

[David Vigneault]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair and Mr. Chong.

CSIS is not in the business of giving guidance to universities. We work with them in collaboration. We provide them with as much information as possible—

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you. I'm sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Chong's time is up.

I'll now go to Ms. Yip for five minutes, please.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Thank you, everyone, for returning to the committee.

Mr. Stewart, last week, Minister Blair acknowledged the rise of racism and violence directed towards Canadians of Asian descent purely because of their ethnicity. In your opinion, how important is it for public figures and communication products to avoid blanket statements and declarations that can marginalize entire communities?

[Rob Stewart]

I would not be a position to share my opinion with the committee, as I give advice to the minister, but I can represent the minister's view, which is that it is extremely important for Canadian public figures to emphasize that this is inappropriate behaviour and it is divisive and dangerous to our society.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

What can be done to reassure Asian Canadians to feel safe, especially in light of the rise in anti-Asian racism of 715% in B.C.?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

I can—

I'm sorry. Go ahead, Rob.

[Rob Stewart]

I was going to say that it is a very important fact that when we talk about a threat as it emanates from China, it's to be laid at the door of the Government of China, not the people of China. Making that point and making it very clearly is very important.

Commissioner.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Yes, I was simply going to add that whether we're talking about a threat in the national security space or just a threat in general, which we've seen with the onset of COVID, it's so important for people to come forward to report that to their police of jurisdiction. I know that in the Lower Mainland that is mostly the RCMP. It's really important for people to feel that they can go to the police of jurisdiction to report it, because that's the only way that we will be able to deal with it adequately.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Has there been a rise in investigations by the RCMP on this matter?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

I can't say for sure specifically on intimidation. I know that for COVID specifically, there's been a rise in mental health calls and there's been a rise in domestic violence, but I haven't seen any statistics that show a rise in intimidation or threats.

[Rob Stewart]

I could perhaps add that the government has an anti-racism strategy, of which the Department of Public Safety is a part, and the role we play there is in programming and providing grants and contributions to organizations to counter racism.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Are there specific programs towards the Asian community?

[Rob Stewart]

I can't answer that question, but I can answer you in writing.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I look forward to seeing your response.

Ms. Lucki, you have mentioned that it's important for people to report the incidents. However, some Asian Canadians feel that they can't come forward because they feel that their statements are not—I don't want to say not taken seriously—effective, I guess, in terms of what the police or the RCMP would be looking for. Can you provide some clarification on that?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

Yes. I can say that we take every complaint of threats and intimidation seriously. Obviously, in our space, it's about Criminal Code infractions, so it's important that it meet that threshold. If people fear.... Of course, with intimidation and threats, there's always a fear attached to those types of crimes, but we do have, for example, Crime Stoppers and we do have the tip line.

It's very important, because sometimes people just don't feel safe to report those. That's why we have those anonymous types of areas where they can do so, or they can go through the tip line and not be anonymous if they'd like. They don't have to go to a police station, for example.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Has there been an increase in foreign interference investigations by the RCMP?

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

I won't say specifically. It's very hard. These are not investigations that people call in. These are self-generated investigations, usually, where we get certain pieces of information, and we proactively would go and investigate that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

This concludes Ms. Yip's time.

This also concludes our first panel.

Witnesses, on behalf of the members, I want to thank all of you very much for your appearance this evening.

We'll need a few minutes to switch over and bring in our next guest and test the sound. We'll suspend for two minutes while we make the changeover.