Evidence of meeting #51 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was information.
A video is available from Parliament.
Acting Director General, Federal Policing National Intelligence, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Thank you for the question.
If I understand, your question is how urgent it is, in our opinion. Any tool that supports the RCMP in their activities is good progress in the right direction. However, we want to get this right, in close consultation with Canadians, respecting Privacy Act issues, respecting all of the legislation that exists that complements and is related to this particular endeavour, and again, in close consultation with our elected officials and partners on the way forward.
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Madam Chair, I'd also like to know what Ms. Henderson thinks.
Is a registry urgent and necessary to get the job done right?
Assistant Director, Requirements, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Thank you very much for the question.
I am in agreement with what my colleague Ms. Ducharme said, because we certainly see the benefit of this. We have provided our advice to government and policy-makers. We need to get it right when we do that.
As Adam noted earlier, the conversation is ongoing. We are providing advice and engaging with our partners to help track the best way forward.
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Madam Chair, what I see is that there are restrictive issues around the protocol and around the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act that limit the possibility of moving forward. I also understand that there are tools that should be put in place urgently.
I would like to give the witnesses the minute I have left so that they can express how important it is to act now.
Mr. King, I'd like to hear your comments on this.
Director, Risk Mitigation Programs, Communications Security Establishment
Thank you.
Yes, I'd support my colleagues' view when it comes to the foreign registry. It's not a domain I would play in, since CSE is a foreign intelligence agency. These are more domestic-related pieces.
I think the items you noted are fair.
I'll go back to the protocol, and the notion that it is, perhaps, restrictive. I think it's always good to review—I'll put it that way. It's always good to review in order to see whether or not we have it right. I'm not going to say whether we have it right or wrong. I think the supporting mechanisms behind it are good and sound. They've been proven so over a couple of elections. I think we found that it's good.
It's another question when you put information out publicly. I think we should always have the conversations to evaluate whether or not we've done the right thing.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Through you, as always, my first question is simply this: How does an MP become aware they are targeted? Is the MP or party notified—or both? You talked about the government being notified. Is the government the only one? I'm trying to get that clear.
The other part of that question is this: What is the protocol during an election, compared to pre-election time?
Assistant Director, Requirements, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Thank you very much for the question.
Again, I would go back to some of the comments I made earlier. We need to educate our MPs so they can potentially recognize they are being approached. The service has produced certain documents. One is called “FI and You”. I believe that's the name of it. It's an unclassified document. It sets a base level, so individuals can look at it and say, “Okay, yes, this has happened to me,” and then reach out for a conversation. The service has, on some occasions.... As I noted, when we determine someone is being approached and there is a real threat, we will go and have a conversation with that individual.
Let's be honest. We can't see and do everything. We require Canadians to recognize when they are being approached and the fact that they are a very valuable asset. They have a voice, and people could be trying to use that voice. They really need to be aware of that threat to their own security.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you.
The next question I have is for the RCMP.
I'm curious. I've heard stories from folks who feel they've been exposed to foreign interference. There are people from vulnerable communities who want to come forward and talk about things that may be happening within their ethnic community. Sometimes, when they go to the RCMP—depending on the community—there's no awareness, so they get passed around without a resolution to the problem.
I'm wondering what tools and resources are available to everyday Canadians to report information related to foreign interference. Is there a need for the RCMP to have a little more training, in order to address those issues in a more meaningful way?
Acting Director General, Federal Policing National Intelligence, Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Madam Chair, the RCMP takes all threats of intimidation and state-backed harassment and foreign interference very seriously. It has a national security information network that has been set up to receive complaints either via telephone through a 1-800 number or via email. However, most often, when individuals may feel targeted, the first place that they will go to is their local police of jurisdiction, or if they feel there's an imminent or a pending threat, they should be advised to contact 911 immediately.
The RCMP works with the police of jurisdiction in proactive and reactive information sharing to increase awareness of indicators of foreign actor interference and whatnot, but as mentioned there is the national security information network. It's an RCMP system that is managed 24-7, 365 days a year, by trained RCMP telecommunications operators. CSIS also has a reporting system for that, so together, when we receive tips that are credible, we collaborate on that.
There are multiple ways and means for individuals to report, but as I mentioned it's usually through 911 if they feel immediate threats or their first place is the police of jurisdiction.
I hope that answers your question.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
Thank you, somewhat. I appreciate that.
I did appreciate one of the recommendations.
I think it was you, Ms. Henderson, who talked about opening the CSIS Act for sharing information with different levels of government. Right now it's pinioned in at just the federal level but not the other levels, and I can imagine that for provinces, territories and municipalities it would be very useful to know that information.
Knowing the reality of our world, that how foreign interference intersects in our communities is an ever-changing, growing and developing reality, I'm just wondering if there are any other changes to the act or to any other legislation that would be helpful to allow the work to be done in a more meaningful way.
Assistant Director, Requirements, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
As I noted earlier, another very beneficial tool would be the ability to use big data and crunch data, of course respecting the privacy of Canadians. We still need to be able to use the data to determine trends. It helps us get leads. It helps us set ourselves up in order to follow the investigative route. I don't think we can underestimate the value of being able to use data. It will help us in our investigations.
NDP
Rachel Blaney NDP North Island—Powell River, BC
My last question goes back to that idea of misinformation, especially in different types of social media and other media outlets. Should the Canadian government have a clearer process to publicly identify foreign-based sources of disinformation, like a public naming or revealing, to let people know that these are sources that might not be safe for us to gather information from?
Director, Risk Mitigation Programs, Communications Security Establishment
That's a tricky one if you're saying you want to have a list—don't go here or you could be at risk here—because it shifts over time and the problem is that platforms can be used by anybody. To single one out because there may be a presence of some nefarious activity there, that could be detrimental to others who use the same platform when it's in fact not used solely for that. There are encrypted messaging apps that exist that we use to communicate with one another because we trust them more, to be quite frank, sometimes, and that the public uses and that bad people use.
It's kind of a difficult thing to draw a line and say this bad and this good. As well, this sort of issue does shift over time.
Liberal
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Thank you.
Through you, Madam Chair, my question is to Mr. Fisher.
Can you just confirm something for me? I think you said several times at this committee so far in your answers that you don't measure votes or voter intention as part of your assessment for interference. Did I get that right?
Director General, Intelligence Assessments, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
What I was trying to communicate is that, when we're investigating foreign influence activity during an election or outside of an election, we're not necessarily focusing on impact. We're focusing on the activity of the adversary. If they're acting in a way that is deceitful and against the interests of Canada, that's what we focus on. Whether they're successful or not is secondary to our purposes.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
It just seems odd to me, because the purpose of an election is for the political actors who are operating lawfully in the country to move votes back and forth. How would you know if somebody is actually interfering in an election if they weren't able to adjust any election results?
Director General, Intelligence Assessments, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Again, we'd be looking at the activities. If it's an agent of a foreign state who is, for example, looking to get the vote out for a certain candidate and is messaging in that regard, that's what would concern us. Whether the agent had success or not would be secondary, but any attempt of foreign influence activity would be something that we would take seriously and look into.
I hope that answers the question.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Sort of.
We've heard from other witnesses this week that our intelligence services do not have a functional working knowledge of what's being said or reported in Chinese-language media. It's not only here, but everywhere, so that would be Mandarin and Cantonese, I presume. It's also been reported that only 18% of senior Global Affairs Canada officials have met the language requirements for their positions.
I'm wondering if we have the assets to fully understand what's being communicated in this country in languages that would not be our official languages, because 18% is a pretty low number.
Director, Risk Mitigation Programs, Communications Security Establishment
I'm not going to speak to government officials and their language requirements specifically, but we always look to increase our capability when it comes to foreign languages.
It's the same with any skill set. These can be rare and hard to come by, depending what our focus is with respect to the intelligence requirements and the questions we need to answer. It's not always easy to find or to get people moved through security processes and clearances either. There are a number of things we have to contend with that, maybe, others do not in terms of building capabilities.
Would I say we need more? I would always say that we need more. That stands for cyber-skills as well, and people with science, tech, engineering and math backgrounds. It's difficult, but we do our best. We have some capability, but I think we would always say that we would like to have more skill sets and languages.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
Testimony that we heard earlier in this meeting alluded to or alleged that the Chinese Communist regime in Beijing has a disproportionate number of employees here in their various consular activities. They gave us numbers for what other consulates from Japan and other countries might have, and the numbers they gave us were staggering.
Would your assessment of the operatives, agents or consular officials here from China be disproportionate? Do you think they have too many people here?
Director General, Intelligence Assessments, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
My light has come on, so I'll try to answer that.
I'm not a diplomat. I don't know what is normal or abnormal in terms of consular representation, and I wouldn't speak to that specific assertion. What I would do is echo what my colleagues have said, which is that hostile foreign states will use any platform in order to further influence foreign activity, and that can include consular representation.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
You've talked a bit about your ability to collect, mine and get data, crunch numbers and so on. I've suggested that I think.... My sense is that the government does a good job of gathering the information. I'm not confident, based on the fact that other countries are very public about the fact that they've hauled people to the mat for foreign interference, and we don't have any examples here in this country.... I don't know why operatives in other countries would be any different there than they are here.
I'm running out time. I wonder if you are missing some tools to haul people to the mat who are interfering in our democracy. Is that the problem?
