Information & Ethics Committee on March 31st, 2023

[Kenny Chiu]

As I mentioned, during the election there was a significant amount of disinformation being spread, especially with the diaspora Chinese community, primarily through WeChat but also on WhatsApp. I was mischaracterized as somebody who is anti-Chinese and even hating Chinese...that I must not be allowed to be re-elected, and nor should then Conservative leader Erin O'Toole.

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

So this is first-hand testimony; you have told us about your personal story.

Is that right?

[Kenny Chiu]

That is correct.

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

Do you think you are a victim of foreign interference in the last election?

[Kenny Chiu]

I would say that it played a role in my defeat. I was actually glad there was a whistle-blower in CSIS, because, to a certain extent, it confirmed my subjective observation and also the intelligence that we, the local campaign, had received and reported to CSIS all along, even though CSIS never got back to us.

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

So you believe that your opponent had an advantage. Is that right?

[Kenny Chiu]

Yes. I believe he is the beneficiary of the disinformation.

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

Right. Do you think the fact that your opponent is sitting here today is a conflict of interest?

[Kenny Chiu]

That is a question, I think, better answered by my opponent, who is sitting here at the meeting.

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

Right.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Villemure, that's all the time you have.

Mr. Green, you have six minutes. Go ahead, sir.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, and thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Obviously a lot has been reported on publicly. There are a lot of opinions floating around. It's good to have some subject-matter expertise. I particularly enjoy the opportunity to have former members of our security apparatus here before us. I talk often about the duty of candour, which you are legislated to extend to the courts. I wish we had a deeper commitment from our security apparatus to have the same duty of candour to Parliament. Perhaps we'd be able to avoid situations like this in the future.

Mr. Stanton, in the interview on CBC Radio, you stated that Canada needs to amend its CSIS Act to empower national security agencies to deal with foreign influence, not just foreign interference. I think that's an important point.

Can you please explain the difference between foreign influence and foreign interference?

[Dan Stanton]

I don't remember suggesting that the CSIS Act be amended, but are you just asking me about the difference between foreign interference and foreign influence?

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Yes, please.

[Dan Stanton]

That's a good question. There are two types of foreign interference.

The first one, which is the easy one, involves the foreign state basically targeting the diaspora communities in relation to homeland issues. This could be through manipulation or intimidation. Members of a community don't want to talk about it, and they're used. CSIS will target that type of activity. It's usually dealt with fairly well. It's a less nuanced threat than the other foreign interference is.

The other foreign interference, probably the reason we're here in these committee meetings, involves the state targeting three levels of government, targeting politicians, targeting journalists and targeting those from all walks of life, using clandestine methods. There has to be clandestine activity; otherwise, it's simply lobbying. That's why there's been, I would say, such a lack of government reaction to the reporting over the years, because give it a cursory glance and it appears to be just lobbying. People say, “What's the big deal? Don't you people have more important things to talk about?”

If, however, you work it for a long while and if you use that criterion of clandestinity, where the agenda of the foreign state is not clear to the target, then you can see the threat manifestation.

That's what we're dealing with more—the other type of foreign interference, which is very hard to identify and can be difficult to counter, although we do have legislation that can be brought to bear. The first kind of foreign interference, in which you have a representative of a foreign state directly intimidating part of that community in Canada, is a little more “in your face”.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

For the purpose you referenced—AI—I attended a workshop this week on Russian interference and Russian actors online, particularly with respect to troll farms and social media. We know that, at least in a cursory way, through the convoy, there were massive spikes in online presence by Russia in that regard.

Can you just share the way in which technology and social media have helped blur the lines between influence and interference in terms of our being able to know what is clandestine?

[Dan Stanton]

I have to say, actually, that the technology aspect of disinformation is an area that I really do not have a lot of background on.

[Artur Wilczynski]

I can try to answer part of that.

The online environment is obviously fairly complex, and it's evolving. The important part to understand is when behaviour is inauthentic, when countries use various tools either to covertly amplify messages they know run counter to the interests of the countries they're targeting or to specifically amplify their own interests.

There is inauthentic activity through things such as bots, but you also have to understand that they've cultivated a range of supportive actors within a state, who will amplify those messages. Sometimes inauthentic behaviour may actually look authentic, because it is being amplified by legitimate actors in a certain state.

It's all going to be made much more complex, as colleagues have mentioned, by AI, including things like deepfakes. On the front page of the Ottawa Citizen the other day there was a story about how images and videos are going to be manipulated in such a way that it will be very difficult to tell the difference between what is real and what is fake. Those kinds of tools, in combination with the kinds of amplification that can be done in an online environment, are going to make it particularly challenging, I think, for average citizens and also for national security intelligence organizations to be able to constrain and address that behaviour. It's something we have to pay particular attention to into the future.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I recall a famous Steve Bannon quote that talks about cognitive warfare and trying to create complete chaos and disorder. This came from somebody who, at the time, was a key American adviser to an American regime.

We've spent a lot of time focused on China. Can we perhaps take a moment to step back and provide a bit of an overview about other international actors, both those we may consider to be friendly allies and hostile actors, because it feels like we're missing a pretty significant part of the equation here when we focus on only one country, given the global complexity of this kind of zero-sum game.

[Artur Wilczynski]

I'll just jump in very quickly on that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Be very brief, please.

[Artur Wilczynski]

I am particularly worried about non-state actors and particularly non-state actors from friendly states. I think that it doesn't take a big stretch to see how ideologically motivated, violent extremist organizations, particularly those based in the United States, are trying to amplify certain messages that divide target minority communities, whether it's promoting anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia or transphobia, and undermining democratic principles and values. Lots of folks are out there doing so in a non-transparent way. They're not state actors; therefore, the ability of governments like ours to address them is a challenge. That's one of the things I think an inquiry should look at as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

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

We're going to move to our second round of questioning and start with Mr. Kurek.

You have five minutes.

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

Thank you very much.

Let me thank all of our witnesses for joining us here today and talking about this very important subject.

Mr. Chiu, it's good to see you again. Since you're a former colleague, it's nice to have you before this committee.

I want to provide you a bit of an opportunity to share your experience, what the attacks against you and your personal character looked like, specifically during the last election, and the issue surrounding your proposal for a foreign agent registry. Could you unpack, in about a minute or so, the impacts that had on you, both professionally and personally?

[Kenny Chiu]

Thank you for the opportunity. It's good to see everybody.

I would characterize it as an isolation process. It was partly due to the COVID pandemic, but, on the other hand, I used to serve on the Chinese ethnic media quite frequently and actively.

During my term, especially after I tabled the private member's bill on the foreign influence registry, I was given the cold shoulder in many of the Chinese media, and they didn't invite me to their talk shows, even though they opened their lines for criticism of my bill. All that culminated during the election with this disinformation that I'd never been to Xinjiang, so how could I be voting with the rest of the parliamentarians that there is a genocide fulfilling the definition as stated by the U.N.? Also, why would I hate my own race, the Chinese, since I put into place this foreign influence registry?

It had a big impact, because I had left my profession in middle management of personnel in software development, and it's been difficult to get back into my profession. However, I'm glad that I was able to table this issue on the national discussion scene, as has previously been mentioned.

To many of us, this may sound like Everything Everywhere All at Once, but, to many of us in the community, it's everything everywhere all the time.