Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 1st, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Good morning.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend and were able to find some meaningful time in your communities yesterday in honour of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

Colleagues, we are here for meeting 125 of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. As a reminder, as always, to protect the health and well-being of our interpreters, who work so hard on our behalf, please ensure that your headsets, when they are not in use, are sitting on the stickers in front of you.

I notice that we have a couple of guests today. Mr. Nater, welcome. Mr. Louis, welcome to you. Mr. Ruff, it's nice to see you here.

Colleagues, as you know, we are beginning our first set of questions and answers in relation to Bill C-377, which is an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act. It's always nice when we have a colleague who is able to join us and provide their perspective and testimony on legislation that is before us.

To Mr. Ruff, our colleague from Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, who's the sponsor of the bill, the floor will be yours for 10 minutes. It's nice to see you here, sir. We look forward to hearing your introductory remarks, and then we will enter into our question and answer period, as usual. With that, Mr. Ruff, the floor is yours.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Do I have 10 minutes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

You have up to 10 minutes. If you don't want it, you—

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Excellent. I cut my notes down to about five minutes. I will speak more slowly for the interpreters, so they'll be happy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Yes—military precision.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Chair, we're here today to speak to my private member's bill, Bill C-377 , an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act, by adding the following subclause:

A member of the Senate or the House of Commons who applies for a secret security clearance from the Government of Canada is, for the purposes of the consideration of their application, deemed to need access to the information in respect of which the application is made.

Really, what does this mean? It means that for the purposes of applying for the security clearance, parliamentarians have a need to know. The most important aspect to understand is that this bill would only allow parliamentarians to apply for a secret security clearance. The government would, then, not be able to deny, regardless of which party is in government, a parliamentarian from applying. That's all it would do; it would allow them to apply.

The bill does not guarantee that a parliamentarian's application would pass, should they apply. They still must go through the same government security vetting and clearance process. I've had a secret level security clearance for decades now. I've had a top secret security clearance for over 15 years. Having a clearance does not guarantee that one gets access to whatever classified information they want whenever they want, or on any classified issue. One still must demonstrate the need to know to the government to get access to the classified information. This is, really, the second safeguard of the “need to know” principle on how the system protects classified information.

Why is it so important to allow parliamentarians a secret security clearance? The preamble of my bill, Bill C-377, states:

in the face of threats to world peace and security posed by nefarious state and non-state actors, the Government of Canada needs to make challenging decisions relating to national security, which it must do in a manner that is consistent with its constitutional duty to be accountable to Parliament and that respects the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights;

This highlights the need to improve transparency, accountability and education with respect to the ever-changing threats to Canada and our democratic institutions and processes, but ultimately for Parliament to rebuild the trust in those same democratic processes and institutions.

Let's look at some testimony that you have heard at this PROC committee in just the last year. You had Vincent Rigby here. He served as the national security and intelligence adviser from January of 2020 to June of 2021. He stated that transparency needed to be increased by producing annual public threat assessments, responding to the NSICOP reports, publishing intelligence priorities and, most important, sharing more intelligence with members of Parliament.

In the conclusion of Top Secret Canada: Understanding the Canadian Intelligence and National Security Community, edited by Stephanie Carvin, Thomas Juneau and Craig Forcese, it states:

Canadians (and indeed, their political leaders) must have context to avoid swinging wildly from indifference to panic when security events occur. Likewise, transparency and national security literacy help citizens tease apart real scandals from the noise. More generally, Canadians shall need to develop a renewed understanding of the hard dilemmas that frequently arise in securing a free and democratic state.

Let's look at a few real-life parliamentary examples where access to classified information has become a political hot potato both under this current Liberal government and under the former Conservative government, respectively, the Winnipeg labs and, under the previous Conservative government, the Afghan detainee file issue. How did Parliament ultimately address both of those issues? They formed ad hoc committees at the last minute and created a whole lot of undue politicization of the whole process, whereas, if Parliament had members already cleared, this would have sped up the process and helped downplay the politicization.

More recently, let's look at foreign interference. We know that parliamentarians are being targeted—and this isn't new. We can go back to the 2019 annual report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, where they recommended that parliamentarians needed to be briefed on the threats they face from foreign interference. This, again, has been further emphasized and highlighted by the most recent and ongoing public inquiry into foreign interference, the NSIRA review, in their report, and in the most recent NSICOP report on public interference that was just tabled in May.

The point I'm trying to make here, and we've heard some of this feedback from parliamentarians who have received some of the generic defensive briefs on foreign interference, is that it's not specified and it doesn't have enough detail to actually make them understand the threats that parliamentarians are facing.

In response to these reports, the government tabled Bill C-70, and kudos to Parliament for fast-tracking that bill with all-party support, because there's one relevant aspect of Bill C-70 that made changes to the CSIS Act. These changes now allow CSIS to share classified information beyond the federal government with other levels of government—provinces and territories, municipalities and first nations—and with industry and other stakeholders.

However, one key caveat that still needs to be cracked is that those individuals still must gain a security clearance to be briefed. If they're not cleared, they cannot get access to that information unless it's an imminent threat, if it's going to save somebody's life or if it's a grave public threat. There are all sorts of caveats that allow our national security agencies, including CSIS, to help out.

Finally, I'd like to remind the committee of your own unanimous consent recommendation from earlier this year during the report on the question of privilege related to the member for Wellington—Halton Hills and other members. Recommendation 3 states:

That the government work with recognized parties' whips to facilitate security clearances, at Secret level or higher, of caucus members who are not Privy Councillors (particularly those who sit on committees with mandates concerning foreign affairs, national defence and national security), who shall be taken as satisfying [the] requirements for a “need to know,” to ensure that they may be adequately briefed about important national security matters, including foreign intelligence threat activity directed toward Parliament, or their party or its caucus members.

Basically, this committee has already recommended and supported what Bill C-377 is trying to achieve.

I look forward to any questions from my honourable colleagues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ruff.

Okay, colleagues, we'll get right into our first round of questioning.

Mr. Cooper, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ruff.

Perhaps you could help explain why this bill is necessary. You noted that you have a top secret security clearance arising from your service in the Canadian Armed Forces. Is it accurate or fair to say that as a sitting member of Parliament, unless you had a security clearance from a prior career or are one of the handful of members appointed to NSICOP—on which you serve—the chances of getting a secret security clearance or any security clearance are close to nil?

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

I'd agree with Mr. Cooper on his summary here.

It goes back to the principles around how we protect classified information in this country and this “need to know” principle. As I highlighted in my opening remarks, there are really two tests. The first one is you need to be in a position to have access or a need to know. That's where, as a former member of the Canadian Armed Forces, I was required to apply for a secret security clearance. Once I moved into positions where I required top secret security clearance, I applied and was successful. However, to get to my point, it doesn't mean you have access to stuff; it's by virtue of your position.

In Parliament, cabinet members, privy councillors, parliamentary secretaries and, now, NSICOP members have security clearances, and that's really it. There may be some rare exceptions where a member has successfully made the requirement to the government, but I'm not aware of any. The point is that the government could just deny it at any point by saying, “Guess what? You don't have a need to know.”

The purpose of this bill is to allow that need to know to occur. Again, I can just go back to the two historical examples I highlighted of the Afghan detainee files and the Winnipeg labs. The reason the government wouldn't hand stuff over to the relevant committees that were studying it at the time was the first response: You don't have a security clearance.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you.

Your bill amends the Parliament of Canada Act by establishing a presumption that a member of Parliament or senator has access or would be granted a secret security clearance on the basis of a need to know. It is, to clarify, merely a presumption. It merely gets the member's or senator's foot in the door for the first step of the process, but that's it. Is that right?

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

That's correct. It just establishes that as parliamentarians, we have a need to know. I've laid out the historical examples. In particular, the one that's most relevant and that we're all facing today is the foreign interference side. We need to be able to take this seriously.

This is a pet peeve of mine going back decades—long before I was elected. Canada is terrible at.... We overclassify things. We do not understand...we pay lip service to national security.

The first step to rebuilding that trust in our democratic processes is getting those of us who represent the Canadian populace, i.e., elected members of Parliament and senators, to have a better understanding of the threats we face because there are tough decisions.

I'm sorry to break the news to some that maybe aren't aware, but the world is actually getting more volatile and more complicated than we've ever seen. The first step to us addressing that is becoming smarter and more educated here in Parliament.

My bill only does that first step. It doesn't guarantee you have access.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Another point that I would ask you to elaborate on is that it is specific to a secret security clearance. That is different from, for instance, a top secret security clearance.

Can you perhaps explain what a secret security clearance is versus a top secret security clearance and the rationale for specifically selecting a presumption in favour of a secret security clearance for members and senators?

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

It's a good question.

You can google the Treasury Board Secretariat rules to explain the differences between enhanced reliability, confidential, secret and top secret, but in a nutshell, here's the easiest way to break it down.

In my estimation, 95% of the intelligence that needs to be shared with any government department or parliamentarian is never above the secret level.

The difference between secret and top secret.... Top secret is how we got that information and the need to protect the sources, whether that's people, techniques or whatever. Who cares? We need to know what the crux of the information is . That's why secret is the appropriate level.

Again, the resources required to communicate at a top secret level are very costly. I can go on at length about where we lack on classified communication systems in this country if it comes up in another question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Cooper.

Mr. Turnbull, the floor is yours for six minutes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Ruff. Thanks for being here and for your testimony today.

I'm still struggling with what the intentions of this bill really are. When I look at it and read the language in the bill, it says “deemed to need access to the information in respect of which the application is made.”

That language strikes me as particularly concerning, given the fact that if I, as a member of Parliament, want to apply for a secret security clearance.... I don't have it currently, as far as I know. Actually, as a parliamentary secretary, I may actually have it.

If any member of Parliament were to say that they want to access a certain type of intelligence or national security-related information, they would be deemed “need to know”. Am I misinterpreting that?

You're shaking your head, so please clarify for me because that's the way I interpret that language. It's very broad.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

It is, but it isn't. At the same time, if you read the clause, it states very specifically, “for the purposes of the consideration of their application”.

In my opinion, I'd love to see every member of Parliament and senator, upon being appointed or elected, go through the security clearance process. If you fail it—because there's no guarantee you're going to get it—that should be publicized far and wide. Politically, I don't think that's acceptable, so therefore it will never happen.

I really struggled in my first cut of this with how I do this without wading into questions of parliamentary privilege and the access of that information. That's why I wrote the bill as only the first step in addressing this thing. It allows you to apply and you cannot be turned away. That's all that my bill does.

It's why that second clause.... I wish the language could be even more in plain speak. When you work with the drafters sometimes, it gets into.... I'm not a lawyer, so drafting some of this stuff.... That's the way it was written. That's the intent. It only allows you to apply and you only need to know for the purpose of getting that application.

Your example, Mr. Turnbull, is very good. You likely have a secret security clearance, but you're not even aware of it. How many secret documents have you read since you've been a parliamentary secretary? Likely very few. I'd argue none, because if you're not even aware that you have it, then I would argue you have yet to read it, even though you have a clearance.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I think you might actually be wrong on that, but that's okay.

The point, though, is that on “need to know”, if I or any other member of Parliament make an application—I'm using myself as an example—and I'm automatically deemed to need to know, if I were to then get through that screening process, I would actually get access to that information. That's the part I'm struggling with because the language in the bill is not clear that there would be another gated step of who determines whether I need to know that information.

You can understand the concern one would have if any member of Parliament could make an application for a secret security clearance and then be deemed to need to know that information for which they have applied. If they get through the process, then they get access to that information.

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Yes, that was the whole purpose of what I highlighted—the second step of “need to know”. Just because you have it doesn't mean you get access. I've had top secret security clearance. I maintained that when I first retired from the military because if I hadn't been successful in getting elected I would have likely gone into—who knows?—defence consulting, defence contracting or something where I needed it.

Therefore, I had my security clearance transferred from the Canadian Armed Forces over to a private company, which then got registered with Public Works at the time—now PSPC—so that I maintain it. However, I sat here for the first two and a half years of being elected before I got put on NSICOP. I actually stood up in the House one day and asked for classified information on national security threats that the government was saying existed. Did the government give me access to one classified document? No. I sit on NSICOP. Does that mean NSICOP gets to see and ask for any document I want to read? It absolutely does not, and I have the highest clearances.

That's the second principle. The government always has that ability to control, regardless of the department, what information is shared with whom. That's the whole process. Then you have to get into the resource thing I mentioned, too. Unless you're on a system that actually allows you to read classified documentation, you can't read it unless somebody prints a hard copy. Then you have a whole other process, and when you go through the process, you actually learn what the requirements are to protect that information.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I understand that.

You're saying that there's another "need to know", a second layer of “need to know”, which is determined by the government and is not included or referenced in your bill. Where does that sit? Does that sit in the the legislation this is amending? Can you clearly identify it?

That's my concern when I read this: It seems to throw the doors wide open. You're saying no, and I appreciate that clarification, but I want an assurance as to where that other “need to know” sits within the the legislation and to just know that there's another gate people have to get through.

My concern would be that people would be able to access information they're deemed to need to know but that they perhaps shouldn't have access to, or where there is no rational justification for them to have access to that information.

There's lots of information I'd like to have access to. I'd like to have access to the information that's referred to in the NSICOP report on the allegations of foreign interference in the Conservative leadership race. I would like to have access to that and be clear on that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Turnbull, I'm going to need you to wrap up, please.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Yes.

Currently, the Conservative leader does not have a security clearance, which I find slightly suspect. I can't understand why that would be acceptable for individual in your caucus. However, I digress, and I look forward to a future conversation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Turnbull, I'm going to have to leave it there. Thank you.

Madame Gaudreau, it's over to you.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm not trying to be funny, but there's something I, too, “need to know”. How does this change benefit us in terms of our role and our parliamentary privileges?

[Alex Ruff, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

As I highlighted, the key thing is really the threats we face. Our role as parliamentarians is to hold the government to account. That's really what Parliament is here to do. It's the way our whole Westminster system is set up.

We've had historical examples, and again I use the two, and then, most recently, foreign interference. If a member is facing foreign interference threats directly, and you're not aware of it, hands are tied. Again, all of the feedback that's come forward in the recommendations of NSICOP over the last five years since the 2019 annual report is that parliamentarians and senators need to be apprised of what those threats are. If you don't get them and you're not aware of them, it's really hard for us to address them.

It's our role to then pass legislation that the government of the day brings forward to try to address it. If we have no understanding of what those threats are, it's very difficult for us to do our job properly to provide the best legislation and the best protection for Canadians. That's really what I'm trying to do.

It's no different than if you're a member of the Canadian Armed Forces or you're in law enforcement. By virtue of your position, you're in a position that should have a higher level of security clearance than the average Canadian, because you should be aware in order to do your job.

I just think, arguably, that parliamentarians have that requirement to be more educated and have better awareness so that, when that second step of the need to know principle arises, you can address and get access if that's determined, and you make the compelling case to the government of the day.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I understand the need to know. I also understand its impact, especially in the case of foreign interference. There is a reason so many recommendations came out of the study on Bill C‑70.

On the flip side, what are the negative effects? What can happen following a request like that? There are considerations related to security and the protection of parliamentarians, to say nothing of the information itself, which has to be known and disclosed, but at what cost?

What would the risk be?