Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
This committee ordered the government to turn over all documents in its control in relation to the cyber-attack against these 19 parliamentarians. The deadline was August 9.
Prior to August 9, we received a batch of documents, primarily from the CSE and a few from CSIS, I believe. They were heavily redacted. Nonetheless, there was information that was not redacted that raised further questions, including documents referring to or suggesting a cyber-attack in October 2022 that had not been made known to this committee. It's unclear what that cyber-attack is in relation to, but I have it here under the CSIS issues management brief from 2022.
It was sent to the deputy minister of public safety, the Minister of Public Safety, as well as the NSIA, and the Minister of Public Safety's chief of staff. It said that CSIS intended to meet with select MPs and/or their staff regarding cyber-targeting of parliamentarians by People's Republic of China cyber actors. It continued in the background section to say that in October 2022, CSIS became aware of an email campaign targeting the personal email addresses of parliamentarians and staff, along with other Government of Canada targets with malicious phishing emails. This campaign was likely conducted by PRC state-affiliated cyber actors.
There we have, in the production from CSIS, reference to a cyber-attack targeting or seemingly targeting MPs because CSIS was indicating that it intended to brief those MPs. There were questions about whether the APT31 cyber-attack was the only cyber-attack that CSIS was aware of that was specifically targeting MPs by the PRC or by other hostile foreign states. We need to get clarification about that.
If, in fact, the APT31 attack is not the only cyber-attack that CSIS and the CSE are aware of, then it raises questions about how many other attacks there have been, the nature of them, when they occurred, who directed them and whether parliamentarians that were the target or were the victims have been briefed. We know that in the case of the APT31 attack, members were kept in the dark and would have continued to be kept in the dark, but for the unsealed indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice that was released in March of this year.
It was on that basis that this committee, at the insistence of Conservatives—but I believe it was ultimately a unanimous vote of this committee—called on the CSE and CSIS to come back to committee. The response from CSIS and the CSE was to thumb their nose at this committee. They said, “No, thank you.” They said that they were not interested in coming back before this committee. They thumbed their nose at this committee, at Parliament, at parliamentary scrutiny. The justification that was offered was that they had come in June.
Yes, they did come in June, and they provided some.... It was useful to have them here before this committee, but there are documents that were provided to this committee in the summer that raised questions that need to be put to them and that we need to get answers to in order to complete this study in a fulsome fashion.
I cited some of the questions that need to be asked in relation to the documents that CSE and CSIS did produce. I would have thought, based on the relatively limited number of documents that had been provided over the summer, that could have been done in one sitting where we had CSIS and the CSE appear before this committee.
There seemed to be some level of recognition from all members of the committee about the need to hear from CSIS and CSE, and a view that they could come here and we could ask them questions and then see, at that point, whether we would be in a position to essentially wrap up the study. However, we found out on Friday that there has been a massive document dump from CSIS and the CSE.
I haven't had a chance to go through those documents. Remember that CSIS and the CSE, this government, were required to turn over the documents by August 9. Somehow, more than three months later, we have a document dump.
When I asked Madam Clerk whether there were any further documents to be turned over from CSIS and the CSE, she said—and I'm paraphrasing, not quoting her directly—that there was a large volume of documents that still haven't been produced for this committee. Not only have they not been produced, but also we don't even have a timeline as to when the CSE and CSIS will be producing them and making them available to this committee, even though the only deadline that matters is August 9—a deadline this government has defied and has seemingly no interest in abiding by.
A document dump on Friday, a voluminous number of other outstanding documents that they say they'll turn over whenever they feel like it, because they can't even provide a timeline.... And the Liberal members across the way are confused as to why this motion has been brought forward.
I think it's quite astounding that certain members of this committee would be prepared to wrap up the study without having the opportunity to question CSIS and the CSE about the documents they have produced, which raise new questions, and about their failure to produce other documents, and to have the ability to question them about whatever is contained in the document dump that came more than three months after they were ordered to produce the documents.
I think it's pretty reasonable. In fact, the only responsible thing to do is to say, “Hold on, let's look at the documents. Let's get all of the documents. Let's bring in CSIS and the CSE so that we, as a committee, are in a position to ask questions with all of the documents, not some of the documents”. When we questioned them, we had almost no documents, so it is necessary that we hear from CSIS and the CSE and that we get the documents.
There's an interesting and frankly troubling parallel between what is happening here and what is happening with respect to the green slush fund documents, because the government has said, “Well, we've turned over documents. Some are redacted, and others are withheld, but just stop the debate in the House. Shut it down, turn it over to PROC, and PROC can figure it out".
Well, if there's anything that one could have learned from this, it is that, with this government, the approach they take is to say to PROC, “We're going to thumb our nose at your committee. We'll turn over the documents that we wish to provide. We'll hold back other documents. We'll dump other documents months after we were ordered to turn them over, and we'll hold back documents, even though you're about to shut down your study thinking that you had all of the documents in front of you.”
It's one big game. It's one big charade with this government. They have demonstrated that they can't be trusted and that they have no interest in working to be transparent. It is why, based on what we have seen with this study, Conservatives are not going to relent in the House until this government stops thumbing its nose at Parliament and turns over all of the documents related to the green slush fund on an unredacted basis to the law clerk so that the law clerk can then turn those documents over to the RCMP so that the RCMP can take whatever steps they may wish to take in relation to a scandal involving $400 million in taxpayer dollars, including $330 million taxpayer dollars that involved conflicts of interest amongst board members. There were 186 conflicts of interest identified by the Auditor General.
What we've seen with the government's obstruction is part of a pattern of how they have shown time and again disrespect to Parliament.
I mean, we can think back to the Winnipeg lab scandal, which involved a significant national security breach. The government was ordered by Parliament to turn over the documents pertaining to the Winnipeg lab, and the government refused to do so. That resulted in another prima facie question of privilege as determined by the Speaker of the House. Isn't it part of a pattern, all of these questions of privilege relating to refusal of this government to turn over documents?
What did the Liberals do? What did the Prime Minister do? Well, he took the Speaker of the House, the member for Nipissing—Timiskaming—
