Evidence of meeting #55 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.
Deputy Chief of Signals Intelligence, Communications Security Establishment
Thank you for your question.
That is indeed correct, and I realize that the process can be frustrating.
In answer to that, I would say that all of us who have been talking about foreign interference for a good amount of time in public try very hard to be as transparent as possible, but maybe—
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
You can't be, Ms. Tayyeb. Sorry to cut you off. I appreciate that you all want to be transparent, but, under the law, you can't be.
What political parties find frustrating is knowing that people have the intelligence but can't act on it. You said it was a process. Whenever I hear the word “process”, I think of something long. An election campaign lasts 30 to 42 days.
What good is SITE if it can't act on the intelligence it has at election time?
Deputy Chief of Signals Intelligence, Communications Security Establishment
Having been a practitioner in the security intelligence community for almost 25 years, I completely understand that point of view. It is a careful balance that we deal with every day. We are definitely attempting to put more information to the public about what we're seeing, about the threat of foreign interference and about the types of techniques that are used. What we're seeing today in the creation of the panel is a function of trying to do a better job at that.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
When you see disinformation on social media, it's already public. Everyone can see all the disinformation that's out there.
For SITE, when does that information it shares with people become classified?
Deputy Chief of Signals Intelligence, Communications Security Establishment
Thank you very much for that.
Go ahead, Ms. Denham.
Director General, Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
I could add to that.
There is a difference between being able to speak to intelligence that would have been shared with cleared party political members, who would have been briefed accordingly, and your question related to disinformation specifically.
The RRM works on open-source information. Those reports were shared with the panel. After the election, we did an annual RRM report. That is because, again, what we're driving for is being able to understand the tactics we're seeing. We work with our G7 colleagues to understand what they're seeing, and we share that.
The reason it wasn't shared during an election period.... The panel gives the opportunity for it to be shared in an instance where the panel feels it could impact the integrity of the election.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
The election that's under way isn't protected, though, because of this whole process.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Director General, Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
What I would say to clarify that is the panel and the protocol are about protecting the elections at the time. For the last two elections, based on the information that was shared with the panel, at no time did it reach a threshold of notification.
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
You were waiting. Mr. Berthold, that means a lot to me. Thank you.
Ms. O'Connell, it's up to five minutes for you.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, everyone, for appearing.
I want to follow up on a question that was asked in the first panel by my colleague. There have been allegations made by Walied Soliman, who was the representative from the Conservative Party. He alleged that he raised concerns on behalf of the Conservative Party with SITE in 2021 about foreign interference in the election. He claimed that his concerns were not taken seriously. We heard from the national security adviser, who said that there was a lengthy response.
Could somebody here speak to those allegations? Can you speak to when specifically Mr. Soliman brought forward these allegations to SITE?
Director General, Intelligence Assessments, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
I'm afraid can't speak to the specifics of those allegations. I can certainly assure the committee that when allegations of foreign influence activity are brought to SITE or brought to the service, they're taken seriously, they're looked at and, if necessary, they will be acted upon.
I can't speak specifically to any case or instance.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Can you speak to the fact that these specific allegations were responded to?
Director General, Intelligence Assessments, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
No, I can't. I'm sorry. I know that the NSIA went a little further than I'm prepared to go, but I can't speak to specifics.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Thank you.
I want to get back to the issues around the balance. There's a lot of conflation. Ms. Denham, I think you keep trying to speak to this, but it's getting cut off. I would like to hear the answers.
The suggestion about disinformation is out there. We can certainly see that. Isn't the point of SITE to make sure that it's disinformation being pushed by foreign state actors as a form of foreign interference to take away Canadians' determination?
Frankly, as politicians, I'm sure we've all seen disinformation from various sources in campaigns. Your threshold—the piece you were speaking about—and what SITE is responsible for are not about all the disinformation out there, and certainly not about all the disinformation that might be shared among some groups or other groups. It's specific to foreign interference, and SITE did not see that the threshold—that the origins were foreign state actors—was met.
Director General, Office of Human Rights, Freedoms and Inclusion, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development
Yes, you are correct that for the RRM, which is a member of SITE.... Being able to look at the open-source environment, we are looking for tactics amplification that we may see. It's artificial amplification of content that we can ascertain has a link to a foreign entity. That's what our focus is.
As you said and as I've mentioned, in these instances, we were observing some amplification of content, and we were shedding light on any particular information we had in terms of sources. We were not able to ascertain if it was coming from a foreign entity or from within Canada.
I might add that this information landscape is really complex. You're absolutely correct that it's sometimes very hard to tell, and that's been mentioned already. However, the RRM, from when we started this work, has established an ethical and methodological framework that guides how we look at that information space so we can be really clear that we are looking for foreign entities aiming to amplify that content without interfering or having any say as to the ability of Canadians to engage freely.
You are absolutely correct that those sources of information could be coming from Canadians or other welcome debate.
Liberal
Jennifer O'Connell Liberal Pickering—Uxbridge, ON
Thank you.
Since the 2019 election and the 2021 election.... For example, Jim Judd did a report, and he appeared before our committee. It's my understanding that there were recommendations that would have reviewed SITE and the process.
Again, given some of the questions around that process, were changes made in this whole protocol between 2019 and the 2021 election, based on Mr. Judd's or other observations of how this was working?
Deputy Chief of Signals Intelligence, Communications Security Establishment
I could respond very quickly to that.
The main change, as I understand it, and I would encourage you to ask this question of PCO when they're here, because they were responsible for changing elements of the protocol.... From a SITE perspective, our mandates remain the same. We adhere to the mandates and the authorities we have. From a composition perspective, that didn't change. From a protocol perspective, I understand there were changes that I would encourage PCO to speak to tomorrow.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Thank you.
Go ahead, Ms. Normandin. You have two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
First, I want to take 20 seconds to put a motion on notice, and then I will send it to the clerk. I move that the committee report to the House the following motion:
That the House of Commons of Canada call on the government to conduct an independent public inquiry into allegations of Chinese interference in the Canadian democratic process and that the appointment of the Commissioner to conduct this inquiry be made following agreement among the recognized parties.
Now, I'd like to hear from the witnesses on the threshold needed to inform the public about certain incidents. My understanding is that it's much easier to meet the threshold in the case of a major operation, but that it's much tougher to meet when separate operations are carried out in a number of ridings.
Under that approach, aren't we likely to see increased interference at the riding level in order to circumvent the protocol? Isn't that a risk?
Deputy Chief of Signals Intelligence, Communications Security Establishment
Thank you very much for that question. I think I would address the following. I might have alluded to this earlier.
As members of the SITE task force, we are looking at instances of threats to elections, particularly from foreign interference, and we wouldn't make that distinction in the reporting we provide to the panel. How the panel views that question, though, would probably be best addressed to them.