Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 18th, 2023

[Daniel Jean]

Yes, there are mechanisms. In fact, when we decide to attribute, it means that we are declassifying some information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Mr. Fergus.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Jean, thank you for your wk on behalf of our country, and your key role in protecting the security of Canadians. I am very grateful to you as, no doubt, are all my colleagues on this committee.

After 2015, the government established the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, the NSICP and the NSIRA, to examine issues related to Canada's national security.

Would you say that these are the best forums for discussing foreign interference and government measures, given the sensitive nature of the situation? Could you tell us why?

[Daniel Jean]

Those people are in the best position not only because they have the required security clearances, but also because the act gives them access to information. The reports of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians also contain interesting recommendatio on matters of foreign interference.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Indeed.

In fact, this morning, the members of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security held an interesting discussion on this specific topic with the chair of the NSICP, who was appearing as a witness.

Mr. Jean, I'd like to ask you the same question I put to Mr. Wernick earlier. You didn't hear it because you were not yet in the room. I'm not asking you to reveal any national secrets, but simply to talk about the process.

The current government established a non-partisan group consisting of deputy ministers and experts, whose mandate was to look into major election incidents within the purview of the Cabinet Directive on the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol. The government also established the NSICP and the NSIRA.

If it was so essential in 2015 to introduce these tools, how come the need was not felt earlier? Why weren't these institutions created before the arrival of the current government? Had the context changed?

[Daniel Jean]

The context had indeed changed, and evolved. As I was saying earlier, it's not a black-and-white situation. It's not as if foreign interference suddenly appeared overnight, because it has been going on for a long time. The difference is that now, it is being practised more systematically and strategically to advance certain interests. Russia did in fact interfere in cyberspace. China did so by exerting influence or through proxies. Foreign interference has developed enormously in recent years. That's why it's important to fine-tune the tools and keep tweaking them.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

So these shortcomings were not obvious prior to 2015. It's a situation that evolved. That's why, by 2016, it had to be dealt with.

[Daniel Jean]

As I was saying earlier, in the past, Global Affairs Canada didn't publish a public notice on its site reminding Canadian diplomatic missions that they must not interfere in the host country's affairs. Previously, that was done, generally speaking. The notice published by the office of protocol in 2015 was very pointed. The Canadian public was not aware of that, so we were criticized for that. People wondered why the department did it. They thought it was not polite to foreign missions.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Would I be correct in saying that foreign interference is not something new and it has gone on for a long time?

[Daniel Jean]

Yes, it is not new. It has gone on for a long time. However, the practices and methods used have certainly evolved.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

You said it was necessary to adapt to this situation, which is evolving. I know you are now an ordinary person and you no longer have access to the documents or information you had access to in your work. As an informed and experienced member of the public, though, can you suggest any avenues you would like us to explore for adapting our institutions to what the future will bring?

I think you have answered that question, but I would like to offer you a chance to expand on your answer.

[Daniel Jean]

Yes, absolutely.

As I told you earlier, there obviously needs to be a strategy, that should include certain factors. I am going to talk about some of them. The foreign agent registry is one, but it is not a panacea in itself. It is very important that I point out that foreign interference is much broader than just the issue of elections. In fact, there may be interference in political parties between elections. We must not just focus on elections. There has to be a strategy and certain tools have to be honed.

For example, since the Commission of Inquiry into the Air India case, the legislative tools needed to get and protect information that is strong enough to be used as evidence, and thus to mount a fair defence concerning individuals against whom we want to lay charges, have still not been adopted. What we have at present is a crutch. So it has to be revised.

As Mr. Wernick said, cybersecurity agencies were strengthened considerably with the National Security Act, 2017, but there has been no revision of the act since it was written in 1984. During that time, we have seen a very extensive digital evolution, so there is a vast number of tools that need to be revised.

I was involved in writing the report done by the University of Ottawa last year...

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I'm sorry, Mr. Jean, but I have to interrupt you.

[Daniel Jean]

No problem.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Jean.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

It is always better to stop quickly after the beep indicating that speaking time is up. That way, I don't need to intervene.

Mr. Normandin, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Jean.

You said that foreign interference, particularly Chinese, was never all black or all white and lies on a continuum. You talked about violations of economic security, for example.

When you were there, from 2016 to 2018, were there cases of coercion against members of the Chinese diaspora in Canada, to your knowledge? Was that one of the problems you had already started to see?

[Daniel Jean]

Yes, it was one of the concerns we were looking into, in relation to both the Chinese and other diasporas.

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

So it was already a problem, and now we are talking about threats to the security of people who may be citizens with dual Canadian and Chinese nationality.

At the time, were you more engaged in analyzing the situation or had you already determined that we had to start taking measures to combat it? Where were you on that continuum?

[Daniel Jean]

At that point, we were more at the start of the continuum. We were starting to see more and more acts of this nature. I have to say that in the past, there had already been problems, involving certain countries like Iran and others, that were not necessarily made public, and measures had been taken. More recently, when we were in the early stages, we did try to combat it, but it wasn't easy.

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

I would like to know more about the recommendations you may have made to thePrime Minister about how to combat it. Did you get the impression that it was taken seriously? Were the information you gave and the recommendations you made well received, or were they still a bit naive when it came to China?

[Daniel Jean]

No, I don't think anyone was still naive from 2015 or thereabouts onward. We have to remember that in 2014, the Chinese carried out a cyber attack that was attributed to them. The information was declassified, that is, we publicly recognized that our experts said the cyber attack was attributable to China. So naivety when it comes to China had already started to wear thin, even if it may not have been said publicly. You will note that China was not named in the reports at the beginning, but started to be named as time went on. Increasingly, there were concerns.

On the subject of economic security, measures were taken. We need only look at the annual statistics to see that there has actually been a lot of progress made.

Regarding election issues, measures have been taken.

On the issue of the diaspora, that is probably the greatest challenge. However, when a Canadian is intimidated or surveilled by a foreign country in their own land, there is no doubt that the situation is unacceptable.

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

So that was a concern that was already known. You had that concern yourself. As well, recommendations in this regard were made. So why is it that in 2023, we are still waiting for a foreign agent registry to be set up, for example, even though it was requested in a motion passed by the House in November 2020, almost three years ago? In 2020, it had already been five years since this form of coercion against the Chinese diaspora had started to be known.

What explanation is there for the fact that the government has still not done the work?

[Daniel Jean]

I haven't been doing this job since 2018, so I certainly can't comment on that. All I can tell you is what I said earlier. It is important that we not focus only on the registry. We really have to determine where the gaps are and what measures should be taken, and that is exactly what Australia has done. Let's be clear: its problems were much more serious than Canada's, largely because of its proximity to China, which is its biggest market and represents major investments. In 2017, internally, the Australian government looked at what its biggest challenges were. It then secured public engagement and announced a whole series of measures. The registry was one such measure, but there were others.

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

In your opening statement, you said that up to a certain time, the issue of interference may not have caught the media's attention. However, things are different today. About 72% of Canadians are calling for a public inquiry.

We have talked about the role of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. However, we know that that committee has trouble getting certain information from the government. Its chair, David McGuinty, has said this himself.

Do these two factors not prove the need to create an independent public inquiry into election interference? For one thing, it would shore up public trust in our democratic institutions. For another, the person appointed as commissioner or chair of the commission would have more powers when it comes to obtaining documents.

Don't you think we have got to this point?