Evidence of meeting #12 for Canada-China Relations in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was interference.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
Thank you, Mr. Trudel.
To wrap up, we'll go to Ms. McPherson for our final two and a half minutes.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To be fair, I should ask some questions of our Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness team. Obviously we've been hearing about online threats, coercion, all of these harms being directed towards Canadians.
What are the policy steps being taken right now to deal with this? What is happening at the policy level?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Thanks for the fairness.
Because the threat is constantly changing and because the threat landscape is shifting constantly, we need to make sure our tools are up to date and adequate. Obviously there's quite a lot of policy work that's being done internally: We share with the community, we talk with the allies, we learn constantly and we are providing advice to government.
This results oftentimes in legislative amendments or proposals, the latest one being the changes to the Investment Canada Act that have been tabled by ISED. We're also working, on the Prime Minister's request, on a renewal of the cyber-strategy.
The threat is multivector, and we are looking at the range of policies and tools across the board to come up with an updated policy tool kit.
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
You talked about the cyber-threat, of course, that we are seeing against Canadians, but specifically, what are those policy pieces for the targeting of Canadians?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
Again, I think what's important to discuss is the fact that the targeting of Canadians happens in many ways. It's not just someone being harassed on a personal level. It could be what's happening online, through investments or the narratives being channelled to social media.
We're trying to take a look at this from a more comprehensive perspective in order to see whether there are gaps that need to be addressed; how best to invest our money, efforts and resources; and where we need to adjust the legislation. This is all being done right now. We're looking at it at a very comprehensive level to make sure we're not forgetting any threat actors who—
NDP
Heather McPherson NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I'd like to get much more detail on that, but I don't think it's possible at this time.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
The time is up. I appreciate that. Thank you.
Thank you to the panel. I know it's late, but your input has been welcomed and, hopefully, valuable to our ongoing consideration of this. We have another session coming up on this topic. What we learned from you will probably lead to more questions for the next group coming in. Thank you for that.
I'd like to thank our two clerks. We're blessed tonight, again, with two for the price of one. With analysts, we're down, instead, to one for the price of two. To our interpreters, technical crew and staff, thank you all for being here and for your work tonight.
The meeting is adjourned.