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

[Benoit Dicaire]

As you know, and we have stated clearly, the mandate is very clear on our side about protecting parliamentary information, parliamentary devices, and members of Parliament within their legislative function. When it comes to personal devices or personal emails, there are definitely factors that come into play that need to be considered. I think Michel could probably answer some of those questions. However, with regard to privacy, in terms of access, allowing us to monitor these types of devices, the identity, really scales way beyond our capabilities today. Second, our mandate would have to be redefined.

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

Should parliamentarians have an expectation? Is that monitoring of personal information dangerous? What would be the problems that lie in there?

[Michel Bédard]

Currently the mandate of the House administration is limited to the House infrastructure, which is consistent with all the policies that are in place. For example, there is an acceptable use policy. There is some monitoring in place so that if there are suspicious activities, the House administration will be notified.

In extending services to personal devices, questions will need to be asked and answered, and then there might be implications. Does the acceptable use policy apply? To what extent? What do we do, because if the House of Commons is to take responsibility, then there's also responsibility with regard to content, and it's not only limited to parliamentary functions. Members of Parliament are individuals, human beings, they have hobbies on the weekend; they browse the web. It's not clear that they will want this mandate to be given to the House administration at this stage.

Also, if there are suspicious activities on the web, a data breach, then the mandate you give to the administration also gives us responsibility, and essentially you will forfeit some kind of freedom or liberty with these devices. If there were to be a recommendation, a willingness that the House administration explore this, of course, it could be explored. The members and each member individual will need to be aware of all the implications.

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

In the time that I have left, can you explain the potential dangers that would lie in exploring that further with personal emails or access to them by the parliamentary precinct? Also, going forward, within these protocols, is it being made clear to members of Parliament their individual responsibility not to engage on personal devices or within Gmail, Yahoo or whatever to perform parliamentary roles within those tools, I guess you could say?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Be very quick, please, Mr. Dicaire.

[Benoit Dicaire]

The acceptable use policy is very clear on when to use devices and when not to use devices and behaviours. You've seen a trend and we understand that professional and personal lives do tend to merge. We're adapting our awareness campaigns when it comes to cybersecurity to give guidance. Most recently, there was a communiqué from my office on best practices for constituents, which we wouldn't have normally sent because it's beyond our mandate, but now we understand that there are pressures and new realities that you have to face. We're adapting our awareness campaigns around that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Thanks very much, Ms. Mathyssen.

Mr. Cooper, you have five minutes, and the floor is yours, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Pursuant to an order passed by this committee, the government was required to turn over all documents in its control by August 9 related to this Beijing-directed cyber-attack.

At the end of last week, we received a document dump from CSE. That's more than three months after CSE was ordered by this committee to turn over documents.

I'd like to ask the clerk, through you, Mr. Chair, whether, through her communications with CSIS or CSE, there are other documents that are pending.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

There's no relevance issue here. I'm not asking the clerk about that, but I'm just going to turn the floor over to her to respond directly to Mr. Cooper's question.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Christine Holke]

Mr. Cooper and members of the committee, I reached out to CSE yesterday, and they informed me that they still had a substantial number of documents that they still needed to send to the committee, and they agreed to give me a timeline to receive those by the end of this week.

Thank you.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Clerk, for that answer.

Let me just say that it is completely unacceptable that the government is withholding documents, a substantial number of documents apparently, from this committee three months after they were ordered to produce them. They had a deadline of August 9.

Therefore, I'm going to move the following motion:

That, in relation to its Order of Reference of Thursday, May 9, 2024, regarding the prima facie contempt concerning the People’s Republic of China’s cyber attack against members of Parliament, the Committee: a) make the following interim report to the House: “Your committee wishes to express its displeasure with the refusals to give evidence by the Minister of National Defence and his predecessors, the President of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness, and the President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Transport, who each held responsibility for the Communications Security Establishment at times material to the question of privilege which the House referred to your committee on Thursday, May 9, 2024, concerning the People’s Republic of China’s cyber attack against members of Parliament.”

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

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

We are following the rules in terms of procedure, but since the interpreters don't have the motion, I'm unfortunately not getting the interpretation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

That's true. Ideally, we should receive a written version of the motion in advance.

Colleagues, what I'm going to do here is allow Mr. Cooper the opportunity to finish reading in the motion. Then I'm going to suspend to allow time for that motion to be distributed in both official languages.

I will remind colleagues, for the sake of each other and our interpreters, that it is appreciated if you try to distribute such information in advance, or at least have it ready to go, if possible.

Mr. Cooper, perhaps your team can work on that while I turn the floor back over to you to finish.

Ms. Gaudreau, I completely agree with you.

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

I would ask him to repeat the last two sentences of the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I'll ask Mr. Cooper to repeat them. When he's done, we'll suspend briefly.

Mr. Cooper, Madame Gaudreau is asking if you can go back about two sentences and begin from there, slowly. When you're done, I know that Mr. Duncan and Mr. Berthold have told me that they'd like to speak to the motion. However, that won't happen until we come back from suspension, which is simply to allow time for distribution.

Mr. Cooper, can you finish the introduction, please?

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

I'll just start from the beginning.

For the committee's benefit, I do have a copy of the motion that will be distributed in both official languages.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I don't think the beginning is necessary. If you can just pick up two sentences before, then we can suspend and get it to everybody.

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

Let me just start from the beginning.

That, in relation to its Order of Reference of Thursday, May 9, 2024, regarding the prima facie contempt concerning the People's Republic of China's cyber attack against members of Parliament, the Committee:

a) make the following interim report to the House:

“Your committee wishes to express its displeasure with the refusals to give evidence by the Minister of National Defence and his predecessors, the President of the King's Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness, and the President of the Treasury Board and Minister of Transport, who each held responsibility for the Communications Security Establishment at times material to the question of privilege which the House referred to your committee on Thursday, May 9, 2024, concerning the People's Republic of China's cyber attack against members of Parliament.”;

b) re-invite the Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of National Defence, to appear before the Committee for two hours and insist that he appear within two weeks of the adoption of this motion;

c) issue a summons to Dan Rogers, Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, to appear before the Committee for one hour, at a date and time to be determined by the Chair, within two weeks of the adoption of this motion, provided that he be permitted to be accompanied by officials within his organization who are relevant to the Committee's study;

d) issue a summons to Caroline Xavier, Chief of the Communications Security Establishment, to appear before the committee for one hour, at a date and time to be determined by the Chair, within two weeks of the adoption of this motion, provided that she be permitted to be accompanied by officials within her organization who are relevant to the Committee's study;

e) instruct the analysts to include, in the draft report, content which is drawn from the evidence which was heard in camera, including the documents produced in response to the order adopted by the Committee on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, provided that this content be appropriately marked in the draft so that the Committee may determine which, if any, of the information to include in its report to the House, and, therefore, which information will be added to the Committee's public evidence, and,

f) authorize the Clerk to share electronically with any witness who appeared in camera a copy of the transcript of their in camera evidence, notwithstanding the Committee's routine motion related to in camera proceedings, for the purpose of witnesses providing the Committee, within two weeks of the adoption of this motion, their recommendations, with explanations, for redactions to protect security-related information, to assist the committee in determining which, if any, of the in camera information to include in its report to the House; and

g) prioritize completing this study, notwithstanding any previous decision of the Committee, and not proceed to any further business until the Committee's report is tabled in the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Cooper, aside from the fact that you probably need to catch your breath, we also need to pause briefly to allow for the distribution of the motion in both official languages.

Colleagues, I'm suspending briefly. At the point at which the clerk informs me that you've all received this in accordance with our policies, I'll gavel us back in, and we will begin our debate on the motion.

We're suspended.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Okay, we're back, colleagues.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Yes, go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I note that right before we took the recess I had indicated that I had my hand up first to speak to this motion. I had put my hand up and waved to you, but I don't think you saw me. I was definitely first on the list to speak to this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

My recollection, Mr. Turnbull, is that I had turned to Mr. Duncan to speak to this.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Respectfully, I disagree, and I know that I had my hand up first. I signalled to you, and perhaps you weren't paying attention at that particular moment. No offence to you, Chair, as you do a great job, but I would respectfully challenge that ruling.