Procedure and House Affairs Committee on May 18th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Next is Madame Gaudreau.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This is an interesting discussion.

One question just occurred to me: how is it that we are lagging behind others, electronically and technologically, when it comes to getting as many people as possible to vote in elections and do their duty?

[Stéphane Perrault]

That's a good and important question.

That's not unusual when it comes to nationwide elections in a G7 country. We have to be careful when introducing new technologies. We'll often first look at what's happening at the municipal level, and then at the provincial level. When the level of confidence in a new technology is high, as is the case with electronic lists, and we feel it can be deployed federally and that it will be useful, we tend to do it.

We work in collaboration with our provincial counterparts. It's not necessarily a bad thing that the federal government isn't among the first to embrace technological innovation. It's just that certain security issues don't arise in the same way in a national election in a G7 country as in a municipal or provincial election.

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

I'm making a connection with what we heard earlier about possibly extending the voting period by up to three days. As I understand it, the pilot project for electronic lists will allow an individual to vote even if he or she is outside the riding. How could this be beneficial, given that it would be quite a challenge to get the material and human resources needed to hold the election over three days? The aim is to encourage as many people as possible to use their right to vote.

[Stéphane Perrault]

I want to clarify something. Electronic lists would allow voters to vote anywhere in his or her constituency, because the ballot paper is specific to the constituency. The electronic list is not the same as electronic voting; it's simply a way of managing the voters' list in the constituency.

If someone wants to vote outside of their electoral district, that's possible right now. To do so, they must go to a returning office and vote by special ballot.

As for the issue of the three-day period, if we want to give people more time to vote, they can do advance voting. In every election, we see a significant number of voters who vote in advance instead of voting on the official day of the election.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Ms. Blaney.

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

Thank you.

I don't think you got to answer my question fully about the elderly population and what the transition plan is. As we know, the population is smaller in the younger groups. How do we get a turnout for these things?

There's another aspect of the question that I'm interested in. Accessibility to voting matters a lot to me. I'm curious about any plans that you have, or currently implement, to attract people who work on both the elections side and the volunteer side who speak multiple languages just to provide information for people. I think that is definitely one of the challenges for newcomers or new citizens to Canada who may have okay English or French but may really need information provided in their first language to best understand.

I'm wondering if there are any recruitment strategies around that.

[Stéphane Perrault]

There are two aspects to that, Madam Chair.

First, we have changing demographics. We are by law allowed to recruit 16-year-olds. You don't have to be an 18-year-old to work at a polling station. Increasingly, as I was trying to begin to explain, I think technology will reduce the pressure on the workforce. We can better serve electors with a smaller workforce. It's critical for us, quite apart from the idea of voting anywhere, to have an efficient voting process. That requires an electronic list solution. I'm a firm believer that it's a necessary aspect of dealing with the shifting population.

I should say that in terms of the ability of our workers to use the electronic devices, these are simple devices. As I said, they are used without issues at the provincial level and below. These are the same workers, and they've become accustomed to it.

In terms of recruiting people with linguistic diversity, one of the key aspects here is that we are recruiting locally. The makeup of our worker population is the same makeup as the local population in the district. We don't hire broadly outside the district. In a way, it's built into the system. But when we do outreach—for example, through our Inspire Democracy program—we have a module on working on elections.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you so much.

On behalf of PROC committee members, I really do want to thank you for your time here today, and for all the important work that you do.

Should something come into your minds later on that you wish you had shared or want to share, please just send it to the clerk. We'll have it translated into both official languages and shared around.

With that, we wish you a good rest of the day. You're always welcome back.

I know, Mr. Perrault, we'll for sure see you again, but the invitation is always open to everyone.

Thank you so much. Keep well and safe.

For the purpose of committee members, this has brought us to the end of the estimates. We're going to do quick votes on estimates before we suspend to do sound checks for the next panel.

Is there consent to group the votes on the main estimates 2023-24 for the purpose of voting?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Excellent.

HOUSE OF COMMONS

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$423,319,199

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

LEADERS' DEBATE COMMISSION

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$3,363,347

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF ELECTORAL OFFICER

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$49,722,365

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

PARLIAMENTARY PROTECTIVE SERVICES

Vote 1—Program expenditures..........$91,983,908

(Vote 1 agreed to on division)

Shall I report the Main Estimates back to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[An hon. member]

On division.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Excellent.

We will suspend really quickly and start the next panel, we hope, at noon sharp.

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I call the meeting back to order.

Welcome, everyone.

The committee is now meeting to study foreign election interference. In our next panel, we have Madame Tausha Michaud and Mr. Walied Soliman.

You will each have up to five minutes for your opening statement, after which we will proceed to questions by committee members.

Welcome, Ms. Michaud. You have the floor.

[Tausha Michaud, Senior Vice-President, McMillan Vantage, As an Individual]

Thank you.

Madam Chair and members of the committee, my name is Tausha Michaud. I'm a senior vice-president at McMillan Vantage, one of Canada's premier public affairs and communications consultancies.

I have loyally served the Conservative Party and Conservative movement within Canada as a volunteer and senior staff member in government and opposition. Most notably, I had the honour of serving as chief of staff to the former leader of the official opposition, the Honourable Erin O'Toole.

I served in this role from 2020 until 2022. I describe it as an honour because it truly was. Erin O'Toole has been a mentor and a dear friend for 15 years. My passion and commitment to the Conservative movement very much grew because of his influence, which has instilled in me a profound respect for public service and our country's institutions.

During the 2021 campaign period, I also had the privilege of acting as a senior adviser to the leader. At the request of Mr. O'Toole and campaign manager Fred DeLorey, I was appointed as a backup representative to Conservative Party campaign chair Walied Soliman on Canada's security and intelligence threats to elections task force. My campaign role had me on the road with the leader, and the expectation was that I would attend meetings in situations where Mr. Soliman was unable to participate. At the direction of Mr. O'Toole, I was always to conduct myself with his guiding principle: Do the right thing in the interests of the nation first.

Given the sensitive nature of the subject and the security clearance that was required for my role on the task force committee, I am obliged to maintain the confidentiality of certain aspects of this matter. I stand ready to provide all necessary insights within the bounds of what is permissible.

While we grapple with the implications of foreign interference, we must remember that our strength as a country lies in our unity, our resolve and our shared commitment to democratic principles. I firmly believe that together we can rise to the challenge and ensure that citizens feel confident that our security establishment and parliamentarians are taking the necessary next steps to future-proof against real or perceived foreign interference in our elections.

There are a couple of points I would like to share on the record. I do not believe that foreign interference changed the outcome of the 2021 election campaign, although I do feel strongly that several volunteers and some candidates were subject to inappropriate tactics and intimidation. While the elections task force was well intentioned and set up in a manner that suggested it would be operating in a robust, information-sharing fashion, it ultimately left me with the impression of ambivalence, lack of coordination and authority and a complete failure to share relevant intelligence or provide meaningful advice.

My hope is that elected officials and our security establishment will refocus their efforts on implementing concrete, meaningful policy to ensure that legislative changes are implemented ahead of the next federal election.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Through you, I'm happy to take any questions and respond to the best of my abilities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Ms. Michaud.

Mr. Soliman, welcome. You have the floor.

[Walied Soliman, Chair, Norton Rose Fulbright Canada LLP, As an Individual]

Good afternoon, Madam Chair.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear and participate in the important work of this committee. I apologize that I was unable to attend at the previously proposed times, but hope that my testimony will be useful to you today.

I serve as the Canadian chairman of one of Canada's leading and largest law firms. I've been involved on and off as a volunteer for the federal and provincial Conservative parties, and municipally for a variety of candidates, for my entire adult life.

While principally, I have been a Conservative, I have donated to both Liberal and NDP candidates whom I have come to know and who I thought would make great representatives.

I have known the Honourable Erin O'Toole my entire adult life. He is an honourable family man, military man, lawyer and politician. I was thrilled when he decided to run for leader of the Conservative Party. While his campaign seemed like a long shot when he first got started, my family and I enthusiastically threw our full support behind him.

Canada needs as many Erin O'Tooles as possible in each of our political parties. He has just the right amount of partisanship coupled with the pragmatism needed to run this complex nation.

In 2021, Erin asked me to be the campaign co-chair for the upcoming federal election. The campaign co-chair role in our party was really a “fill the gaps and take on certain higher profile problems to solve” role. The campaign was run by a first-class team, including Fred DeLorey, whom you've heard from, Tausha Michaud, Dan Robertson and many others.

The common thread of this team was a drive to win, but ethically and with the best interests of the nation as best as we can interpret that in each of our actions. The tone was set by Erin. As Tausha put it, do the right thing in the interest of the nation first.

In mid-2021, I was appointed by Erin to be our party representative to Canada's security and intelligence threats to elections task force. Mr. O'Toole took the task force's mission very seriously. Mr. O'Toole wanted to ensure that we played our role in ensuring the integrity of the process.

The security clearance process was very extensive. I'd never been through such a comprehensive process. The task force met in heavily- secured buildings in Ottawa, where your phone and iPad were left at the door. Often, we were not permitted to leave with presentations or, sometimes, even take notes. Initially, I was very proud of our security establishment and the level of care it seemed to be taking.

Unfortunately, I can now confirm the following.

One, in several in-person meetings with briefings from multiple security stakeholders, not once were we made aware that there was any threat posed to the integrity of the 2019 election—not once.

Two, in fact, we were told very generically that there is interest in our elections from many global actors, but that there was, in fact, no evidence to suggest that there was anything for any of us in any of the political parties to worry about in 2021. We now know, unfortunately, that this was not entirely accurate.

I specifically raised two issues with senior members of the task force.

One, how are we to know, as political parties—all of us—if there is a fundraiser or candidate risk within our own party?

Two, it seemed that we were getting initial reports of issues in multiple ridings for the Conservatives, and we wondered if they had identified any risks associated with the 2021 election.

On both those questions, I increasingly felt that we were not taken seriously. After the election, and before the new government was sworn in, we spent more time providing everything we had to the task force and appropriate security channels. We were met with more shrugged shoulders, and I felt indifference. In our final call with the task force, I told them that I felt our security establishment had failed the process.

Political parties cannot formulate public policy under the threat that they are going to possibly lose ridings based on foreign influence because of, at least, a perception of a weak security infrastructure.

Here are my inputs for this committee.

One, as Tausha said, I don't know how many ridings were affected and whether or not the outcome of the election or Erin's leadership would have been any different.

Two, I did not believe that there was an appreciation in our security establishment for the chilling effect on public policy in all political parties that foreign interference may cause.

Three, I did not believe that our security establishment felt that it had the legislative tools to engage more transparently and constructively with senior members of political parties to foster confidence that the integrity of the system was, in fact, intact.

Overall I urge you all to leave partisanship out of this. It's too important. What's happened to Michael Chong should never happen again. No one on any side of the aisle should shrug their shoulders at this. Michael is quite brave and will continue to voice his perspective. I'm confident of that. Many might not.

The 2021 election is over—I'll be 10 seconds more, Madam Chair—but let's figure out what went wrong, how we can make our security establishment understand the chilling effect of the threat of foreign interference on public policy and let's make sure they have the legislative tools to work constructively with political parties.

I'll be happy to take your questions, keeping in mind, of course, that I can't share certain specifics regarding information exchanged with the SITE task force, as all members have confidentiality requirements.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you so much.

I appreciate you have Zoom on gallery view, because then we can actually communicate with each other. As much as people believe that I like interrupting, I don't.

Madame Michaud only took two minutes and 42 seconds, so those 47 seconds you got are a gift from her. Send her a thank you.

With that, we're going to go into the six-minute round, starting with Mr. Cooper, followed by Mr. Turnbull, Madame Gaudreau and then Madam Blaney.

As a reminder, if we just keep comments through the chair, it provides interpretation services with a moment to switch from one person to the other.

Mr. Cooper, the floor is yours. Thank you.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Soliman and Ms. Michaud, for appearing.

I'll direct my questions to Mr. Soliman, although if Ms. Michaud has something to add, she's welcome to chime in.

Mr. Soliman, you indicated that you had been providing the task force with pieces of information you had been gathering from various campaigns of interference activities or potential interference activities by the Beijing regime. As I understand your testimony, there appears to have been no follow-up by the SITE task force.

Can you elaborate on when you began to inform the task force, how frequently you were informing the task force and, more specifically, what response you received?

[Walied Soliman]

Thank you.

First off, I did not say it was by the Beijing regime. Our role, as political actors, working with our security establishment, is to provide information and for them to make conclusions on those sorts of things.

Information was provided as it arose during the election to a small degree, and the larger amount of information that was gathered and put together was after the election and before the government was sworn in.

In terms of the reaction, I would say that in my two recommendations for things for this committee to look at, I truly did not believe there was an actual appreciation of the chilling effect that a perception, let alone an actual fact, of a lack of adequate protection from our security establishment would have on public policy. I really felt that was not understood. I think a big lesson from this, and I hope something our security establishment takes from it, is actually a greater appreciation for that.

Not everybody is brave as Michael. There are many who would be a lot more hesitant or less amplified.

Secondly, particularly when we talked about whether there was something in our political party that we needed to be aware of, and by what standard they'd communicate with us, I felt they did not have the legislative tools to engage with us in a manner that was necessary, in my view, to ensure that the process was adequate.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

How early in the process were you bringing forward concerns to the task force about potential interference activities?

[Walied Soliman]

I would say it was probably midway to three-quarters of the way through the election, and then definitely after the election.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Were these reports of interference that you were aware of principally in the greater Vancouver and greater Toronto areas?

[Walied Soliman]

They were, to the best of my recollection.