Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 18th, 2018

[André Boucher]

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security is in fact one of many such national centres. We work very closely with similar centres and the Five Eyes, but also with centres around the world. Part of the centre also is the national CERT, the national element that does emergency response teams, which is part of a global network. You have layers of cybersecurity practitioners working together and sharing—where they can—information that's relevant for their mandates.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Who in Canada should be dealing with AIQ and what they've been up to?

[André Boucher]

On the basis of what you said, which was on the basis of stolen information, this would be an RCMP mandate.

[Frank Baylis, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

What they've claimed is that they built the software and they never touched the data. That's an actual argument. They've said that they never had access. They didn't touch the data, they said, or they had small pools of data. They were careful to massage around it, but clearly they built the programs or software. They used the data to actively interfere. They did break certain other rules in the U.K. We know about that.

Does the RCMP have the cybersecurity to look at it from a stolen data perspective? What about looking at it simply in terms of interfering with the democratic process? There are two separate things. One thing is that, okay, they stole something, and the other thing is what they're doing with what was stolen.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith]

Please respond briefly and we'll leave a couple of minutes for Ms. Mathyssen as well

[André Boucher]

Very briefly, when the cyber centre receives a call from a victim on information stolen, identity stolen, we direct that call to the RCMP and they have the authority and the mandate to take action.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith]

Thanks very much.

Ms. Mathyssen, you have a couple of minutes.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Again, thank you for all of this information.

I did have a question in regard to the tech giants. Most of them are American and they wield substantial influence beyond the U.S. border. We know that. Should the monopoly power of these tech giants be addressed in international trade agreements in which the U.S. or any parent country is participant, and if so, how would you go about it?

[Anthony Durocher]

I'm happy to answer that.

Ultimately, in competition law we deal with transborder companies all the time. We review conglomerate mergers. Certainly in the tech space, a lot of decision-making and relevant information is outside of Canadian borders. Critical for us is to have access to that and to have jurisdiction over that.

With respect to trade agreements, I think that's beyond our mandate. I'm not well placed to opine on that. What I can tell you is we have excellent relationships with our foreign counterparts who enforce their respective antitrust laws and we're constantly communicating with one another.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

You may not be able to answer this, but I wonder if there should be things built into these trade agreements. The reality is that parliamentarians, and by extension, the citizens whom we serve, don't have access to the texts of trade agreements until after the government has ratified them. Should there be greater transparency? Do we need to know more?

[Anthony Durocher]

The Competition Bureau has an international group that participates in trade agreements, and a lot of trade agreements have competition chapters. The new USMCA has a competition chapter in it that is largely geared towards ensuring the sound exchange of information between agencies to enable them to work collaboratively and to do their jobs, because as I said, a lot of antitrust is international in scope. You have international cartels, conglomerate mergers that are notifiable in dozens and dozens of countries, and business conduct that can be international in scope as well.

Really, our job is to make sure that we maintain those relationships and that we're communicating with one another, given how international the activity is.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith]

Unfortunately, we're out of time, but thank you to all of our witnesses here. If you do have additional thoughts that you want to share with the committee on this subject, please submit them in writing.

With that, we'll suspend for a couple of minutes to clear the room, and we'll come back in camera to deal with some committee business.

[Proceedings continue in camera]