Thank you, Chair. I appreciate your indulgence.
On the other hand, it is a well-established principle of national security that information must be shared with citizens if they need that information to defend themselves. For example, if we were at war and a particular area faced imminent bombardment, we would expect the government to warn citizens of the attack so they could shelter themselves. We would not expect government to keep that information secret, obviously. If a terrorist planted a bomb in a building, we would expect the building to be immediately evacuated and not for the government to keep that information secret simply because it involved security.
What is obviously true of physical attacks should, based on an extension of the same principle, also apply in the more benign cases of cyber and other kinds of foreign attacks. The principle remains that the victim or potential victim has a natural right to know, so they can defend themselves.
Moreover, foreign interference is a particular case where exposure is a central part of the solution. The impact of foreign disinformation is significantly reduced when people become aware of the source. In this way, it is exposed as propaganda and loses its persuasive power. The impact of foreign takeovers of institutions can be undone simply through exposure, and politicians identified as foreign collaborators are less likely to be re-elected. When people are aware that the source of something is a hostile foreign state, that awareness may dissolve the impact of the threat.
The current government has used national security as an excuse for keeping secret information related to foreign interference that it would be in the national interest to expose, or where exposing that information would protect victims and reduce the overall impact. Three known examples of this phenomenon are the secrecy that long surrounded the Winnipeg lab documents affair, the failure to inform members of Parliament of threats against them or their families—which resulted in two separate questions of privilege recognized by the Speaker—and the current insistence of the government on keeping secret the names of parliamentarians who have intentionally collaborated with hostile foreign states. It is hard to see how the public interest is served by secrecy in any of these cases.
When it comes to foreign interference, we should be strategically declassifying certain information precisely as a tool to fight against interference. The government's defence of their failure to inform me of threats against me was that they told the House of Commons about these threats, and that they respect the role of the House of Commons as an institution separate from the executive.
In response to this, I will make five observations.
Firstly, as you know, I was targeted at my personal email. House of Commons IT were informed about attacks on parliamentary accounts. I suspect the administration here wasn't even informed of the attack on me, because that had nothing to do with their jobs.
Secondly, we have still not heard clear testimony regarding what information exactly was shared with House IT and when—whether it was merely a few technical details or the full robust picture that was shared with our intelligence services by the FBI. Without the full picture, it would have been hard for us to be briefed.
Thirdly, the government's argument seems to badly misunderstand the nature of the work expected of IT professionals. House of Commons IT are not an intelligence or communications service. They work on IT. It would seem strange, in principle, for those IT professionals to have decided of their own accord to walk around the building and talk to parliamentarians about the threats they face.
Fourthly, CSE acknowledged in their testimony that there were likely caveats associated with the information shared that prevented House of Commons employees from resharing the information without permission. I would suggest that the committee send for further and clearer information about what exactly was shared with House of Commons IT services—when and with what caveats.
Finally, the underlying logic of the government's argument for secrecy is deeply flawed, because the rights and privileges of members of Parliament are vested in them as members of Parliament. Those rights are what enable us to do our jobs for our constituents. Those rights can be given up or modified by the agreement of the House, but they are not held, controlled or modifiable by House administration. The way to respect the rights and independence of members of Parliament is to give them the tools and information they need. The government's argument here implies that the House administration is the holder of our rights, as opposed to members themselves. That is, of course, dead wrong.
Chair, that's my opening statement. I look forward to questions.