Evidence of meeting #4 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 china.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:20 p.m.
Liberal
9:20 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses.
My first question will go to Professor Juneau and Mr. Rigby, and then I'll have something for Mr. Miller.
Both of you have written—and it's come across again tonight—on the importance of the United States for Canada's national security. As part of that, though, you've added a nuance that I think is a very important observation, and that is the polarization we find in the United States. Beyond that, the rise of right-wing populism in the United States makes clear that the United States' role vis-à-vis Canadian national security is automatically under major question.
In light of that, my question to you is what that means for Canada-China relations. To take it one step further as well and return the focus to Canada, what does the rise of polarization in general in Canada—and specifically the right-wing populism that we also see here in this country—imply for Canada-China relations?
9:20 p.m.
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
There's a lot there. I'll try to pick up at least on some aspects. As much as everything we said about China at the beginning absolutely stands, when I think about the order of threats Canada faces, or potentially faces, number one is in some ways the United States. When I say “in some ways”, I mean by some scenarios, which are by no means guaranteed, where the situation degenerates in the U.S. That can pose a greater threat to Canada, because of our massive dependence on the U.S.
The civil war scenario, I think, is very unlikely, but scenarios of contested elections, of more unpredictability in their foreign policy, of more unilateralism, of retreat from NATO and other organizations, and of intelligence-sharing in the Five Eyes and so on are potentially very concerning.
The problem we face is that we have no other option. People have been saying for 50 years that we need a third way and that we need to diversify our trade and other relations. Because of geography, we'll never be able to fully do that.
If you bring in the China dimension, what that means for me is that Canada has to make significant efforts to diversify its relations, including with democracies in East Asia, South Korea, India and Japan. We saw a new intelligence-sharing agreement with Japan announced last week. That's great. That's what we need to do more of to link these two issues, but it's hard. It's not easy, because culturally we are so focused on the U.S.
9:25 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
How does the rise of right-wing populism within Canada and the polarization we see here generally impact Canada-China relations?
9:25 p.m.
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
Maybe I can tackle that one. I want to make a point, though, just about polarization in the United States. There's the potential impact on the Canada-U.S. relationship, the old line that when the United States sneezes, Canada catches a cold. If there's extreme instability south of the border with respect to democratic backsliding, there will be an impact.
The other concern, though, is that if the U.S. is roiling with instability—and the civil war-type scenario, again, I would say is “black swan” and remote—it's going to impact U.S. foreign policy and the U.S.'s ability to operate globally. To confront a China threat and any other threat will potentially be compromised, because they'll be so inward-looking. That would be one of my concerns.
With respect to polarization in Canada, Thomas and I are actually working on a paper right now on domestic violent extremism. We see this as an emerging threat. A lot of it's coming out in the convoy discussions, etc.
One of my concerns with respect to China is just in terms of resources, to be perfectly honest with you, because our intelligence agencies and national security agencies dealing with domestic violent extremism.... The director of CSIS will tell you that's an emerging threat and something we have to pay a lot more attention to, but we have limited resources.
Again, it's a bit like I was saying with respect to the U.S. If, suddenly, domestic violent extremism becomes the number one priority of our national security agencies, how are we going to operate globally and how are we going to confront the China threat?
There are lots of other dimensions to it as well, and I don't have time to get into them, but the limited resources we have to deal with the spectrum of threats out there right now would be something that would jump out at me.
9:25 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
I have only 30 seconds left, so I will put a question to you, Mr. Miller, and maybe we can speak another time, sir.
You talked about long-term challenges. It brings to mind climate change. It brings to mind whether or not Canada can co-operate with China on that particular question. Perhaps colleagues across the way will raise that as well—it was a theme in our first panel—but I will just leave that on the table. Again, I would be glad to follow up afterwards.
Thank you.
9:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
Thank you, Mr. Fragiskatos.
We'll now go to Madame Normandin for five minutes.
9:25 p.m.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you very much to all three of you for your particularly compelling opening remarks.
Now I would like your perspective on information sharing among federal institutions.
When he appeared before the committee about a year and a half ago, Michel Juneau-Katsuya stated that the criminal prosecution of espionage cases is extremely complex, because the RCMP is responsible for prosecuting, but CSIS has the information and the two agencies do not talk to one another.
You mentioned an national security strategy. I was wondering, to what extent would that strategy be inefficient if it doesn't address this lack of communication between the various federal agencies?
9:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Thank you very much for your question.
I'd like to clarify that Mr. Juneau-Katsuya and I are not related. We've never even met.
You're quite right to point out this issue. We actually talk about it a lot in the report we released with the University of Ottawa earlier this year. The issue of information sharing is extremely complex. Sure, it's easy for people on the outside to say we need to share more information, but in practice it's not that simple.
Some laws exist for good reason. In a democracy, there needs to be some control over this type of sharing to ensure privacy and protect sources, among other things. That said, even considering all the restrictions that must remain in place in a democracy, Canada is clearly not doing a good job of sharing information. The reasons for this are cultural, institutional and, in some cases, technological, as computer systems are not necessarily compatible.
At the end of the day, in terms of a strategy for the Indo-Pacific region, our report states that serious effort must be made to address the structural problem of information sharing and the human resources problem, which figures prominently in our report even though we did not mention it earlier. Otherwise, our ability to deal with espionage-related threats will be limited.
9:30 p.m.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
I'd like to expand on that. I understand that you recommend in your report that a post be created as a focal point for a security strategy.
What concrete solutions would you suggest to improve information sharing and avoid any dichotomy between two federal institutions?
9:30 p.m.
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
Maybe I can tackle that.
We had a whole section on governance in the report, and we made a couple of recommendations. The first was to create a cabinet committee on national security that would be chaired by the Prime Minister. Again, we're a little out of step with respect to our Five Eyes allies and even the G7. We're the only country that doesn't have this type of committee chaired by the Prime Minister.
We would like to think that if this committee were established and met on a regular basis, with the Prime Minister and key cabinet ministers in the national security and public safety space getting regular intel briefs and dealing with issues every couple of weeks, this would help solve some of the information-sharing issues. You'd have a natural vector, a place where all of this intel was ultimately going to land on the Prime Minister's desk with key ministers. Having that sort of target zone would help in some respects.
Again, more strategically it would also really help. We find that the government tends to be a bit too ad hoc and responsive on national security issues these days. The incident response group is great, but it's responsive. It's not thinking about the longer term.
The other recommendation we have is to actually create a stronger intelligence function at the centre in PCO. We have a group there right now called the international assessment secretariat. We recommend that we take ITAC, the integrated terrorism assessment centre, and consolidate it with IAS at PCO. It would almost be like a mini kind of director of national intelligence, like we have in the U.S.
I don't want to push that comparison too far, but it would be a coordinating body. We don't have a big intelligence community. We shouldn't be having these problems. This would be a funnel to bring all that intelligence together and make sure it is going to the right places and ultimately being funnelled up to this committee and to the Prime Minister, who is the key person who needs to have this to inform his or her decision-making at the end of the day.
9:30 p.m.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Would international cooperation result in a little more credibility and better partnerships with the Five Eyes?
9:30 p.m.
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I believe that is a key argument. Canada benefits hugely from the Five Eyes, which also includes the United States, in that we get much more than we give.
One of the cornerstones of the intelligence community is give to get. If what Mr. Rigby just proposed and what we recommend in our report is acted upon, if Canada gives more intelligence, we're bound to get more.
October 18th, 2022 / 9:30 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses.
Mr. Berkshire Miller talked a bit in his presentation about imposing Magnitsky sanctions. Canada, of course, has been very reluctant and very slow in the situation with Hong Kong and the breaking of the “one country, two systems” rule. It was a promise made to Hong Kongers. It was not made just to Hong Kongers, but to the international community as well.
There are repercussions. We're seeing that now, with the national security law reaching here to Canada. A Canadian journalist, Victor Ho, is being targeted and has been put on the wanted list.
My question to all of the panellists is this: Should Canada embark on sanctions? If so, what measures should we undertake? What do you think the repercussions would be?
Why is Canada so afraid to take action?
9:30 p.m.
Director and Senior Fellow, Indo-Pacific Program, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
I can take that question first.
Absolutely, I think Canada should look very seriously at this. I think it should be taken from a targeted approach, so we should be looking specifically at targeted individuals we can identify and we feel would be the most impactful. However, I don't think we should be scared of this.
If we judge our foreign policy actions and our decisions based on how Beijing will react and may coerce us, that's not the way to make those decisions. I absolutely think there's a precedent and a possibility. Other countries have taken these measures and have had serious discussions on this, as well.
We're not alone on this, and I absolutely think we should look at it.
9:30 p.m.
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
I would endorse that view. We impose sanctions on other countries in similar circumstances, so why would we have an exception for China? Given the circumstances of the last couple of years, there may have been reasons we approached China a certain way, but, to a considerable extent, those circumstances are no longer in place with respect to the two Michaels and others, so we can perhaps proceed in a more forceful fashion.
Again, it's one tool and we have a whole tool box. There are lots of different kinds of things that we can do with respect to China, both internationally and domestically, so we have to keep that in mind. While I'm a big fan of sanctions in certain circumstances, we need to look at what the ultimate outcomes are going to be and what results we're going to get from those sanctions, and keep our expectations in the right ballpark.
9:35 p.m.
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I would answer yes, absolutely, but with a massive “but”. This is something that we saw clearly in the debate on sanctions against Iran in the last couple of weeks.
Our ability and our capacity to monitor and enforce sanctions in this country is massively overstretched, and Canada has a reputation among its allies—as well as among the bad guys—of not being good at enforcing sanctions. We declare them and we don't follow up. At some point that's damaging, because it signals to the bad guys that when we impose sanctions, we don't follow up and we don't enforce them.
The answer is yes, but there is a major need to significantly increase the resources for our sanctions capacity at Global Affairs, CSIS, the RCMP, the CBSA and elsewhere. The $76 million that the government announced last week is a good first step, but it's really not enough. We don't have a lot of detail, but I'm not even sure it's enough to do what they said they'd do on Iran, let alone on Russia and other countries on which we are not fully imposing the sanctions that we've declared. That means human resources, but it also means improving the process, including on information sharing, but on other aspects too.
There's a big gap between what we say and what we do.
9:35 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you.
Building on information sharing, it's really a question of enforcement. To a degree, CSIS is very limited in its ability to enforce.
What enforcement tools do we need to carry through? If you say it and you don't carry through, it's meaningless.
9:35 p.m.
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
Is that specifically on the sanctions side, or more broadly, in terms of the tools we use?
9:35 p.m.
NDP
Jenny Kwan NDP Vancouver East, BC
If I have time, it is more broadly, but I think we probably only have time for sanctions.
9:35 p.m.
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
I'm not an expert on sanctions. On the enforcement side, I'm not exactly sure how we would approach that.
I think Thomas's point is well taken. It's a matter of resources. Having worked at GAC a number of years ago, I know how small the unit for sanctions is. It's very small. It's more of a GAC lead than a CSIS lead, when it comes to sanctions.
9:35 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken Hardie
Thank you, Ms. Kwan. That is our time.
With that, I thank our three visitors, Dr. Juneau, Mr. Rigby and Mr. Miller. It's fascinating work. I have a feeling we could probably keep them here a lot longer, but our technology will turn itself off in not many minutes, so we'll have to call it a night at that point.
Before we finish, though, Mr. Chong wanted to go through the process on his motion.