Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 19th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

—reject the premise of that, Mr. Gerretsen, but my rulings will be consistent.

I am going to afford Mr. Bédard an opportunity to respond. Let's see where we can get here.

Mr. Cooper, following that response, try to bring us back specifically to the question of cyber-attacks. I think that would be in all of our best interests.

Mr. Bédard, the floor is yours.

[Michel Bédard]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As regards the comparison between the current study and the question of privilege that is currently debated in the House, I will note a few things.

First of all, for the current study, this committee has received an order of reference from the House. The privilege motion has been passed. This committee has been entrusted with the study.

Secondly, the motion that the committee itself adopted in May 2024 contemplated that government entities could make redactions. The documents that were provided by the House, by other government entities, included redactions. At the House, we were very mindful, when we made the redactions, of the fact that these had been authorized and actually asked for by the committee.

Now, if we go to the question of privilege that is currently before the House and my letter yesterday to the Speaker, which was tabled in the House on the same day, it's in line with the other letter that I provided to the Speaker. Documents had been ordered by the House on June 10. The order from the House did not contemplate any redaction. Some documents were withheld or contained redactions.

In relation to previous letters, with that information before the House, a question of privilege was raised. The Speaker ruled that it constituted a prima facie question of privilege and allowed the appropriate motion to be moved that the matter be referred to this committee. I'll note that the Speaker also—

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

Mr. Bédard, just on the matter of the documents that have been recently presented or produced and filed with you from ISED, from the National Research Council, and from Statistics Canada, those documents contain redactions and some have been withheld from you relating to the green slush fund. Is that correct?

[Michel Bédard]

Correct.

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

What you're confirming is that neither the House of Commons nor the RCMP have all of the documents due to the government's blacking out of certain documents and withholding others. Is that correct?

[Michel Bédard]

Excuse me. Could you repeat this last question?

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

You're just confirming that you don't have all the documents. Is that correct?

[Michel Bédard]

Based on the information I received from the government entities themselves, they put in their letter that some documents were withheld. Also, just on the face of the documents, there are some redactions, so—

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

That's right. Thank you for that.

I would note that Karina Gould yesterday on CBC asserted that all documents have been produced related to the green slush fund, that the government has turned over all documents. Let the record show that Karina Gould lied about the production of documents—

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Turnbull, the floor is yours on a point of order.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I have to bring up relevance here. Mr. Cooper is referring to something else that is currently being debated in the House and that is, I would note, being filibustered by the Conservatives—it's been over 23 days now—because they don't want that to actually be referred to this committee.

More importantly, this meeting is about a question of privilege related to cyber-attacks targeting members of Parliament, which I thought was a serious issue that the Conservatives cared about. Obviously, Mr. Cooper has no questions with regard to this question of privilege, the one that this committee is supposed to be studying today. I wonder if we can move on from his political attacks that are clearly not in line with what we're supposed to be talking about today.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Yes. I—

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I have a point of order.

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I have two points of order. I'm going to go to Mr. Gerretsen first and then to Ms. Gaudreau. I will have something to say as well.

Mr. Gerretsen.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

We've now had not just an initial response from Mr. Bédard. We've also had an exchange and more back-and-forth. The door has swung wide open right now in terms of not having to be relevant.

I would just like a ruling from you, Mr. Chair, on whether or not you'll be shutting that door and forcing everyone to be relevant from this point, or whether we'll be continuing down this same path of entertaining, or possibly entertaining...or to determine where to go.

I think it's fair to everybody who needs to ask questions after this point, because I will completely change my questions if you're going to permit that kind of behaviour for the rest of the meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I appreciate your feedback, Mr. Gerretsen.

Madame Gaudreau, I will go to you in a moment.

Colleagues, what I was seeking was a compromise to help us start the meeting off in a place that could create some efficiency. I share the view raised by Mr. Turnbull and Mr. Gerretsen, and previously by Ms. Mathyssen, that at this point I'm seeing a divergence from relevance.

Mr. Cooper, you do have a little bit of time remaining. When the floor does get returned to you, my hope is that you will bring us back to APT31. Otherwise, I will interject at that point, because I do believe we're veering a little bit too far off course.

Ms. Gaudreau, over to you.

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

Mr. Chair, I appreciate your ability to wield your powers as chair. That said, given the situation, we have to act responsibly. We have here with us the key witnesses for our study, which we should finish today. I invite all my colleagues to make their partisan comments elsewhere. They can do so at the House of Commons. Let's finish our work. We have 45 minutes left.

I know you may have set a precedent, Mr. Chair, but the door is wide open right now. Let's act like grownups and concentrate on the matter at hand.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

As I stated previously, Ms. Gaudreau, I completely agree.

I'm going to give the floor back to Mr. Cooper for about 90 seconds, and I'm going to make sure that we stay on topic.

Mr. Cooper, you have about 90 seconds.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Last week, the House of Commons provided the committee with three additional documents. One is an email dated June 30, 2022, from Cyber Incident at the CSE to House of Commons IT security containing a cyber-event report. The report references a cyber-attack that occurred between January 4 and 28, 2022, targeting individuals who were outspoken critics of the Beijing-based Communist regime.

Is this cyber-event report referencing a separate cyber-attack or a continuation of the January 2021 progressive reconnaissance attack, or is the January 2022 date a typo that should read “January 2021”?

[Eric Janse]

I'll ask my colleague Benoit to respond to this question.

[Benoit Dicaire, Chief Information Officer, House of Commons]

Good morning, Mr. Cooper. Yes, it is. I can confirm that this June 30 bulletin is a continuation of a series of bulletins that started in January.

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

It relates specifically to the progressive reconnaissance attack from January 2021.

[Benoit Dicaire]

It is a follow-up to a series of bulletins that were issued in January 2021.