Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 19th, 2019

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Yes. The original order in council document, under “Advisory Board”, section 8(2), reads:

The Advisory Board is to be composed of seven members, and its composition is to be reflective of gender balance and Canadian diversity and is to represent a range of political affiliations and expertise.

With regard to a specific job description, that would be up to the commissioner to decide, and it would be his responsibility to publicize the names of these individuals.

[David Christopherson]

Will that be in a timely fashion? Will they be appointed one at a time, or as a lump appointment? How would that work?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Again, that would be a question that the commissioner would have to answer. Our understanding is that we can anticipate it in the spring of 2019.

[David Christopherson]

Going forward, what is the relationship between you and the commissioner, given the sensitivity around election debates? There has to be a reporting mechanism, so there is something. I assume you're respecting independence.

How is that going to work?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Yes, I am respecting independence.

Essentially, since his appointment we have not had a conversation and we do not intend to have one. The accountability, of course, will be through the budgetary process, and PCO is providing back-office support. But in terms of the decisions that are being made, we've provided the broad outline, the expected objectives, and it's up to the commissioner to deliver those.

[David Christopherson]

Okay, that's great. Thanks very much, Minister, I appreciate it.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

We'll go to Mr. Bittle.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you so much, Minister, for being here. I hope you're feeling well and that you will feel better soon. As a fellow parent of a toddler, I know that they touch everything, and that does not necessarily assist with parental health. Thank you so much for being here anyway.

I know the answer to my question will likely be that Mr. Johnston will be responsible for this. It's something that really touched me during our study. As able-bodied individuals, we don't think about persons with disabilities and how they access debates. I was wondering if you could comment on that, the framework and what you've heard on that subject.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Certainly. It's a good thing I'm this far away from all of you. Hopefully, you won't catch the day care plague.

We heard a lot about accessibility during the consultations, particularly in terms of those who are hearing or vision impaired. One of the interesting conversations we had during the consultations was with an advocacy group for the vision impaired. They were talking about making the soundtrack of the debates available, having it broadcast on the radio or in podcast style, that it would be very interesting for them. They also talked about ensuring there is sign-language interpretation during the broadcast. Of course, this is all in the report, which the debates commissioner has access to, but one of the mandates is really to make sure the feed is accessible to people of all abilities.

The other interesting thing that came up was with regard to making the feed available in different languages. Obviously, with regard to our two official languages, we make sure we have a main debate in English and a main debate in French, but there is also the possibility to work with groups of diverse backgrounds to make sure that people whose first language is not English or French can also access the debates.

I think it's a really important question, one that I know the commissioner is seized with. Accessibility has always been a passion of his, so I have confidence that he will be able to deliver that.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I'm going to switch gears—probably dramatically.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Okay.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I saw on the news that a report came out in Australia—I believe it was announced by the prime minister—that major political parties had been hacked by a “sophisticated foreign actor”. As we head into an election, I know this is something about which concern has been raised by all parties and all members around the table.

How do you see things as we move forward in an election year? There are nations out there that seek to cause harm, sow doubt, and are willing to act against the democracies of our allies. We've seen that in Britain. We've seen it in the United States. We've now seen it in Australia, and we're up next.

Could you comment on that?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I think this is an extremely important topic. It goes to show that you can't be too careful in this space. I'm very pleased that we have had a very productive working relationship on this with all of the main political parties represented in the House of Commons. They've been engaged with the Communications Security Establishment, and CSE is there to provide advice. We've had some really good conversations about protecting our democracy writ large. I have to say that, at least until now, people and parties have put partisanship aside in this specific area and have been focusing on ensuring that we're protecting Canada first.

That's been very positive. The Australian example goes to show that we have to take this seriously here in Canada. One of the things I announced during the protecting democracy announcement on January 30 was the fact that we will be extending security clearance to all political leaders represented in the House of Commons, and also to up to four of their aides and advisers, so that they can be briefed and up to speed. Ultimately, this is a Canada-first policy.

We're prepared. We obviously can't protect against every eventuality, but I have been really encouraged by the fact that so far everyone is working together on this file.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

We had Facebook and Twitter before our committee in regard to Bill C-76. We raked them over the coals a bit, but my worry is that they said, “Oh, don't worry. We'll be good. We'll have things in place, maybe, possibly, hopefully, possibly, maybe in the future sometime, maybe.”

Have you had any discussions with the social media companies as we're moving forward to the election?

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Yes, I've had conversations with both Facebook and Twitter. I'm going to be meeting with Microsoft this week and hopefully Google in the coming weeks as well.

I think Canadians are rightly concerned. They are rightly feeling uneasy about the role of social media in our upcoming election. It's going to play an even bigger role than it did in 2015. While there have been some positive steps taken by the platforms to deal with fake accounts and inauthentic behaviour, particularly from foreign sources, there is a lot more that can and should be done. We're having conversations to that effect.

One thing that's interesting to me is that all the major platforms have signed on to a code of practice for the upcoming EU parliamentary elections in May. We're following that very closely and trying to determine if that's something that would be both effective and worthwhile to bring here.

One of the biggest challenges with regard to social media companies is precisely that accountability factor, in that, at the moment, they are saying, “Just trust us. We're doing things.” But we don't necessarily have the mechanisms to be sure that they are, apart from the items that were passed in Bill C-76 with regard to ad transparency and not knowingly accepting foreign funding on platforms for political advertisement.

This issue is one that continues to evolve, and we continue to learn a lot about it. We need to be certain that the companies are acting in good faith and taking this issue seriously. We are ensuring that the loopholes that have existed are now closed, understanding that our adversaries are always evolving as well.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mrs. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie]

I would first like to address a point that Ms. Lapointe raised earlier.

Facebook recently announced there are three online video channels in the U.S. that are watched by billions of millennials. In fact, these are backed by the Russian government. More appropriate to this conversation, and to Canada, is the recent CBC story regarding the number of tweets put out by foreign trolls. In fact, 9.6 million tweets were put out, and they are having a significant impact not only on our debates' processes, our electoral processes, but also very significantly on our democratic processes. In fact, these tweets have been shown to influence such things as thoughts in Canada on both immigration and pipeline approval.

I am wondering what you are doing, what your government is doing, in regard to foreign interference and influence that goes beyond our electoral processes to our democratic processes.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

It's a very interesting question, actually, and one that I would welcome the committee looking into as well, because I think it's very important. It's one where there are a lot of grey areas. It's not a grey area when you know it's coming from a foreign source. That's not something we want. I always talk about the overt and covert influence campaigns. There's overt influence, which is diplomacy, essentially, trying to achieve a certain outcome, and all countries in the world participate in that. Then there's covert influence, where you're perhaps posing as a Canadian or as an organization that's Canadian, but you are really funded from elsewhere. Knowing about that can be quite challenging and difficult. I think that's something we saw in the lead-up to the 2016 presidential election. This was something very new that we hadn't really seen before, although foreign interference has always existed. It's just existing in different channels now.

We want to ensure that we're providing space for legitimate debate in Canada. There are ongoing issues, particularly when there isn't an election. That was very much part of my thinking with regard to third party advertising during the pre-writ period and not doing it before then, because while Parliament is in session, you want to ensure that Canadians can be in a sense unfettered in their ability to interact with parliamentarians and to raise and discuss important issues.

The question—and the tricky zone—is, how do you know where that initial information is coming from? I think civic media and digital literacy are really important to help Canadians inform themselves of what kinds of markers to look for in terms of where information is coming from. If you're seeing a Twitter account that maybe has only 15 followers but is tweeting non-stop on a whole range of issues that are kind of weird, then maybe that's not a legitimate account. Maybe that's coming from somewhere else. It's those kinds of conversations that we need to get started on.

Twitter and Facebook have been taking down accounts, millions of fake accounts, that they can confirm are coming from foreign sources and posing as domestic actors.

[Stephanie Kusie]

Minister, my apologies. I'll have to interrupt you there.

I agree, and I've often said that it's like radiation or free radicals: You know it's out there, but you certainly can't see it. I'm just concerned. In the U.S., we've seen the establishment of the Global Engagement Center, which is in charge of looking for fake information. As well, U.K. lawmakers recently put forward the necessity of “a compulsory code of ethics”, so this is obviously something that's of importance to the committee.

With that, Mr. Chair, I would like to put forward the following motion on notice:

That the Minister of Democratic Institutions be invited to appear before the Committee to discuss the government’s plan to safeguard the 2019 election and the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force.

The minister has already welcomely stated she would be happy to return.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

That's good. That's your time as well.

Mr. Hardie.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have a concern. It relates to a story that I heard directly from Marshall McLuhan, which means it was a long time ago. It was a story about an attempt by the Russian government to modernize and lighten up. They started a big nightclub in Moscow, which failed after about six months. They had a big commission looking into it. Somebody asked, “Well, was it the booze?” “Oh—the best stuff.” “The food?” “Fantastic.” “What about the chorus line?” “Everyone a good party member since 1917.”

So, do we have confidence that Commissioner Johnston is going to glue together something that will actually resonate with Canadians, the ones we're actually trying to serve here? Do we have any oversight of this at all, or have we just basically told the commissioner to go forth without any kind of leadership? Are there broadcasters in his group? I'm not talking about Mr. Cormier, because Mr. Cormier sounds like senior management who probably never saw the business end of a camera. I'm talking about people who actually have the skills and demonstrated ability to present a program that engages the public.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

I have a lot of confidence in Mr. Johnston to hire the right people for this. I think his storied career speaks to his passion for the public interest, but also his most recent experience as Governor General has enabled him to engage with such a diverse cross-section of Canadians that I really feel he will understand and appreciate how to ensure that these debates are put together and accessible to as broad a range of Canadians and interests as possible.

I also think that the public report from the consultations that we did with the IRPP really emphasizes the need to make sure that there are skilled and qualified people on his team. I have every confidence that he will do that. The OIC does lay out important principles and a guiding mandate for him. I have full confidence that he'll be able to deliver that.

I'm going to turn it over to Matt with regard to the specifics.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Be very brief, please, because I have another question.

[Karina Gould, Liberal, Burlington, ON]

Okay, sure.