Evidence of meeting #65 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.
Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister
The names of all the field workers?
Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister
If it's the will of the committee, we will do it.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Thank you very much.
Going back to the September 28, 2019, briefing, when was the Prime Minister made aware of that briefing and the contents of that briefing?
Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister
I will answer part of that. I'll also turn to Mr. Ishmael to give his involvement in it, as I think he might provide some additional information, as well.
Upon receiving the briefing, Mr. Ishmael informed me as national campaign director. I had the requisite security clearance from my previous job, which continued despite the leave of absence I had taken. We had confirmed that before the campaign. That's why we did not use one of the slots provided to the party for that.
Upon hearing that, we decided it would be right to inform the Prime Minister of the content of the briefing that we had received. We needed to ensure that was done safely and securely, a difficult task sometimes during a campaign, as the leader of the party would be on the road.
As it happened, he was going to be in Ottawa the next day, so I briefed him in a safe manner on the 29th.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Thank you for that.
Why was the nomination of the candidate for Don Valley North not involved?
Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister
Again, Madam Chair, I'm not in a position to confirm what the content of the briefing we received from the national security officials was. I can say there was no actionable item there. The security agencies were not seeking any kind of guidance or direction from the Prime Minister at that time. It was an information briefing.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Was there any discussion about the status of the candidacy of the now sitting member of Parliament for Don Valley North?
Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister
With the national—
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Just to be clear, I'm not asking you to reveal the contents of that briefing. I am asking you whether, on the 29th or thereabouts, there were discussions between you and the Prime Minister about the status of the candidacy of the current member for Don Valley North.
Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister
Again, given that we are not going to be discussing the content of the briefing at that time, I am not going to be able to provide information about the conversation that the Prime Minister and I had.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Who was the campaign manager for the candidate for Don Valley North? If you don't know offhand, could you undertake to provide the name of that individual?
Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister
I actually don't know the name. I do not know.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Okay.
Likewise—because I presume you don't know the answer—who was the chair of that candidate's nomination campaign?
Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister
I do not know. If it's the will of the committee, we will get that information.
Conservative
Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister
If it's the will of the committee, I will.
Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister
I think there is a process for requesting information.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
I am asking you. I would ask that you undertake that. I don't see why that would be problematic.
Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, Office of the Prime Minister
I think it's just meant to go through the process.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Yes, when I ask you to make an undertaking, you give an undertaking, or not.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
I think what happens is that you go back and forth a couple of times. We then hear the beeping. Mr. Nater was in the chair and we only had to hear it once, so I think we can offer me the same courtesy.
With that, we will continue.
Madame Romanado, you have six minutes.
Liberal
Sherry Romanado Liberal Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Through you I'd like to welcome the two witnesses with us today.
Thank you, gentlemen, for joining us.
I have a few questions and I want to start my first question with Mr. Ishmael.
We know that cleared representatives of the Liberal Party of Canada received multiple briefings on foreign interference during both the 2019 and the 2021 elections. We received a report from PCO outlining which parties received briefings on which dates and so on.
I understand you can't reveal the details of those briefings, but I'd like to get a sense from you as to whether they were helpful in the information that was provided. Do you have any recommendations on how we can improve some of those briefings?
We also heard a little bit about some of the tools in the tool kit that is provided to election workers, candidates and so on. Could you elaborate a little bit on some training you would recommend, that this committee could perhaps suggest for candidates during campaigns, and also volunteers?
National Director, Liberal Party of Canada
Yes, absolutely.
We did attend a number of briefings over the course of the years. As a general matter, they were helpful to get that information. Particularly as national director of the party, I don't work for Parliament. I am not an employee of the Government of Canada. I am responsible for operating the Liberal Party of Canada, and so being brought into that sphere and made aware of some of the things to be watchful for, things that we could share with candidates coming in.... About that time the conversation was happening, I believe it was CSEC that put out a manual on cybersecurity and how to make candidates cyber-aware, which they published.
We did take the highlights of that information and shared it broadly with our campaigns to ensure that cybersecurity was everybody's responsibility, as much as it was that of the Liberals or Conservatives or NDP. The integrity of our system is primordial to the functioning of the system.
With regard to improvements that could be made to the process, I would say oftentimes they happen just prior to an election. So in a period that's already quite busy, you are forced to carve out additional time. Of course, these are important meetings and this is important information to be shared, but it would be a lot easier if this were an ongoing commitment to political parties so that there was a constant conversation. Oftentimes you are brought into the loop and, frankly, when you're not well versed in the language used by security agencies, sometimes there is a bit of feeling out.... Every job has its own dialogue, its own vernacular that goes with it, so it can be a little bit difficult to discover it, but I was fortunate enough to twice be the person cleared, so I had a bit of a better grip of it in 2021.