You—
Evidence of meeting #80 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 johnston.
A video is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #80 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 johnston.
A video is available from Parliament.
12:10 p.m.
Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, As an Individual
—to ensure that there is a much better protocol—
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
I'm sorry, Mr. Johnston. I want to be respectful—
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
I'm going to pause.
Right here, on this beautiful sheet in front of me, is exactly how much time everyone gets and exactly how much time you've actually received. You'll notice that when there is a nice exchange of one person speaking at a time and the beep goes off, I let the conversation continue.
I've proven myself to you, Mr. Cooper. In the last round, you had six minutes, and you were given seven minutes and 12 seconds. Do you know why? It was a good exchange and we were getting good information.
Once again, let's just take turns back and forth. You can rest assured—all members can—that any time that should be given to you will be given to you.
Mr. Cooper, the floor is again yours.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Mr. Johnston, at page 27 of your report, you say very specifically that “an issues management note” was sent to the minister in May 2021 concerning Michael Chong, but that “Neither the Minister nor his chief of staff received [that]”, because they did not have access to what you refer to as the “Top Secret Network email”. At committee last Thursday, Minister Blair said it wasn't an issue of access. In fact, he said, “First of all, there is no email”.
Is Mr. Blair not being forthright in his testimony, or is there a material fact or facts that you got wrong in your report? I'm trying to understand, on the one hand, what Mr. Blair said, versus what you say, which I can't reconcile.
12:15 p.m.
Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, As an Individual
Madam Chair, the question was what Mr. Blair received. Our understanding, from Mr. Blair's testimony to us, is that he did not receive the memo indicating that that warning was there.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, As an Individual
My understanding is that it had his name or office on it but he did not receive it.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
That was sent through an email, a top secret email system. That's what your report says.
12:15 p.m.
Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, As an Individual
Madam Chair, the understanding I have is that, very clearly, email or whatever, he did not receive it. That was the testimony he gave to us. That, for us, seemed to be a very substantial flaw in how information is crystallized and finds its way into the hands of recipients who have the accountability to act on it.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
It's impossible to understand how Mr. Blair could say there just wasn't such an account, but you say there is.
Moving on to the member for Don Valley North, at page 24 of your report, you say, “I did not find evidence that Mr. Dong was aware of the irregularities or the PRC Consulate’s potential involvement in his nomination”. Did you find any evidence or intelligence that Mr. Dong was unaware of the Beijing consulate's involvement in the irregularities that happened at his nomination campaign, at the nomination meeting?
12:15 p.m.
Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, As an Individual
Again, I'm trying to be careful in dealing with what's open information and what's classified information.
With respect to the nomination meeting, there clearly were strange practices, unusual practices, going on. We did not conclude from that that it was directly laid in the hands of the People's Republic of China. There clearly was discussion between Mr. Dong and the consulate in Toronto, but that's the extent, to my understanding.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Well, I asked you a specific question, and that was whether you had any information that he was unaware.
I want to ask you very simply, why did you not bother to interview Mr. Dong?
12:15 p.m.
Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, As an Individual
I think we interviewed the people who had information about this particular matter. Mr. Dong at that time, I think, was proceeding with his own lawsuit. We felt that this was something he should get on with.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
When answering a question that was previously asked, at the end, Mr. Johnston, you stated that you had worked with Ms. Block previously. Can you elaborate on what that previous work was?
12:20 p.m.
Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, As an Individual
In about 2007-08, Prime Minister Harper invited me to review allegations of the involvement of Mr. Karlheinz Schreiber with former prime minister Mulroney, who had stepped down from office, and to strike the terms of reference for an inquiry into that particular matter. Ms. Block reached out to assist as senior counsel. She and a team from the Torys law firm did so and were eminently helpful and capable in that.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
I guess her work was good during that interaction, since you decided to retain her services again this time.
12:20 p.m.
Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, As an Individual
When I asked her to assist in that respect, she was referred to me as the pre-eminent counsel in the country to do that kind of work, and that proved to be the case.
June 6th, 2023 / 12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Thank you.
Through this process, Mr. Johnston, you've been given thousands of documents. You said that you had only so many weeks and that you had ample evidence that was provided to you, including intelligence. You interviewed officials, ministers, the Prime Minister, and members of the security and intelligence community. You then looked at unverified allegations that have been either floating around in the media or made by politicians. Then you took a look at the substance, the material that you were provided, to come to conclusions.
I want to walk you through some of the conclusions and ask for a little bit of elaboration, an explanation, as to why you came to those conclusions.
On the allegation that the PRC gave $250,000 to 11 political candidates for the 2019 election—that was the allegation in the Global News report of November 7, 2022—you stated in your report:
No recommendations were made to any Minister or the Prime Minister about this allegation, and therefore no recommendations were ignored.
Can you expand on how you came to this conclusion?
12:20 p.m.
Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, As an Individual
We set that out on page 21. We just finish by saying:
NSIA Thomas and the Prime Minister's Chief of Staff both testified to PROC that there was no evidence of money flowing to federal candidates.
I asked the Prime Minister and other Ministers if they or their staff knew anything about money being transferred to federal candidates in the 2019 Election. They indicated that they had not heard anything about this until the media reporting. The Prime Minister pointed out that he is not briefed on matters that are not supported by reliable intelligence. No recommendations were made to any Minister or the Prime Minister about this allegation, and therefore no recommendations were ignored.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Then, on the allegations that there was a network of 11 federal election candidates and operatives, at least some of whom were “witting affiliates of the Chinese Communist Party”—this is what Global News reported on November 7, 2022—you stated in your report:
My conclusion is that there was no evidence presented to any Minister or the Prime Minister that any of the 11 candidates or any group of candidates were working together as part of a network. No recommendation about a network of candidates was made as no network was known to exist. No recommendation was ignored.
Can you expand on this conclusion? How did you arrive at this?
12:20 p.m.
Independent Special Rapporteur on Foreign Interference, As an Individual
That was based on both open and classified information, first of all. What we say a little bit earlier on page 22 is this:
The PRC has leveraged proxy agents and has tried to influence numerous Liberal and Conservative candidates in subtle ways. There is no basis to conclude that the 11 candidates were or are working in concert (i.e., as a “network”) or understood the proxies' intentions. Some of the candidates are well-integrated with Chinese Canadian community organizations. There is nothing inherently suspicious about this, as it is common for political candidates to rely on community support.
In a nutshell, I guess, based on what we received, we could not see the evidence of an integrated network working as alleged to have occurred.