Canada-China Relations Committee on April 19th, 2021

[Carolyn Bartholomew]

Yes.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

I think you had more to say about WTO reform. When you were talking with my colleague MP Chong right off the top, you thought it would be a WTO question.

Why is that an issue? Is it your belief that China has not fulfilled its obligations from 20 years ago, effectively getting away with it, and now countries are rewarding them with more trade deals that they won't live up to? Why is that important? Why did that strike you as something to talk about?

I have about two minutes, and I'll give most of it to you.

[Carolyn Bartholomew]

Again, when China got accession to the WTO, some of us had a number of concerns about whether the WTO was going to change China's practices or China was going to change the WTO.

The WTO is just, I think.... I do not advocate that we get rid of it, but I think there need to be some reforms to deal with things like government subsidies and state-owned enterprises. It's just not sufficiently prepared or mandated to deal with the kinds of economic steps that the Chinese government is consistently taking.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Yes.

I think I have about a minute. Is there a growing volume of lawmakers on Capitol Hill to remove China from the WTO or to disband the WTO? I'm curious to get a sense of what you're hearing on that aspect.

[Carolyn Bartholomew]

There are always some people. Interestingly, this commission was considered outliers and quite hawkish when we were started, and we're not considered that anymore, because the whole issue has changed.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Yes.

I have 30 seconds.

[Carolyn Bartholomew]

I just want to say that we—

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Good. You go first.

At the same time, you said Alibaba.... What's happening to it? It's a company that's a little bit free. You mentioned it in one of your comments. We all know what's happening to Alibaba. Could you, for the sake of this testimony, explain what's happening to Alibaba?

[Carolyn Bartholomew]

Yes. First, the Chinese government has pulled back an IPO, of course, and they now most recently look like they are trying to push out Jack Ma completely from what he is doing. The reason this is important is that Alibaba and Ant have always been held up as private companies, right? I mean, they are private companies functioning independently and they aren't.

[John Williamson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you, Mr. Williamson.

Mr. Dubourg, you have five minutes.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mrs. Bartholomew, thank you for joining us today. You can see how fast time passes and how quickly we ask you to move from one subject to another. What you are saying is very interesting.

Let me turn to a different topic. In your profile, I saw that you were a member of one of the first delegations to Africa in connection with HIV/AIDS in children. We are currently grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic. Canada has invested $230 million to help developing countries. The United States has invested over $2.5 billion. However, you mentioned that China is trying to gain a foothold in those countries with its vaccines.

Do you think our investments to help developing countries fight COVID-19 will be sufficient under these circumstances?

[Carolyn Bartholomew]

Given the vast need, I think the amount that Canada has contributed and that the U.S. has contributed is just a starting point. From something I read the other day, I'm not sure that any vaccines have even made it to Haiti. We have an obligation to the world for moral reasons, but we have a practical obligation to the world in all of this, which is that we are not going to be safe to fly around the world and go to places we like to go when other people in other countries are not safe to do that.

I also think there are questions about the efficiency and the efficacy of the Chinese vaccines. I think Chile has vaccinated a comparatively fairly large portion of its population, but the rates of its infection continue to go up. I don't know and I'm not an epidemiologist, so I can't say if it's just some variants that are happening, but when China contributed PPE at the beginning, in the early months, it turned out first that they didn't donate a lot of it and some of it was expected to be paid for, and then some of it was inadequate and insufficient.

Again, I think that here is an opportunity for us to go out there, represent our values and work with these other countries to make sure they have the vaccines they need.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you very much for your interest in Haiti, my home country, which seems to be somewhat spared, unless it has not conducted many tests. The people have other problems at the moment, which are more political in nature.

In your speech, you said you were concerned about the fact that the two Michaels are still in jail. We have taken many steps. You said that, given the people over there, we need to find ways to work together. A number of measures have been put in place, but they haven't worked to date.

Do we need to put more pressure on China or do we need to work together for a positive resolution for those arbitrarily imprisoned?

[Carolyn Bartholomew]

That's a difficult dynamic, I think, that your diplomats are having to deal with. I'm aware of the reports about the Halifax International Security Forum and what was happening there with the award for Taiwan. I don't think we can put aside our concerns about rule of law and fundamental human rights. I think that we have to figure out a way to expand those rather than to contract them, and I think the recognition of China's willingness to arbitrarily detain people is something that anybody who thinks about travelling to China needs to be aware of. I personally don't know that I can ever travel to China and Hong Kong safely again. I don't think I could go to Hong Kong unless there was some change at the top.

American business people need to be worried about this. Canadian business people need to be worried about this. Yes, we need to be focusing on it.

[Emmanuel Dubourg, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Dubourg.

Ms. Bartholomew, thank you so much for being with us. I know all members enjoyed your testimony and your answers. I just want to thank you for your testimony. It's much appreciated and it was very kind of you to join us. We'll let you go, as we have other witnesses to go on with, but it's been great having you with us. You're welcome to stay, but we're going to go on to the other guests in a moment.

[Carolyn Bartholomew]

That's okay.

One more thing is that I would first express my appreciation to all of you for being interested in what we're doing. I presume that you know that there are interparliamentary working groups in Europe, for example. We're not the only places that are trying to figure out how to deal with these issues. I recommend them to you if you are not engaged with them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you so much.

[Carolyn Bartholomew]

Thanks very much. I am going to drop off.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you.

We'll now suspend for two minutes to do the sound check for the next pair of witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I will now call this meeting back to order.

For our second panel, I would now like to welcome Mr. Michel Juneau-Katsuya, appearing as as an individual. He is an expert in national security and intelligence.

Thank you for joining us this evening.

[Michel Juneau-Katsuya, Expert in National Security and Intelligence, As an Individual]

It is an honour and a pleasure to be here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

I would also like to welcome Professor Anne-Marie Brady from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

Ms. Brady, thank you for making the time for us during your holidays, and congratulations on your 25-year wedding anniversary.

Mr. Juneau-Katsuya, you have five minutes for your presentation.

[Michel Juneau-Katsuya]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My thanks also go to all the members of the committee.

Thank you very much. I will try to present in both official languages, which is very much the Canadian way, I suspect. My apologies also to the team of translators. Unfortunately I had difficulties with my technology today, and I was unable to deliver my text ahead of time.

Tonight I would like to speak about national security issues. My concern comes from three decades of observation as a member of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, being able to monitor, study, and even teach about the activities of the Chinese intelligence services in Canada.

The imbalance in the relationship between Canada and China is a serious concern. We are not on a level playing field. Neither side is playing by the same rules—at least, not the rules that Canada would like. Those rules are probably the norm on the international stage. Unfortunately, as several of the witnesses who appeared before this committee mentioned, China often chooses to ignore the way things are done.

What I've been able to observe as the chief of Asia-Pacific for CSIS is the great disbalance that exists on various fronts in the activities that have been conducted by the Chinese intelligence services in Canada.

To understand how they operate, we need to understand also that their methodology comes from a different set of operational standards that we don't have in the western world. In the western world, there's often the analogy that is used that if, for example, the Russian intelligence service wants to steal some information here, very often the analogy was used with grains of sand on the beach. The Russian intelligence service will go, in the cover of the night with a bucket and a shovel, try to fill up their bucket as much as possible and run away before the sun goes up.

The Chinese intelligence services and the Chinese government use what we call a mass collection process. In the mass collection process, basically they will be sending 1,000 people to sunbathe all day, and when they come back at the end of the day, they shake their towels in the same spot, and the amount of information they collect is absolutely phenomenal.

We talk about disbalance because there are many institutions and people who have been employed by the Chinese intelligence services, and among them, their greatest asset is what we call the agent of influence. The agent of influence in Canada has been capable of penetrating at various levels. Although the Canadian Security Intelligence Service does not share as much information publicly as it should and does not give briefings as much as they should to elected officials, we find these people all over the place, from the federal to the provincial to the municipal.

Mr. Dick Fadden, who was the director of CSIS many years ago, tried to warn the general public, and unfortunately he was severely reprimanded by the government at that time. At the end of the day, when we talk about the disbalance, we just need to look at, for example, the number of Chinese diplomats who are in place in Ottawa versus the number of American diplomats. America is our greatest business partner and we are in a trade deficit with China, yet they have almost double the number of diplomats in Canada. Why? It is because of the spy activities and the foreign interference that they do here.

Thank you very much.