Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 10th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Good morning, everyone.

I hope you've had a good couple of days since we last saw one another.

I call meeting number 127 of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to order.

Today, we commence the clause-by-clause study of Bill C-377, an act to amend the Parliament of Canada Act with regard to the need to know.

To colleagues and, particularly, to our witnesses, this is a friendly reminder that if your headsets are not in use, please make sure that they are put on the stickers in front of you in order to avoid doing damage to the health and well-being of our interpreters, who are working so hard on our behalf.

We have a number of officials with us today, who are here to provide guidance when necessary.

I would like to welcome Tracy, chief of strategic policy from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. From the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, we have Justin Chan, director of counterterrorism policy. From the Privy Council Office, we have Sean Jorgensen, director general and chief security officer. From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, we have Chief Superintendent Jeffrey Beaulac, acting chief security officer of departmental security. From the Treasury Board Secretariat, we have Adam Hatfield, executive director of policy on government security.

Thank you very much to our officials for being here.

Colleagues, there were obviously a number of changes and moving pieces over the course of the past couple of days, but I believe we have landed in a place that should allow for what I hope is a fruitful and efficient discussion today. I ask for everybody's patience. We should not be frustrated with colleagues should they have questions or a need for clarity, given how much has changed over the course of the past few days.

(On clause 1)

With that, we are going to begin. The first amendment that was put forward was G-1.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Mr. Chair, we decline to move G-1 and G-2.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Colleagues, G-1 and G-2 will not be moved.

Seeing nobody else wishing to speak to this, we are going to move to our next amendment, which is CPC-1.

Mr. Ruff, I believe you would like to move the amendment and speak to it, so the floor is yours, sir.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I'm sure everybody has a copy of CPC-1, so I don't need to read the whole thing.

The purpose of moving this is to take out this whole reference to “need to know”, which was a concern that was shared with the committee by the officials. This is because, as much as that terminology is used within the community as the first turnkey, there's recognition that it provided some confusion and ambiguity. By bringing it forward and just changing.... The whole intent of my bill, as I've stated very clearly—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Ruff, I'm sorry. We have a bit of a technical, procedural issue that we have to deal with very briefly.

I'm going to suspend. I'll inform you of what that is, and we'll get back to it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Colleagues, thank you for your patience.

Mr. Ruff, I'm going to ask you to begin again.

We are now at CPC-1. Mr. Ruff, would you like to move it and speak to it? The floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Chair. I will just read it in.

I move that Bill C-377, in clause 1, be amended by replacing lines 15 and 16 on page 2 with the following:

eration of their application, deemed to need that security clearance.

As I was trying to explain earlier, this addresses the concerns that were raised by the officials last week about the term “need to know”. It clears up that ambiguity and clearly focuses on the fact that, as I've mentioned in all my speeches and testimony, the only purpose of my bill is to allow parliamentarians to apply for secret security clearance. It has nothing to do with how the government controls access to that information or ever disseminates it.

The purpose of my bill, to clarify, is just to apply for that security clearance, so that's why I'm putting this change forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Colleagues, just as a reminder for this process, as I know it's been a while for some of us, now that the amendment has been moved, members can of course speak to it. Once the list is exhausted, we'll move to a vote.

Ms. Mathyssen, I saw your hand up.

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

I just want to hear from the witnesses here, because there were considerable questions raised at a previous meeting about all the moving parts of this bill. I want to hear the witnesses' opinions on this amendment and whether some of the questions that were raised about security, admissibility and so on will be cleared up by this amendment.

[Justin Chan, Director, Counter-Terrorism Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

Thank you for that.

Good morning, MPs.

I would open by saying one thing about this particular amendment: I think it clarifies the fact that the intent of the bill is to get security clearance, the need for that. We have no other comment. It does clarify it.

I don't know whether any other colleagues have anything to say.

[Adam Hatfield, Executive Director, Policy on Government Security, Treasury Board Secretariat]

Good morning, folks. Thank you for the opportunity to be here.

We would not know how to interpret language like “Deeming—need to know” in our security policy. This amendment removes that language and is much clearer, so I have no further concerns.

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

Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Madam Clerk, I'll ask you to call a vote on amendment CPC-1.

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0)

We will now move to CPC-2.

Mr. Ruff, I believe you would like to move the amendment. The floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I move that Bill C-377, in clause 1, be amended by adding after line 16 on page 2 the following:

(1.1) An application referred to in subsection (1) is to be processed and managed as though it were made by a person appointed by a minister under subsection 128(1) of the Public Service Employment Act.

There was logic when I did this. I looked at some of the language that I think the government considered. However, as was rightly pointed out, if we just refer to the standard on security screening laid out in the Treasury Board guidelines, that's a regulatory document, a policy that is subject to change, because it's not linked to legislation. We could have a challenge with the Parliament of Canada Act being out of sync with policies that exist across the government. That's a legitimate concern, so it was rightly pointed out.

We have the Public Service Employment Act, which addresses that and links it, so if any changes occur that impact the PSEA, the PSEA takes precedence. The reason I specifically picked subsection 128(1) is that it's the part that refers to anybody employed in a minister's office. We, as parliamentarians, are not public servants. We're elected or appointed parliamentarians, part of the legislative branch, so it made perfect sense to link us to those same types of positions that would be employed, such as exempt staff in a minister's office, to follow under the exact same conditions, because it made a lot more sense to link us that way.

That was the reason why I did that. It makes it clear what it links to. It's linked to legislation, not just a policy. At the same time, it links us to those equivalent, or as close as possible to equivalent, positions that exist outside of the actual public service.

I'll leave my comments at that for now, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Seeing no further commentary, I'll ask the clerk to call the vote on CPC-2.

(Amendment negatived: nays 7; yeas 5)

Mr. Duguid.

[Terry Duguid, Liberal, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to move the following amendment from the floor. My staff have emailed it to the clerk in both official languages.

I move that Bill C-377, in clause 1, be amended by adding after line 20 on page 2 the following:

Prohibition

(3) A member or former member of the Senate or the House of Commons must not knowingly disclose information to which they were given access under a security clearance, except if the disclosure is made during an in camera meeting of a committee of the Senate or the House of Commons, or of a joint committee, and every individual in attendance has also been granted the necessary security clearance by the Government of Canada.

While we wait for the email to be distributed, I'll offer our reasoning on this side.

This amendment provides a necessary safeguard measure to prevent inappropriate disclosure of classified information to individuals who have not been granted a security clearance by the Government of Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Mr. Duguid.

Colleagues, just before I turn the floor over to Mr. Ruff, for clarity, because there were so many changes in terms of numbers, I'm going to read the reference number to make sure that everybody is following. The reference number for the amendment that Mr. Duguid just moved from the floor is as follows: 13323960. I'm seeing nods, so we're in agreement.

We have Mr. Ruff, followed by Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Chair, I do have concerns here.

First, I actually want to address, as a point of order, the admissibility of this amendment. This amendment actually talks about the control or access to classified information, which was never part of the intent of my bill. My bill is only dealing with the applications for security clearance, and this talks about how the government controls or disseminates information, how it could be shared or not shared, which has nothing to do with the intent of my bill. My bill is only to set into law the privilege of parliamentarians to apply for a security clearance. This is, to me, well beyond the scope.

To get to a point I want to address...and I do want to ask the witnesses this. I think a few of them can weigh in. As you know, how information is controlled is subject to the individual departments from the DM level down. However, obviously, PCO would be the lead—that would be my intent and it would be my guess—on how information would be shared, if it is ever shared with parliamentarians.

My first question to the witnesses is this: Just because somebody has applied for security clearance and has even passed that security process, are they granted access to classified information just because they have clearance?

[Sean Jorgensen, Director General and Chief Security Officer, Privy Council Office]

The answer is no.

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

Does everybody agree with that across the witness board? Excellent.

Second, the process that was used for previous scenarios, as we laid out during my testimony and during the debate here, on previous committees that were formed, ad hoc committees, when information was shared.... Actually, cancel that.

My point is that, with the amendment to my bill and the way the bill currently stands, with no further amendments, if it were to pass as it is right now in the legislation with the approved amendment, would that in some way interfere with or inhibit the government actually putting in place a step like what this amendment proposes? Is this basically somewhat the status quo for the way the government...? The government could put into execution this exact process.

If my bill passes, does that in any way stop the government from doing this when it comes to the sharing of classified information?

[Adam Hatfield]

I think I can address some of that, sir.

Currently within the Government of Canada, the highest-level overarching policy that governs how security is managed is the policy on government security set by the Treasury Board. That policy defines a number of aspects. Security screening is one of them, but it is built assuming that all of those aspects are there.

Currently, the policy on government security does not apply to parliamentarians. It applies to public servants, so the question of how a department would engage with an individual who's not subject to the policy on government security, even though they have a security clearance, is an unasked question. That would be new for us, and we would have to figure out how to deal with that at the time.

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

My question here may be more for Mr. Jorgensen in terms of his experience. We've had past experience where classified information has been shared with parliamentarians once they have a security clearance. The Winnipeg lab issue is one example. There are others. So we do have a process in place that we have come up with. When I say “we”, I mean the government.

My question, though, is that, if my bill were to pass.... Again, we have lots of parliamentarians who have security clearance. I had one long before I got put on NSICOP. I had a top secret security clearance that was still current, held by PSPC, and the government did not give me access to any information. My point is that the fact that a parliamentarian has a security clearance does not in any way inhibit the government from putting safeguards in place before they would share classified information.

Just having a security clearance grants a parliamentarian access to squat. That's my point. It's just a step they need to go through before they can get to step two or three.

[Sean Jorgensen]

Thank you for that question, Mr. Ruff.

If I may, I think the issue here is that the safeguards being brought forward are very much meant to do what you saw in the NSICOP Act, for example. Knowing that NSICOP was going to get access to the information that it does, they put the safeguards in beforehand.

It seems to be in the same spirit that you're seeing these amendments being proposed. The government, people in this committee, would like to see those kinds of safeguards to ensure that when that moment comes, we have those safeguards in place and there's no ambiguity as to how we would address that with you.

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

I think that's actually a good idea. I encourage the government to bring forth that sort of clarity. But the purpose...and this is why I'm making the case that this is beyond the scope of my bill. My bill has nothing to do with that. My bill allows parliamentarians to apply for a security clearance. That's it. It doesn't talk about the sharing of information. It doesn't talk about granting access to anything.

Again, my question goes back to this: If the bill were to be passed as currently written and currently approved, including the amendment, would that somehow stop the government from putting those safeguards or processes in place?

[Adam Hatfield]

No, it would not, but it would require those safeguards to be put in place for the clearance to have any effect.