Canada-China Relations Committee on May 31st, 2021

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Right now, in Canada, when I look at everything that is happening with National Defence and various departments, I believe that there is an urgent need to consolidate our actions, because we work a lot in silos. Bill C-59 was passed two or three years ago to try to improve the situation, but perhaps the Canadian way of doing things is causing us problems. We often seem to think that we are nobody's enemy, but your report clearly shows that we are also under attack, not only from China, since we are here today to talk about China, but also from Russia.

The report also mentions that the possibility of attacks is linked to armed conflicts between states. Yet in the United States, pipelines have been directly attacked when there was no open conflict.

In Canada, could our oil and gas system be the target of this type of attack, even if there is no armed conflict?

[David McGuinty]

The 2020 report sets out the risks inherent to Canada's critical infrastructure. It highlights what has taken place in other jurisdictions. It even highlights the fact that our Communications Security Establishment played a critical role in detecting threats to American critical infrastructure and shared them with the United States.

In the report, yes, we lay out very clearly the magnitude of some of these threats. We also, of course, have a number of prescriptions in our 2019 report on how to deal with these. Chief amongst these—to go back to what I said earlier, sir—is that we need a central, coordinated, pan-Canadian approach to dealing with the question of foreign interference and we need to get it now.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

Let's talk about electoral interference. You mentioned the interference at different levels of government. We are focusing primarily on the federal government, but in Canada, our provinces are actually quite independent. I've had discussions with some people, and I think there are huge concerns from provincial governments, because they are also victims of cyber attacks and of interference on their territory.

In your recommendations, did you indicate a way that would help our provinces?

[David McGuinty]

In 2019, we clearly outlined the challenges for the federal government, including communicating risks to other levels of government in Canada and to the Canadian public. In response to the Judd report, we also made recommendations to improve the make-up and mandate of the group that was created to receive complaints or information in the event of a problem, cyber or otherwise, during a federal election.

However, we have a great deal of progress to make. We have clearly seen in the report that foreign interference in our elections affects all political parties in the House of Commons and all levels of government.

[Pierre Paul-Hus, Conservative, Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, QC]

In your report, you don't talk specifically about the People's Liberation Army in China, but do you consider them to be a significant player in cyber attacks?

[David McGuinty]

Mr. Chair, I'd like to ask Mr. Jorgensen to answer that question. I think he has more to say on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Actually, I'm sorry, we're at the end of Mr. Paul-Hus' time. Perhaps we'll have another opportunity for that. I regret it. We're just over the six-minute point, so I have to go on. I'm happy to do so, of course, but I regret leaving Mr. Paul-Hus.

We'll go on to Mr. Fragiskatos for six minutes, please.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I didn't hear any regret in your voice, so we're all good there.

Mr. McGuinty, thank you very much for being here tonight, and to Mr. Jorgensen, as well. I really appreciate your time.

Mr. McGuinty, what can you share with the committee about Canada's election integrity? You mentioned that at the outset of your remarks, but we'd like to hear more on that, if possible.

[David McGuinty]

If we turn to the 2020 annual report, starting at paragraph 12, Canadians and members can see a description of the critical election incident public protocol that was put into place. It's a big name, but it basically creates a panel of five persons chaired by the Clerk of the Privy Council to be on guard for Canadians during the federal election process.

When it was originally constituted, it was all about receiving information about cyber interference activities during a federal election. A report was then prepared by Jim Judd, the former head of CSIS. That report, under the cabinet decree, was sent to NSICOP for review.

As a result of deliberations, the committee made a number of recommendations to the Prime Minister and the Government of Canada to improve that panel. We illustrated as well, of course—as Mr. Paul-Hus just referred to and if you look at paragraph 70 of our report—the fact that China likely launched cyber attacks on the Australian Parliament and three largest political parties before its last general election. We cite, of course, Russian activities in the U.S. 2016 presidential election.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much for that.

I do want to ask you a general question about three specific things, which are espionage, foreign interference and cyber attacks.

To what extent is Canada actively working in concert with other countries—middle powers in particular—to counter any impact of those on our democracy? What can you share with us on that?

[David McGuinty]

I think it's fair to say that in our 2019 foreign interference review, we indicated that we have a lot of work to do on improving co-operation between the federal, provincial and municipal orders of government on this front. As one of the speakers on your other panel said earlier, we also have a lot of work to do to enhance Canadians' understanding of the threats.

One of the things that we did do was to join with the G7 to create a rapid response mechanism in 2018 and a summit in June 2018. We're now co-operating amongst the G7 to have a rapid response mechanism to follow and get informed about things that might be occurring in each of our respective jurisdictions. There's a significant amount of co-operation going on.

We believe there's much more progress to make from a whole-of-government perspective in the Canadian context.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

For my final question here, you did mention that a focus of the committee has been terrorism. On the rise of the incel subculture specifically, I wanted to ask if you have any thoughts you can share on that. The public reports that have been issued by the committee have come up and I think it speaks to the fact that the nature of national security is changing. The nature of terrorism, in fact, is changing.

Could you elaborate on that and any overlap that exists between incel subculture and white supremacist movements, if there's a connection between those two? Some have made that observation in the past.

[David McGuinty]

Time being of the essence, Mr. Chair, I would recommend that members take a look at paragraphs 31 and forward in our 2020 annual report. We clearly lay out the rise of IMVE, which is ideologically motivated violent extremism movement. It is spreading quickly. Canada has a very large per capita participation. It's up to 6,600 identified right-wing extremist channels, pages, groups and accounts. There are many different actors. At least a hundred white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups existed in Canada, but now we believe that's up to about 300.

The growth has been exponential. It's a serious risk to Canada's national security. We've laid it out in a very clear form with all of the information that we could provide Canadians.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

It looks as though I have around 45 seconds left.

When you say, Mr. McGuinty, that on a per capita basis the numbers are very high, can you elaborate on that? In comparison with other democracies, are we singled out in that sense?

[David McGuinty]

What we talk about and point to in the report is that one prominent message board [Technical difficulty—Editor] alone, for example, on which Canadians are more much more active than American and British users...

The point about this is that extremist dialogue is not necessarily criminal, but Canada is providing a large base from which to recruit or to become radicalized, from within and from without the country, and that is one of the trends that's most worrisome—one of the biggest changes in our 2020 annual report compared with what we saw in 2018 in the same area.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Thank you very much, Mr. Fragiskatos.

Ms. Normandin, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Good evening, Mr. McGuinty and Mr. Jorgensen.

I had a short but very pleasant stay with your committee, and it is with some regret that I had to leave you.

This brings me to my next question. Someone on the committee is very keen to take over, and that someone is Mr. Bergeron, whom I am replacing here tonight. I would like to ask the question on his behalf.

Your committee produces non-partisan and unanimous reports, but one voice is missing right now. Can we have an update on the status of Mr. Bergeron's application?

[David McGuinty]

Good evening, Ms. Normandin.

I'm sorry to have lost you as a member of our committee. I'm also sorry that I'm not able to tell you what is happening in the Prime Minister's Office and in the Privy Council Office.

Our committee is missing a few members. We have lost two members from the Liberal Party, and there have been changes proposed to the Conservative Party. I think the Prime Minister and his staff are reviewing it all.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much for the update.

In your opening remarks, you talked about the importance of institutional and public resiliency. At one of our committee's recent meetings, Mr. Juneau-Katsuya appeared and talked about the role of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in educating private companies. Your committee has slightly changed the discourse by saying that CSIS made a mistake, which Mr. Juneau-Katsuya denied, pointing out that CSIS did the right thing in that context.

Could you comment on that and on whether the position of the NSICOP will change in the future?

[David McGuinty]

One of the challenges that we have identified in our analysis of foreign interference is that people in many areas of Canada are not allowed to see or receive classified briefings because they do not have the necessary secret or top secret security clearance.

Today, we are seeing exactly the same situation with respect to our universities. Measures have recently been announced in Alberta and many administrators, academics and university presidents are scratching their heads wondering what exactly is going on.

Our government needs to address this challenge, and we have determined that it requires a whole-of-government approach. I think we will have to be a little open now. But it's up to CSIS to determine how to do so and who to do it with.

Municipal police officers also have this challenge. More and more officers do not understand what foreign interference means. A lot of progress needs to be made in this area and a lot of information needs to be shared.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is about the role of international allies. Ms. Brady recently appeared before our committee and we talked about the situation in Australia.

Could you tell us what you think about the situation in the United Kingdom, which has just released a very robust report entitled the “Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy”? Nothing like it has been done since the Cold War. The report seems to be very interested in the resilience of national infrastructures.

As we know, among the Five Eyes, only Canada has been perhaps a little more lax on the Huawei issue. The U.K. seems to be perhaps a little more concerned about who owns some of the technologies used by the government.

Is this something that the NSICOP is concerned about, or are they concerned enough to do a study on it?

[David McGuinty]

First, the NSICOP has not studied the issue of Huawei and the use of that technology.

Second, the comprehensive study done by the U.K. is quite extraordinary. It's something that hasn't been done in Canada for decades. How does it all tie together and get managed? Is it effective and are we getting value for our money?

A lot of progress needs to be made. There has been some discussion at the NSICOP, but we haven't had time to address it yet because we are so busy with other studies on cyber security, foreign affairs, the department and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

It's an excellent suggestion that could inform our work.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you.

Speaking of technology, could the NSICOP have a role to play in a T-12 group to fight the illiberal use of technology by China? Could that be a worthwhile topic?

[David McGuinty]

It might be worthwhile, but again, it's not a topic that has been discussed at the NSICOP. We are very disciplined in that regard, and our reports only deal with topics that the NSICOP has addressed.

Having said that, thank you for these excellent suggestions.