Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 7th, 2024

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I was about to answer Mr. Berthold’s question when he interrupted me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I will give you a few seconds to finish your answer.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

There are two types of threat reduction measures, meaning two ways the Canadian Security Intelligence Service can inform someone about a threat to their safety or to national security.

I do not have to approve the service’s decision to meet with anyone, unless the context is deemed to be very high risk, based on four very specific criteria. I do not know if, in Mr. Chong’s case, the risk was considered high. I did not have to approve that process.

In certain cases, my approval is requested, but only when the risk is considered to be high.

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

Mr. Chair, I want to note that my question took eight seconds. I would like for the minister—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

In fact, Mr. Berthold, I gave the minister enough time to answer, but that does not impact your speaking time.

The most important thing here, colleagues, is that we have the time to have a good, solid discussion, so I'm not going to penalize us for that.

Mr. Berthold, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, to your knowledge, can the Prime Minister face prosecution if he willingly discloses or reveals classified information?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Again, that is a legal question that should be directed to a prosecutor or an investigator. I am not in charge of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada.

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

So, you have little knowledge of the Official Secrets Act and who can or cannot disclose information. That is very concerning on your part, Minister.

The Prime Minister already revealed that Conservative MPs were on the list of members being threatened or targeted for foreign interference.

Do you think the Prime Minister broke the law by revealing that the names of MPs of a certain party were on the list, when he refuses to give the names of MPs from other parties who are also on that said list?

Is that not a purely political use of his power to disclose classified information if he wants to?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

No, but if you want to present it that way for partisan reasons, nothing is stopping you, Mr. Berthold.

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

I am asking for your opinion from a legal standpoint.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

If you are looking for a very specific legal opinion, I suggest you hire a criminal lawyer who specializes in this kind of prosecution or investigation, which I unfortunately am not.

That said, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is here today. Mr. Berthold claims to want answers to his technical questions, and the good news is that Mr. Rogers is entirely ready to provide them.

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

It wasn’t a technical question. It is very important to know that the Minister of Public Safety is aware of Canadian legislation on the security of classified information. It seems that you are unable to answer my question.

In closing, I want to talk about the following. To date, the last party leader to get his security clearance is the leader of the Bloc Québécois. On November 5, Mr. Yves‑François Blanchet was asked a question in French. Since he now has this security clearance, he was asked if he read the report by the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians.

The leader of the Bloc Québécois answered as follows in English, which is rather bizarre:

“Tuesday morning, 10:30, but do not rejoice yourselves. It's not about what I will tell you; it's about what I will not tell you, so I will tell even less after than before.”

The leader of the Bloc Québécois therefore confirmed that obtaining this security clearance prevented him from talking about information and disclosing it to Canadians. However, that is information the Prime Minister allowed himself to disclose to Canadians.

Don’t you find that disrespectful and completely unjustifiable, Mr. LeBlanc?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I think it is somewhat shameful for you to mock Mr. Blanchet’s answer in English. It is regrettable. He had the courage your own leader did not, Mr. Berthold, meaning that he got his security clearance.

I think Mr. Blanchet acted responsibly as the leader of a political party, and if you are embarrassed—

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

Now, he can’t talk anymore.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Very well.

Mr. Berthold, I will give the minister a few seconds to answer and that will be the end of your round of questions.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

If you are embarrassed, Mr. Berthold, by your leader’s behaviour, I think attacking the leader of the Bloc Québécois is not entirely dignified. I suggest you focus your efforts on your boss, who is the one in charge.

For my part, I fully trust Mr. Blanchet’s judgment in this matter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you.

Colleagues, just before I turn it over, I will say this. Maybe I'm going back to my teaching days here, but it seems to make sense to me that if we stop arguing over the amount of time that each person gets to respond, forcing me to respond to points of orders, etc., we would be okay.

Trust that if the minister has a longer response, I'm not seeing that as some attempt on his part to filibuster and I'm not taking that time away from an opposition member. I'm letting the clock run. The clerk can verify this; she's right here beside me.

If you have a concern about the way the clock has been running, then, for all colleagues, time yourselves. I've been saying that for the last six months.

Please trust that I am allowing for a fair exchange of questions and answers. I am not allowing a response or the length of a question to take away from the quality. If you don't trust that, time it yourselves.

Ms. O'Connell, the floor is yours for five minutes.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair. Thank you all for being here.

Minister, I'm just following up on what Mr. Berthold had said. He suggested that as public safety minister, because you don't prosecute and lay charges, somehow you're unaware of the laws.

Could you complete your thought on that? I found it quite disturbing that the Conservative Party somehow thinks the Minister of Public Safety is also the prosecutor and judge. It should be foretelling of what Conservatives think the role of a public safety minister is.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Ms. O'Connell, I, too, was surprised that it seems to be the approach they offered up.

Not to correct a senior parliamentarian like you, Ms. O'Connell, but they also think I should be the investigator. One would investigate the case, prosecute your own case and come to a conclusion. Then, if you say you're not willing to do that, to say, “You're not an expert in Canada's security law” feels rather amateur as an approach.

What's interesting—our deputy minister and the director just confirmed this—is the very existence of a threat reduction measure. Again, Mr. Berthold confused Mr. Chong's interview with CSIS officials. These are undertaken in the judgment...the director of CSIS can approve a threat reduction measure within his authorities. I have total confidence that they do this in an entirely appropriate way. There's a very narrow, rare category of high-risk threat reduction measures for which I'm asked to provide approval, but we don't actually discuss those particular threat reduction measures or those meetings.

This is my view; I'm obviously not speaking for the public servants. I think it's somewhat irresponsible to receive that and then to go and talk about it in the House of Commons. The reason one gets that confidential—and highly sensitive, in many cases—threat reduction briefing is to reduce the threat, as opposed to parading around in front of a television camera. I don't think that's entirely consistent with best practices in terms of national security.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, and thank you for explaining to those who are trying to mislead the public on your role in these matters.

I want to move to something that is critically important to me and, I think, to all parliamentarians, and that's the safety of MPs and our staff, including those working on the Hill. We've recently seen a number of incidents involving protesters. Everyone has a right to protest, but sometimes they cross the line.

I want to speak about your role, keeping in mind that we have different layers. We have the Parliamentary Protective Service. We have the Ottawa Police Service. Then, when we're in our ridings, we have local police. I want to specifically ask about your role. Yesterday I saw one of our parliamentary colleagues being escorted across the street while people screamed at her that the PPS can't save her and that she'd better bring in the RCMP, which I found to be a direct threat of intimidation. I want to have a serious conversation about that. While Mr. Cooper goes to happy hour with some of these folks, I think it's crucially important that all parliamentarians take this matter seriously. Within your mandate, recognizing that there are several police jurisdictions, what are you and your department doing to help ensure that there's safety for our elections and safety for parliamentarians and our staff when there are threats like that? They are not being called out by the Leader of the Opposition and members who are, as I've mentioned, having drinks with those people?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Ms. O'Connell, you raise a very important issue. I know that you've done a lot of work in this area, as have a number of colleagues. I am deeply concerned about the rise of threats, intimidation and hate speech directed at people who step forward to serve their constituents and their country. I, too, walk around Parliament Hill. I walk back and forth to the hotel where I stay and to my office in the Confederation Building. I see some of those same people with their megaphones—I sort of hope that their batteries die because it's going to get colder, and the batteries don't last as long in the cold weather—yelling really offensive things, and they tend to focus much of this vile on women and on racialized people. I understand that this circumstance is a problem. The Sergeant-at-Arms is doing, in our view, a very important job in this area. The RCMP work with him. We gave, as a department, many millions of dollars to the Ottawa Police Service to take responsibility, and I see that our colleague from Ottawa-Vanier was involved in that effort, too, around the security of Wellington Street.

I share your concern. We have done a lot to increase..., as has Parliament itself, but I think we all need to be thinking about what more we can do, heaven forfend that there's a violent or very unfortunate incident. I worry about that every day.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thank you, Minister.

Ms. Michaud, you have the floor for two and half minutes.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, I want to come back to the very possible influx of migrants from the United States. You do not seem to share either my own concerns or those of several experts and analysts who are already talking about it in the media.

I know you are one of Mr. Trudeau’s close friends. In 2016, when Donald Trump was elected for the first time, Mr. Trudeau sent out an invitation on Twitter that was addressed practically to the whole planet. In fact, it invited people to come to Canada if they felt persecuted because of what was happening in the United States. I don’t know if you are going to give him a little friendly advice this time around, and tell him to be a little more discreet on social media. In fact, rather than inviting people to come to Canada, he should make it known that our intake capacity is already rather saturated. That’s the case in Quebec, at least.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I take note of what you said about Quebec’s civil society. Over the last months and years, groups have indeed done incredible work. I saw it with Jean‑François Roberge just a few months ago. You are right: Quebec received more than its fair share in terms of intake. Quebec’s health and social service agencies were extraordinary. Other provinces also took in asylum seekers; you know the context of recent years as well as I do. It’s a challenge for Canada, and we do not underestimate it. We allocated funds to Quebec’s government in that file.

Ms. Michaud, you say I do not share your concern. I understand the risk or the way Canadians express their concerns when it comes to the possibility you are talking about. I advise everyone to be careful and not feed any ill-advised fear. I am certain that the Border Services Agency and the RCMP have taken the necessary steps and are completely ready to face any and all eventualities. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the government of Canada have many opportunities to share intelligence.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

If I may, Minister—