Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 1st, 2023

[Jody Thomas]

I don't think I can speak about that in this open forum.

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

Illegal police stations.... The government has made a claim, as well.... We've already heard Mr. Cooper talk about the fact that the Prime Minister made a claim that we knew a day later was actually not true. It seemed like he made a statement that he was fully aware that information wasn't passed up and then was trying to lead Canadians to believe that he actually didn't know. He made a very specific statement about something, and then he said as his defence a day later, when it turned out to be false, that he didn't know.

We see the same pattern happening here with illegal police stations. The government has said that they have shut down. The Minister of Public Safety has appeared before this committee and actually said that the police stations have shut down. We learned almost immediately after that statement was made that there are two Beijing police stations still operating in Canada.

You're the national security adviser. How many of these police stations are still operating in Canada? Can you tell us? The government won't tell us.

[Jody Thomas]

There are continual investigations by the RCMP into the police stations. We are aware of two in Montreal, and work is being done to ensure that they cease to operate. Unfortunately, they're not police stations. They're often staffed and managed by Canadian citizens, and what we have to do is shut down their activities.

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

If they are conducting United Front operations, whether they're using Canadian citizens or not in their employment.... Are you saying that because of who they're using in their employment, they're not running a covert police station in Canada?

[Jody Thomas]

I'm saying that sometimes the individuals who are working these are unwitting, coerced or forced.

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

It that sometimes, or is that what's actually happening? I don't mean to interrupt you, but is that what is actually happening, Ms. Thomas?

[Jody Thomas]

Every situation is different. There is no one pattern.

The tools used by the RCMP to shut down the police stations, reduce their impact and reduce their credibility are different in every situation and every scenario. There would be value in our ability to arrest people for them, and those investigations are under way by the RCMP.

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

Early in your presentation, you made a statement about—and we can refer to the document that the public safety minister has made—where there's been a change in directive. The directive has been issued now that parliamentarians are to be made aware if there is any foreign influence intelligence that they should be advised of. However, you didn't say anything at all about political parties and the infiltration of political parties. I don't see the directive from the government on that at all. Is there going to be, or am I unaware of, a directive whereby political parties will be informed of any infiltration into either their nomination processes or their financing mechanisms?

[Jody Thomas]

In terms of their financing mechanisms, I think that belongs with Elections Canada as opposed to the national security adviser and the security committee.

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

Elections Canada would get that intelligence from you—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I'm sorry. The time has—

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

—would it not, Ms. Thomas?

[Jody Thomas]

It has to be actionable, so that something can be done.

The nomination process is a distinct problem that has to be examined, and I think we will have to have some significant conversations with the parties. What we have done as a first step is stand up the site process to analyze the by-elections, which is a new measure that we put in place to keep by-elections safe.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Mr. Fergus.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Thomas, for being present here today and for your service as the security intelligence adviser and previously as deputy minister of national defence.

From your testimony today, as well as from previous testimony, we've heard that everyone would agree that when information is brought in and when intelligence is brought in that is partial, sometimes it doesn't tell the whole story, and it can actually be wrong. It's laden with caveats and cautions and the like. How does one paint a complete picture to assess the information that is arriving in, admittedly, a piecemeal fashion?

[Jody Thomas]

That's a really important question.

CSIS and CSE, as I said, have significant holdings, not all of which, by a long shot, are released to officials like me. What they do is that over time, using the techniques they need to keep highly secure to protect both the methodology and sometimes individuals, they continue to collect. Often the action taken out of a single piece of intelligence is to continue to collect.

Within CSIS, they have a process where they analyze what they're going to release and what they're going to continue to investigate and just hold. I think it's fair to say that they try to release things that are pertinent to the geopolitics of the period in time, or relevant to other investigations and other concerns by government, but it is an art rather than a science.

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

I'm a bit of a public policy nerd. Going forward now, you're going to be informing the minister responsible for public security and the Prime Minister if any intelligence comes up that relates to a member of Parliament—or senator, I would imagine. That information, by its very nature, is going to be partial or incomplete.

When you come to me and say, “Greg, here's some information that we've collected,” I'm going to have a lot of questions. I'm wondering if you're going to provide the same caveats that you would normally provide to the member of Parliament, to say, “We've heard this, but we want you to understand that this is based on one piece of information, or perhaps two pieces of information, which we can't confirm, can't assess and don't have a complete portrait of.” Is that the kind of briefing members of Parliament and senators will receive?

[Jody Thomas]

Yes, that's a really critical element that needs to be discussed. By being more transparent, you can raise the level of anxiety, but I hope we normalize the kinds of briefings that we have with members of Parliament, whether they are caucus briefings, briefings to all parliamentarians or just individual briefings on intelligence that has been gathered. We rely on parliamentarians to keep that information protected so that investigations can continue.

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

That's a big demand. As we've seen since these partial bits of information have made their way into the media, some people have taken that as the gospel truth.

[Jody Thomas]

There is absolutely a risk to transparency. There is a greater risk to not talking about foreign interference.

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

Going on another angle on this, can you identify some of the systemic barriers that prevent a fluid exchange of intelligence between agencies and actors? What checks and balances are going to be necessary going forward? How can we better streamline the intelligence-gathering and intelligence-sharing on a go-forward basis?

[Jody Thomas]

In terms of intelligence-gathering, I think it's important to have the agencies who collect speak to that, rather than have my observations on collection. The work that is done is difficult. It's highly technical. People put themselves at risk, and it's really important to the security of Canada that they be able to continue to do that job.

In terms of the analysis and the advice that is given based on what's been collected so that Canada's national security is protected, individuals are protected and investigations can continue, I think some of the processes we've laid out will be useful and will in fact help close some of the gaps we've seen.

We're not going to rest on that. I'm going to contract with some security experts to come in and look at our process and give us advice on how we can make it even better. I'm certainly working with my colleagues in the Five Eyes to help us improve our process, based on their experiences.

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

Thank you, Ms. Thomas.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Ms. Thomas, we're entering into our second hour. Are you good to go? The rest of us are able to at least get up in between our rounds.

You're okay. That's perfect. If you need anything, we'll get it to you after the second hour.

We'll enter back into a six-minute round. That's best, I think, so that people can maximize their time here.

We will start with Mr. Cooper, followed by Mrs. Sahota, Madame Gaudreau and Madam Blaney.

Mr. Cooper, you have six minutes through the chair.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ms. Thomas—through you, Madam Chair—correct me if anything I'm saying is inaccurate. As I understand it, the July 20, 2021 memo from CSIS that indicated MPs were being targeted by a Beijing diplomat—one of those MPs being Michael Chong—went to you, as the deputy minister of national defence at the time. It was a “read only” for you. In other words, no other official in your department was authorized to read that memo, but you were on vacation.

Is that correct?