Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 14th, 2023

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

These documents were sent to Five Eyes allies, including the French and German governments. The Globe and Mail mentions these documents. Every Canadian could have learned about this information through the press. The Prime Minister must have seen these documents, Ms. Telford.

[Katie Telford]

As I said, I can't get into what the Prime Minister has or has not been briefed on in terms of specific intelligence. It's frustrating, I know. It is for me as well, but it's for the very important reasons that I laid out in my opening statement.

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

I will try to help you, Ms. Telford.

In the days that followed the publication of the article in The Globe and Mail on February 17, the Prime Minister replied to journalists' questions about these documents as follows: “We are very concerned with the leaks, particularly because there are so many inaccuracies in those leaks.” This means that the Prime Minister himself commented on the contents of the article.

Which revelations made in the article published on February 17 are inaccurate, as the Prime Minister has claimed?

[Katie Telford]

I've already referenced, over the course of the committee meeting today, at least one inaccuracy the NSIA has spoken to from reporting more broadly. I can't, unfortunately, go further than where the NSIA or the director of CSIS went when they were speaking before the committee.

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

Let's go over the facts reported by The Globe and Mail, Ms. Telford.

These reports came from a series of intelligence-gathering operations by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

The first thing that was reported is that one of Beijing's objectives was to help the Liberals form a minority government after the 2021 election. Is that part of the facts that were reported which were inaccurate, according to the Prime Minister?

[Katie Telford]

There have been a number of things we've been following up on from the reporting throughout the last number of months. There have been a number of things that don't add up in the way that we know them or that the officials are able to tell us about.

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

Thank you.

Let's go to another fact that was reported: one of the objectives of the Beijing regime was to ensure the failure of Conservative candidates that were considered hostile to the regime's interests. Was that deemed inaccurate by the Prime Minister?

[Katie Telford]

I would take a step back to where Canada was in its relations with China going into the 2019 and 2021 elections. They were probably at their lowest point—

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

Ms. Telford, the question was simple...

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I did not want to have to intervene, but I have to tell you that the time needed for interpretation will not be included in your speaking time. You will get that time back.

If we can just go a little more slowly and continue as we are doing, all will be well. I do hope that you will support me on this. I understand very well that we have two official languages. My mother tongue is Punjabi and that means it takes me a bit more time to say something in that language. I know that you do not speak Punjabi, but you speak French and the problem is the same. I will give you the necessary time.

It would be better if people didn't interrupt one another, agreed?

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

All right.

Ms. Telford, Beijing's tactic was to have proxies make undeclared cash donations to political campaigns. Is this one of the facts the Prime Minister finds inaccurate?

[Katie Telford]

Well, as it relates to the stories around the 11 candidates, I think you've already heard me repeatedly talk about how both the NSIA and the Prime Minister have spoken to that and to where they saw a gap and an inaccuracy in the reporting.

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

Beijing asks business owners to hire international students and assign them to election campaigns on a full-time basis. Is this one of the facts the Prime Minister finds inaccurate?

[Katie Telford]

I can't get into going further than they did in terms of the NSIA, the director of CSIS and the many other experts who have come before you on these issues.

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

I have two final questions.

Apparently, certain political campaigns illegally returned to donors the difference between the original donation and the refund they received. Is this one of the facts the Prime Minister finds inaccurate?

[Katie Telford]

I would just say on matters related to fundraising and donations, I think all members here are very familiar with this. I certainly am from my past days as a campaign director. There are very robust election finance laws in this country, and they were made even more robust and transparent under this government. If there were concerns there, there are methods to investigate any fundraising anomalies that are seen or alleged to have happened.

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

Thank you very much.

Ms. Telford, the Prime Minister is very quick to deny facts when they are false.

I'm going to ask you one last question about another fact mentioned in the article.

Chinese consulate officials, including former consuls-general Tong Xiaoling and Wang Jin, were allegedly involved in this interference operation. Is this one of the parts Mr. Trudeau considered inaccurate when he stated that there were “many inaccuracies” in these articles?

He himself commented on the CSIS reports, the same ones you refuse to comment on.

[Katie Telford]

I appreciate that we are now quick to respond to things, when we have been told many times we have not been quick to respond to things in the past. Part of the reason we haven't always been able to be as quick as we wish we all could be in responding to questions on this is that this information and subject matter are just so very important.

It's so important, as I said in the opening statement, when you're getting fragments of information, not only to figure out what those fragments are and where they situate, but to put them into a broader context. Being able to figure out what you can and can't say publicly is not something that I should be sitting here doing. That's why I set out in the beginning that I have to respect the boundaries that were set by the national security and intelligence adviser and the director of CSIS when they were here before me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Ms. Telford.

Mrs. Romanado, you have the floor.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Through you, I would like to thank Ms. Telford for being with us today.

I want to highlight a couple of things I've heard today, and I want to reiterate that there's a big difference between a willingness to share information and a capability to share information.

Ms. Telford, you've explained multiple times that it's not from a lack of willingness but due to national security issues that we cannot share this information. You also, in your opening statement, explained a little about the impact of that—my colleague, Ms. O'Connell, referred to that—with respect to our relationship with our Five Eyes partners. The issue of foreign interference in elections is not something new. This is something that New Zealand is looking at right now in terms of its elections. This is something that's happening around the world. We saw this in the presidential election in 2015, with questions about that.

You mentioned the importance of being able to share that information and receive that information from our Five Eyes partners, but you also said something that was really important to me. As you know, my son is an intelligence officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, so I know full well the importance of maintaining information that does not belong in the public sphere. To do so—and I will put in quotes exactly what you said—can “put...lives in danger”.

We've created NSICOP, a committee of parliamentarians, and I've looked at those who sit on this committee. I have full confidence in the members of NSICOP, who are from all our parties, including a retired colonel with over 25 years of service, who sits on this committee. I have full trust in his ability to look at something like this.

Given the measures the Prime Minister has taken through various tactics, whether it be through the naming of a special rapporteur.... We have SITE, we have the panel, we have the national security intelligence adviser, we have NSICOP, and we have PROC looking at this. I believe that this has also come up in the ethics committee.

Do you believe that the question of foreign interference and how to detect, deter and counter it will take a multipronged approach, given the complexity of this issue and the evolving threats of foreign interference?

[Katie Telford]

There are a couple of quick things.... Just on your first point of how this is not a new problem, I believe it was in the CSIS documents that were tabled sometime ahead of my appearance, in the last number of days. They talk about how CSIS briefed us in 2015, when we first got into government. This is not new to our government, but as I said in the opening statement, it has been evolving, and this government has taken more steps than anyone has before.

Actually, one of the steps—you mentioned a number of them there—that involves our allies is the rapid response mechanism. Canada played a leadership role there, because it was at the G7 meeting in Charlevoix that it came about, and some additional countries have joined, beyond the G7, to be part of that work. Canada has been leading on this in the world.

To your point of the multipronged nature of this, it's why, in 2019—I mentioned this in my opening statement as well—there was a kind of pan-governmental, whole-of-government plan that was introduced to protect democracy, because it has to take into account misinformation and disinformation as well, so the Department of Canadian Heritage is involved. Many different departments and agencies throughout government have to be thinking about these things. They are and have been for a number of years now, so there's obviously still more work to do.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Thank you so much.

I brought this up in a previous PROC meeting. Would you say that perhaps one of the recommendations that PROC can make coming out of this study would be to make sure that members of Parliament are adequately briefed on how to recognize, mitigate and prevent foreign interference?

Would you recommend that this committee suggest that members of Parliament and perhaps even their staff be briefed on what to look for not only in an election period but in terms of our day-to-day actions? Would you recommend that members of Parliament and their staff receive some training in this regard?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Ms. Telford, I will provide you time to answer, but before you answer, I want members in the room to know, as you are recognizing, that the camera might not be switching at all times to the person who is speaking. I know that Mrs. Romanado has not noticed that the camera was not on her in the room. We understand that for public broadcasting on ParlVu, it is switching, and for the purposes of this room, we will get that issue sorted out.

For the public, Mrs. Romanado, not only did they hear you, but they saw you, and that is something that is very important to us here.

Ms. Telford, we go to you.

[Katie Telford]

I have just two quick thoughts on that. One is that certainly there is training for.... I received it when when I first came into government, and it's one of the more eye-opening briefings you can get. Then, in terms of members of Parliament and whether more should happen on that front, I believe there were recommendations about that. I'm not recalling now in which of the reports, but I think it was coming out of NSICOP.

That has subsequently been followed up by Minister LeBlanc and Clerk Charette in the report they just produced showing all the different actions, where they went through all the different reports that have been put out in the last not that many years and identified what all the different next steps still are to be taken, by whom and by when. I believe that is in there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Continuing on with our third round, we will be starting with Mr. Barrett.

Then we will go to Mr. Fergus, Ms. Normandin, Ms. Blaney, Mrs. Thomas, and Mr. Turnbull.