Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 14th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. O'Connell.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Telford, for being here.

I want to start off by following up where the Conservatives left off. The Conservatives would have Canadians believe that foreign interference just began in 2019 and that this is a relatively new phenomenon. They would like to find some smoking gun date.

In fact, in your answer, Ms. Telford, you talked about the fact that foreign interference is ongoing, and that's why there are several briefings on the topic. In addition to that, members of the House would have received the 2019 NSICOP annual report, which talks about foreign interference, so they can look at their own dates in terms of when they were notified.

I want to get to the issues around foreign interference and the fact that it's not new.

You mentioned in your opening statement that Canada is a net importer of intelligence. We can look at the situation and what's happening in the U.S. right now. They're having very similar debates about foreign interference and national security information being in the public realm. Some of the comments being made in the U.S. right now are questioning that. If national security information is not held with the care and sensitivity it deserves, in the U.S. context, will allies want to share information with countries that don't treat national security information securely?

As Canada is a net importer of intelligence, the request from the Conservatives to have unredacted documents, to share details of national security information and details of briefings.... Would it not pose a significant risk if Canada no longer took the strong and firm approach of handling national security with the utmost care and sensitivity, as it deserves? Would that put us at risk of not receiving intelligence from, for example, our Five Eyes allies?

[Katie Telford]

That is why I raised in the opening statement that that is something we always have to be guarding against and careful about. We have to treat this material with care because it can put lives at risk, most importantly because it's in Canada's national interest to keep this information protected, but also because of the impact it could have in terms of relationships with allies we share intelligence with and receive intelligence from.

It's one of the reasons the government put into place NSICOP. We looked at our allies, many of whom already had organizations like that. It was something the government before the current government did not put in place. It did not take any steps on this front, despite having been embroiled in the Afghan detainee issue, which I spoke to in my opening statement as well. They continued to refuse to provide information to the House when the House was looking for it then. Having lived through that experience, the Prime Minister made the commitment in the 2015 platform that we needed a body like NSICOP. Then some time was spent working with allies and learning from allies how to put that together properly and in a way that could even be improved on from their own experiences before it was launched, I think, midway through the first mandate.

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

Thank you.

Madam Chair, through you, the leader of the Conservative Party, Mr. Poilievre, has said he refuses to get briefed on national security matters because he doesn't want to then be restricted to speak. Former leader Mr. O'Toole removed members from NSICOP. When the now leader of the Conservatives was the Minister of Democratic Institutions, there were statements that he didn't take action on strengthening our democracy because he felt it wasn't among his partisan issues, yet the Conservatives continually remove their members from learning the facts of the national security situation going on in this country in a secure way.

When you appear today and reasonably say there are going to be limitations on some of the information you can share in an open setting, the Conservatives say, “What are you hiding?” Mr. Cooper used the word “collusion” in the past. Could you speak to the reasonableness? Mr. Poilievre doesn't want to be briefed so that he is no longer constrained to keep national security matters confidential. Can you speak to why there is sensitivity around your testimony today?

[Katie Telford]

Very briefly, I do sign documents that are declarations of indoctrination in order to become cleared, and I take those things very seriously. I think as was mentioned, even the leader of the official opposition takes them so seriously that he did not want to be briefed or cleared. It sounds like people understand why I can't speak to these things.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Ms. Normandin, you have the floor.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ms. Telford, I would like to go back to an answer that you gave to my colleague, Ms. Gaudreau.

As to the criteria used to determine if information that you receive should be relayed to the Prime Minister, you stated that that was self-evident, which means that it is patently clear when the Prime Minister should be briefed.

For example, is it self-evident that information indicating that 11 ridings received indirect or direct funding from the Chinese consulate in Toronto should be conveyed to the Prime Minister?

[Katie Telford]

I will go back again, either to, as one of the other members of the opposition said, the Prime Minister's words or to the NSIA's words. In the NSIA's case, it was to this committee, or it was the Prime Minister's words in the House or publicly. The connection being drawn between those candidates and those funds is something that hadn't been briefed on and wasn't accurate in terms of how the reporting was. The reporting evolved over time as well, I would note.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

In any case, this information is important enough to be conveyed to the Prime Minister. Am I correct?

[Katie Telford]

Yes.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

A little earlier, you mentioned that you were always or nearly always present when the Prime Minister is briefed. Do you remember being present in this particular instance when the information was conveyed to him, whether by means of a document or an informal briefing meeting? Indeed, if it was in February 2020, it would have been an informal briefing, because there's no mention of it in the list of official briefings.

Do you remember being present when the Prime Minister was briefed?

[Katie Telford]

If we're talking about the information that I just talked about being inaccurate, then there wasn't such a meeting to be present at. As I said in my opening statement, although I am usually there when he's being briefed, there are times I'm not. When he's travelling and I'm not on that trip, and he's getting briefed directly, then I'm not getting briefed at the same time. Those would be some of the rare occasions when I would be getting briefed separately.

In terms of the specifics you're referencing, there's nothing more I think I can say on that.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

When you receive information and you consider that it is incorrect, it remains that the information has been received. Do you remember having received information that was deemed incorrect afterwards?

[Katie Telford]

No. I think some of that we learned through reporting, as I think both have said. Yes, then there were conversations to try to figure out what some of these things were. You can see that in some of the timeline here too.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

I believe that people speak a bit more quickly in French, just like in Punjabi. I know that you do not have a lot of speaking time, only two and a half minutes, which isn't much. I didn't want to interrupt and ask you to slow down.

This comment is for Ms. Gaudreau and the other committee members who use French. I do understand that sometimes this language requires you to use more words, so I will give you a little more speaking time. That said, I will ask you to speak a bit more slowly for the sake of the interpreters. Next time, you will have my support, agreed?

Thank you very much.

Madam Blaney, please go ahead for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you so much, Chair.

My question, again, returns to the lack of trust we see Canadians having for our institutions. It's really been shaken by these allegations.

Should the current rapporteur, David Johnston, recommend against moving forward with a public inquiry in May, do you think, Ms. Telford, that Canadians will accept that? Do you see any scenario where not moving forward with a public inquiry will help?

[Katie Telford]

I don't want to presume what the special rapporteur is going to recommend, and the government and the Prime Minister have committed to following through on the recommendations when they come forward. It's not very long from now.

I think we need to make sure that we follow through on that as expeditiously as possible so that we can all together, across all parties, build trust and continue to build trust in what is a troubling issue for everyone. We all should be working on this together.

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

I think you mentioned earlier in your testimony, through the chair, of course, a past example where there was a rapporteur set up and in place before an inquiry. I just want to be clear that in that case, the terms of the inquiry were the focus of the rapporteur, who looked at what those terms would be and how they would be followed.

Right now, the process in Canada is that we are giving a broad brush to a rapporteur to sort of tell us what to do next. It seems like that's the take of the government, instead of saying what is going to be transparent and clear for Canadians. We know that a lot of things have been said, it's become very partisan and there's a lot of distrust in our institutions, which concerns me greatly.

I understand that you were trying to say there have been rapporteurs before inquiries, but I think it's clear that we also know those rapporteurs were set up to create the spectrum of what the inquiry would look like. This is very different.

I'm going to go back to the original question. Do you think Canadians will stand for it? In the sense of the role that you play with the Prime Minister, is there any concern there that the voice of Canadians is not being heard and what they need isn't being delivered?

[Katie Telford]

First off, I agree with the concern. I think we should all be working to figure out paths forward that can be constructive and can be communicating as clearly to Canadians as possible that their institutions are strong and that they can have faith in their electoral systems. Yes, there is this threat we have been talking about for years, but that obviously has received some more attention of late. Being able to explain clearly and concisely what that is and how the systems work to combat it I think is extremely important.

I'm not sure my understanding of the history of the previous rapporteur is the same as yours, but we'll figure that out later.

Answering your final point, I think it's extremely important that we all figure out the answer to that. I don't know that we're disagreeing that much, other than I don't want to presume where the special rapporteur goes, whether it's to set up an inquiry or come up with some other way of assuring Canadians that all the bases are being covered here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Mr. Berthold, you have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Telford.

I have before me an article from The Globe and Mail dated February 17 about CSIS documents detailing a Chinese strategy to influence the Canadian election in 2021. Canadians were able to read this article. The Globe and Mail journalists saw the CSIS documents.

Did the Prime Minister see the CSIS documents mentioned in The Globe and Mail article?

[Katie Telford]

I can't, unfortunately, speak to the specifics of what the Prime Minister has or has not been briefed on in all of this.

As I said before, and taking a step back from the specifics of your question, the Prime Minister has been briefed regularly and gets information in a variety of different ways on what was happening around election interference in the last two elections.

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

Thank you. You've already said that.

Did you yourself see these documents?

[Katie Telford]

The answer would be the same for me.