Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 18th, 2023

[Daniel Jean]

Personally, I would establish a strategy that would consist only of administrative measures, such as briefing the political parties and raising awareness about interference among the communities. No legislative process is necessary when measures like that are taken. Let's start with them.

Next, let's identify the legislative tools we need. We have discussed some of them today. Most of those items appear in the existing reports.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

A commission of inquiry would at least contribute to reassuring people, because it would be held in the open. Is that correct?

[Daniel Jean]

As I said earlier, I prefer not to get involved in that debate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Ms. Blaney, the floor is yours.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'll just comment that I agree that 1984 was a long time ago, and with the changes that we're seeing around the planet, we really need to update that piece of legislation.

One of the things that I do want to come back to is the fact that what foreign interference means as it comes out is that it has a huge impact on those people who are in our country already who may have been here for generations and who come from those ethnic backgrounds. I know that there's a long history in Canada of Chinese Canadians coming forward for a very long time, speaking about concerns that they have and really advocating at all levels to draw the attention of Canada to these concerns. It concerns me greatly that a lot of these communities are facing really profound discrimination.

I'm just wondering if you could speak about that reality and the work that you did do. How was that considered in terms of creating safety within our country as we're dealing with issues outside of our country?

[Daniel Jean]

First of all, I have to tell you that, personally, it's an issue that's very dear to my heart, because of my three children two of them have Asian partners and one of them is Chinese. I just had a new granddaughter who is half Chinese and half Caucasian.

We've tried, and I think that the agencies have made a good effort to try to reach out to the communities. The Public Safety department has contacts with these groups, the transparency advisory committee, the deputy of public safety. There's a lot of outreach to these communities to try to create the trust relationship so that they feel they can come to the agencies. That's very important, to report that.

There are actions that we cannot talk about in a forum like this that CSIS or other organizations will take at times to try to disrupt actions on things like intimidation of the diaspora, but to me, that's something that is very important. Given the constant dynamic changes of Canada, it's even more important.

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

Thank you for that.

I have five seconds, so I'll give that back to the table.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thanks a lot, Ms. Blaney.

Mr. Jean, will you pretend like I have a coupon and give me five extra minutes of your time tonight?

[Daniel Jean]

Of course.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

That would be excellent. Then I will not have to take some time away from Mr. Calkins.

We'll give five minutes to you, and then five minutes to Mr. Turnbull.

[Daniel Jean]

As Mr. Fergus knows, the only thing you're keeping me from is knowing whether our local team, which is right now ranked number one in Canada, the Gatineau Olympiques, are doing well, but....

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Far be it from me to interfere with the operations of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, but, Mr. Jean, I have a question for you. I know you can't speak to the specifics of the June 2017 memo, and I'm sure you know which memo I'm referring to, but can you help this committee understand how often it would be that the Prime Minister's chief of staff would personally ask you to prepare a memorandum for the Prime Minister?

[Daniel Jean]

First of all, during my term as NSIA, the staff of the Prime Minister's Office, including senior staff, regularly attended weekly sessions with the head of the intelligence assessment secretariat.

When they saw things that could be of interest, they certainly expressed an interest in having more information. That could happen in exchanges, or that could happen in the context of a briefing that I was giving, let's say, on China. I would say, “We are seeing more and more challenges in terms of foreign interference, would it be possible to get more information on that? But at the end of the day, you decide what information you are going to bring to the Prime Minister and what advice you're going to give the Prime Minister.”

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

If that's the case, then what you're telling this committee is that you pushed information to the Prime Minister's Office, and the only time they requested information was in follow-up to information that you pushed up the chain.

[Daniel Jean]

No, that's not what I said.

As I said, through the daily intelligence brief, through the regular general intelligence briefing that they would attend, sometimes they would say, “That is very interesting, would it be possible...?”

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Okay, so other than the daily intelligence brief, they wouldn't ask for follow-ups. There were no special requests other than that type of scenario. Is that correct?

[Daniel Jean]

I'm sure there are a number of files, not just this file, where we would have a conversation and they would say, “We think it's important that the Prime Minister is briefed on this,” and we would say, “Yes, sure.”

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Can you give us any indication of how often you were asked by anybody senior in the PMO to brief the PM on foreign interference?

[Daniel Jean]

To brief the PM alone...?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

To brief the Prime Minister on foreign interference.

[Daniel Jean]

I wouldn't recall. I wouldn't know.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Was foreign interference a frequent topic of discussion when you were briefing on national security, or was it an infrequent topic? How frequent was it, as a topic?

[Daniel Jean]

National security is a big business—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I understand.