Information & Ethics Committee on June 2nd, 2023

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

Why would Mr. Johnston have written in his report that the claims about Mr. O'Toole were hard to believe?

[Dean Baxendale]

I think he's been given a set of information and a very small team. I don't think he was provided proper access to documents. I think that comment is clearly made based on the information he's been given. I think he has not had all of the information, nor did he actually call a number of witnesses who should have been called to testify and provide him with a counter to what others were saying to him.

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

Does the government's approach to this amount to a cover-up, based on the type of information or the limited amount of information provided to the individual—the special adviser to the Prime Minister, Mr. Johnston?

[Dean Baxendale]

I think successive governments have leveraged their relationship with the PRC for their own benefit. It's been in everyone's vested interests not to disclose, bring out, or clean house with respect to this issue.

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

I have about 45 seconds left.

Can you elaborate, in the time remaining, on Beijing's influence operations here in Canada?

[Dean Baxendale]

Beijing's influence operations here in Canada are extensive. They obviously started in the 1980s. In the upcoming book The Mosaic Effect, we chronicle the United Front's infiltration operations on the west coast, which was ground zero. These include influencing business leaders.

Unfortunately, organized crime is often at the same table, brought in through the United Front. They take photo ops with every political party. Their influence operations are extensive—including into Jenny Kwan's office, which has been going on for over a decade, from my understanding.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Baxendale and Mr. Barrett.

Ms. Hepfner, you're next for six minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Mitrovica, we heard a little bit of disagreement from Mr. Baxendale about your opening statement. In particular, I understand that author Sam Cooper also had some visceral reactions to your statements in the room.

I'm wondering if you have a reaction to that.

[Andrew Mitrovica]

I didn't discredit his reporting; his reporting discredited itself.

I'm also astonished to hear a panellist and a Conservative member of Parliament actually suggest that the former governor general has somehow been compromised by the PRC. This is the kind of hysteria that I alluded to in my statement that is so dangerous to the reputations of loyal Canadians who have worked to serve their communities and this country. It is disgraceful. I hope that reasonable members of Parliament on this committee don't accept but reject outright those kinds of slimy allegations against loyal Canadians.

I have written about and cautioned and warned members of not only this committee but also other committees and Canadians more generally to really reject these kinds of insinuations, which began in 2010 with Richard Fadden and the speech he gave at the time, which was discredited, ironically, by The Globe and Mail, which called his remarks foolish and reckless, and he had to walk back on them later on.

I'm just astonished that a Conservative member of Parliament would infer that the former governor general of Canada is somehow compromised by the PRC. This is the ugliness. This stuff is the gutter. It really is the gutter.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

You say he was, ironically, exposed by The Globe and Mail. Many of your writings recently have been critical of media reports that have reported on foreign interference. You said, “simply because a piece of paperwork churned out by an 'information officer' with a CSIS badge is marked with any sort of security classification...does not make it true.”

Would you explain to this committee the difference between evidence and intelligence and why it's important to make that distinction?

[Andrew Mitrovica]

This is an absolutely crucial point that I have made before other committees. Hopefully, it will register with this committee, as well.

Intelligence officers produce information. That information can be embellished or edited. Oftentimes—and this is something Mr. Johnston found in his report—it is not corroborated and can be twisted to create a narrative that leads to the kinds of statements the other panellists made about Chinese influence posing an existential threat to Canadian democracy. This is the kind of hyperbole that reasonable, serious people reject.

Let me give you an example of what I'm saying. This might be of interest to the Conservative members of Parliament, who have not asked me one question about any of these matters in the three appearances I've made before PROC and this committee.

During his tenure as Prime Minister, Stephen Harper visited China three times. He negotiated FIPA, the largest bilateral trade deal since NAFTA, which was a trilateral trade deal. He also negotiated a customs intelligence exchange program with China. Now, if I were a conspiracy theory CSIS officer or a writer for the other panellists, I could connect those dots and create a narrative that Mr. Harper was somehow compromised by the PRC. Of course, that is an outrageous allegation. Even though I don't agree with and have written critically about Mr. Harper, I have respect for the commitment he has made to this country.

This is how information can be distorted to create a narrative. It is not evidence. It is not tested. This is the problem that has occurred with the media. They're taking bits of information that have been leaked to them out of context. Mr. Johnston makes, I think, a reasonable point. Unlike the other panellists, he's a serious man who is approaching the subject matter seriously. He made the point that these media reports are based on questionable information and the information has been taken out of context.

Let me go back to—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have three seconds, sir.

[Andrew Mitrovica]

Okay.

Please hear me: Invite Mr. Merrifield and Mr. McNamara—an RCMP officer and a former Vancouver Police Department undercover officer—to appear here.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Mitrovica.

For the committee's benefit, we have received correspondence from both gentlemen he referred to. It's in translation and will be distributed as soon as it's translated.

Mr. Villemure, you have six minutes.

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

I thank all the witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Baxendale, you've said repeatedly that, for 30 years now, heads of state have been compromised, tainted or, at least, influenced by some countries.

This morning, we're talking about China. That brings to mind the military co-operation program between Canada and China in 2013 and the trade reciprocity agreement in 2014. However, you have already referred to what we call the Canada-China memorandums of understanding, or MOUs.

Could you tell us more?

[Dean Baxendale]

Yes.

Under the Harper government, a number of MOUs were entered into directly with the RCMP. This allowed some 25 China communist agents—we'll call them “policing agents”—to enter the country to look at repatriating supposed criminals from Canada. A number of them were deported during that period of time—about 290. As well, 2,900 citizens were “influenced”, shall we say. It was suggested that it would be in their best interest if they came back to China, because some of their family members were being threatened by the regime.

The MOUs exist and are reported on in our upcoming book. I think they speak for themselves very clearly.

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

Didn't these MOUs mark the start of Chinese police stations in Canada, at least, the one that we just mentioned?

[Dean Baxendale]

The operations for surveilling and suppressing the China diaspora community have been going on for the better part of two decades in an organized fashion, and this continues today. We were very aware of the police stations. The first test cases started in South Africa, where they rolled out operations in Cape Town. This is a global phenomenon, as we know.

In the United States, recently, a Chinese police officer was charged in New York with respect to suppression. That person was trained, by the way, at the Justice Institute of British Columbia, along with many other PRC police officers, who are now working around the world, understanding Canadian and U.S. policing techniques and using those effectively to engage citizens whom the Chinese Communist Party wishes to suppress.

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

Could you tell us a bit more about Operation Dragon Lord?

[Dean Baxendale]

Very simply, it was a joint agency task force, according to the document that we have reviewed. Operation Dragon Lord sits within the repository of documents at the CIA. I would encourage members here to talk to their American counterparts and actually see if they can get access to the Operation Dragon Lord report. So far, FOIA requests for the report have been rebuffed. I trust that's because there is sensitive information with respect to former business and political elite in the United States.

I would like to clarify, though, that I'm not suggesting that Mr. Johnston is co-opted by the Chinese Communist Party. I'm simply answering the question. I suggested that Mr. Johnston was certainly positively predisposed, as were many of us, toward the Chinese Communist Party, including myself, for many years.

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

Could you speak more about elite capture, please?

[Dean Baxendale]

Elite capture is a process the Chinese Communist Party deploys through its United Front Work Department, which has 44,000 employees around the world. Its operations here in Canada are significant. These are through the friendship associations. Obviously, one could suggest that those individuals and organizations are here to create cultural ties with Canada and to create harmonious relationships with all of us. I think this is, indeed, part of their operation.

However, the United Front works in disinformation and misinformation operations inside Canada. The PRC has effective control of 56 media outlets in the country, and elite capture is done in a number of different ways. In most cases, it is aligning personal interests with that of a positive win-win relationship for Canada and the PRC.

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

Do you believe that Canadian authorities took Operation Dragon Lord seriously enough?

[Dean Baxendale]

First of all, Operation Dragon Lord was not known to Canadian authorities until we broke it in Washington with the CBC in March of this year. Once again, I have no reason to believe that.... Operation Dragon Lord, or whatever form it's in today, has continued on. Canadian politicians, business leaders, and their ties with China continue to be surveilled by U.S. intelligence agencies continuously, because of the potential national security threat to the United States and the Five Eyes.

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

Were all the prime ministers or leaders over the past 30 years approached, influenced or, at the very least, targeted by China?