Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 13th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I want to get us on our way for our second hour. I want to start by really thanking Minister Joly and Minister LeBlanc.

I know it was really tough to get your schedules to work for you to be here today, but I want you to know that it is noted and it is appreciated by all committee members.

Minister LeBlanc, I will let you introduce the people who are with you, and we'll keep the opening comments to five minutes. For the purposes of committee members, I will remind everyone that all comments will be made through the chair. I will also remind everyone about the conversation we've been having with regard to interpretation and only one person speaking at a time. If the question is posed or the comment is made, then we want to provide adequate time for it to be responded to. I think I have demonstrated that I will always provide time for good, important conversations, since this is such an important topic that we are dealing with.

We will now start with Minister LeBlanc for five minutes.

Welcome, Minister.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

Madam Chair, thank you.

Colleagues, thank you for your invitation. I'm obviously very happy to be here with my colleague, Mélanie Joly, but I'm accompanied in my capacity as minister responsible for democratic institutions by somebody you know well. Al Sutherland is the assistant secretary to the cabinet for the machinery of government—it's an impressive title—and democratic institutions.

Working to preserve the integrity of our elections is essential to maintaining the legitimacy and credibility of Canada's democratic processes.

Foreign interference in Canada's elections is obviously not acceptable, but let me be very clear that Canada's elections are free and fair, and the non-partisan national security experts who oversee threats to elections are confident in the results of these elections.

As a world leader in various economic, technological and research sectors, Canada has always been subject to foreign interference activities.

That's why, at a time when many democracies have already faced foreign interference, it remains important for Canada to prepare for this evolving threat. We have done so through a wide range of innovative measures to combat these complex threats.

Canada led the way among its international partners by developing the plan to protect Canada's democracy, announced in early 2019. This strategy has four distinct areas of action.

The first part of our plan, as you know, focuses on citizen resilience through preparedness and prevention, by enhancing digital media literacy. Since 2000 we have reached more than 12 million Canadians under the digital citizen initiative, through projects that help people to recognize fraud, disinformation and manipulation when they see them online.

The second part of our plan focuses on improving our government's ability to identify threats, emerging tactics and vulnerabilities in our systems. Under these measures, we've worked for the first time to provide security clearance to representatives from each of Canada's major political parties to make sure they are able to protect their organizations, their candidates and ultimately our democracy.

As I have said in the House of Commons a number of times, we also created the critical election incident public protocol to make sure a non-partisan panel is in place during the caretaker period, the election period, to inform Canadians quickly and effectively of any incidents that threaten Canada's ability to have a free and fair election. We established the security and intelligence threats to elections task force to support the work of this important panel.

Third, as a global challenge, the fight against foreign interference requires international cooperation. In this regard, Canada has also been active internationally, leading the creation of the G7 rapid response mechanism, which established a coordinated approach with our allies to respond to foreign threats to democracy.

The fourth point in our plan combines awareness and action by increasing transparency, authenticity and integrity on social media platforms. In May 2019, we released Canada's declaration on electoral integrity online. The declaration was updated in June 2021 and is supported by many platforms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Google, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn.

Canada's plan acknowledges that foreign interference and disinformation challenges are too complex and too relentless for any one actor to tackle them alone.

Observers routinely commend Canada for the high levels of integrity in our federal elections. In no small part, this is a result of Canada's electoral law, including amendments passed through the Elections Modernization Act, which took into account, of course, colleagues, recommendations made by this committee in previous Parliaments.

The result is that our law, including our political financing regime and Elections Canada itself, is regarded as one of the most thorough in the world.

As a government, we are continuing to improve the measures put in place, because the threats to our democracy continue to evolve, and Canada must be prepared.

This concludes my remarks, Madam Chair.

Thank you again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

It's us who thank you for being with us today.

Ms. Joly, you have five minutes.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Minister of Foreign Affairs]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair and members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be before you today. I want to thank you for the invitation to discuss foreign interference and, in particular, for examining the matter of foreign interference in Canada's federal elections.

We all know the world is at a critical time. The world's power structures are shifting. Democratic systems are under threat and, in some cases, under attack. We know Canada is not immune, particularly given the realities of our interconnected world. The reality is that we can't take anything for granted, and that includes being vigilant in protecting our own democracy.

Reports of Chinese foreign interference in the 2019 election are deeply troubling. Obviously, we take these allegations very seriously. I will talk more about China in a moment.

I would like to begin by saying that protecting our democracy from any form of interference is a priority for our government. We will never accept foreign interference in our democracy in any form, period.

It is our duty to ensure that our elections are always legitimate, credible and reliable. That's why we have adopted a government-wide strategy to address threats to Canada's electoral integrity and sovereignty. In fact, my colleague Mr. LeBlanc talked about this a little earlier. It's a simple, clear and impartial process for informing Canadians of any threat to an election after it has been called. A federal group called the “P5”, made up of experts in national security, foreign affairs, elections and law, is tasked with this process.

In addition, a working group on security and intelligence threats to elections supports the “P5”. This is another important part of this plan.

We have also put in place Canada's rapid response mechanism, or RRM, which is responsible for identifying signs of foreign interference and coordinating information sharing and response within the G7 on foreign threats to democracy.

During the last federal election, Canada's rapid response mechanism group organized training on foreign interference for departments and agencies. It also provided briefings on threats to senior government officials, political parties and the media.

I would now like to talk about the disinformation and interference campaigns led by Russia and China.

While Canada has not been a primary target of Russian disinformation in recent years, Russia has long used disinformation and propaganda to advance its objectives. This is well known, as are the Kremlin's tactics of creating polarization narratives aimed at undermining trust and social cohesion in the west. Canada continues to work with international partners to monitor and share information on the tactics used by Russia, particularly related to disinformation campaigns.

In recognition of the importance of this work, this past summer the Prime Minister announced the expansion of the rapid response mechanism to include a dedicated team to focus on Russian disinformation as part of Canada's strategy in eastern Europe and the Caucasus.

China shows growing sophistication in carrying out online campaigns to influence Canadians and people worldwide. Beijing can quickly saturate social media platforms with messaging, but it is also nimble enough to microtarget anglophone, francophone and Chinese-speaking audiences in Canada. China is considered by some as being best able to spread its influence online now that social media companies have curtailed Russian-aligned accounts and activities in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

Last month I raised the matter of alleged Chinese foreign interference with my Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the margins of the G20. I said to him directly that Canada will not tolerate any form of foreign interference in Canada.

As I said recently when launching Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy, we will do more to tackle foreign interference and disinformation. The strategy recognizes China's growing influence globally. It states that domestically, Canada's approach to China will include strengthening the defence of Canadian infrastructure and democracy against foreign interference. That includes interference in our elections.

Let me stop here for now, Madam Chair. I'll be pleased to take your questions.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

That's excellent. Thank you so much.

We will start with six-minute rounds, starting with Mr. Cooper, followed by Mr. Turnbull.

It will then be Ms. Gaudreau's turn, then Ms. Blaney.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and through you, thank you to the ministers for being here.

Ministers Joly and LeBlanc, were you briefed earlier this year, or did you receive memos, about interference by Beijing in the 2019 election?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Madam Chair, through you to Mr. Cooper, yes, I received updates, as have a number of implicated ministers, from our security and intelligence officials, as part of the routine responsibilities. I have participated in some of these discussions. It's not frequent, but certainly it's something I would be updated on by security and intelligence officials in the government.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

As for foreign interference in the 2019 elections, I did not have any information in that regard. I think you've heard the Prime Minister about this. He had no information in that regard either. Jody Thomas of the NSIA specifically stated before all of you that “we've not seen money going to 11 candidates, period”.

That would be my answer to the—

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

Thank you for that.

Through you, Madam Chair, to Minister LeBlanc, you indicated you have been briefed more than once. Can you elaborate on what you know and what you were briefed about, specifically with respect to interference in the 2019 election by Beijing?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Madam Chair, as the Prime Minister indicated in the House of Commons, our ability to discuss publicly the details of those national security briefings is understandably limited. That was true of predecessor governments, including the Conservative government that was in office before us.

Again, the Prime Minister, in his answers in question period and in various media interviews that I have seen—

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

My time is limited, Minister. I'll put the question this way: Did Beijing interfere in the 2019 and 2021 elections, yes or no?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Madam Chair, I think that both Mélanie Joly and I have said that the Chinese government regularly attempts to interfere in various aspects of Canadian society. Elections would not be excluded from some of their efforts. The good news is that we have a robust security apparatus that follows these threats, that intervenes.

To me, the most reassuring news is that the experts who are empowered to do this work have confirmed that none of these attempts to interfere have constituted, in any way, something that would have had an adverse effect on the election results and the election outcomes.

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

On the overall—

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

If I can add to that, you heard Jody Thomas about this and you heard the Prime Minister. I think my deputy minister David Morrison could maybe add to that.

[David Morrison, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development]

I'll happily add to it.

Before I was deputy minister, I was acting national security adviser through the most recent election. I was also acting national security adviser in the period after the 2019 election. There is, as has already been said, a kind of baseline level of foreign interference or attempted foreign interference at all times that we need to be vigilant on.

My experience as national security adviser in those key periods was that there was no spike in foreign interference, that I'm aware of, in either the 2019 election or the 2021 election.

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

In the production we received from PCO, there is a report entitled “Daily Foreign Intelligence Brief, 21 February, 2020”. It speaks to a subtle but effective interference network. It says, “Investigations into activities linked to the Canadian federal election in 2019, reveal an active foreign interference...network”.

Can you speak to that foreign interference network?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Madam Chair, I am not familiar with that specific report, but I certainly take at face value what our colleague has quoted. I think it just confirms what the deputy minister of foreign affairs has just said: that there is, at various times, an active effort, not only from that country.

As Mélanie Joly just said, there are other actors that are also involved in this space, but the government has taken the necessary steps to protect democratic institutions, and we believe that has been successful.

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

Are you aware of an active foreign interference network in the 2019 election by Beijing?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

I think, as I said in my comments—

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

It's tough to believe you wouldn't be.

[An hon. member]

Point of order—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

This is what's not fun. All that happens is we end up having points of order and we take away time, which means there's less time for questions. Whenever there is an action, there is a reaction. I suggest, as per my opening comments, that one person speak at a time.

Mr. Cooper, as I've demonstrated in the past, if you have a good line of questions, then I'll give you a bit of time. I think you want to ask good questions and make comments.

We've invited these ministers to be here because they have insights to share. We can let him respond. Is that okay? That's excellent.

Minister, you have the floor.

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Beauséjour, NB]

Madam Chair, through you, as we've said consistently—and the Prime Minister has repeated—we are aware, as I think Mr. Morrison said, of a baseline level of attempts from a number of foreign actors to interfere not only in the electoral context but in other economic contexts as well. We're not naive about the threat this represents.

The good news, Madam Chair, is that the government has taken robust and unique steps that didn't exist when previous governments were in office to combat exactly this legitimate concern of Mr. Cooper's that's shared by the government.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Mr. Cooper, we'll have your final question.

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

Well, I just note that it was specifically an active foreign interference network as it pertains to the CCP.