Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 7th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

The chair is Mr. Zimmer.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Of course, yes, Mr. Zimmer, since I can refer to him by name.... Thank you.

I generally feel that there would be so much to gain from this in so many dimensions of the public sphere and perhaps the private sphere as well, which, of course, we are not obligated to...but can certainly move towards that.

Again, I would really urge the government to consider this. I think even three or four meetings would provide great benefit if we received good briefing notes from ethics on where they left off. As I said, that's only one dimension of privacy. It doesn't get into the disinformation. Disinformation, I guess, would be the greatest other area for study. I really believe this would be of significant benefit to the government, and it would be a disservice to Canadians, since we have this time, to not look into it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Do we know exactly what the ethics committee did on this?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

I would have to check, but their study was largely related to privacy, as I understand it. I would ask our analysts to expand further if they have any more information specifically regarding the Cambridge Analytica scenario. I think they're doing a lot as well, as I understand it, with the grand committee, which is scheduled to meet, I believe, at the end of May in terms of privacy solutions.

But again, privacy is just one.... I see this as a component of election integrity. When I say “component”, maybe if I had to assign a percentile, it's 20% or 30%. Once you get into disinformation and databases, I would say 20% or 25%. I see it as a component, but I don't see it as the full picture or the full evaluation of what is required to attempt.

Again, I take great responsibility for this even within my own party, within the opposition, doing my own research and making recommendations from our point, but here certainly for Canadians it's a piece of it but it's not the entire picture. I think we owe it, as I said, to Canadians to attempt to get a piece of the bigger picture and attempt to provide the executive of our government with some concrete recommendations and potential solutions insofar as the time frame goes, because unfortunately, we are down to a very small time frame. As well, this touches on our time frame, our role as a single-nation state because I think that many of the solutions that are required become multilateral considerations.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Graham.

[David Graham, Liberal, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I have a quick question.

What is the objective? What are we actually hoping to achieve?

If we do this study and we table it in the House, all we are really achieving is putting on the record all of the vulnerabilities in our election just before the election happens.

Here are the weaknesses. Good luck, everybody. Thank you.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

As I said, the objective would be to provide recommendations to the minister in an attempt to maintain the integrity of the election insofar as possible. That to me is the objective.

I think that our analysts are capable enough and we as a committee are prudent enough to be able to manage the content of the final report to have some control over that.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Can I ask you a question?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Yes, sure.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

You can continue having the floor. I'm just trying to....

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

We're missing protocol.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I'm just curious about how our recommendations are actually going to be....

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Implemented?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

No, not implemented. Sorry.

I wonder how they're going to be better than what they would be able to recommend themselves, those who are responsible for making sure our elections are secure, when we don't really have the clearance to really get the information and what the threats that we're facing actually are. I feel like we're going to get a very surface-level understanding of what the issues are. Those recommendations are really not going to hold a lot of weight because I think there are better people who have the necessary clearance to really know and understand what the threats are that we're facing. They have so much more information and tools at their disposal than our committee would really have to tackle that issue properly.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

First of all, let me say I'm very fortunate to have top secret clearance. It's a process that's very uncomfortable. I'm not sure everyone in this committee would want to undertake it.

Beyond that, I definitely hear what you're saying. I do consider this when I am personally evaluating solutions. Having said that, I think those with the knowledge are only a piece of the puzzle. It falls upon us for two reasons. One is for us to take in coordination the testimony of those with specifically.... It generally seems to fall to those with the technical knowledge. I would expect that, and that's why I proposed five meetings. Considerations from members of the media, academia, policy perspectives, which could be either of those two or other non-government organizations.... It falls upon us to collect the information and evaluate it. That's the one way that I see it.

I do see what you're saying, it's definitely been, not an obstruction but a consideration, and again something that was brought up in the Policy Options breakfast. It's something I also mentioned when I was at ethics as a witness, which is that certainly while as a former member of the public service of Canada I have great faith in our public service, I'm always very concerned about how we retain those candidates with the knowledge necessary. I might have even mentioned it here: Do you have to go to San Jose for a weekend, or go to the headquarters of Fortnite in an effort to obtain them? But I see that only as small piece, because I think there are many facets of society and many players to implicate and listen to.

The second one would be, in consideration of all that information amassed, if you will, the recommendations that we would make.

I just thought of this now as well. I look at the responsibility we agreed to take at the G20, G7 Charlevoix to be a global leader in this area. In fact, I would say that our doing this study helps fulfill our commitment to be this leader. Was it the G20 or the G7? It was G7 Charlevoix.

I think it was G7, anyway, where we committed to be leaders in this space. As parliamentarians, let's follow through on that. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Mr. Nater.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I just want to make a couple of points, in response to some of the discussion.

Mr. Graham made a point that we're going to have to put a report in and show all our weaknesses. That is a concern, but is it any less concerning than the alternative, which is that we bury our heads in the sand and say there are no threats to our democracy, no cyber-threats or threats from foreign influence? I think that would be an even more concerning direction to take, that we assume there are no threats or we bury our heads in the sand and say that we as parliamentarians don't see that threat.

That would be my first point, that there are threats and we recognize there are threats. There is no sense in denying it. We might as well address the concerns head on.

The second point is more general. Ms. Sahota touched on it a little as well, in terms of who the experts are in this field. Certainly the experts are there, and they are a part of the apparatus of government.

At the end of the day, Mr. Christopherson mentioned not too long ago that the Elections Act and elections are part of the bread and butter of this committee. This is what the committee is mandated to do within our Standing Orders. Our responsibility is the Canada Elections Act, and certainly the protection of our elections from foreign threats, from cyber-threats, is part of what we are mandated as a committee to study and to undertake.

As for shying away from this study because we aren't the experts, well, most parliamentarians aren't the experts on any number of the subject matters that may come before committee. It is our responsibility as democratically elected parliamentarians to undertake these studies, to undertake the recommendations. We do that by going to experts within the field, whether it is CSE, CSIS or other departments responsible for these things.

I sense where the room is at, in terms of where this motion is going. I just think it would be a shame if we, as the procedure and House affairs committee, did not at least undertake a study on this matter. I will leave it there, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Ms. Sahota, were you saying that the security committee of the House of Commons has more clearance, or whatever it is called, so it could have more information?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

They do. Yes, the intelligence committee...public safety. All of us don't have the clearance that's needed. I do agree with what Mr. Nater is saying. We undertake a lot of studies. We're not the experts. Our job is to listen to the experts, but I still don't think that those experts.... I feel it's still going to be such a very high-level type of study that we're not going to be able to get down to real solutions in order for our agencies to take appropriate measures and actions.

It'll inform us a little, but I don't know what it will really achieve at the end of the day. If we had lots of time, I would like the idea. We would need lots of time to really get deep into that issue.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Is there any further discussion?

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Can we have a recorded vote, please?

(Motion negatived: nays 5; yeas 4)

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

I just want to put my bias into committee business. Hopefully, sometime before the summer, we will do instructions to the researcher on the parallel chamber, because we've done so much work on it. I know Mr. Reid has a motion on it, too.

Go ahead.

[Scott Reid, Conservative, Lanark—Frontenac—Kingston, ON]

This actually is not on the parallel chamber. On March 1 I circulated a notice of motion. I will not move the motion at the moment. I'd like to invite a little bit of discussion about it first.

The motion is about changing Standing Order 108(3)(a) to amend our own mandate. People can read the motion itself, but essentially it creates a situation where we would have a couple of new responsibilities. We would be reviewing and reporting on all matters related to the Centre Block rehabilitation project and the long-term vision and plan for the precinct—without intruding upon the responsibilities of others in this regard—and providing a report back on an annual basis to the House of Commons regarding any discussions or hearings we've had. Specifically, we would be undertaking a study and reporting back to the House by the end of this Parliament.

People seemed generally receptive to the general idea. I'm not sure if they were as receptive to this specific motion. In particular, I'd asked Mr. Bittle to get a sense of whether or not his own House leadership was generally favourable to the idea—possibly even favourable to the motion itself—and he said he'd get back to me. So I wonder if we could just have a brief discussion about whether or not there is an openness to moving forward with the motion or perhaps, in a less specific way, to moving toward taking some responsibility, and maybe a lot of responsibility, for providing oversight on this very significant and expensive project.

[The Chair, Liberal, Larry Bagnell]

Thank you.

Yes, I think there was not only general support from all the parties. There were also some passionate interventions by members of Parliament that they definitely wanted input into future renovations of both this building and Centre Block—that it's our workplace and we should have some input. I think it was agreed to by the administration that we didn't have sufficient input into the renovations to this building in particular.

I'll open the discussion. I don't want to prejudge the committee, but I think there was certainly positive reception for something in this line. People might have suggestions on the wording, but let's hear from the parties.

Mr. Bittle.

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

Thank you so much.

I did undertake Mr. Reid's request. I did speak to individuals. It didn't come up again and I forgot to update him, but we have no concerns with this. We're happy to discuss this as an item in positive terms and move forward on it.

I don't know how you wish to structure it. Mr. Simms and I were discussing beforehand how this might look. I don't know if we need more than a meeting to really go through it. I think both of us said that we'd like to hear from you about how you thought a “study” would look, but that might just be a matter for discussion between us.

In terms of a witness, I don't even know who that would be. We were thinking a meeting or two related to this would be reasonable, but we're happy to hear from you on how you see this coming forward. We're more than happy to discuss this and we think it's a good initiative.