Canada-China Relations Committee on March 11th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Your time is up. Thank you very much.

We will go on.

Mr. Dubourg, you have five minutes.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the witnesses here tonight and thank them for coming. I also understand that when we talk about national security and public safety, it's a little more difficult for witnesses to get into details. Nevertheless, we want to make sure that Canadians are well protected.

Since we started this meeting, we have been talking about people receiving threats or immigration. I will start with the latter.

At the end of last year, I think in December, Minister Mendicino introduced measures to attract students and to make it easier for them to obtain permanent resident status. I think Mr. Ossowski is well aware of that.

Since the announcement, has the program been working well? Are there any security issues related to people moving to Canada?

[John Ossowski]

Our role with respect to those programs that are administered by IRCC is to do the security screening. For anyone who applies for a permit of permanent residency or temporary resident visas we would work with our other security partners to provide the assurance that there's no security issues that they need to be concerned about.

I would just say that since those announcements were made, obviously the travel restrictions have made it so that people aren't actually arriving in the country. The work is continuing behind the scenes, and once we get past that place, the people who we have no concerns with would be allowed to enter the country.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

You are quite right, Mr. Ossowski: the pandemic has delayed this process.

Let us now return to the security aspect and the first questions asked by my colleagues about people who feel threatened.

Ms. Lucki, you said that at times you had received more than 120 reports and that you passed this information on to the police if it concerned them.

Is the security system well integrated? Do you receive the reports first?

If all the elements of the security structure work together, we have an integrated system that protects Canadians.

[Commr Brenda Lucki]

What I can say is that outside of the tip line we have an integrated approach to national security. We work very closely with CSIS. We work with CSE. We work with, of course, CBSA and the cyber side with the cybersecurity centre. We do our utmost to be integrated. We have meetings together. We share information when possible. At the working level, often there are people working side by side and they are embedded together in the same offices. That's to make sure there's a seamless transition, because in these investigations, sometimes everybody has pieces of the same puzzle and we have to make sure that we share those. That's the integrated approach that we use.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

I wanted to hear you say that and I thank you.

As you know, I met several of you when I was on the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, and I know how you operate. Unlike the latter committee or other agencies that do not always have the opportunity to reassure Canadians, the present committee allows us to speak publicly, and I wanted to hear you say that security measures are in place to protect Canadians.

Mr. Chair, you're indicating that I don't have much time left. Perhaps I will have the opportunity to come back to this later.

Thank you, and thank you to the witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dubourg.

I now give the floor to Mr. Bergeron for two and a half minutes.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am counting on you, Mr. Stewart, to ensure that we get the written answers that were promised to us at the last meeting and again today.

Mr. Vigneault, what do you say to this statement by your predecessor that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is doing business with a Chinese government entity, which is certainly an entry point for potential cyber spies?

This brings me to a second question which I will take the liberty of asking you at the same time.

I assume you are aware that VFS Global was subject to personal information leaks in the UK in 2015. Did this information cause Canadian authorities to be concerned about continuing to do business with VFS Global, given that the contract was renewed in 2015 and in 2018?

Finally, on February 9, the Prime Minister announced an investigation into the process. Where are we with this investigation process?

[David Vigneault]

Thank you, Mr. Bergeron, for your question.

It is very clear that the Chinese government has several vectors that can lead to the interception of information. Sophisticated states around the world have a number of ways of getting cyber espionage information and bringing a human factor into the transmission chain. It is this kind of information that we need to understand.

We give the threat information to our partners, who must determine the best measures to mitigate the threat. We work with our intelligence security partners and with our partners and friends around the world. It's always a very complex element, but that's why we work closely with our partners.

With respect to your question about the VFS Global leaks, I am sorry, but unfortunately I cannot answer it. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada would be in a better position to answer it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Mr. Bergeron, you have 10 seconds.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Can anyone enlighten me on the process announced by the Prime Minister?

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Unfortunately, your time is up.

We go now to Mr. Harris for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I have a question. I guess it's first of all directed towards the Communications Security Establishment.

I'm referencing the December 2018 CSE press release relating to China's Ministry of State Security being behind a 2016 compromise of what were called “managed service providers” in Canada and elsewhere.

Can you first of all tell me, when you're referring to managed service providers, who are you referring to, and whether or not China's Ministry of State Security breach resulted in access to client data stored by these providers?

[Shelly Bruce, Chief, Communications Security Establishment]

Chair, thank you very much for the question.

CSE has two main roles that are very complementary.

One of them is in the foreign intelligence side, where we look for the motivations, intentions, capabilities and activities of foreign actors, including foreign cyber-threat actors, whether they're state or non-state. We also have the mandate to act as the cybersecurity centre for the Government of Canada and raise that cybersecurity—

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

Can you be more specific to the question, please? I have only a very limited time and I'm looking for some answers that might be helpful.

[Shelly Bruce]

I'm sorry. Of course, those two mandates come together to put us in a position where we can see certain things, and when it makes sense with the government, we can attribute certain activities to actors that would otherwise go undetected.

I have with me today the head of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, who can talk a little bit more about managed service providers and what role they play in the supply chain and the ecosystem for different organizations.

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

I'd like to know about this particular investigation and the result of it.

If Mr. Jones is here, I guess he can provide that information.

[Scott Jones, Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Communications Security Establishment]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.

When we're talking about managed service providers, it's really the people that many companies rely upon to provide those services which makes them a very lucrative intelligence target.

In the case that you mentioned, where the government chose to do an attribution, it was to draw attention to the fact that this had been done and led to significant compromises for companies around the world. This is something we joined in with our allies, to both advise in terms of how to raise the bar, but also to raise awareness and to draw attention to the fact that this was something of concern in terms of the breadth of the activity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much. Mr. Harris's time is up.

Mr. Genuis, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, but I believe Mr. Chong was to be ahead of me. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Sure, sorry. Pardon me, I'll go to Mr. Chong in that case.

Thank you very much.

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

Thank you.

My first question is for the Communications Security Establishment.

Last November you named China for the first time as one of the greatest strategic threats to Canada. You warned of the developing cyber capabilities to disrupt our critical infrastructure. What is your view of Huawei Technologies Canada being allowed to build out the core of Canada's 5G telecommunications infrastructure?

[Shelly Bruce]

Thank you very much for the question.

At this point, the Communications Security Establishment is one of many organizations that are contributing to a government-wide study to assess—

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

I understand that. My question, then, is: When will that study be completed?

[Shelly Bruce]

This study is under way, and when the government is prepared to make a decision, then I'm sure the answer will be known to that. I don't know if—