I share very much your concern about protecting Canadian democracy from foreign interference.
As you know, before the 2019 election, Karina Gould put forward a plan. It was ambitious: almost $50 million over three years to ensure that not only was our security and intelligence community able to prepare citizens, sort of, as we talked about with Mr. Gerretsen and others, improving citizen awareness and resilience, but we also set up an organizational structure in the Government of Canada including access to the G7 rapid response mechanism. We set up a new security and intelligence threat to elections task force. We had a public protocol where, during a writ period, if there was determined to be a sufficient threat to a safe, fair and free election under way in Canada, the Clerk of the Privy Council, with other senior officials of the public service responsible for intelligence and security agencies, would have an obligation to publicly disclose that to Canadians in an electoral context. But we can always do more.
After the election, we asked Jim Judd, a former senior security and intelligence official of the Government of Canada, to review what was done in 2019 and make recommendations to strengthen that.
Madam Chair, with the only proviso.... I want to make sure that I'm offering up security and intelligence senior officials to the committee. I'm happy to do that, but I'll make sure that the Privy Council, Madam Chair, consults with your office on the proper way to do it. My instinct is it's probably an in camera meeting, obviously, if you want to have a more detailed discussion with these officials.
I think it would be interesting for members of the committee to have some of the briefings that I had after the last election in terms of their preparation for the next one, because Mr. Doherty properly raises an issue that all of us should be concerned about. We shouldn't be smug and think we're immune from this kind of potential interference. Canadians deserve to know that every step possible to safeguard our elections is in place. I personally think that's the case, but I would be happy to share, within the measure of what's possible, probably in an in-camera meeting with members of the committee and with officials briefing you directly.
Madam Chair, if it's the desire of the committee I'll ask the Privy Council to work with your office to figure out who the appropriate officials are and what the appropriate security context is to provide you that information.