Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 38 of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs.

The committee is meeting today to continue its study on foreign election interference.

Our first panel consists of the security and intelligence threats to elections task force. For the second panel, we have two experts who have spent much time examining the vulnerabilities of the electoral system to foreign election interference and misinformation or disinformation.

I would like to let the committee know that all virtual witnesses have undergone the pre-committee connectivity and audio tests.

With regard to interpretation for those on Zoom, you have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. Those in the room can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. Before we start, I will remind you that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair.

For our first panel, we have Tara Denham, director general, office of human rights, freedoms and inclusion, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development; Lisa Ducharme, acting director general, federal policing national intelligence, Royal Canadian Mounted Police; and Adam Fisher, director general, intelligence assessments, Canadian Security Intelligence Service. We will also be hearing from Mr. Lyall King, director, risk mitigation programs, Communications Security Establishment.

Mr. King, I know you have four minutes, but because you are the only person speaking, I will provide leniency. You can have up to five minutes.

Welcome to PROC.

[Lyall King, Director, Risk Mitigation Programs, Communications Security Establishment, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force]

Thank you. That's very kind, Madam Chair. I appreciate that.

Hello. Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to appear today.

My name is Lyall King, and I'm the former chair of the security and intelligence threats to elections task force—SITE for short. I am now the director of risk mitigation programs at the Communications Security Establishment. I am pleased to be joined by my colleagues from each of the organizations that make up the SITE task force.

I know that earlier this week you heard from the CSE and CSIS. While that brief focused on threats of foreign interference as a whole, I will focus on providing an overview from the SITE perspective.

The SITE task force comprises officials from the Communications Security Establishment, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Global Affairs Canada and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Together, we have a mandate to provide a clear point of engagement within the security and intelligence community for government partners; to review and focus intelligence collection, assessment and open-source analysis related to foreign interference; to provide government partners, senior public servants and other partners with situational awareness; and to promote the use of intelligence, assessment and open-source information analysis in the protection of electoral processes through sharing with partners or, when mandates permit, taking action to mitigate the threat.

Each organization here today has a distinct mandate that allows us to work together to reduce the threat of foreign interference against our democratic institutions in Canada.

I would like to take a moment to highlight some of the important contributions that our partners have made to the SITE task force. This is an overview and does not cover all of the roles and responsibilities of SITE members.

CSIS provides threat briefings and intelligence reporting to Elections Canada and the Commissioner of Canada Elections and provides assessments of hostile state activity methodologies and capabilities to Government of Canada decision-makers.

Global Affairs Canada provides research on disinformation campaigns targeting Canada by foreign actors and reports on global trends, metrics, and incidents.

The RCMP investigates criminal activity related to interference or influence of Canada's electoral processes and works closely in partnership with intelligence, law enforcement and regulatory agencies.

CSE provides intelligence and cyber-assessments on the intentions, activities and capabilities of foreign threat actors, protects government systems and networks related to elections through cyber-defence measures, and provides cybersecurity advice and guidance to political parties, provinces and other institutions involved in democratic processes.

It is important to note that, in addition to SITE, there was a panel of non-partisan senior civil servants who administered the critical election incident public protocol. SITE provided regular intelligence updates to the panel and also gave classified briefings to Canada's main political parties to ensure that they were aware of the threats.

The important work of the SITE task force progresses outside of election periods as we continue to help the government assess and respond to foreign threats to Canada's electoral processes.

Members, I hope this has helped paint a better picture of the SITE task force and the important role that each of our organizations plays in safeguarding Canadian democracy.

I do thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, and we look forward to answering any of the questions that you may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you for that excellent introduction.

We will start with six-minute rounds, commencing with Mr. Cooper, followed by Mrs. Romanado, then Madame Gaudreau and then Mr. MacGregor.

Mr. Cooper, go ahead.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I will direct my questions to whichever witness is able to answer them.

I want to talk about the 2021 federal election campaign. It has now been established that there was interference by Chinese Communist-controlled media. There was a proliferation of disinformation on social media platforms that was influenced or controlled by the Chinese Communist regime. There were civil society organizations that had reported on such interference during the election campaign, including DisinfoWatch.

During the election campaign, the rapid response mechanism at Global Affairs had observed such interference in terms of the spreading of disinformation, specifically targeting the Conservative Party and individual Conservative candidates. One glaring example was in the case of Kenny Chiu, the incumbent Conservative member in the riding of Steveston—Richmond East.

It had been mentioned that there is in place the critical election incident public protocol, the purpose of which is to communicate transparently with Canadians during an election about incidents that threaten the integrity of the election. Pursuant to the protocol, barring any overriding national security or public security reasons, the agencies will inform affected parties of any information regarding interference.

Was Kenny Chiu informed?

[Lyall King]

Madam Chair, I can begin with a comment and then perhaps open it up to my colleagues.

Thank you very much for the question. I appreciate it.

I would just note that there were activities observed, certainly during the election. I will note in context, as well, that it's activity that we also see on a persistent basis; that is to say, we observe things before, during and after an election. That's what SITE is also looking at, the task force, looking at those behaviours over a period of time.

I will say—

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

My time is limited. My question is specifically about the 2021 election.

I know there were things that were happening before and there are things happening now, but this protocol is in place during the election campaign. The panel is in place during the election campaign. Pursuant to the protocol, if there's evidence of interference, the affected party will be informed.

My question is very simple. Was Kenny Chiu informed?

[Lyall King]

Thank you. I appreciate that clarification on the timing.

I will very simply say that we had advised the critical election incident protocol panel of the information. In terms of making public statements, it is their decision whether or not it meets a threshold to do so. We at SITE simply present the information.

I will open it up—

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

Barring any overriding national or public security reasons, pursuant to protocol, the affected party will be informed. Was he informed or wasn't he?

[Lyall King]

My apologies, sir. I will ask my colleague Adam Fisher from the service if he may be able to respond to that particular question.

[Adam Fisher, Director General, Intelligence Assessments, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force]

Thank you very much.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Through you, thank you for the question.

On that issue, we clearly can't speak to specifics of cases or investigations. What we can say—I'm echoing what my colleague has said—is that throughout the election, any incidents or intelligence that pointed to foreign influence activity from a foreign state would have been provided in a coherent manner to the panel of five. From there, it was for them to determine whether it reached their threshold and required onward action.

I can assure you that certainly we were alive to threats throughout the election period and leading up to it and providing intelligence and advice, along with our colleagues.

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

Pursuant to the protocol, if a certain threshold is met, the public is to be informed.

The public wasn't informed. Why not?

[Lyall King]

I will attempt to answer that. Thank you for your question.

I will simply note that this is a decision that is in the sole purview of the panel of five, as we would refer to them, the panel of five senior civil servants. The SITE task force does not have insight as to how and when they make those decisions. We stand here and we deliver the information so that they are able to make an informed decision.

We, as SITE, would not be able to answer the question of why something had or had not met the threshold. That is up to the purview of the panel, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Ms. Denham, did you want to say something?

[Tara Denham, Director General, Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force]

Thank you, Chair.

I just wanted to add to it, because the reference was to some of the reporting of the rapid response mechanism.

Just to echo answers of other colleagues, we did see some of the activity, but in the reporting of the rapid response mechanism—again, we're looking for foreign threats—we were not able to verify whether the behaviour was directed by state, whether it was organic or whether it was an intermingling of the two.

I just want to clarify that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

I will just remind all colleagues that if we're going to interrupt, it's best that we go through the chair. For the purposes of our interpreters and the work that we do, it's important that we provide time to our guests, who have accepted our invitation to be here with the information we are looking for.

With that, Mrs. Romanado, you have six minutes.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

First of all, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I also want to inquire a little bit more about something that was mentioned in the opening remarks. Mr. King, you mentioned the classified briefings to political parties, and we were just hearing a little bit about that. Could you elaborate a little bit on what you would classify as a political party?

As you can imagine, Canada can have hundreds of different political parties that are registered with Elections Canada. Some of them may not be as well established or as well known. Do you provide these classified briefings to all political parties that are registered, or is there a certain threshold or criteria that are required?

[Lyall King]

Thank you very much for your question.

I would first say that it was the role of the Privy Council Office, our colleagues in the security and intelligence and the director there who brokered these engagements. It's not SITE directly; it's through the Privy Council Office.

They would send invites out to, I believe, registered political parties. From my recollection, an invite would have been sent out explaining what the intent and purpose was, and then there would be a follow-up for those who were willing to engage. It was really on the invitees to accept or decline.

The Privy Council Office is the body that would have done that.

Thank you.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Okay, thank you.

You mentioned classified briefings. I know that, for instance, when a minister or a parliamentary secretary is sworn in, we go through additional security background checks and so on in order to receive security clearance status of secret or further up in terms of top secret, and so on.

When you mentioned classified briefings to political parties, volunteers and employees of political parties do not necessarily have classified security clearance. Could you elaborate a bit on what you referred to when you said “classified briefings”?

[Lyall King]

Thank you, again, for the question.

The classified briefings were typically at secret level. It was, to be fair, a fairly small grouping. We would naturally look at, perhaps, campaign managers or chief information officers of the parties to target them in terms of the information briefings. We'd provide some general overviews of the nature of the threat to understand the threat landscape and what we were dealing with on a regular basis. We'd provide some context for what they may see and, at the end of the day, just open a dialogue to be able to have some open discussions with partners in that space should something arise.

They were classified briefings with a fairly small community at the secret level.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you.

Switching gears a bit, I wanted to get your thoughts—it could be from anyone on the panel today—on the benefits of a registry of foreign agents. What are your thoughts on that?

[Lyall King]

I will open it up to see if any of my colleagues want to have a say first.

[Adam Fisher]

Through you, Madam Chair, thank you for the question. I can take a run at that.

I'm not a policy person. I'm not from a policy department. We provide intelligence and advice to government, so I hope you'll forgive me for answering the question in a general way.

What I would say is that the threat of foreign influence activity is something that is felt not only here in Canada. It's felt by our closest allies, our Five Eyes allies. We're all dealing with the same threat and from, in large part, the same aggressive adversaries. There's a lot to learn from each other. There's a lot to learn from our partners, as they are learning from us. My understanding is, for example, that the SITE task force is unique to Canada and is something our allies have looked to emulate in their jurisdictions.

Yes, I'm not answering your question directly, but I would say there's a lot to learn, and I know that certainly in intelligence circles we speak on a constant basis with our allies, and in policy circles, as well, the same is being done. Ultimately, of course, it's up to the government to decide what sort of policy fixes they'd like to see in place to address the issue.

Thank you.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Mr. King, do you want to chime in on that one?

[Lyall King]

Thank you.

I don't really have much more to add, other than to say that there are obviously a number of tools that can assist us in attempting to identify aspects of foreign interference. While I wouldn't want to comment specifically on a foreign registry, I would just say that could be another of those tools that could be implemented, among the others. As Mr. Fisher has highlighted, we look to understand and share with allies...their best practices also, what they have in play and how that may or may not assist us in our efforts to combat foreign interference.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Gaudreau. You have six minutes.