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

[Jim Judd]

What I am about to say is based on public source information. I haven't seen a piece of intelligence for a very long time, three grandchildren ago. Public source information is quite extraordinary—not just here. It's, in fact, global—Europe, the United States and so on.

Certainly, I don't think I would disagree with anything Mr. Kolga said about the activities of these individuals. For me, it was quite a new experience, because when I was working, this was not an issue. There was a very different basket of priorities for CSIS and national security issues in my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you. We'll come back to you again.

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

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

Thank you to the witnesses.

Just a heads-up that I have two questions for Mr. Kolga and two questions for Mr. Judd.

Mr. Kolga said that a protocol was established in 2019 to protect democracy and had not changed since, so I'd like some clarification.

Very quickly, I'd like Mr. Kolga to tell me what hasn't changed since the protocol was introduced in 2019.

[Marcus Kolga]

I'm not sure how much has changed within the protocol or whether the thresholds have changed. I have no information about that.

The threat certainly has evolved. That's what has changed since 2019. In 2019, we believed that the threat to our democracy was exclusively targeting our elections and writ periods, whereas since that period, I think our understanding of the threat has evolved. I've mentioned several times during my testimony that the threats—certainly from Russia, and from China as well—are persistent. That's what has changed.

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

Thank you.

I gather that the protocol isn't adequate to respond to growing threats. I have another question for you, and then I'll move on to Mr. Judd.

Mr. Kolga said the public needed to be educated. We talked about transparency and education with the witnesses in the previous panel. I'd like Mr. Kolga to tell me whether the public was ever informed of foreign interference. If so, what information can he provide to the committee on the source of that activity, for the purposes of our report?

I'm somewhat naive about all this, so I'd like to know what being advised looks like.

[Marcus Kolga]

Again, thank you for that question.

We, DisinfoWatch, did try to inform the public when these efforts were brought to our attention in early September. We took the time to look at the information we received. We tried to process it. We couldn't necessarily trace it directly to the Chinese government, but given the nature of the messages that were targeting Mr. Chiu, that campaign in British Columbia, and there was also another—

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

Madam Chair, my question was actually about the information that was shared with the public or the people concerned. Is it possible for the committee to get those communications and links? That's what I wanted to know.

I'll let Mr. Kolga send us that information.

Now I'll turn to Mr. Judd.

Mr. Judd, I heard you say in your opening statement that the Privy Council Office had asked you to clarify the critical election incident public protocol. You said you didn't have access to certain information. What information were you missing in order to do the job properly? It is possible, however, that I didn't hear you correctly.

[Jim Judd]

Thank you.

What I intended to say in my opening comments was that in the course of doing my work, I had no access to any of the intelligence that went to the panel from SITE, the integrated intelligence organization.

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

Madam Chair, I asked why the witness didn't have access to that information.

[Jim Judd]

It was classified above my security classification level, and given the time that was at play, it would have taken quite a long time to re-establish what I used to have as a security classification. That's essentially it.

I would say, though, with respect to this issue, that my understanding from the 2019 election was that the political parties were privy to SITE information on an ongoing basis throughout the election and even before. I understand that this continued to be the case in the last election as well. Chances are that someone in your party knows a lot more about this than I do.

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

Madam Chair, I'm trying to educate myself here, because foreign interference is a subject I know little about, and I'm learning things that are extremely distressing.

My next question is for whoever wishes to answer.

What are the tools we need? We heard suggestions in terms of what Five Eyes partners were doing, but I'd like to know what the first step is in order to reduce the spread of this activity.

I think I have a minute left, so I'd like the witnesses to say a few words about that.

[Marcus Kolga]

I'll quickly give a few of my thoughts.

I strongly believe that exposing these efforts, analyzing them and explaining them is incredibly important. That's the work we do at DisinfoWatch. I think the government should expand the initiative it's already taken with the critical election incident public protocol and make that into a full-time organization. That includes civil society, academia, media members and representatives from all of the major parties in Canada as well as social media—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Ms. Blaney, go ahead for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to both of the witnesses for your testimony today.

I'm going to start my questioning with Mr. Kolga.

In one of your responses to a question, you said very clearly that Russia never sleeps. I thought that was an important thing to pick up on. We know that Russia never sleeps and that it is constantly looking at ways to create destabilized realities within other countries. I think all of us are concerned.

Really, this study is about two things: ensuring that Canadians have confidence in our electoral process and systems and ensuring that we have the best protection from any foreign threats. We know that the more disinformation gets out there, the less Canadians believe in the systems we have. They're winning, and we can't let that happen.

I'm just wondering if you could talk about the fact that Russia never sleeps and how, not only during elections but also outside of those and even pre-election, that is a problem.

[Marcus Kolga]

Thank you very much for that question.

Absolutely, Russia does not sleep. Russia has been engaging in disinformation and influence operations for a very long time—nearly a century. Joseph Stalin began creating deep fakes, if you will, by doctoring photographs, already in the 1930s.

It engaged in this throughout the Cold War. Canadians of central and eastern European heritage were constantly targeted with Russian disinformation during that time because they were critical of the Soviet occupation of their countries. They were often labelled as neo-Nazis and such. Those sorts of narratives were intended to dehumanize, marginalize and silence them, and create second-class citizens of those Canadians.

We're seeing very much that same sort of process right now during this war with Ukraine. The Ukrainian diaspora, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, has been targeted with similar narratives and operations.

When we look at Russian disinformation operations in general, all of that is intended to break down, geopolitically, Canadian and U.S. support for NATO. It's intended to break down the cohesion within that alliance because, as we've seen, Russia is unable to compete with us when we're united.

Domestically, in Canada, they try to break down the cohesion within our society. That means breaking down trust in our democratic institutions, in all of our elected officials—all of you in this committee—and in our media and such. It does that by injecting different pieces of disinformation, conspiracy theories and such, in hopes that various far-left and far-right extremists will pick them up. They hope those narratives will eventually filter into our mainstream media and interfere in our normal democratic debate. That is the ultimate outcome of Russian information operations.

Unless we stand up to it and make an effort to expose narratives, as you are doing right now with this study, and have an active discussion on how we address this challenge, they will win. They have a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars for these efforts. They are doing this day and night. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people employed to undertake this task of injecting those narratives, of using social media and of exploiting our freedoms to gain the advantage.

We definitely need to step up our game. I think that during the current Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Canadian government has started to acknowledge the breadth of this threat and is taking measures to address it. We need to continue to do that.

As I was trying to say in my previous answer, we need to take a whole-of-society approach and an inclusive approach. That includes media, social media giants, civil society and, of course, government and our elected officials. We need to have that discussion all together because that's the only way we're going to innoculate ourselves against this and defend against foreign disinformation operations in the long term.

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

I think that's really interesting. I think of the convoy that was outside and how many people were yelling about fake news. I saw reporters right in front saying things like, “Say whatever you like. We're totally open. You're on live television.” People were just losing that connection with the understanding of our reality.

My next question is really around targeting marginalized groups. I think of myself; I represent rural and remote communities. I'm just curious about the strategies that could be used against more remote communities, marginalized communities, indigenous communities and ethnic groups. I think those would be specific and targeted.

I'm just curious whether you have any feedback on that.

[Marcus Kolga]

That's a great question. It deserves its own study, I think.

We need to be working with local media and smaller media organizations that speak to these groups to ensure they get the good information, the facts and the truth.

We've been reading reports about how smaller media organizations are simply going out of business. They're disappearing. A robust and trustworthy media is one way we can defend against foreign disinformation. Certainly making sure that vulnerable groups—minority groups and such—have access to that information is an extremely important way, and I believe an effective way, we can combat disinformation and misinformation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Next we have Mr. Calkins for five minutes, followed by Ms. O'Connell.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Kolga, I guess, basically, if I can summarize what you're saying, in an environment where Canadians might be disenfranchised—if you're an oil patch worker who lost his job, if you're somebody whose kid was kicked out of college or university because they didn't want to get vaccinated, or if you lost your job or were unable to travel—these create breeding grounds for frustration. It can be anything. It can be any type of source of that frustration.

I'm from the west; I'm from Alberta. I know what western alienation does. I know how my constituents think, because I think just like they do. I have been here for 17 years, through a Liberal government and a Conservative government. I can tell you that people's attitudes and their frustrations are completely different depending on who's governing the country.

If we actually have...and the Prime Minister of this country's own caucus colleagues have basically stood and said that he has a wedge, stigmatize, divide approach. Does that provide fertile breeding grounds for these kinds of organizations, like Russia, to manipulate the Canadian public?

[Marcus Kolga]

Yes, absolutely. The Russian government exploits those grievances, and it aggravates them. That is exactly how it operates.

I should remind you, though, that it has been doing this for quite some time. Just about a year and a half ago, we did a study of over 100 Twitter accounts that had been taken down by Twitter. We had access to the deleted tweets of those accounts that were connected to the Russian government, and they went back to 2014.

In 2014, those accounts were actively doing the same. They were attacking the Harper government on various issues. They are agnostic with regard to any sort of political party. They will sink their fangs into the left and the right, and they will tug on any specific issue until it tears us apart. This is what they do.

It doesn't matter who's in government, whether it's the Conservatives one day, the Liberals the next, the NDP another day, or perhaps the Bloc one day. All of those parties—even when they are in opposition—will be attacked when they are critical of the Russian regime, and, again, those grievances that do emerge toward whichever party is governing will be exploited by Russia.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Given the fact that in your testimony you have just said that it doesn't really matter who the political actors are who are making the decisions of the day, our democratic institutions are vulnerable to these attacks regardless.

I just went and looked. WeChat has 1.25 billion users globally and over a million users in Canada. I just went onto Facebook to DisinfoWatch's page, and you are lucky, sir—and this is not a slight against you in any way, shape or form—to get into three digits when it comes to views of your explainer videos and so on.

Can you give this committee any indication of what needs to happen? Salacious information or misinformation seems to be gobbled up and consumed by the consumer a lot more readily than the truth is. As parliamentarians, how do we bridge that gap?

[Marcus Kolga]

That's a very good question. I should add that we do try, and our impact is largely in the media and in mainstream media when they report on the reports that we have. You shouldn't take that from our Facebook views.

I think the problem is quite far gone at this point. I don't think we can put the genie back into the bottle, but we can take measures to innoculate future generations. That means ensuring that we look at countries like Finland, which has enacted early childhood digital media literacy strategies, making sure that's in our curricula, informing Canadians, and doing what we can to expose these disinformation narratives so that elected officials, our media, and anybody who's interested in finding the facts have that information available.

I think that's what we need to start looking at right now because, as I said, we can't put the genie back in the bottle. I think these information operations, the disinformation and the polarization of our society are almost at a point of no return.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

In the context of a Canadian general election or even a by-election, notwithstanding that we don't want to put very many.... You know, we enjoy our freedom. We enjoy free speech. We enjoy all of these things. Every western liberalized democracy does. However, should we consider or should this committee be recommending that those platforms be somehow identified or taken off-line during, say, an electoral writ period when we know full well that certain types of platforms are specifically being used?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I'm going to ask that you hold that thought.

I'm going to send the screen over to Ms. O'Connell for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Kolga, I'm going to start with you.

Mr. Judd, I hope I'll have some time. I have some questions for you as well.

Mr. Kolga, I found your last intervention particularly interesting. It was about making sure that elected officials have the disinformation and information available to them. I transport in my mind to your comments earlier, too, about Russian TV broadcasting the convoy and how awkward it must be for those elected officials who posed with convoy members or who brought them coffee, and then they could be broadcast on Russian TV after that. Your comments about elected officials having this information, understanding their role in the very disinformation and the agents of Russian foreign actors are quite interesting.

I want to get to my questions around some of your comments on disinformation and that you can't discredit what could have been an outcome in Mr. Chiu's election. You spoke about the involvement of Chinese agents or activity from China. You also spoke about ongoing activity from Russia, and you specifically named Minister Freeland as somebody to receive that attention from these actors.

I have a couple of questions here, and then I'll leave it to you. How do you distinguish that ongoing Russian activity against Minister Freeland doesn't have any impact but activity during the election period for Mr. Chiu could have had an impact? I think that disinformation or activity from foreign state actors is real, but I think we have to be very careful about certain parties using it as the excuse for a loss.

I can tell you that the voters in Steveston—Richmond East rejected Mr. Chiu in 2015. Then he won the election in 2019. Looking at the numbers of the 2019 and the 2021 elections, there was a difference of 4,412 votes for Mr. Chiu between those elections. I also note that, from the 2019 election to the 2021 election, voter turnout was smaller by about 3,070 votes. One could argue—I'm sure the Conservatives would—that the voter turnout was smaller because of the disinformation and the campaigns from China. I'd also like to point out that, in my election, from 2019 to 2021, my voter turnout was smaller by over 5,000 votes, which is more.

How can you determine that, if the electors in 2015 rejected Mr. Chiu...? Voter turnout was smaller across the country. How can you determine that the Chinese actions had an impact and that the Russian actions had no impact for Minister Freeland? Do we run the risk of playing this game of where impact was had versus protecting our democracy overall from foreign interference, instead of trying to pick winners and losers riding by riding, when you can't determine it with any data?