Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 18th, 2023

[Walied Soliman]

First off, I apologize that my French isn't fluent enough to respond fully in French, although I am taking French courses.

Thank you for that. I think your question was referencing the information that we would have given during the election, versus information after the election.

I want everybody to reflect on the fog of an election period, and candidates coming out during that period saying, “Hey, we think there's a problem.” Most campaign teams during an election period would react by saying, “Look, just go back to campaigning. We're not going to have our leader stand up and say there is a conspiracy happening, especially when the SITE task force has not said there was anything wrong in 2019. There is nothing for us to be concerned about right now.”

That is why, Madam, most of the information that we provided happened after the election, when the fog of the election was over and we fully put together the information. We tried to package it as respectfully and responsibly as possible and put it forward for analysis.

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

Thank you.

I'm well aware of your good faith and recognize your expertise, Mr. Soliman. You said we didn't have the legislative tools. If we did, what do you think we should do first thing, right away?

[Walied Soliman]

Again, I think your question is, what legislative changes I'm speaking of as a lawyer. Is that correct?

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

That's correct.

[Walied Soliman]

Thank you.

My impression is that maybe, responsibly, our security establishment, when asked the question, “How can you constructively engage with us as a political party to identify if there is a fundraiser or a candidate that's a problem?”, the response back would be that there has to be a very high level of certainty that there is a problem before our security establishment will defame an individual.

I respect that. That is the standard at law, but I wonder if you as legislators should be exploring if there is a lower standard in these specific circumstances. I'm confident that, after going through all the security clearances and things that we had gone through, if we were told that it's better for us to at least be watchful around this fundraiser or around this candidate, I think that we as a political party—and I'm confident, all the political parties—would be far more responsive.

The bigger issue, Madame, though, is the attitudinal issue. It is that we, as participants in the political process, understand that we are in the vote-getting and fundraising business. I'm not sure that our security establishment fully appreciated that. That was my impression. That was my fear. In their view, it was, “It's not really altering the election. Is it that big of a deal? Maybe somebody's amplifying some statements". The answer is, of course it is, because Michael Chong is a brave man. Not everybody is. I don't want our legislators to have to be brave in order to succeed. They can succeed. They should succeed by putting forward what they think is the best legislative policy.

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

Thank you. It goes a long way to explaining why you spoke out and claimed on Twitter that threats to our democracy specifically had never been raised, and that your concerns and worries had never been taken seriously. You also said that, when you tried to inform people on the task force about this issue, they only shrugged their shoulders.

As I understand it, you were speechless when you saw that none of this was being taken seriously.

What corrective action should we take for the next election? I'd like to hear more from you.

[Walied Soliman]

I really appreciate such a constructive question.

I think there are two things. I think that, as a committee and as a government, we need to be educating and reaffirming to our security establishment the importance of ensuring not just that there isn't political interference, but that there isn't even a perception of political interference. That's number one.

Number two is that there should be active, constructive engagement with the leadership of the various campaigns, especially after all of the security clearances, having to leave your iPad and phone and not taking notes, which was kind of like out of a movie. There should be that constructive engagement and a dialogue wherein we understand where there could be problems, whether it's interference or whether it's within our own political parties, so that we can foster greater confidence.

I would love nothing more than to hear from future campaign chairs that they were able to solve problems with our security establishment and that they were able to ensure that the system works great.

Gosh, Madam Chair is going to hate me by the end of this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

That's a strong word. I would never. I appreciate this communication, even through a hybrid format. I think you're demonstrating that technology is good, and we can communicate without communicating.

[Walied Soliman]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Madam Blaney, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair,

Thank you very much to the witnesses. We're here today to talk about this really scary and very serious issue. I appreciate your taking the time.

I'm going to ask a question of both of you. Both of you talked about not feeling heard or not feeling that it was taken seriously. I'm wondering if you could expand on that a small amount.

The next part of that question is, once you've outlined some of the things, specifically, what are some of the things you were expecting to happen in the task force that might have been more helpful to you? How would you have liked to receive that information?

[Walied Soliman]

Tausha, why don't you go ahead and start, please.

[Tausha Michaud]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again as a reminder, I was the backup operative. Our campaign was in very capable hands with Mr. Soliman. I think it was a situation where we've gone through this really robust security process and the assumption is that you can have a frank conversation about what's happening—even if some of it is just anecdotal in the beginning—and receive some guidance on how to respond in what is the most political of times during a campaign period. I think where my frustration stems from is just that when we presented information, we really were just getting shrugged shoulders and, yes, we understand that you're frustrated, we understand that you're upset, please move on. I think that's unacceptable.

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

So you would like something that was actually like, “We're seeing this, what do we do next, how do we respond to this and what is the best thing to do?"

Mr. Soliman.

[Walied Soliman]

Thank you, Ms. Blaney.

My expectation going in was that there would be real engagement in a constructive dialogue where the experts were going to be informing us of threats against our party and threats within our party and that we would constructively engage and work with them on finding solutions that work within the law. I thought, Ms. Blaney, that with the seniority of the individuals whom each of the leaders appointed and with the security clearance and confidentialities that we had signed, that would be what we would get. I could tell you quite honestly, I went into it with such excitement, and it's not what we got. It's not what we got. I think that it should be a lot better.

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

I think it's interesting what you're speaking of, because you mentioned, Mr. Soliman, in your introduction the need to have legislative tools. We know, especially with the example of Mr. Chong, that one of the challenges is legislative, that while the process in place right now allows for discussions to happen to the minister, the minister then basically gets to decide what happens after that.

When it comes to election time, I'm just wondering what outcomes of legislative tools do you think would be important moving forward. The other part of the question is about after the election is over, because I really hear what you're saying that when you're in the heat of an election, it's like you you have to respond as quickly as possible and move on because you're just doing exactly what you said, getting votes, raising money, connecting with the public. What would you recommend happen after the election to have that discussion about what worked, what didn't work and how can we move forward, because I think that can potentially be something that is also a legislative tool?

[Walied Soliman]

I think the key item from a legislative perspective that your committee needs to reflect on is what is the standard of suspicion, the standard of doubt, the standard of evidence that the security establishment should feel comfortable engaging with political parties on? I think right now that standard, whether it is legislative or in practice—I'm not sure, as I'm not a security expert—is too high. I think that at the very least, if you are cynical, you'd say that's the excuse. If you were generous, you would say that's the reason. We should take that off the table as legislators, I think.

But more importantly, Ms. Blaney, I hope that all of us as political parties could really help our security establishment appreciate the chilling effect this type of thing could have.

In terms of what happens afterwards, there's actually a very short period of time where SITE is still up and running and engages with political parties until the new government is put in place. It doesn't go on forever.

I saw some reports about SITE playing a role right now, and maybe that's new and a fantastic thing if it is the case. But it really is in place until the caretaker government has done its work.

Maybe there's something that's ongoing, Ms. Blaney, year-round where there are senior people from the political parties who are engaging with our security establishment. I would think and I'd hope that all leaders would have mature folks sitting around that table really working hand-in-hand to get the right outcomes. Maybe that's an approach to consider.

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

I think that is an important approach to look at, especially when we recognize that the rapidly changing reality of foreign interference is moving at such a pace that having people who are in those key roles both during and between elections would really allow for a conducive moving forward with elections.

Thank you.

[Walied Soliman]

Thank you, Madam.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Mr. Calkins, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Before I get started, I just want to thank our witnesses for being here.

Thank you, Ms. Michaud, for your public service.

Mr. Soliman, thank you for your exclusively volunteer public service up to this point.

I think I already know, but I just want to get it on the record, Mr. Soliman.

Morris Rosenberg, in his “Report on the assessment of the 2021 Critical Election Incident Public Protocol”, states on page 39, regarding briefings to political parties by the SITE task force representatives, that, “The party representatives were pleased with the thoroughness of the briefings and the openness of the NSA representatives”.

Was that your experience?

[Walied Soliman]

I read that, and I certainly don't recall saying that. Now, I'll say this: I certainly would not have said that after the last call we had with the SITE task force, where we expressed significant disappointment. There may have been a point when we were pleased with a meeting or something. Mr. Rosenberg is a senior and respected individual, but that was not my experience.

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

The cabinet directive on the critical election incident protocol provides that, with respect to interference activities, “Barring any overriding national security/public security reasons, the agencies will inform the affected party”. Do you feel that happened?

[Walied Soliman]

Again, my single biggest frustration is that I think we would have prosecuted and reviewed matters relating to the 2021 election differently had we at least known that there were possibly some problems with 2019, and, unfortunately, we weren't even told that. As we all know now, that was not accurate.

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

Do you believe that we would not know any better today had somebody not released information into the public realm?