Information & Ethics Committee on March 31st, 2023

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

You're not familiar with the reporting of this.

Are any of the panellists familiar with the reporting of the 2017 request for a brief by Ms. Telford on foreign interference in elections?

[Some voices]

No.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Okay. I'll move on.

Based on your experience in the security apparatus, how would a prime minister or their staff be briefed on foreign interference issues by CSIS? Specifically, who from CSIS—what level of individual—would typically deliver that briefing to a prime minister?

[Dan Stanton]

Who are you asking?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

I'm asking anyone who has an answer.

[Dan Stanton]

I don't have an answer from my experience of particular vehicles of briefing or personnel. I know CSIS provides a whole range of intelligence products, from assessment to law. You'd be looking at the Privy Council Office and at various departments. As to how that would make its way to the Prime Minister or the Prime Minister's national security adviser, I really have no insight.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Mr. Stanton, are you familiar with the case of the Winnipeg lab and the fact that, on CSIS's information, two scientists were fired or removed from their employment there?

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Do you believe they were CCP agents?

[Dan Stanton]

I don't necessarily.... Here's what I believe, based on the media reports. I've been following it.

The service provided advice in terms of clearance. Whether it's clearance renewal or whether it was clearance, it goes to the deputy head of the department. It's their decision what to do; it's not a decision for CSIS. They simply say that they would perhaps recommend not renewing. I think these two individuals basically returned to mainland China.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Your belief is that they're not still in Canada.

[Dan Stanton]

From what I've read in the media, it looks like no one is around. I think the fact that no charges have been laid might reflect that. I look at this, and I see that there was an issue there. Perhaps proprietary information was sent back to China. Who knows? It probably doesn't meet the threshold of espionage.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

I have about 30 seconds left.

In my previous round of questions, I talked about this issue of MI5 and the FBI making a public announcement with respect to that foreign agent acting in the U.K. Those are two of our Five Eyes partners who are publicly communicating on issues of foreign influence and foreign interference, yet it's radio silence. Then we're left to question whether we have CSIS agents who are leaking, because we don't have anyone from CSIS who's speaking to the real issues that we all know, for a fact, are happening and being perpetrated on this country by state actors from around the world, including from Beijing.

How do you fix that?

[Dan Stanton]

Here's my answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

It has to be real quick.

[Dan Stanton]

I will be really quick.

In those cases of allied releases, it was probably based on very convincing intelligence, probably corroborated intelligence, so they did the release. All we're getting through the media, with all due respect, are allegations. Why would the Canadian government not make these warnings and send emails to everybody? It may be that they weren't meeting that threshold of solid, reliable intelligence, where MPs need to be advised.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Barrett.

Next we're going to go to Ms. Martinez Ferrada.

You have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am going to split my speaking time with my colleague Mr. Fergus.

Mr. Chiu, I want to come back to the election campaign. You said there was interference, particularly because of the positions transmitted by WeChat.

However, when we look at the results of the election, we see that the vote for the Liberal Party and the NDP rose considerably. Rather than laying your defeat at the doorstep of interference, do you not think the voters simply voted for a progressive government? I'm referring here to certain positions of the Conservative Party about the LGBTQ+ community and on other issues.

[Kenny Chiu]

If you look into the election results in 2021, the number of voters who turned out dropped significantly. There were 3,000 fewer voters in 2021 versus 2019. As well, the number of my supporters, the ones who voted me in 22 months prior to the 2021 election in 2019, was 4,400 fewer. My opponent, the one who took the riding, increased support by a mere 1,800 votes. That is a significant discrepancy. In other words, there are many Conservative supporters who stayed at home.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

I take it that you do not agree that the votes for the NDP and the Liberals also rose.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Mr. Chiu, wait a minute, please.

Did you want to speak, Mr. Villemure?

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

It seems to me that it's the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs that is considering the subject of elections as such. At our committee, we had agreed that we would look at the issue of interference in general.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Right, and I appreciate that, Mr. Villemure, but we do give a little latitude to members of Parliament to deal with their specific questions.

I stopped the clock.

You have two minutes and 48 seconds, Madame Martinez Ferrada.

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Hochelaga, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I had said, I am going to give the rest of my time to Mr. Fergus.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Martinez Ferrada.

Mr. Stanton, your answer to my last question piqued my curiosity considerably. Your intuition, which is the result of your long career at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, tells you that the source of the leaks is not a CSIS officer. Can you tell us where your suspicions point?

You have said who it isn't, but I want to know who it is.

[Dan Stanton]

Do we have enough time?

I really have no idea. I don't know. I just really have no respect for this at all. I think there's an awful lot of damage that's being done. I could carry on from some things that Artur has mentioned, but I have no respect for it.

I think, to profile the leaker—I can provide that—it's someone who's seeing a small piece. It's someone who's not privy to the big picture. They don't see all the work and all the effort that goes into countering certain threats. They're just seeing a little piece of the pie, and then, on their own, I'd say somewhat arrogantly, deciding they have the prerogative to inflict this damage for whatever cause they may have.

I think some of this is being filtered a bit and a little embellished by the media to provide a certain nobility to it. We may find, when the dust settles, that it's not such a big personality that did this. It may be someone who didn't get enough attention. I really don't put a lot of respect in what this person or people are doing. That's not the reason I'm saying, “Oh, it's not CSIS, because I worked in CSIS, and we're all wonderful,” but people who work in the business don't get mad and angry. They'll go take mindfulness or something if they do. They don't decide, “Oh, this is terrible. They're not responding to our reporting,” and then go to the media.

I really don't think so, because we're talking about professionals. The Canadian intelligence community are professionals. The person leaking it is not necessarily involved in the collection or the assessment; they may just be seeing reports and want to use them for a certain agenda. They may even be manipulating the media as well, if I may say so, to control the whole thing, but I'm convinced that it's someone who's not in the service.

As for speculation, Ottawa is a big town, and there's a lot of paper that was circulating, although I imagine right now there's probably not a lot of paper being circulated and shared. It's anybody's guess, but I think it's somebody who has an agenda, and I think they want to—