Canada-China Relations Committee on May 3rd, 2024

[Richard Fadden]

Thank you for your question.

I would say it happened before 2018. However, we have to admit that relations with China are complex. In 2010, the government was very reasonably trying to forge strategic, trade and financial links. Given that, it was a bit hard to say at the same time that there had to be a very concrete increase in the importance placed on security. I am simply saying that a balance needed to be found, but it happened before 2018.

The fact that CSIS has been talking about the danger that China represents for two decades is interesting, but I am not sure that what CSIS was telling the government in general was being shared with the Winnipeg lab. One of the problems involved in security intelligence is that there is a tendency to classify intelligence in such a way that it becomes difficult and complex to share it. So I do not know the extent to which departments that do not have a national security-related mission had access to CSIS's intelligence, but I would say without reservation that the change happened before 2018.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

What you are saying is very interesting, because in answer to a question, you told us that the Winnipeg virology lab at that time was seen more as a health institution, but it now had to be seen as a national security facility. It always brings us back to the point when the change should have been made.

I want to come back to the 2010 CSIS report saying that the People's Republic of China used agents from its intelligence services and also non-professionals, including people from the academic and business worlds.

You have just told us something extremely interesting: the issue of CSIS intelligence sharing. We know that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act has to be amended, which we saw in the study on the People's Republic of China's interference activities. Is this something that you were already concerned about at the time you were the director of CSIS?

[Richard Fadden]

Yes, absolutely. We were very limited. As I maintained at the time and I still maintain, it is possible to use a CSIS report, by removing the information that could compromise confidential sources, to give people a general impression of the concerns it may have.

When I was at CSIS and elsewhere, I saw that it was difficult to discuss this kind of thing with academics and scientists. They want as many details as possible and they do not like being told how to do things by the government. So we have to find a way to make them understand before they start their job that they will be working in a sensitive position in terms of national security and they have to take it seriously.

The fact that CSIS might have trouble passing this information on to the Winnipeg lab does not change the fact that the Department of Health and the Public Health Agency of Canada should have received those reports and that information and it was kind of their duty to translate that information into language that would enable the people at the Winnipeg lab to understand the importance of the situation, and this might have required that the security rules and the way they were enforced be changed.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

What you are saying is very interesting, Mr.—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Mr. Bergeron, I'm sorry, sir. You are out of time, but you will have further opportunities.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

We will come back to it, Mr. Fadden.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

We'll now go to Ms. Blaney for six minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you so much, Chair.

I thank Mr. Fadden for being here.

I was reflecting as you spoke that I guess part of your retirement plan is knowing that you'll be spending a great deal of time in committees with us. Thank you for your service, and thank you for your continued service in committees in the House of Commons.

I found it interesting, in the short testimony that you gave today, when you talked about national security not being consistent—please correct me if I get anything wrong when you respond—and said that, obviously, in some of these circumstances, people are not as worried as they could or might be. The challenge, of course, is that there's no training or awareness. That really must decrease across the board. I think some of the examples you gave as you were answering another member's question were very telling, about people using personal information in a way that could be problematic.

I'm just wondering, in terms of this, how often during your term CSIS reached out to departments and agencies to build resilience to these types of threats. Does the federal government have an established process, or is it ad hoc? You talked about it being inconsistent, so I would just like some more information on that.

[Richard Fadden]

We could talk about this for several hours, because it's a complex question.

I think, regarding information or intelligence that comes from CSIS that affects a particular department or package of departments, there would be outreach and something would be done about it. From your query, I think the more important question is about the more general information that reflects a change in the environment. CSIS has a distribution practice. There is a protocol for distributing to all departments and agencies its general-purpose material.

I don't know if this is still true today, but, since we're talking about China, part of the challenge I found was if they had a package about Chinese interference and sent it to the non-national security departments. Probably the deputy would send it down to the departmental security officer and, depending upon that individual, it would be circulated more or less broadly. Again, I'm not trying to point fingers. That's not my objective, but if the environment is such that they don't really feel it's a threat, the DSO in Winnipeg who gets this information would sort of look at the environment generally, notice that nobody told him to do anything, and then say to himself or herself, “Should I distribute this to all the managers, all the executives or all the scientists? What do I do about it?” I think, in some of the period that we were talking about before, the conclusion would have been, “I ain't going to circulate it,” or, “I ain't going to circulate it as broadly,” if you'll forgive my English.

There's no magic either here or among our allies, to be clear. It's a general issue. When you have an intelligence agency that is build on the presumption that they have sensitive information, there's no way you can just push a button and distribute it to everybody. You have to produce summaries. You have to talk to people.

Most importantly, as I've argued, I think, before this committee and others, Canadians generally don't feel threatened. That's true of large chunks of the bureaucracy—not everybody, but large chunks of it. If they don't feel threatened, the impetus to take the kinds of reports you talked about and operationalize them is often not there. That's not true if there's a crisis and not true if there's an emergency, but it's true in the general peaceful period.

As I mentioned earlier, post-9/11, let me tell you, information got circulated, but, you know, the Winnipeg lab, if you look at its history, didn't have that many major issues or crises, so there's an assumption, a human assumption, that we don't have to do maybe as much as DND does or the CSE does.

I'm sorry; that's a long answer, but it is a complex issue.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

It is a complex issue. I think whenever you bring humanity into the mix, it always becomes a complex issue. I appreciate that. I appreciate your answer.

You talked about building awareness across the board so that people have more awareness, sort of a context to make decisions from, or even just that thoughtfulness. I hear what you're saying, that if there's not that element of fear, people lose that as a natural component.

I'm just wondering, from your perspective, whether federal departments and agencies are able to flag issues to CSIS in a timely manner. Are there barriers to that process? Is that component of awareness part of the process?

With the work you've done, do you have any advice for us about how we can maintain that awareness without perpetuating fear that isn't helpful?

[Richard Fadden]

I know, certainly when I was there, that any department or agency had a liaison officer with CSIS, and if they had any concerns they were encouraged to raise them. I think some did. Sometimes it was a real concern; sometimes it was not. Part of the issue I found—and I'm just giving you a personal example—was that a lot of the departments and agencies didn't like to bother CSIS, because they didn't think it was important enough, even though sometimes it was, so it's this general issue of awareness.

I want to stress again that I'm not being partisan here. I'm not talking about Mr. Trudeau's government or Mr. Harper's government. I'm just talking about governments. Unless the Prime Minister and senior ministers signal clearly that country X or issue Y is a problem, which deputies can build on to send down into their departments, it's very hard to get medium-ranking and junior people to, all of a sudden, accept that they have an issue. I'm not saying this because I think people are stupid or ill-intentioned, but any very large organization takes a while to register these changes. As I was saying a moment ago in response to an earlier question, for a long time both Mr. Harper's government and Mr. Trudeau's government were trying to develop better relations with China, while at the same time CSIS was worried about what they were doing under the radar. I think both governments, Mr. Harper's and Mr. Trudeau's, have shifted their views over time, which I think is a very good thing and reflects polling in this country.

However, if we're going to get everybody in government, or at least those who are in national security or national security-related departments, to take this more seriously, it requires a whole-of-government effort, not just involving.... I used to joke that, “I come to talk to you, Deputy Minister X. I'm not a security nut. I'm telling you that there's a problem here, and I'll tell you X, Y, Z.” If it's only the “security nuts” who are saying there's a problem, it's an issue. You need deputies, ministers and others to agree. I don't believe that this has to be done in such a way, because I think there's a real risk.... We have nothing against Chinese civilization or against China or the Chinese people, so there's a balancing act there to be found. I don't think it's easy, but I think the cultural change that we talked about a moment ago still needs to be pursued.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you, Mr. Fadden.

We now go to Dr. Ellis for five minutes.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Fadden, for being here. I apologize for not being there in person.

I have a question continuing on that same vein. When Dr. Gilmour testified before the committee, he talked about co-operation with the G7+1, which, in his mind, was Mexico. Is that the type of co-operation that we need to look at going forward in a science-based environment, or is it more complex than that?

[Richard Fadden]

There's nothing wrong with the G7, but I think that, if we're going to bring together preoccupations relating to the development of science and innovation on the one hand and security on the other, I would start with NATO, which is a pretty broadly defined group of people. We forget sometimes that NATO is not just a military alliance. There are all sorts of things that NATO does, including having expertise in science and technology. There's nothing wrong with the G7+1, but we also have an issue about how we protect our own credibility with respect to a lot of these issues. I would argue the better place to start would be NATO, which is most of Europe, along with associated members like Japan and Australia.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you very much for that, sir.

We heard a lot of talk about the thousand talents program or talent programs in general from state actors. What we heard is that it appears to be acceptable to have scientists enrolled in those talent programs, as long as they divulge that information to their superiors and then, of course, have the go-ahead from their superior. My question is, does that seem appropriate to you? We're relying on those scientists to be honest and say, “Yes, I am part of a talent program.” In my mind, the nefarious actors would never divulge that information, so how do we square that circle, so to speak?

[Richard Fadden]

My inclination is to say that the risks today are such that participation in such programs is not a good thing. I try, sometimes, to equate what security is trying to do with what doctors are trying to do. You have curative medicine and preventative medicine. Curative is when you have a really big problem and you have to go in with a big mallet, but a lot of things are preventative. I think the level of threat that we face today from China and a number of other countries is such that despite the cost to science—and there is a cost—scientists should not be allowed to participate in these talent programs, with or without the permission of their superiors. If relations between us and other countries or adversaries improve, then I think we should relook at the program, but we cannot on the one hand say that China, for example, is a strategic adversary, and on the other hand say to scientists, “Well, as long as you report to your boss that you're talking to them, you can share virtually anything.” The problem is that, in science, you can't partially share—I'm told it doesn't work. I'm not a scientist myself, to be clear.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you for that, sir.

Mr. Fadden, we know that in this case, in spite of an investigation that, by March 31, 2019, had been going on about 10 months at the insistence, perhaps—that's a strong word—of Dr. Gilmour with CSIS, a shipment requested by one of these scientists with henipavirus and Ebola, as you well know, was still sent to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In retrospect, of course, it's easier to make decisions, but was that an appropriate decision, and do you think that should have been stopped?

[Richard Fadden]

I don't know about all the rules that applied, but to the extent that I've gone through a lot of the material that your committee looked at, I think there was a rule that prohibited that, and it should not have happened. I would argue it's not just a question of hindsight. If it was looked at at the time—where it was going, the way it was transmitted, the authority that was obtained to do that—I think they violated a rule, so no, I don't think it should have happened, if I understand the rule correctly.

[Stephen Ellis, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Thank you very much, sir.

I don't want to turn this into a witch hunt, but we've heard from the Minister of Health that no one else should be held responsible. I'm not asking you to name names, but in my mind, there's more responsibility that should be taken here, and we should investigate that a little further. Does that ring true with you, sir?

[Richard Fadden]

It does, and I also don't think it's important to name individuals at a particular point in time.

I would argue, as I tried to say at the beginning, that it's the system writ large, from the very top to the very bottom, that wasn't taking these things as seriously as it should have. I think you can argue that individuals within that system might have been a bit more enthusiastic in enforcing the rules, but I think this is one of those cases in which a great deal of the responsibility can be shared. I know it drives many parliamentarians to distraction when it's impossible to identify an individual in the public service who did something wrong, but in this case I really do think it's the DSO on up. Everybody was operating in an environment in which, had they thought differently, the outcome would have been different.

Also, there were a lot of protections written into our system, the labour relations system, the charter and whatnot, and all of these things slowed down the process that your colleague Mr. Cooper referred to. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but they're there, and to the extent that we want to put them into place all the time, they do have an impact.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken Hardie]

Thank you very much, Dr. Ellis.

We'll now go to Mr. Fragiskatos for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Mr. Fadden, for being here.

In your opening remarks, in the question that you just answered and, in fact, throughout your testimony, to be honest, I've been thinking about the famous quote from noted management consultant Peter Drucker, who said that “culture eats strategy for breakfast” every day, every single time.

After this committee is done its study, there will be a report. We will put together recommendations based on witness testimony. First of all, do you have one or two key recommendations relating to the specific issue of the Winnipeg lab? To that point, do you have advice on how the recommendations the committee puts forward and that will be looked at by the bureaucracy in particular can be put in place in a way that incents, pushes and leads to culture change that's so obviously necessary?

[Richard Fadden]

I'm probably not going to endear myself to some of my former colleagues, but, in any event, if you have something like this, which is a government-wide issue where responsibility for implementing is distributed across the government, the only way you're going to get change, in my opinion and my experience, is by accepting that it's going to take a while and having the system—the Clerk and the Prime Minister—say “these two deputy ministers are responsible for ensuring that all of this is going to happen across the system”. You sort of create a very high-level tiger team that is responsible, and it will appear in their annual evaluation, if you want.

If you don't do something like that, which empowers and insists on somebody who's very senior to keep pushing on this over time, it's very difficult to effect change. It's also very difficult because we may have another major crisis of some sort in six months or so, and this will get pushed off to the side.

Therefore, my advice is to very clearly articulate a statement on the part of the government at the highest levels, and then have the government say to the Clerk and to the Treasury Board Secretariat, “We want this implemented, we want a report every six months or every year, and I want to know the names of two deputy ministers or agency heads who are personally responsible, through a committee or whatnot, to ensure this happens.”

Even with all of this, as your question implies, culture change is very hard to do. I think probably there were two or three or four departments not in the core national security area that require special attention. I think it would be helpful if your committee could identify which ones these are and have, again, special laser-like attempts to tighten things.

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

Mr. Chair, I ask the question because we haven't seen it only in Canada. It's an issue throughout democracies. Recommendations are put forward. There's a commitment that they will be implemented and that there will be follow-through. However, culture seems to stand in the way, so often, of lasting change coming to the fore.

I'm going to stick to the issue of culture in the minute and a half I have left.

You said that culture has to catch up with the facts with respect to how the Canada-China relationship has evolved, to the nature of the Chinese regime under its current leadership and to what that means for our national security.

How can culture catch up with the facts at places like the Winnipeg lab, which you said some might view as a medical facility more than anything else? I think you offered a compelling view, as have others at this committee, that it should be seen as a site of national security, first and foremost.

[Richard Fadden]

I think identifying it clearly.... Somebody passing a regulation saying it's a national security establishment would be a good starting point.

I think the issue is that we're going to have to accept that, in order for this to happen, it's going to make a lot of people unhappy. Scientists in particular really don't like dealing with these kinds of issues. It means that not just senior public servants in this case but also ministers will have to accept that they're going to be criticized for giving less priority to science, technology and whatnot.

The other issue I would stress—and I understand the Minister of Public Safety is looking at this—is that we have to find a way of broadening access to classified information. I mean, you can take some things on faith. I think we all do. However, if you're making a case that the Chinese are very interested in scientific establishments, there are ways of articulating and setting forth these examples—not just in Canada but also in the U.K., Germany, Australia and the United States—to show clearly that it's not just people being worried about it in the abstract. We have to find a way of, if not declassifying, lowering the classification of a lot of these intelligence reports as part of the effort to change the culture.

This is not Ceausescu's Romania. We have to convince people. We're not going to convince them without at least broadening some of the facts to which they have access.