Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 29th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting 12 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. Pursuant to the order of reference of Saturday, April 11, the committee is meeting to discuss the parliamentary duties in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Before we start, I want to inform members that pursuant to this order of reference, the committee is meeting for two reasons: one, for the purpose of undertaking a study and receiving evidence concerning matters related to the conduct of parliamentary duties in the context of COVID-19; and two, to prepare and present a report to the House by May 15 on the said study. The order of reference also stipulates that only motions needed to determine witnesses, and motions related to the adoption of the report, are in order.

Today's meeting is taking place via video conference. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee on that webcast.

In order to facilitate the work of our interpreters and ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow. Interpretation in this video conference will work very much like it does in a regular committee meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of the floor, English or French channels.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, you can either click on the microphone icon to activate your mike or hold down the space bar while you are speaking. When you release the space bar, your mike will mute itself, just like a walkie-talkie. When you have it pressed down, you're able to speak. When you release it, you'll be back on mute.

I would remind you that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. Should members need to request the floor outside of their designated time for questions, they should activate their mike and state that they have a point of order. If a member wishes to intervene on a point of order that has been raised by another member, they should use the “raise hand” function. This will signal to the chair your interest to speak. In order to do so, you can click on “participants” at the bottom of your screen. When the list pops up, you will see that next to your name you can click the “raise hand” function. It might also be at the bottom of your participants list.

When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. The use of a headset is strongly encouraged.

Should any technical challenges arise—for example, in relation to interpretation or a problem with your audio—please advise the chair immediately, and the technical team will work to resolve them. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times, as we need to ensure all members are able to participate fully.

Before we get started, can everyone click on their screen in the top right-hand corner and ensure that they are on gallery view? With this view, you should be able to see all the participants in a grid view. It will ensure that all video participants can see one another.

During this meeting, we will follow the same rules that usually apply to opening statements and the questioning of witnesses during our regular meetings. As per the routine motions of the committee, each witness has up to 10 minutes for an opening statement, followed by the usual rounds of questioning from members. However, due to the size of the witness panel, I am asking that all witnesses be as brief as possible in their opening statements in order to allow as much time as possible for questions by the committee members. Just as we usually would in a regular committee meeting, we will suspend in between panels in order to allow the first group of witnesses to depart and the next panel to join the meeting.

I'd now like to welcome our witnesses.

We'll start with Ms. Qaqqaq. I believe, if we do not have Ms. Ashton here yet.

Let's hear from Ms. Qaqqaq, please.

[Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

Mat'na. Thank you for having me.

I understand that we have some time limitations. I had provided a couple of pages of briefing notes, so I'll try to go through them as quickly as I can.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity, first and foremost, to speak at this committee. My name is Mumilaaq Qaqqaq. I'm the member of Parliament for Nunavut. Nunavut is Canada's youngest territory, and I'm proud to be the youngest person elected in the riding, and one of the youngest voices in this Parliament as well. Nunavut is also the largest electoral district in the world, with a population of approximately 39,000.

I was raised in Baker Lake, a growing community of 2,000. I now live in the capital of the territory, Iqaluit, which has a population of about 8,000. All 25 communities in the riding are fly-in and fly-out, with no roads to connect families and people across communities. Approximately 85% of my constituents are Inuk, or Inuit.

I am currently speaking to everybody here on the committee from Ottawa. I can't confidently say I could participate in a virtual Parliament or a virtual committee if I were actually in my riding. Connectivity is essential.

Unfortunately, our territory has the highest suicide rate per capita in Canada. This has tragically been the case for years. I grew up with this being perceived as our normal, which is wrong. I have lost countless friends and family to suicide. Everyone in the territory is, in some way, touched by suicide. This reflects the social determinants for individuals in the territory.

One-third of my constituents live in overcrowded homes. We also know that seven out of 10 children go to school hungry in Nunavut. There are communities that continue to see boil water advisories and limited access to clean drinking water. We have some of the highest living costs in the country. Along with investments in housing, building basic infrastructure is a must in the territory. Connectivity is essential.

Accessing critical and often life-saving information is frequently a challenge in Nunavut. Providing individuals with key information in their mother tongue, Inuktut, can be life-saving. In 2016, 23,225—approximately 65% of the population—reported Inuktut as their mother tongue.

I was glad to see during the previous parliamentary session an announcement that talked about a commitment of $42 million over the next five years to support Inuktut language initiatives. This was a collaboration among the Government of Canada, the Government of Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, the territorial advocacy organization.

Although the intentions of this agreement are good, I face many barriers as a member of Parliament in providing needed translation to my constituents. For example, I would need to translate all my work five times to make sure information is easily available to everyone. Guiding constituents to the federal services they need is a similar obstacle. Providing translation in Inuktut at the federal level for my constituency and other Inuit Nunangat communities would be nothing but beneficial for everyone. Connectivity is essential.

As we saw during yesterday's committee, even in some of the most prosperous parts of the country, technical limitations are impacting parliamentarians' ability to do their work. I thought it was important for everyone here at the committee today to get a sense of the Internet speeds here in Ottawa compared to communities in Nunavut. I reached out to some constituents and asked for their Mbps, or megabits per second, and was frustrated, but not surprised, by some of the numbers that I heard. For example, I did my own testing here in Ottawa. With my phone plan I have 180 megabits per second, and with my Wi-Fi I have 200 megabits per second. Please keep in mind that you need at least eight megabits per second to run a high-definition video conferencing call, and these results will be impacted if you are sharing a network with other people.

These are some of the constituent responses I had. I tried to hit all three of my regions. In Cambridge Bay, we see Wi-Fi at 14 megabits per second, and data at 51. In Baker Lake, my hometown, Wi-Fi is again at 14 megabits per second, and data is 85 megabits per second. Arviat's Wi-Fi is at six megabits per second and data is at 51 megabits per second. Sanikiluaq Wi-Fi is at two megabits per second, and data in Sanikiluaq is at 13 megabits per second. Connectivity is essential.

This isn't part of my notes, but earlier this afternoon during the session, a minister thanked the member for a question on the issue of rural broadband in his region. We know that before the COVID-19 crisis began the government recognized that fast, reliable and affordable high-speed Internet was a necessity, not a luxury, so clearly the federal government knows that this is a problem.

We continue to see large corporations like Bell charge ridiculous prices across Canada. Everyone here would agree that hours and hours of streaming parliamentary business on their data plans could result in some outrageous overage charges. During this crisis, we have also heard stories of cellphone and Internet providers suddenly charging Canadians more. How can we ask families to stay at home, parents to continue working and students to learn through online resources without providing affordable and accessible Internet services?

When I say this, I want you to keep in mind the fundamental human rights issues I have previously mentioned that too many of my constituents—Nunavummiut, Canadians—are facing.

Northwestel, one of the major telecom companies in Nunavut, has fortunately provided temporary Internet usage relief until May 31 for existing customers, which is one way we should be taking care of each other right now. Connectivity is essential.

With this in mind, I would like to talk about the proposed Kivalliq hydro-fibre link. I would like to echo the words of Premier Joe Savikataaq when he said, “The proposed Manitoba-Nunavut hydroelectric power line transmission and fibre optics project aligns with our Turaaqtavut mandate, Nunavut's growing telecommunications needs and the Government of Canada's goal to reduce the effects of climate change.”

The Kivalliq hydro-fibre link is an opportunity not only to promote cleaner energy but to provide much-needed Internet and data supports for our communities. We have yet to see the support needed from the federal government for this project. Connectivity is essential.

The amount of needed services in Nunavut is extremely high. Increasing accessible and affordable connectivity services could save lives. We could promote online counselling, education resource exchange, share information with one another and do so many other beneficial things.

Again, I'd like to thank everybody for this opportunity. I hope I was able to capture the basics of the reality in my riding and why connectivity is essential. There is much opportunity for us to do great things and provide these services to the people who need them.

Mat'na. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, MP Qaqqaq.

Next we will hear from MP Ashton, please.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB]

Good afternoon, fellow colleagues. Thank you for having me as a witness today.

It's unusual to be on this side of the table, or the screen, as a witness at this committee. I truly value the opportunity to share the perspective of many in our region as your committee finds ways to make virtual Parliament work.

First, I want to be clear: I am a proponent of a virtual Parliament. I spoke out publicly about the need for a virtual Parliament early on in this pandemic. I also spoke out about the need to make Parliament more accessible, including virtually, for some time, even before this.

Currently, we are living in an unprecedented time of crisis. Many Canadians have had to take unprecedented steps to stay safe: physical distancing, working from home if possible, and juggling full-time parenting with work. For others, including essential workers, staying home is not an option. Many are dealing with the crisis of losing their jobs.

Throughout this time, our work as representatives and advocates has, if anything, become even more important. Over the last number of weeks, I've been in close contact with first nations leaders in our region who are doing everything they can to keep their communities safe, desperate for federal action. I've been in touch with front-line workers who don't have enough access to the personal protective equipment they need. I've been in touch with workers in work camps and mines across our north who are afraid to go to work because of a possible spread of COVID-19. I've been in touch with constituents stranded abroad, students who don't know how they'll pay their rent and seniors who are in need of support.

Our work has not stopped, but without Parliament and access to the accountability mechanisms that are integral to it, our ability to make change has been deeply impacted. Like many of you, I've been in contact with ministers, parliamentary secretaries and the media, doing everything possible to get action for our region. That is important, but fundamentally we are members of Parliament. Canadians expect us to represent them in Parliament, whether we are in government or in opposition.

Let's recognize that at a time when people who can are encouraged to work from home, we should be doing that too. For reasons of public health, we shouldn't be any different. We should be setting a high bar to show that it is possible to do a wide range of work remotely, including the work of Parliament. Let's be responsible in terms of our work. When we are told that we could be supercarriers of COVID-19, let's do everything possible to do our work safely from home.

Research has indicated that we could be dealing with future, and possibly multiple, waves of the coronavirus. This isn't a matter of weeks, but months and even years. We must be seen as leaders in terms of public health and do everything we can to keep our communities safe, including refraining from travelling across the country on a regular basis when we could be doing this work from home.

Right now, here in my home region, we have a travel restriction where people who do not live north of the 53rd parallel are not allowed to come in unless they work here. Non-essential travel is not recommended. These are public measures reflective of how vulnerable our region is. There are also widespread public health recommendations to avoid interprovincial travel. Given our work as leaders, we must go above and beyond to keep our communities safe and do our work from home.

A virtual Parliament is critical in terms of regional representation. Until now, no Manitoba MPs from any party have attended an emergency sitting of Parliament. We know that, again, for public health reasons, emergency sittings and the in-person sitting today are dominated by MPs from central Canada, those who are near Ottawa. This is not acceptable. A virtual Parliament is critical in terms of gender representation. Based on research by Samara Centre for Democracy, it has been noted that the percentage of women in the House during emergency sittings has ranged from 25% to 27%. While reflective of our general representation, which remains pathetic, the fact is that a virtual Parliament can allow for women MPs to be heard across the country and for parties to ensure that their voices, our voices, are heard.

Let's also recognize that other jurisdictions have taken on this work already and put in place parliamentary sittings virtually: jurisdictions such as Wales, the U.K., the European Parliament, Ukraine, Argentina, and the list goes on. However, in setting up a virtual Parliament, we must recognize that we are not equal as MPs. Our region here in northern Manitoba, like much of rural and northern Canada, has extremely poor access to the Internet.

The Winnipeg Free Press recently reported on the fact that, according to the CRTC, Manitoba has some of the slowest Internet speeds in Canada. A CRTC map of broadband coverage shows major gaps across our province. An internal briefing note prepared by Industry Canada noted that as of 2018, “Northern Manitoba has the worst connectivity in all of Canada.” Nationally only 27.7% of first nations and 37.2% of rural communities have access to fast, reliable Internet.

This crisis is exposing the second-class access to critical infrastructure that many on first nations and in rural Canada are living right now. It is exposing a glaring and growing inequality in our country. It's having a negative impact on our kids, kids who already face immense barriers.

A CBC report recently made it clear that for first nations kids in remote communities like Garden Hill, here in our region, online learning is simply not possible. Catherine Monias, Garden Hill's education director, said when asked about offering online learning, “We can't...Most students do not have access to a computer and a printer, and most students do not have internet at home.” Even if there were more access to the Internet, Ms. Monias pointed out, “Our internet bandwidth is so narrow, that it's impossible to [teach online].”

I have heard from worried parents, frustrated educators and leaders from our region who are concerned about their young people's ability to access an education. We cannot have a situation where a generation of kids is held back because of our failures.

My office and I have also heard directly from constituents who have no access or unreliable access to the Internet when it comes to applying for EI, the CERB or getting help from Service Canada.

This cannot stand, and we must be clear that it didn't just happen. Successive governments' choices to fund private enterprise in the hope of providing broadband have failed. Good public money has been poured into initiatives that have not solved the problem. Years of Conservative and Liberal promises to ensure access to broadband Internet have failed. We've heard the campaign commitments and seen the posters, but there is no Internet.

I know of one community in our region that accessed the federal funds some years ago to build a tower, only to have the tower bought out by our main telecom provider and then dismantled. To this day, they do not have access to broadband Internet.

It's 2020, and in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we face a shocking and unacceptable digital divide. This pandemic crisis should be a wake-up call. We need the government to recognize access to broadband Internet as a public good, a basic necessity, an essential service. The government must use public ownership to ensure the construction of broadband Internet infrastructure and ensure regulated and affordable service. It should also work with first nations and indigenous communities.

Many have compared dealing with this crisis to a wartime effort and said that we should be looking within to provide what we need. We are an incredibly wealthy country. Let's respond to the urgent needs of people at this time and into the future through national action now to ensure equal Internet access for all.

Let's come out of this crisis better than we were. Let's build a Canada where we are not letting down the next generation, and where we are not contributing to growing inequality. Canadians, including the youngest among us, are counting on us to do this. Let's get it done.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, Ms. Ashton.

Next can we have Chantal Bernier, please?

[Chantal Bernier, National Practice Leader, Privacy and Cybersecurity, Dentons Canada, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm very pleased to be taking part in your work on this very relevant issue.

My name is Chantal Bernier. I'm a lawyer who specializes in privacy and cybersecurity law.

You invited me here today to outline the information security considerations associated with a potential virtual sitting of the House of Commons. I understand your concerns, particularly in light of media reports regarding security risks related to certain platforms. However, these risks must be put into context. First, they apply only to certain types of information. Second, they apply only to confidential debates. I'll address these distinctions.

In relation to the types of information you must protect by law as a public institution, there are two that are most relevant to your work.

The first category of protected information I will mention is information received in confidence in relation to the affairs of the Government of Canada, or received from another government, because the disclosure of that information would be injurious to the interests of the Government of Canada.

This type of information would never arise in the House of Commons. Should it arise in committee meetings, the committee should go in camera, and then the chair should ensure additional information security measures are applied, proportionate to the sensitivity of the information involved. The chair should not proceed to an in camera meeting unless there is assurance from the technology experts of the House of Commons that it can proceed securely online.

As a former senior public servant who had to lock her device in a little box every time she attended cabinet meetings, I can assure you that the Government of Canada has a long tradition of information security.

The second category of protected information I will mention is personal information. Personal information is defined as information that relates to an identified or identifiable individual, meaning that even if the information can be related to an individual only indirectly, it is still personal information, and you must, by law, protect it.

However, there are exceptions that are relevant to your work. These are types of personal information that you do not have to protect.

The first is information about an individual who is or was an officer or employee of the government institution where the information involved relates to the function of that employee or office. You also do not have to protect the fact that an individual is or was a ministerial adviser or a member of ministerial staff, as well as the individual’s name and title. As well, you do not have to protect information about an individual who is or was performing services under contract for a government institution when, again, the information relates to that contract. Finally, information relating to any discretionary benefit of a financial nature to an individual, such as the granting of a licence or permit, is also not subject to protection and can be disclosed.

In other words, the protection of personal information cannot undermine government accountability.

Moving, then, to the type of proceedings that call for security measures, sittings of the House of Commons and meetings of House committees, except when they must go in camera, do not create security risks. It's quite the opposite. Because House debates are always public and are accessible directly from anyone's computer at any time, moving online preserves the transparency of Parliament more than it creates information security risks.

While I'm here, I would like to bring to your attention real information security risks that have not made the news. I am referring to telework. Working remotely from our houses raises information security risks. I speak on the basis of practical cases I have seen.

The main risks are these. The first one comes from the fact that many of us share a home. Telework means that the arrangements must provide physical protection of confidential information. Not everyone has a house big enough to allow a separate room to work in. Measures must therefore be adapted to each physical setting to protect information on both paper and screen.

Government documents should never be transferred to personal electronic devices. These devices are not configured in accordance with government information security standards. Government electronic devices should also not be made accessible to anyone except the government employee to whom the device has been assigned, even for temporary use. The devices are most likely to contain documents protected by law, and access by an unauthorized person constitutes a breach.

While passwords are the basis of security on electronic devices, they become even more important in the context of telework, an environment where you are around people who know you very well and, therefore, could guess your password. It's not necessarily for nefarious reasons, perhaps only because they want to use the computer. Still, it constitutes a security risk.

Without the entry-exit controls of Parliament offices, screens should be set to lock automatically when they are not used for a set period. That set period should be as short as necessary, according to the circumstances. Privacy filters on a computer can be used to hide the screen or make it invisible to others.

Finally, I would caution you against the accidental use of one's personal email for professional use. In the home environment this confusion risk is higher.

In short, I want to both reassure you and caution you.

I can reassure you by putting into context the issue of information security as it relates to your work. Apart from when you must deliberate in camera, the Internet maintains the level of transparency that we all want in the House of Commons rather than creating an information security risk.

When you need to sit in camera, Madam Chair and your fellow committee chairs, you must ensure that all safeguards proportionate to the sensitivity of the information involved are applied.

Regarding my cautionary note, I strongly encourage you to speak to all the members of your team about the measures that they've taken to ensure the protection of information while teleworking.

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to answering your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you.

Next we'll hear from Mr. Leuprecht, professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada.

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht, Professor, Department of Political Science, Royal Military College of Canada, As an Individual]

Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee. I look forward to answering questions in both official languages.

I will start with some ad hoc remarks about cybersecurity in the current context, and then pass to some broader remarks about the continuity of constitutional government in the context of an emergency and a crisis. I shall edit those remarks and I shall indicate to the translators the edits so that you have the full written version in front of you in both official languages.

With regard to cybersecurity, here are a few brief considerations.

The deliberations you are having are hard to mess with because they're in real time and they're open, so tricks like deep faking what somebody might be saying seems to me to be pretty hard and difficult to make effective. On the next panel, I know there's somebody who is going to raise concerns about the Zoom technology, but I actually think that this is not particularly relevant in the current context. Yes, end-to-end encryption is the gold standard, but in this case, we're talking about an open Parliament and open conversations, so if we have interserver encryption.... We want people to be looking in anyways. If our adversaries want to listen in and see what a resilient democratic conversation looks like, all the better.

No matter what tool you're going to use, all the tools have vulnerabilities and are somewhat insecure. Some are less secure than others, but inherently there's always an issue with regard to compromise. I actually think this is a misguided conversation. This points to technological determinism, and technology is not ultimately the issue. It's behaviour that's the issue. It's how we use the cyber domain, so we need to have a more human-centric conversation about cybersecurity.

Many of the measures technologically can be readily solved as your parliamentary administrators already have with regard to Zoom, by sending passwords separately and locking down meetings. Really, it's a matter of what conversations we can simply not have online because we have to assume the conversation is compromised. There's still a lot you can learn from the metadata, even if you have end-to-end encryption. For instance, are you logging in through a virtual private network when you're logging in as a member of Parliament?

The greatest risk is probably not the software but your personal device. Is it already compromised? What kind of device are you using? What mechanisms are you using to connect: hard-wired or mobile? Are you on an approved device? Is the device hard-wired on a secure network with unique key identifiers, with a KPI card? Are we routing the traffic through a Canadian network to ensure Canadian data sovereignty, or is it being routed the most efficient way?

All this is to show that we need to think in human-centric terms, including how our adversaries might be thinking about this environment and their intent, and not in tech-centric terms. It's about the human factors of cybersecurity. Humans are ultimately the greatest vulnerability, but they're also an underused asset.

I'll point to, in this conversation we're having, nine issues with regard to human factors and cybersecurity that we are all experiencing every day.

The first is societal issues: How do we ensure that our democracy and our institutions are adequately defended? How do we ensure that they are cyber-resilient? How do we adapt our democratic institutions and how do we ensure that we have evidence-based policies?

With regard to regulation, we want to think about how we protect privacy, how we increase transparency and accountability, and how we standardize cybersecurity.

In terms of behaviour, we want to think about criminal networks, about enabling the behavioural change by users, and about designing more usable machines and more usable interfaces.

This ultimately leads me to questions about the role of Parliament. Ultimately the underlying primary constitutional principle here is the principle of responsible government. It is about ministerial responsibility, first and foremost, during a crisis and an emergency. It is about holding government to account and it is, in the Westminster parliamentary system, about parliamentary supremacy.

What does this mean concretely? It means voting supply on spending, on accountability, but also on how we raise revenue. I'm deeply concerned about how Parliament had very little say in how we raised revenue. Usually we think of this as taxation, but what we have seen in recent weeks is the largest and most rapid expansion of government in the post-war era. It has imposed unprecedented intergenerational burdens. We have seen this previously. The percentage of the debt this year that is being taken up in new debt is roughly what it was in the early 1980s. It hobbled government for a generation and led to considerable fiscal challenges down the road, hamstringing governments.

What are the mechanisms that are being deployed to ensure the spending that we are taking up is the most efficient and the most effective? I'm deeply concerned, in the current environment, about the temptation of privatizing profits and socializing debt, including private debt. When we restart the economy.... People are already talking about infrastructure, but this is what some people have called the “she-cession”. Unlike in 2008, the people who are disproportionately affected are women, and they are women in precarious situations. Building lots of bridges, roadways and subways is not going to help them, directly at least.

How do we think about how we restart the economy? In all of this, Parliament has a very important role to play.

I shall now pass to my remarks. I shall read from the first page and then extract lines from subsequent pages.

This is the greatest test for the maintenance of Canada's democratic constitutional order in at least 50 years. It raises many important questions. What is the legitimate extent of the federal government's power during an emergency? Is the federal civil service that drives Canada's federal system for coordinated emergency response a boon or a bane during a complex multijurisdictional, prolonged emergency? Did the Prime Minister get the best advice? Was the Prime Minister aware that the World Health Organization has had a very troubled relationship with China since 1957? These challenges are not new.

What are the appropriate roles—before, during and into a recovery—of the executive, judiciary and legislative branches? To what extent can the executive abrogate civil and privacy rights in the public and common interest, especially if citizens' confidence were to falter? Metadata will be an important part for mobile devices in reopening, in particular aggregate metadata and understanding people's behaviour. These require conversations.

To what extent do the proximate failures of the Canadian government to protect the safety and security of its citizens at home and abroad expose distal failures and weaknesses in intelligence, strategic assessments, emergency preparedness, continuity of constitutional government and the civil service's capacity and commitment to provide the best possible impartial advice to the government of the day, along with weaknesses in the structures and institutions of the Government of Canada and constitutional governance? After all, many democracies have fared significantly better than Canada in the speed and agility with which they responded to the epidemic, without the massive expansion of the state to which Canada has had to resort at a cost of billions of dollars.

The underlying rationale for the answers to these questions needs to be transparent and intelligible. There are questions about proportionality and suitability of these measures, as well as the fundamental transformation of the social and economic role of the state and public sector, whose expansion in recent weeks is without precedent in the post-war era. There's no precedent within living memory for anyone in a position of leadership of how to govern in this crisis, so Canada's democratic institutional order is absolutely critical. It is insufficient simply to tolerate criticism. The resilience and superiority of the democratic way of life is at its best when objections to the way the state optimizes how to manage and contain societal risk are actively sought out, enabled, heard and reciprocated. Even during a crisis, the government's power should not be absolute, unchecked and without recourse.

The hallmark of constitutional democracy is that, even during an emergency, executive power is contingent: The people have recourse through their representatives in Parliament to check the executive. Under such extraordinary circumstances, what are the prerogatives of the legislature in holding the executive accountable within the prevailing ethical and moral framework?

I'll move on to the top of the next page.

For over three centuries, voting supply has been the bedrock principle of the Westminster parliamentary system [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Sorry, we're having some issues there.

I just wanted to inform you that you have a little less than a minute left. Since you just indicated you were starting another page, I want to encourage you to try to sum up.

Thank you.

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

All right.

The events of recent weeks appear to validate the resilience, adaptability and vitality of Canada's constitutional system.

I shall be on the last page, for the translators, and I shall make my remarks quick.

The Government of Canada has long taken a laissez-faire approach to departmental emergency planning, which facilitates event-driven reactions, where the perceived urgency trumps the actual importance. I'm concerned about overzealous experts who want to outlaw certain types of behaviour without interventions from politicians. Ottawa mayor Jim Watson's intervention with regard to people actually being able to have a beer in the driveway while respecting social distancing is a good example.

Especially during a time of crisis, Parliament has a supreme duty to hold the executive to account. Canadians need continuous parliamentary audit of the executive and the bureaucracy's judgment.

During the First World War, high commands often found themselves at odds with national assemblies. Indeed, national assemblies had conceded extra powers to the executive branch and exercised restraint over the way their military prosecuted the war. Assuming the war would be brief, they deferred to experts and professionals, but in the wake of a succession of failed offences and military stagnation, parliamentarians demurred. They attempted to regain control of the war effort by injecting criticism and new ideas. Georges Clemenceau, when he became premier of France in 1917, famously surmised, “War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.”

Then I go through a series of issues where the British generals got it wrong and Winston Churchill got it right. Military strategy requires civilian perspective and leadership. That's what we learn from civil-military relations. To paraphrase Clemenceau, a pandemic is too important to leave to health experts or the executive alone, hence the importance of the role of Parliament. Never has it been more important than today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you so much.

Next we have Monsieur Turcotte, director of the technology analysis directorate at the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Thank you.

[Martyn Turcotte]

Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members for the invitation to speak to you today.

You're currently studying ways in which members can best fulfill their parliamentary duties during the COVID-19 pandemic. You're looking at the temporary modification of your procedures and technological solutions to support a virtual Parliament. We've been asked to speak to you today about privacy issues related to web-based video conferencing platforms as you consider potential solutions.

At this time, we're all navigating and adapting to a new reality of social distancing. Many of us have turned to video conferencing services for both personal and professional use. Governments and parliaments around the world are also using these efficient and readily available platforms to carry out important work.

We often see a connection between the privacy concerns and the cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities of these platforms. These types of digital solutions are widely available and seamless to use, which explains their surge in popularity. However, there have also been reports of privacy and security issues related to their use. These issues stem from flaws with end-to-end encryption and data collection or sharing practices embedded in the terms and conditions. Specific risks along these lines would be unique to each video conferencing service in question. Any tool has its pros, cons, strengths and vulnerabilities.

There is a good reason to be prudent when considering cybersecurity concerns or vulnerabilities with any particular technology option. There have also been reports that the COVID-19 crisis has created new opportunities and motivations for cyber-attacks, which only increases the importance of ensuring there are adequate safeguards in place to protect against unauthorized breaches of personal information.

As you consider various technological solutions to support a virtual Parliament during this pandemic, it will be important to bear in mind that certain solutions may not be equally suitable for all situations. Parliament should first determine its needs and then assess the technical safeguards, the potential security risks and the privacy policies of each service before selecting a particular platform.

For situations that would involve government discussions requiring secure communications, I would defer to our government cybersecurity experts to provide specific technical expertise on appropriate solutions to support the work of Parliament. I would only add that a self-hosted web-based video conferencing system solution is generally more secure than using a web-based video conferencing system offered by a provider, because there is more ability to control certain technical features and, therefore, to adapt it to your specific needs.

If options other than self-hosted solutions are being considered, such as the numerous web-based video conferencing services that are broadly available, they should generally be reserved for public matters only.

A number of measures can be taken to protect privacy even when a system is used for public meetings. In such cases, we recommend the following:

The committee should conduct a careful review of the video conferencing service's privacy policies and terms of use to understand the terms for the collection, use and disclosure of personal information and third party contractual arrangements.

When using a private messaging feature during a video conference, pay particular attention to whether the messages remain private. Some messages may form part of the transcript of the meeting, and thus ultimately be more broadly available than the author intended.

For public committee meetings or House debates, the host—or in your case the chair of the committee—can prevent “Zoombombing,” gate crashers or other unwanted activities by disabling certain features such as “join before host,” screen sharing or file transfers.

Members who participate in a video conference should be careful about their own environment, such as where they sit. The people and items visible in the background can reveal a great deal of information.

Lastly, if members are using a web browser to participate in video conferences, it would be best to open a new window with no other browser tabs. Ideally, they should also close other applications to avoid inadvertently sharing notification pop-ups—showing, for example, new incoming emails—with other participants and the video conferencing service provider.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is currently preparing a list of best practices for individuals to mitigate common privacy and security concerns associated with web-based video conferencing systems. However, on their own, these measures don't guarantee that all privacy and cybersecurity risks would be adequately addressed, particularly in situations requiring secure communications. A more secure solution would likely be necessary.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I now look forward to answering your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you very much.

We're going to start our first round of questioning with six minutes for Mr. Brassard.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair; and thank you to all our witnesses for being here today. We're certainly talking about the important subject, or subjects, for that matter, of rural connectivity and privacy.

Mr. Turcotte, first, thank you for your service to our country. I know you have an extended military career and we appreciate that.

My question is in respect to the fact that Canada is a G7 country. On the issue of cybersecurity, whether it's hostile foreign power or non-state actors attempting to infiltrate these types of feeds through the mechanisms we're using, such as Zoom or others, how susceptible is Canada to the potential of cyber-attack or these non-state actors using this as a platform, as Parliament sits publicly, to attack or send a message, political, social or otherwise?

[Martyn Turcotte]

Madam Chair, I want to thank the member for his question.

First, I think that the people at the Communications Security Establishment of Canada would be in a better position to answer that type of question and provide more details.

Now, regarding the tools used in a virtual Parliament, it's always necessary to make a list of needs and to then see which tools would be the most suitable. As I said, each available tool provides different features and different levels of security. You can see quite clearly that there's no such thing as zero risk from a technological standpoint. An assessment of the acceptable risk must be conducted.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

There is a range of organizations, from the German foreign ministry to the United States Senate, to the Government of Taiwan, to the New York City school system, that have refused to use Zoom. SpaceX's Elon Musk has refused to use Zoom.

What are they on to, and what are we missing as a result?

[Martyn Turcotte]

As I said, it's extremely important to make a list of needs. I'm not an expert in parliamentary procedures. Each country and each parliament has its own procedures. That said, during this COVID-19 crisis, those procedures will be amended and adjusted according to the situation. This will create new needs, which will be linked to technology needs.

To establish a virtual Parliament, I propose that the committee look at three components: the technological component, the human component and the procedural component. By placing these three components in a Venn diagram, if you will, you can determine what you need to consider to make the best decisions.

What would be applicable in Canada probably wouldn't be applicable in another parliament.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Turcotte.

I also found it interesting that you mentioned that we were to examine this carefully, yet we've been given, effectively, five meetings to do so. Thus, it's almost impossible to go through all the scenarios and all the plausible problems from a security standpoint that it might cause.

My next question is to Ms. Qaqqaq. We know, for example, that only 40% of the rural part of our country is covered by broadband.

I will correct something that Ms. Ashton said. Actually, the opposition House leader, Candice Bergen, a Manitoba MP, was at the March 24 session of Parliament.

Ms. Qaqqaq, do you find your parliamentary privilege, your ability to represent your constituents, being jeopardized because of the ineffectiveness of rural broadband in the part of the country in which you live?

[Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

I feel that anybody in any position in the territories is at a disadvantage if their job relies on Internet services. For example, when you renew or get your driver's licence or ID, that information needs to be sent down here to Ottawa, and then sent back into the territories, because we don't have the Internet capacity to process that. People wait months. My mother waited for over a year to get hers.

As a member of Parliament...100%. My communication is mostly on social media. If I want people to be able to have access to emails, to interact with my constituents and hear the much-needed issues and challenges my riding is facing, definitely the Internet is a huge barrier for me to be able to do that and for my constituents to be able to access space and information from me and my office.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Thank you, Ms. Qaqqaq. That's all the time we have.

Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ms. Qaqqaq, just to follow up where Mr. Brassard left off, and his question about whether you felt your parliamentary privilege had been impugned or impacted, you said 100%. Just for the record, you have never raised a question of privilege that has been addressed by the chair or the Speaker. Is that correct?

[Mumilaaq Qaqqaq, NDP, Nunavut, NU]

I have not, but we have also never been in a global pandemic.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Fair enough. I just wanted to make sure that's on the record.

Mr. Leuprecht, welcome back.

For those who don't know, Mr. Leuprecht was one of my profs at Queen's University, and the only prof to ever not grant me an extension on an essay when I asked for it. If he's a little tough on me today, you'll know why.

You made a really interesting point. You said you are more concerned about how we use technology. There was a really interesting analogy for this in our first virtual session of Parliament yesterday. At the beginning of the meeting, my Zoom program had 13 pages of thumbnail photos, including one page of people who had muted their video. By about 20 minutes into it, that number had grown to five or six pages of people who had turned off their video.

What do you recommend in terms of establishing certain guidelines or best practices to make sure that people are using technology and participating properly? I think it opens the door to potential problems, which I think is what you were getting at.

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

This is an opportunity for all parliamentarians to realize—which those of us who have worked on cyber for years have been trying to push on members in Ottawa—that cyber is not just one policy domain among a series of others, and that cyber touches every aspect of our lives today. Fundamentally, we need to have a conversation about the fact that, in a democracy, human beings should not be at the service of technology. Technology needs to be at the service of human beings. The issues you just laid out demonstrate to us that we haven't thought systematically enough at the micro, meso and macro levels about how we make sure, in Canada and in a democracy, that is the case.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Do you think it's necessary to establish certain guidelines and principles of engagement because we should assume they're going to be different from what happens in person?