Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 11th, 2024

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Is it true that in the event of a serious national security matter, the Prime Minister can use the information and make it public?

[David Vigneault]

Generally speaking, in my experience, the disclosure of information is done in collaboration with the agencies.

I'll give you a very concrete example. The first time we named some of the countries involved in this incident, it was classified information. We did the work required to allow us to say that now, based on publicly available information and its impact on our operations, we can begin to say more about it.

It was therefore an iterative process, but it was not based on a government policy.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I don't have a lot of time left, so let's cut to the chase. It was nevertheless a directive from the Prime Minister that enabled you to release the information to the MPs who had been targeted by foreign interference, and to disclose information that had previously been withheld from these MPs.

[David Vigneault]

Mr. Chair, to be more specific, we used section 12.1 of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act, which is about reducing threats. That is the process, which is based on the CSIS Act, that enabled me to have the initial discussion with Mr. Chong.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

You mentioned, earlier on—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Unfortunately, Mr. Berthold, that's all the time you have. I'm sorry.

Ms. Romanado, the floor is now yours for five minutes.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Through you, I thank the witnesses for being here.

Monsieur Vigneault, you mentioned that your team met with over 70 MPs to brief them in the past couple of years. Is that correct?

[David Vigneault]

Yes, Mr. Chair, it is correct, 70 parliamentarians, and I think that, for Canadians, we're talking about more than 1,000 people we engaged with.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Can you confirm that the parliamentarians who were victims of this cyber-attack were all met with?

[David Vigneault]

Mr. Chair, I will have to go back to review that information specifically to confirm.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Will you undertake to do that? The directive of May 2023 was clear that all parliamentarians who are targets are to be made aware, so I would like to make sure that all parliamentarians.... We have some who will be coming as witnesses on Thursday, and we will be asking them if they were met with by CSIS to be briefed.

[David Vigneault]

Mr. Chair, I will undertake to confirm whether the MPs were met. However, I think it's very clear as well, in my testimony and from what was presented to this committee, that there was, as I said, the expectation when we were sharing the information that the specific information would be shared by the House of Commons. Also, the ministerial directive issued to CSIS came about two years later than...the incident, so I think it's important to keep these two points in mind in reflecting about what was done here.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Mr. Vigneault, you've had two years to be able to brief. You've had over a year since the directive in 2023 to get in contact with these members and senators who were affected. When I'm looking at what we've been hearing during this study, it's almost like the Shaggy song It Wasn't Me. I have the House of Commons saying it wasn't them; I have CSE saying it wasn't them and CSIS saying it wasn't them. In the meantime, parliamentarians, both in the Senate and in the House of Commons, are sitting here as targets.

There seems to be a real breakdown, and no one wants to take responsibility for the fact that the parliamentarians, the very people you say are targets of foreign interference, are actually not being briefed. This is a very big concern of ours. I understand that you want to learn from it, but in the meantime, our adversaries who are doing this are getting away with it.

What structure needs to be put in place to ensure there is a constant dialogue with the very people who are being targeted, whether by state actors or non-state actors? Maybe I have information that you don't have. It seems that is missing. When we say it's the House of Commons that was responsible for letting the parliamentarians know, what about the Senate? Is the House of Commons IT group responsible for the Senate as well? There seems to be a lot of “it's not my problem” or “I did my part of the assembly line" but at the end of the day, it's not getting done. What do we need to do to get it done?

[David Vigneault]

Mr. Chair, in my remarks and my previous comments, I think I've been clear that the outcome that we have seen here is not the one that members of Parliament or senators in the IPAC would have wanted. It's definitely not the outcome we would have wanted, because our work on national security is to make sure that we are enabling people to defend themselves and to do our work.

Therefore, the undertaking I've given this committee is that I, with my partners at CSIS, with CSE, and with the House of Commons and the Senate, will learn from this and look at how we are aligning the different authorities, because we also have to respect the mandates and laws that govern our actions. How do we combine these to make sure that the outcome is different in the future?

I was very sincere, Mr. Chair, when I made that offer before. That's probably the best answer I can provide to the member.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I have no more time, so I'll ask more questions during the in camera session.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mrs. Romanado.

Colleagues, we are going to suspend—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Chair, can I just ask a question of my committee colleagues before we do this?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Is this a point of order, Mr. Calkins?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I'd like to know the rationale for and purpose of moving in camera. The director has basically said that we want to have a public conversation with this—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Calkins, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I'm going to suspend.

We can discuss this while we are suspended briefly.

We do have an agreement from the committee to be in camera. It's very unconventional for us to be discussing changing that practice. We could, of course—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

We can talk about it, can't we?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

—have a motion put forward, should it be desirable, to change—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I move that we stay in public.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

—our setting, but I'm going to suspend briefly so that we can talk as colleagues—

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

We just moved something.