Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 9th, 2023

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

You also talked about the thresholds for notifying the public. It's obvious that questions were raised and that things could have been done. You said at the outset that the thresholds were inadequate.

We are trying to get an overall understanding of the situation and figure of what needs to be done to detect any interference attempts going forward.

Do you think the thresholds were adequate to help in your case or even allow for a response to the foreign interference activity you faced?

[Kenny Chiu]

First of all, I have no confidence that the established mechanism would effectively detect and therefore provide me with sufficient warning ahead of the attacks.

Understand that these attacks are, a lot of times, using the foreign languages of Mandarin and Chinese. They're in written and verbal language, videos, and opportunities provided only to one particular candidate against the other. I don't know if the SITE task force is equipped to deal with that.

Secondly, even if I was warned, what am I going to do? How would I be able to counter this? What tools in the tool set am I, as a candidate in an election, provided with so that I can effectively combat this?

The CEIPP report mentioned notifying Canadians—with a very high threshold. The notification to Canadians, I would imagine, even if that high threshold was met, would probably be in English and French. None of these people who are subject to foreign interference would be listening to or receiving the message.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Ms. Blaney.

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

Thank you, Chair.

As always, all of my questions go through the chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Salvo, I would like to come to you first.

I'm very curious. You talked about the partnership between you, Microsoft and the Government of Canada, if I have that correct. I'm just wondering how that works. Could you tell us a bit about how people are educated about it?

One thing that we're hearing, of course, is that people don't know where to go to find relevant information. As a member of Parliament who represents a more rural and remote riding, I see more and more across Canada that local papers are falling by the wayside and not having the resources to continue their important work to provide journalism that can be held to a certain standard. People are going more and more online, which may or may not give them the best information.

I'm just wondering how we are educating people about this resource.

[David Salvo]

Thank you, ma'am. It's a great question.

What's difficult, especially as a representative of civil society, is that our resources are extremely limited to do exactly the type of engagement that's necessary to make sure that these best practices get in the hands of the right people. By “the right people”, I mean election officials all over the country, local journalists who are in a position to educate their specific communities, mayors, and people who are really on the ground in their communities.

This is an extremely dense and difficult set of issues. We're talking about election administration procedure. My organization works on these issues and I wouldn't even stick my hand up and say I'm an expert in every single aspect of election administration. To expect the ordinary citizen, who doesn't spend time understanding these things.... It's difficult. The same is true for under-resourced election officials as well, all over the country.

It's really a challenge that government in particular.... The federal level has to provide the resources for organizations, not just like mine, but also for state and local officials themselves, and for provincial officials in Canada to be able to work with community leaders on the ground to get this information out.

Look at the constituents in Mr. Chiu's riding, for example. They never would have been aware of state-sponsored disinformation tactics targeting a particular campaign or what they could do to inoculate themselves against such tactics. That information is very hard to come by.

This is why we created this initiative in the first place. It's incumbent on civil society and governments in particular. It's a resource exchange, but it's also an information exchange. The information gaps are all over in this field. The average voter is essentially a sitting duck for a lot of these tactics. That's why we tried to put together some sort of handbook that addresses both election administration and resilience. How do you provide Canadian voters with more information about these tactics? What defences can they adopt, so that when they go to the polls they are voting freely and fairly according to their conscience, without any sort of undue influence from foreign state-sponsored actors?

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

Thank you for that.

I appreciate that you mentioned earlier some of the realities—for example, on the convoy that we had here in Ottawa. We know there was foreign money: There was Russian money sent to support that convoy. It's quite shocking when you read the information that came out of the public inquiry, when you understand how quickly money was moving in ways that we couldn't necessarily track.

Of course, that means there's foreign money that's influencing us, either during the election or around an election, which is very concerning.

I think you said this well: This is an issue that is rapidly changing. How things are being done is changing, so we have to have processes that are responsive to that. I'm wondering if you could talk about the influence of that kind of money. What are the ways that we can track...? What are the ways that we can look into the future and think, “Here's how we're going to monitor that so that we make sure those dollars aren't influencing Canadians”?

[David Salvo]

Absolutely, and part of the problem is that we, as democracies, allow the fox into the henhouse. With a lot of our financial legislation, when the money comes in from China or Russia and is connected to state-sponsored actors or to the governments directly, oftentimes it's legal. It's through legal means. It's through shell companies and real estate and others.

That's because in Canada and the United States, at least today, to my knowledge there's no registry, not only for foreign agents.... Well, we have one in the United States, but it's poorly implemented. Canada to date does not have one. Also, a beneficial ownership registry would at least unmask who the hidden owners are behind companies and behind property. That's how a lot of this autocratic authoritarian money enters into Canadian politics, American politics and European politics.

That's what's so insidious and long term about the use of the financial tools to corrode our democracies. It's not always about a particular election, a particular candidate or a particular riding. It's way more insidious than that. It's about moving money into our system, masking the origin of that money and presenting it as authentic Canadian voices trying to influence Canadian politics when there's a clear tie to an authoritarian regime like China or Russia.

Tightening up laws in the financial space...and this is applicable to my country too. I'm not trying to cast stones at Canada here. It's a problem facing a lot.... In the EU, there are many governments facing this exact problem. Ensuring that there's full transparency over the money that's coming into our country through property and in companies is a sure way to expose and provide sunlight onto the origins of money entering domestic politics from abroad.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

We'll now enter our second round, starting with Mr. Nater, who will be followed by Ms. O'Connell.

Mr. Nater, you have five minutes.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and, through you, thank you to our witnesses.

I want to start by quoting from the study that Mr. Turnbull quoted from earlier. It says this:

We cannot preclude the possibility, however, that there was some influence at the riding level. Moreover, the mere perception that China was able to influence the race in Steveston—Richmond East may have a chilling effect on criticism of China in Canadian politics.

Moreover, if Mr. Turnbull had read the explanatory notes, he would have read that the survey data was from 689 Chinese Canadians from across the country and was not specific to Mr. Chiu's former riding. I would commend to the committee the possibility of reading the entire report.

For you, Mr. Chui, looking at intimidation efforts that may have happened in your riding and in other ridings where there are large diasporas of Canadians of Chinese descent, what impacts do these types of efforts have on individuals and their families here in Canada, and also on those who may have families in China, Hong Kong and other areas?

[Kenny Chiu]

It's something that even I, personally, do not feel completely comfortable with—sharing my own personal experience and thoughts, knowing that the PROC committee meeting here is public and is viewable by anybody with an Internet link. Therefore, I will just recount my observations during the election time.

There were seniors groups that Alice Wong and I, both Richmond MPs, organized to meet up with during the election time, because we sensed that we had seen some of these attacks happening to us. We thought we would be able to sit down with the seniors groups to clear their minds of some of the misunderstandings. We spent about two or three hours with a group of a dozen and a half. These were leaders in the seniors groups and were mainly mainland Chinese.

At the end of it, they cried. They had been worried about their kids—their children and their grandchildren—being discriminated against by Kenny Chiu and the Conservatives and their policies, and we cleared the air. We told them none of that was true. They were reassured. They all left happy. Some of them even carried some of the snacks that we provided.

In only 24 or 48 hours, I can't remember, I started to see the same group of seniors show up at my opponent's campaign office and cheer for that person. They had no idea who he was, were not able to communicate with him and also did not support him. I know that for a fact from many of the policies my opponent's party has espoused.

To me, that was a huge flip. One of the leaders in the seniors groups had gone incommunicado. He did not answer my calls. He would not answer my phone calls, my text messages, or anything. He just completely detached from me.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Following up on that, we've heard that there were no public disclosures by the CEIPP, the critical election incident public protocol, or the task force during the election campaign. Do you think that threshold is too high to trigger a public disclosure?

[Kenny Chiu]

I'm sorry. In order to answer your question, I would have to be able to access the CEIPP report following the mentioning of my name and Steveston—Richmond East, but several bullets have been redacted. There's no way for me to understand what they know and, therefore, to provide a true answer to your question, sir.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chiu.

Following up on that, do you believe it would be important, if voters in even one riding were being impacted by organized foreign interference efforts by a foreign entity, that those people in that riding be notified? Ought there to be public disclosure if even one riding is being impacted by a coordinated campaign of foreign interference?

[Kenny Chiu]

I don't think the nation should be immediately informed, but definitely the candidates in that riding, even the benefactors, should be informed about the presence of the detection. They should also be offered, at the same time, some effective countermeasures that could be employed.

Yes, I believe the threshold should be set, at least hypothetically, to when there is foreign interference detected in a particular riding, that riding's involved candidate should be informed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Ms. O'Connell.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Chair, through you to Mr. Chiu, you mentioned in your Australian committee testimony, and mentioned here today as well, examples that your supporters had sent to you of disinformation on WeChat and on WhatsApp. Can you provide the committee with copies of that? Do you have any evidence that it was directly organized by a foreign agent?

[Kenny Chiu]

Ma'am, first of all, it's been almost a year and a half since the last election. Computers change hands, and I had, for example, stored some of the information on a parliamentary cellphone, which has been returned. Even with that, much of the information provided to me was from my supporters, so I don't want to present to you the sense that this information is comprehensive. Besides, when CSIS sat down and met with me, I had already printed every one of them, per their instructions—

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

That's perfect. I'm sorry. I have limited time.

[Kenny Chiu]

—and handed them to CSIS.

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

If you don't have the information but you provided it to CSIS, so CSIS.... What we heard at this committee was that there was no question that there were lots of messages being spread; there was disinformation in a text, but there wasn't the connection that actually made it that it wasn't just Canadians that were unhappy with you or the Conservative Party. For foreign interference to take place, it has to be a coordinated effort led by a foreign entity. If all the information you had was presented to CSIS or other members of the national security community...they actually said that they couldn't determine that it wasn't just Canadians who were upset.

On that point, I would just like to point out that you, Mr. Kenny Chiu, Kerry Diotte, Tamara Jansen, Bob Saroya and Alice Wong all lost the 2021 election. Do you know what the members also have in common? Voting against banning conversion therapy.

In your riding in particular, the progressive NDP vote actually went up 4%. It's my understanding that you had two very public resignations from two of your youth council members over the fact that you voted against banning conversion therapy.

How much of this decision impacted your election loss, when a number of your other colleagues who also lost also had very public negative reactions about your votes on banning conversion therapy?

[Kenny Chiu]

I know that you have been trying to character assassinate me from that front, but I'm sure, ma'am, you would be able to access information that I voted for the conversion therapy ban when it was tabled. Only after the Liberal Party of Canada, at committee, amended the bill so much that I do not believe it strikes the balance between protecting Canadians' rights...and preventing conversion therapy from happening, did I decide to vote against it.

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

That's right, so you voted—

[Kenny Chiu]

Therefore, it's a different form of disinformation that you're trying to spread here, ma'am.

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

Mr. Chiu, you can't just refer to everything as disinformation that you don't agree with. In fact, you voted against the bill, and there was a very public resignation by members within your community.

Through the chair, I would also like to ask you this, Mr. Chiu. In 2015 you also lost the federal election. Was that as a result of foreign interference?

[Kenny Chiu]

If you look at the information that I've presented, I think it would be wise for the government to conduct a public independent inquiry on foreign interference in the 2021 election, because it—