Information & Ethics Committee on March 31st, 2023

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Stanton.

[Dan Stanton]

Yes, right, that's enough.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Fergus.

Mr. Villemure, the floor is yours for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Juneau-Katsuya, in view of the picture you have painted, what would be the risks of not creating an independent investigative office?

[Michel Juneau-Katsuya]

Not creating an independent investigative office would be very damaging to national security. If I may offer an analogy that may make people laugh, it's a bit like when you drop your crumbs on the floor in your kitchen and the ants start coming for them. Two or three ants are no big thing. But if you leave them there and you aren't careful to clean up, you will be infested by ants. And if you wait even longer, you are going to need experts to fumigate your entire house. It's a bit like that.

As Mr. Stanton said, the work done by the Chinese intelligence services and the extent of that work are amazing. We are facing what is probably the most formidable adversary in human history, because of the resources it has, the subtlety with which it works, and the extent of its operations. It must be pointed out that this is not the only group carrying on this kind of operation. A lot of countries are doing the same thing.

However, there is a very big difference between influence and interference. We have to be able to recognize it and circumscribe it properly, so we can crack down on interference.

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

Thank you.

Following on the question asked by my colleague Mr. Fergus, do you believe the leaks are coming from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service?

[Michel Juneau-Katsuya]

I can't say exactly where the information is coming from. I agree with Mr. Stanton that the information may have been collected by someone in the wider security and intelligence community. It is difficult to answer that.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Wilczynski, I think you would like to add something.

[Artur Wilczynski]

Yes, and it's in response to the question you asked my colleague Mr. Juneau-Katsuya about the creation of a new independent investigative office. In my opinion, creating a new body to deal with interference would also carry risks.

We have to recognize that there is already an independent police force and there is a law governing the actions of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. However, when you create a new body with new mandates, there is always a risk that the objectives it is assigned will be more difficult to achieve than if the direction given to bodies already in place, like the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, were reviewed.

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

That's interesting, but we are being told repeatedly that it has not been working for 30 years.

[Artur Wilczynski]

Clearly the way the problem is currently being managed presents challenges. However, that does not mean that we must completely reject the model of an independent police service and an independent intelligence service with binding legislation governing the way they operate.

I think that as parliamentarians, you could give the intelligence community clearer directives concerning the threshold for investigations, so the problem would really be addressed. With 30 years' experience as a public servant, I always see the problems that creating new institutions creates.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you.

Mr. Green, you have a little more than two and a half minutes. There's a bit of latitude on that time, so I'll give you about three minutes, sir.

Go ahead.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Juneau-Katsuya, you raised the issue around nomination processes. I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about how foreign interference can happen at the start of an electoral process, which is the nomination process.

[Michel Juneau-Katsuya]

Basically, what we know and what we realize is that we have foreign agents and even diplomats engaging in foreign intelligence activities who are capable of identifying and maybe even farming out individuals who will be capable of simply positioning themselves.

The concept of infiltrating a mole into either an intelligence service or a government is very old. We've been doing that for ages.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

More specifically and more succinctly on the process, I think you talked about having citizens versus non-citizens voting in nominations.

What has been your experience of nomination processes being directed, guided or influenced by foreign actors through pressure to vote for certain candidates over others?

[Michel Juneau-Katsuya]

There are many different operations that have been done. It is the concept of having agents of influence capable of guiding or misguiding certain individuals.

Back in 1995, for example, I was working on a specific file called Project Sidewinder. I discovered that Elections Canada had found out that the Embassy of China was that year giving money to the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party at the same time, because they were going to nourish influence within those political parties.

Back in the mid-1990s, the Chinese government was very clumsy in its way of doing it. It became much more sophisticated and it has increased the amplitude of its operations to a size that is difficult to capture now, even by our active intelligence services—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have only 10 seconds left.

Mr. Stanton, have you ever been aware of foreign actors? I know in Ontario there were allegations around Patrick Brown using foreign nationals during the nomination processes.

Is that something that's ever been flagged across your desk?

[Dan Stanton]

No. I've been retired from the service for a few years, but no. It goes back to how CSIS doesn't look at the elections. It doesn't look at processes. In the course of investigating an individual target, no, I'm not aware of that coming across the radar.

Any issues that the service would get involved in are around who's voting at a nomination, or who's donating and what status they have.

This is a politically explosive issue, but from a threat perspective, in a way, it's low-hanging fruit. How should I put it? It's not a priority to get in and investigate it in that type of detail.

Again, they're focused on the target, not what's going on in elections.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Stanton, and thank you, Mr. Green.

Next we're going to Mr. Kurek for five minutes.

Go ahead.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Manthorpe, on the Winnipeg lab issue, it's been asked of a number of the other witnesses, but I'd like to ask you specifically, if you could, in about a minute or a minute and a half, to talk about some of the concerns that have been highlighted about that and how, because of what was an election call, that issue kind of disappeared after the last election. Then I'll ask you about some of the other techniques that the Communist dictatorship in Beijing uses to influence university campuses and whatnot. I'm wondering if, in about a minute and a half, you could maybe expand on some of that, Mr. Manthorpe.

[Jonathan Manthorpe]

I don't have any direct information about the Winnipeg situation, but it does fit into a pattern that goes back to the 1940s and 1950s, and particularly after diplomatic recognition in 1970, when, very soon afterwards, there were arrangements made for the exchange of students and of researchers.

What is very noticeable is that the Canadians who went to China went to study language and culture, and the Chinese who came here gravitated toward the technical faculties of universities and other institutions, and that has carried on.

Of course, as we know, it has also involved, more lately, Chinese or Communist Party-associated institutions financing research here, using our expertise to their own ends, and often the patents that have resulted from that research go to the People's Republic of China; they have not stayed here.

It's a very broad effort here in our technical institutions and also, of course, it has been accompanied by a very large influx of Chinese undergraduate students, with the result that a lot of the revenue of some of our universities.... In some universities, more than half of the tutorial revenue comes from foreign students and, in some cases, most of that comes from China.

They have made a very consistent and lengthy effort to use our universities to their own ends.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Manthorpe.

Mr. Stanton, my colleague Mr. Barrett mentioned.... Were you still at CSIS in 2017?

[Dan Stanton]

That's the year I left. It was October 17, 2017.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Mr. Barrett mentioned a 2017 briefing that mentioned there was a substantial body of evidence that the CCP and their officials were pursuing a strategy to influence Canadian officials. Are you aware of what that body of evidence may be or what it would include?