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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Wark, I want to follow up on your last comment.

As you just mentioned, a significant gap exists between members of Parliament and the intelligence agencies when it comes to access to information. In fact, we've been studying the culture of intelligence for months, and it's clear that there is almost no such culture.

Could Bill C‑377—which is useless given what you said at the outset—help bring the two sides closer and improve the culture of intelligence?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

First of all, I certainly wouldn't characterize Mr. Ruff's bill as useless. Private members' bills are typically quixotic affairs, and, as I said, I'm very supportive of them. They're an important part of the opportunity for Parliament to debate issues that might otherwise not come to its attention.

I'm doubtful that this measure alone would improve what we often refer to generally as the “culture of intelligence” in the federal government. The reason for this is that the issue of the culture of intelligence fundamentally is a matter of understanding the nature of national security threats and understanding the strengths and limitations, the governance mechanisms and the ways in which intelligence communities work.

You do not need a security clearance to understand those fundamental problems. Having a security clearance would likely, I would think, enmesh you in the cultural deficiencies problem that we have with regard to intelligence matters rather than to solve it.

Thank you.

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

When I said that Bill C‑377 was useless, according to you, I was referring to the fact that you called it “useless”. What you really meant was unnecessary. You rephrased it clearly. No retaliation, please.

As I understand it, the government has repeatedly tried to protect information, parliamentarians want to know the information, and there is a committee of parliamentarians—which you helped set up—but it doesn't have sufficient analysis powers.

That is why you think Bill C‑377 is certainly not necessary if we focus on the information that's already available.

Do I have that right?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Thank you, Madame Gaudreau.

First of all, as Mr. Ruff will appreciate, NSICOP chooses its own subjects for review. Of course, in any particular year of its operations, it can't cover the waterfront, but it can and has chosen important topics for study. I hope it will continue to do so.

My main pitch to the committee is: Please do not undermine this creation that took so long to put in place and is, I think, an important institution and one where, frankly, Canada is trying to catch up with our counterparts among the Five Eyes in having an ability on the part of a parliamentary committee, a committee of parliamentarians—frankly, I don't think there's a big difference between those things—in being able to have access to classified information and conduct thorough and in-depth studies with the help of an expert secretariat of a kind that no parliamentary committee has or has the resources for.

I think that it is an important institution, and my real fear about this bill is not its usefulness or uselessness; it is the undermining of the very important thing that we created in 2017 that is still maturing but deserves to survive, and it certainly deserves a timely parliamentary review.

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

I completely understand your concern.

Before I go on, I want to commend the interpreters, who are doing a wonderful job. That said, I'd like you to send us your opening statement, Mr. Wark. You covered a lot of information, and I was trying to write it all down.

I believe you said that our Five Eyes counterparts don't have this kind of security clearance.

Besides the Five Eyes members, which countries give parliamentarians this access, even just for analysis purposes?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

I mentioned to the clerk a study that had been undertaken by a Geneva think tank that has done a lot of work on parliamentary oversight and review, and it examined this issue, in fact, and does make a distinction between different kinds of processes undertaken by different parliaments.

There are certainly some European parliaments that provide security clearances to members of Parliament, principally on the basis of their role with respect to selected committees. This is true, as I recall, for parliaments as diverse as those of Poland, Slovakia and so on, but certainly there are European countries that have adopted that process.

It also is important to say that none of those countries have the kind of dedicated, specialized committee of the sort that NSICOP represents.

That's certainly an alternative method, in my view, but it's not nearly as powerful a one as the one that we've created and can potentially reform and make stronger still in the future.

Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Wark. That was very helpful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau.

Ms. Mathyssen, the floor is yours.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

We've been talking a lot along the lines of the transparency of information. I have heard in the defence committee, of course, the stat that Canadians classify 70% more information than the Americans do

Could we talk whether this bill gets to that idea of transparency and whether maybe we should be doing this another way? My understanding is that there are—and what I've certainly used—ombuds' offices within Parliament. There are officers of Parliament. There's the Auditor General. There are commissioners and so on. Instead of this way, would it maybe make more sense in terms of transparency to look at if it's possible to give those actors within this parliamentary context more teeth, more responsibilities, greater access to information and report directly to Parliament, those sorts of things?

I'd like to hear from both witnesses, I guess Mr. Wark first and then Dr. Leuprecht.

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Ms. Mathyssen, thank you for the question.

Just quickly, I would say two things in direct response to your question. I don't think it would improve transparency necessarily, because if a member of Parliament got a security clearance to the secret level and was provided with classified information, that member of Parliament would not be able to divulge that information in any kind of public setting, unless they were going to use parliamentary privilege to do that, which would create a huge problem.

There are two things that I would certainly like to see happen. One is that I would like to see the government really deliver on the promises that were embedded in the national security transparency commitment that was issued in 2017. It's not a piece of legislation; it's just a commitment. But it was an important set of principles that has never been properly followed through on.

The second thing, just to come back to the remarks I made in the opening statement, is that we do not in this country have a declassification strategy or any way in which, in a systematic format, previously classified information can be lowered in terms of its classification or made public in the public interest. That is a serious weakness that sets us apart from many of our Five Eyes counterparts, especially the United States and the United Kingdom.

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

I have two comments. One is that we know that access to information in this country is seriously broken. We've all read the recent Globe and Mail reporting. We've read the access to information commissioner reports. This is a basic premise of democracy. I think parliamentary committees can substitute.

I also think perhaps Dr. Wark and I are coming at this from different assumptions. This is a bit of the conversation we had about a very contentious bill a decade back, where people pulled out the worst-case-possible scenarios that we could possibly think of. We're talking about national security, about classified intelligence. I actually think that obfuscates the conversation. A secret clearance would give select parliamentarians on committees the opportunity to see sensitive and protected material and to have everyday conversations with civil servants in a review capacity. It would be ex post facto . We're not talking about oversight. We're talking about review here. It would be about standard, run-of-the-mill things that a committee believes require a level of conversation that perhaps cannot be had broadly in public.

We're not talking about national security. We're not talking about highly classified information here that might become accessible to members of Parliament. I think we're simply talking about raising by one notch the ability for members of Parliament, and especially parliamentary committees, to hold the government to account.

Dr. Wark, I guess you disagree with me, but whether a committee reports to the political executive or to Parliament, that to me, in terms of the executive branch and the legislative branch, is a substantial, fundamental difference in what we're talking about with regard to responsible government and parliamentary supremacy.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'd like to get back to what you said, Dr. Wark, about this huge problem of parliamentarians sharing that information, or the potential that they get the information and then use privilege to share it. Obviously, members of NSICOP have forfeited their rights to this. Can you talk about that and expand on that further? It's not in this act.

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

No, it's not.

I have two things. I would first like to respond to my colleague Dr. Leuprecht, just briefly.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Go ahead.

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

It is right that it is part of the construction of the legislation that created NSICOP that members must acquire a top secret security clearance. They become people permanently pledged to secrecy under the Security of Information Act. They have to deliver an oath of loyalty. They give up parliamentary privilege. That's been challenged legally, but I don't think the challenge, to be honest, is very sensible. That's the way NSICOP works. That is also the way that counterpart bodies in the Five Eyes work.

In regard, just very briefly, to Dr. Leuprecht's statement, NSICOP does not report alone to the executive. Of course, NSICOP publishes its reports and provides them. They are tabled in Parliament. NSICOP reports to Parliament, and that's an important function. We can talk about the ways in which the executive controls some aspects of protecting information in the unredacted versions of NSICOP reports, but that is perhaps a discussion for another day.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Ms. Mathyssen.

Mr. Ruff, the floor is yours for five minutes.

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

Thanks, Chair.

This is for both witnesses because you both highlighted this. You highlighted the lack of education and awareness about national security issues in general with the Canadian public, but in particular within Parliament. Do you agree with that statement? Do you think that Parliament could go a lot further in becoming a lot smarter about issues of national security and intelligence?

[Dr. Christian Leuprecht]

I am personally, as a professor, deeply concerned about the impoverished level of political discourse in this country. I think being able to make a contribution to ensure that members of Parliament have an ability to raise the level of informed conversation and to have slightly broader awareness of the broader functioning of government and to have a bit more detailed conversation, especially in light of the shortcomings we have already discussed in the ability to access information or in the government's, at times, partisan obstruction—not just this government—of making the right information available in a timely fashion, and coming at it with a broader understanding to begin with would allow for a slightly improved level of political discourse overall in this country.

I don't see the concerns about “these are people we elect”. I guess maybe I'm just too much of a small-d democrat, but I just believe that we can ultimately trust our parliamentarians, and I think, by and large, all the theatre in the House of Commons notwithstanding, I actually find the parliamentarians I meet, irrespective of political party, to be exceptionally responsible and mature people.

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

Thank you for [Inaudible—Editor].

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Thank you.

Just very briefly, I think anyone who studies national security intelligence issues in Canada will share Mr. Ruff's view that there is a problem with what the former CSIS director David Vigneault often referred to as a lack of national security literacy. It is a problem. I don't think that the solution to it comes through delivering security clearances to all members of Parliament. I would note that Mr. Ruff's bill does not limit the process of applying for security clearances to members of designated committees. That came up in the discussion. Even if it did, I would continue to worry about the potential undermining of that fundamental and important role that NSICOP plays.

The think tank that I have been associated with since 2020, the Centre for International Governance Innovation, issued a major report in 2021 called “Reimagining a Canadian National Security Strategy”, and that was designed, in part, to try to make a contribution to a better public understanding.

Again, I would come back to the fact that members of Parliament in particular cannot consider themselves as passive consumers waiting for intelligence briefings to come their way. There are many ways in which they can inform themselves through information in the public domain about threats to national security and intelligence.

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

I just want to address this because Mr. Wark brought it up a few times, and it will be interesting. I will bring this conversation up with my colleagues in the NSICOP committee. In no way does my bill undermine the work that NSICOP does. I have no concerns about NSICOP's continued existence. I think there's a recognition across Parliament of the valuable work that NSICOP has been able to do, full stop. There is more than enough work that Parliament needs to do to tackle this.

Just to get to my point and why I asked this leading question about literacy around national security, the only way is to start down this path. People need to become more aware. There are loads of information out there. Parliamentarians, though, can't study it all. We're very dependent upon focused studies when some issue becomes the issue of the day, and that is the role of committees of Parliament, not a committee of parliamentarians, to actually provide that accountability and oversight. I think that's why some of this is important, because if you want to take the politicization out of the debate and out of the discussions, you need to have informed discussions, and you can't have those without having the level of detail.

I will summarize here in saying that my bill, again, doesn't guarantee access to anything. It will just allows parliamentarians the right to apply for a security clearance. Nobody will see anything or nobody get anything unless it has been worked out at the table at the respective committee and with the government of the day.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ruff.

Dr. Leuprecht, I see that your hand is up. The protocol on committee is that a witness has to be asked by a member to respond. Hopefully, a question will be directed toward you where you have the opportunity to add your remarks in that regard.

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

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you.

Notwithstanding Mr. Ruff's testimony, in which he said his intention is not to undermine the work of NSICOP...which I get. I appreciate that, and I take it at face value. I don't think it's his intention to do that.

Notwithstanding that, Mr. Wark, you've said that this bill would “fatally undermine” NSICOP. That's pretty strong language. I want to get you to unpack that a little bit more. I don't think you've necessarily had the chance to do that yet. You've outlined the impact on security clearance. What other aspects of NSICOP's role or work that you've called fundamental would this fatally undermine?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Thank you, Mr. Turnbull.

Just very quickly, there are two things. One is that if Parliament would like to amend the original legislation to change the label applied to NSICOP from a committee of parliamentarians to a parliamentary committee, they should do that. That would be an easy fix for a semantic distinction, which I don't think, to be honest, is important.

NSICOP is a very special committee with very special resources. It's an all-party committee. It has a secretariat of around 10, all of whom have security clearances and considerable knowledge of the world of national security intelligence of a kind that is, again, to repeat myself, not available to ordinary parliamentary committees.

My view of NSICOP is that it has proven its worth over the last six years of reporting, but it still lacks a degree of trust by Parliament. Let's be honest about this. The government suggested, for example, that NSICOP could be the entity to study foreign interference problems. That was rejected initially by Parliament as not sufficient. The government also suggested that NSICOP could be the entity to study the question of security breaches and related issues with regard to the Winnipeg lab. That suggestion was not adopted by Parliament. I take that to mean that Parliament did not sufficiently trust NSICOP to perform those functions.

There is still, in the first six years of its existence, a trust factor that perhaps goes back to some of the original political opposition to NSICOP. That is why I fear that giving this broad security clearance availability to all members of Parliament, whether they sit on respective committees or not, would mean a fatal undermining of NSICOP as Parliament's key instrument for studying national security and intelligence issues and doing that in a rigorous and in-depth way that is unavailable to any other parliamentary committee.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Based on what you just said, it sounds like you see a trend of Parliament's resisting and not fully trusting the work that NSICOP should undertake.