Thank you, Chair. It's a pleasure to be before you this afternoon.
I'm going to take advantage of the fact that you didn't vet my comments and provide a little context to the issue, as opposed to speaking in great detail about the specific topic of foreign interference.
I think it's important when we look at this Chinese practice, along with a raft of others, to think of the Chinese as our strategic adversaries. What I would like to talk about more than anything is what it should mean for Canada if we accept that.
I think as a precondition to dealing effectively with the Chinese on foreign interference and on anything else, we have to accept that they have a coordinated and centralized policy, an activity development program, that enables them to use all the tools they have at their disposal—foreign, defence, security and trade policy. My metamessage this afternoon is that if we are going to deal effectively with the Chinese, we have to do the same. We cannot look at foreign interference in isolation from trade activity or diplomatic initiatives in the Far East or Indo-China. We have to have a coordinated activity.
I have a couple of metapoints, if I may. First, I think we need to be realistic. China is the second most powerful country on the planet. We're a middle power among many. Except when our sovereignty is directly impacted, I'm not sure there's a great deal we can do alone to affect how the Chinese are going to treat their objectives and how they are going to carry out their objectives. If we are to have an impact on the Chinese, we must use every multilateral tool at our disposal. If the UN doesn't work, we should try the Five Eyes, the G7 and the margins of NATO. They all provide many opportunities for ministers and officials to exchange views and coordinate action.
Let me touch upon what we should do when our sovereignty is directly affected by Chinese action. We need to recognize it, first of all, and develop some sort of consensus on what that is. When we cannot stop it, and when it is not stopped, we need to take some action. Foreign influence is an activity that comes to mind. By any definition, this is unacceptable and is an assault on our sovereignty and a threat to our citizens. There is no reason we cannot discuss this common problem—this is a common problem shared by many of our allies—and coordinate any push-back.
When the Chinese activity is more indirect—too many Chinese students in universities, the extent of Chinese grants to research in areas sensitive our national security—we need to do something in this area as well. Because they affect areas other than our national security interests, they are more difficult to deal with, but they cannot be ignored in the face of control exercised by the Chinese state.
Coming back to my effort at setting out a metapoint, I submit that Canada cannot effectively deal with organized and centrally controlled Chinese activity without itself being organized and coordinated. I mean that our response needs to be whole-of-government at the level of the Government of Canada and to be national at the level of the country.
By “whole of government”, I mean that our reaction to unacceptable Chinese behaviour can't be limited to just CSIS, CSE and occasionally DND and GAC. Rather, it must encompass all elements of the Government of Canada. ISED and Natural Resources come to mind. By “national”, I mean that the responsibilities of the federal government for protecting our sovereignty and the control it has over our border means that it entails federal governmental activity throughout the private sector and civil society, and in some matters potentially affecting the province.
I stress again that we're not going to be able to deal with foreign influence or any other unacceptable Chinese activity unless we admit we have a problem and we coordinate it internally and with our closest allies. This is not necessarily very easy. It's not easy for any number of reasons. I just want to flag one: Not all Chinese citizens and not all Chinese activities are undertaking activities that are harmful to Canada. Distinguishing between the kinds of activities that Professor Ong talked about and those other activities that are perfectly fine is a great deal more difficult than it sounds on the surface. The only way we're going to do this is if we talk about it and articulate what we consider to be unacceptable, ideally coming up with standards that are very similar across our allies.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to answering any questions you might have.
