Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 26th, 2019

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Right.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

—that takes over to ensure continuity of government. It is important that—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Yes, I understand that. My concern is—

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

—political actors are not compromised on that.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

—that I share Mr. Wernick's concern about the rising tide of political extremism, but I was very surprised that he suggested political assassination in the midst of a parliamentary hearing on whether the government had done wrong.

Do you not realize that would breach the rules for the Privy Council that they're not to wade into matters of conjecture and controversy? Yet he started out an answer to the panel about whether or not the government was involved in interfering with the rule of law, and he related it, not just to political assassination, but he said:

I worry about the reputations of honourable people who have served their country being besmirched and dragged through the market square. I worry about the trolling from the vomitorium of social media entering the open media arena. Most of all, I worry about people losing faith....

Is that the position of the government, or is that his opinion?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

You would have to ask him that question.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

That was his personal view, is my understanding.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Okay.

Because under the guidelines for the Privy Council officials—and I think your people beside you have read it—I quote, “Officials may give explanations in response to questions having to do with complex policy matters, but they do not defend policy or engage in debate.... In other matters, principally those having to do with the administration of the department and its programs” must be strictly limited. "Matters of policy and political controversy have been reserved...exclusively for Ministers, principally because political answerability on the part of officials would inevitably draw them into controversy, destroy their” political “utility to the system and, indeed, undermine the authority and responsibility of their Ministers.”

My concern is that Mr. Wernick, using a committee hearing to advance all manner of personal political conjectures—number one about how ethical the Prime Minister is; number two, how amazing Ms. Bennett was; number three, how terrible it was that people criticized her on Twitter—used his position to advance an agenda, which is destroying his utility as someone we can all look to and say, “You know what? In a matter of real political tension, we can trust him.”

Do you not see that?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Someone who has the oversight of the entire government and operations will clearly have a unique position in terms of how they are feeling and the threats that they can see arising on the horizon.

I think one thing that is very important is to recognize that in developing the critical election incident public protocol, we were deliberate in bringing together a panel of five senior public servants so that it would not fall on one civil servant to make that decision—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

And I would not have had anything to say about Mr. Wernick before his testimony—

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

—and to have a conversation and weigh those issues.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

—but, given that he has very strict obligations as the chief of the Privy Council about what he can give opinions on, yet he said about Madame Bennett, “I am deeply hurt that...her reputation has been trolled.... There are vile things being said....there is no Canadian who has worked harder on indigenous reconciliation than the Honourable Carolyn Bennett...”

That may or may not be, but the people who have been challenging her on Twitter are indigenous grassroots who do not support her position. So if he thinks it's vile, my concern is that, when people say very controversial things in an election, and people will, and when people attack us and they attack government, at what point can we trust that Mr. Wernick will know the difference between what is fair and what is unfair criticism?

The fact that he has waded into matters of controversy in ignoring his obligations, to me, puts him in question, whereas I have no questions about the Chief Electoral Officer, but I certainly have questions about this incident team you have with Mr. Wernick.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I will just reiterate, Mr. Angus, that the panel we've put together will not come together unless the national security agencies raise an issue of national security for them to consider, which they think—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Wouldn't it be better for the Chief Electoral Officer to say yes, this is serious, whereas Michael Wernick seems to think that people attacking government ministers is beyond the line—

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

So the response again is that the role of the Chief Electoral Officer is as an officer of Parliament and to administer the elections.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Thank you.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

This is a separate issue and a separate role that they have.

With regard to the panel, it is extraordinarily important to reiterate that they will only come together should one of the heads of the national security agencies deem that they have seen foreign interference of a significant level to get them together to inform—

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

We need the public to have a confidence, and that's my question. If Mr. Wernick crossed the line in his Privy Council obligations, do we have that trust? I'm not sure that trust exists right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Zimmer]

Thank you, Mr. Angus.

Next up, for seven minutes, we have Mr. Saini.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Good afternoon, Minister. Thank you very much for coming here this afternoon, especially with your colleagues.

I want to start off with a question on one of the pillars that you mentioned, expecting social media platforms to act. I know you have been in discussions with them regarding transparency and making sure that the people who advertise or pay for advertisements, and we know who they are...to combat the propagation of misinformation.

However, there is one point I want to ask you about, if there is something your department or some of the officials here could comment on. Sometimes, whether it be on Reddit or Facebook, there's a comment section. Sometimes there can be an infiltration by foreign actors or by others who want to disrupt the election mechanism we have here, where they can insert misinformation or disinformation within the comment section. Is there some protocol we are looking at to prevent that from happening?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

We are not looking, as a government, to intervene in the conversations that are happening on social and digital platforms. That is not the role of the government.

However, we expect that social media platforms will take an attitude and actions that are more responsible in terms of how their platforms are used to spread misinformation and disinformation.

Obviously, that is more complicated if you're looking at the comment section as opposed to a post. However, what we do expect is for them to take down inauthentic behaviour and inauthentic accounts. We have heard from both Twitter and Facebook about the number of accounts they have taken down. Both are in the realm of millions, and I could get you the specific numbers that we've heard if you're interested. I'm not entirely aware of the mechanism by which either of those platforms would go after the comment section, whereas if they go after the account that is a fake account or is known to be from a foreign source and posing as a legitimate domestic actor, that may get at this issue.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

You talked about the rapid response mechanism with the G7. I don't know the content of the sharing agreements, but obviously they are to make the system more robust for all of the G7 countries. I'm not necessarily worried about that because I think there are enough resources within the G7 to create a system that's robust.

My worry is more with nascent democracies or even going beyond the G7 to the G20. Recently there were elections in Nigeria and there has been some speculation that there has been foreign interference. There has been foreign interference prior to this election in Nigeria. You mentioned some other countries.

If you make the G7 strong, that's great, but it doesn't really do anything else for the democracies in the rest of the world. Has there been any thinking in the government, on your department's part, that whatever best practices or robust practices you have would be shared with other countries that may not have the same resources or the same capacity as we have in this country?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

My focus has really been on Canada's democracy. When I have had conversations with foreign counterparts they have really been about learning from their experiences to see what we could glean and apply here in the Canadian context.

I will say that apart from the European Union, Canada is leading the way in terms of protecting our democracy from foreign cyber-threats. The elements we announced on January 30 really set the stage for that.

That being said, I know there are efforts to ensure that whatever we learn is being shared with counterparts and allies. I've heard from many other countries that they're looking to us as well in terms of what we do and how they might apply that in their own jurisdictions.

[Raj Saini, Liberal, Kitchener Centre, ON]

My final question is more of a personal question. As you know the election campaign is coming up and there may be things that are said on social media about certain candidates, true or untrue. What's the mechanism to resolve something that is untrue?