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

[Marcus Kolga]

To address your introductory remark about certain politicians posing with members of the convoy protest in Ottawa, having elected officials pose with these people or supporting people who may have legitimate grievances is not disinformation. That's part of our democratic processes. Whether you agree with them or disagree with them, that's not necessarily disinformation.

What I was trying to say was that RT does exploit fringes within that movement who are advocating for the destabilization of our democracy.

As for the outcome in Mr. Chiu's riding, I don't know. I don't know what the history is there. Again, my point was that that specific election was targeted. He, as a candidate, was targeted with foreign operations. Again, we can't measure the impact of that, so I can't—

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

I'm sorry to interrupt.

Was Minister Freeland's election also targeted by Russia?

[Marcus Kolga]

If you'd let me get to that, I will.

Minister Freeland has been targeted since 2017 because of her involvement when she became the Minister of Foreign Affairs. As soon as she became Minister of Foreign Affairs, overnight a campaign appeared. We know from various reports by Canadian reporters—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I'm going to have to stop it there.

[Marcus Kolga]

This is a very important issue, though.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

It is very important. We are going to make sure that you have the avenues to provide us information.

I have a tough job and I need to keep the train on the tracks.

Madame Gaudreau, you have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think we can all agree on the fact that whatever the disinformation and whoever the target, it's unacceptable.

The past little while, I have been trying to raise issues so we can have a constructive discussion, but I'm disappointed by what I'm hearing.

Ultimately, we are going to produce a report with findings. My questions are about how we can do better.

Earlier, Mr. Kolga said that Finland had a digital literacy strategy, and I'd like to know which other countries are doing things we should replicate.

I have just one question for both witnesses.

Finland appears to be setting a good example. On a scale of one to 10, where does Finland rank for its efforts to counter disinformation?

Where does Canada rank on that scale?

I'd like both witnesses to answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Mr. Judd can go first.

Did you get all of that in English, Mr. Judd? Did you understand the question?

[Jim Judd]

I understood the question.

I'm still working on the answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I'm going to go over to Mr. Kolga very quickly, and then we'll go to Mr. Judd.

[Marcus Kolga]

I think we do some things well. I think we do other things not so well.

I couldn't give you a specific number, but I think we should be looking to Finland, which is doing a good job. I think we should be looking to Sweden—

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

We're just talking. I asked for a number just to get a sense of how Canada measures up: not bad, average or very good.

Where is Finland on a scale of one to 10, as far as its regime goes? Would you give it an eight out of 10? Where does Canada fall—

[Marcus Kolga]

If we take Finland, Sweden, the Baltic states, and Taiwan, which are doing this and have been doing this well for a long time, if they are the baseline, if they are the 10, then I think maybe we're on the way to approaching a seven.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

That was believable.

Mr. Judd, go ahead.

[Jim Judd]

The problem we're talking about, disinformation, is a global one. Lots of other governments are asking the same questions you are. Right now, the British Parliament is doing new legislation in response to the Russian interference in Brexit and the election at the same time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Mr. Judd.

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

Madam Chair, I lost some time because of the interpretation.

What would you give it?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

You're out of time, Ms. Gaudreau.

We are moving on to Ms. Blaney.

You have two and a half minutes, Ms. Blaney. Go ahead.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I have one question for Mr. Kolga. I want to come back to the question I asked earlier about rural and remote communities, indigenous, ethnic groups, and marginalized groups.

You spoke a lot about small, local, community media and how important it is to have those sustainable systems in place so they can provide information in a trusted way and that they're trusted resources. I also know a lot of these communities use social media as a function of connection in the community.

Could you talk about the threats that could be targeted to those particular groups? I think they're unique and I think that in some ways, if somebody got into that system, trust could be built very quickly. I'm worried about that disinformation, especially recognizing that due to language and remoteness fighting that disinformation could be even more difficult.

[Marcus Kolga]

I completely agree with you. Social media is clearly being exploited to connect with and divide these communities, to influence them in various ways. I think there is a really big problem there. On how we address it, I don't think we've even really started discussing that on a national level.

This is why for the past several years, I have been calling for a whole-of-society approach to this problem. That means bringing social media companies to the table. I am sure they are also interested, as it's in their own interest to clean up their act. Making sure they sit down and have this conversation about how these vulnerable communities are protected, and what sort of measures can be put in place to do that, is something the government needs to be taking a lead on, along with all the other groups I mentioned earlier.

It's only in that way we're going to address this problem. We can't just leave it to social media to do it on their own. We certainly can't leave it up to these vulnerable communities. We can't just leave them to their own devices to do this, because it needs some leadership. I think that's one place where the federal government and other levels of government can surely step in to help.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Do you want to add something, Mr. Judd?

[Jim Judd]

It's a big problem. I agree with Mr. Kolga in respect of a whole-of-society approach.

If you want to look at a robust regime for dealing with social media disinformation, I suggest you look at Singapore, which enacted laws in the last several years specifically to address social media disinformation campaigns around elections. Now they're adding more to it with respect to hate issues, irrespective of what they are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Sorry to cut you off, Mr. Judd.

Go ahead, Mr. Berthold. You have two minutes.

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

I'll keep it short.

I want to raise a few things.

Mr. Kolga and Mr. Judd, can you provide the committee with some written information on Finland's regime? What programs exactly has Finland put in place to educate youth?

Mr. Judd, if you have additional information about Singapore that you could share with the committee, we would appreciate it.

Now I'd like to address a comment one of my fellow members made.

Disinformation and foreign interference, whether the target is a member of the Liberals, Conservatives, Bloc Québécois or NDP, is unacceptable—period. It makes no difference. It's unacceptable. We need to do everything in our power to combat foreign influence in every riding so that Canadians are the only ones deciding who gets elected. I think that's the whole premise of today's study.

Mr. Kolga, how much of the responsibility for the spread of disinformation can be attributed to Facebook, Twitter and other social media algorithms?

[Marcus Kolga]

Thank you for that question.

Certainly the revenue of social media companies relies on the number of eyeballs that fall onto any piece of content, and they want to make sure that their users remain on their platforms as long as possible so they can expose them to advertising.

I think many of these social media companies have recognized their responsibility in ensuring that disinformation narratives are pushed lower down in their algorithms.

I think Twitter has, certainly over the past 12 months, and I would say even more so during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, really put in an effort to clean up their act. We'll see what happens now with the change in ownership. We may slide backwards there, but that remains to be seen.

At Facebook, I think there is a lot of work that remains to be done. I think YouTube has been quite good in labelling foreign state media when it comes to those platforms.

Again, a lot more needs to be done.