Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 8th, 2023

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

Thank you so much.

I think my next question would be for Mr. Bédard.

I appreciate some of the questions you were answering earlier and the work you're doing around exploring what you might be able to do in terms of having top secret information. I think it was very helpful for me to hear that at this point this is not something you've done.

In the capacity of the work you do, how do you assess issues of national security? If you were provided a request to do something that would have you looking at that information—and I understand your assessment level is at that space—how would you assess your ability to do that, and the impacts it might have with other Five Eyes partners, for example?

[Michel Bédard]

In the work of the law clerk's office, if we are asked to redact documents, our marching orders will come from the committee. We'll look at what the committee has asked of us.

As I indicated, it is proposed that if there is any mandate to our office to redact national security information or top secret information, that would be provided with proposed redactions so that we could assess and have context and, I trust, a line of communication with the department or the provider of the document or the information.

In some cases if there is a tough call, I will err on the side of caution and inform the committee accordingly, but that is what we will do to ensure that we are not compromising national security.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Mr. Cooper, you have five minutes, followed by Ms. Sahota.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Janse, I want to follow up on an answer you provided to a question posed by Mr. Nater. It was in regard to the ability of this committee to compel Beijing's ambassador to Canada, in which you said that the jurisdiction of this committee to order the compelling of attendance is limited to that of Canada. What about in the case of the ambassador being present in Canada, as he is?

[Eric Janse]

That's a good question. I am actually going to turn it over to Michel to answer that one.

[Michel Bédard]

The power to send for persons and, as I referred to earlier in this meeting, the power to send for records, is constitutional in nature and has no limits for those who are expressly permitted by Parliament. There is no explicit limitation on that power to compel persons. That said, there are some authorities in other jurisdictions—in the U.K. and Australia—for whom, as I said, it is against their practices of Parliament to compel foreign diplomats.

There is no known case in Canada of a committee compelling the attendance of a diplomat. Even if this is allowed by parliamentary law, parliamentary procedure, I would suggest that the committee be careful, because there might be other considerations, public policy considerations, to take into consideration. It could be seen as a breach of international law even if that specific provision of international law has not been codified in the laws of Canada.

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

To the greatest degree you can, given it is a hypothetical situation and it hasn't happened before, how do you see this potentially playing out? You said the committee should be cautious. You cited international law, the Vienna Convention, for example. I will give you an opportunity to maybe elaborate on your thoughts, recognizing that you're not here to provide us necessarily with advice. Well, you are to some degree, as to the parameters of what we have the authority to do.

[Michel Bédard]

I referred to the fact that in more than 150 years of history in Canada there are no known cases, and there are some parliamentary authorities outside this country that recognize it's not within the power of Parliament. I also suggest there are serious policy considerations to take into consideration. This is my answer.

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

Okay. Thank you very much for that.

Mr. Bédard, I will continue with you. Through you, Madam Chair, in an answer that you had provided to a question, I believe, posed by Mr. Fergus, you said you haven't had any experience redacting classified documents. That would be because the government hasn't turned over to you any such documents to redact, such as in the case of the Winnipeg lab.

[Michel Bédard]

We did receive unredacted documents that were classified at a certain level that contained personal information, commercially sensitive information that we were tasked with redacting. And thank you for the opportunity to clarify my remarks. We did not receive any documents that included national security information.

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

That's right.

I'm not going to ask you to comment on what I'm about to say, but that was as a result of the fact that the government blocked the production of those documents, took the Speaker to court, shut down Parliament, and then the Prime Minister called an unnecessary election, illustrating the lengths to which this government will go to cover up. It also demonstrates the utter contempt this Prime Minister and this government have for parliamentary committees and for Parliament as a whole.

I would further add that what Mr. Bédard described as PCO undertaking proposed redactions of classified documents, and then having the opportunity to review that, erring, as he said, on the side of caution as to how he would approach things, is precisely the process we have put forward in the way of several motions that have come before this committee.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Ms. Sahota.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to go back to you, Mr. Bédard, regarding the said intelligence that you might be receiving.

We've heard from many witnesses here before that those who are experts in the intelligence community find that it takes them a lot of experience and a lot of time to differentiate between what type of intelligence is actually evidence or has more weight, or what the context of the intelligence might be. Raw intelligence is often incorrect or misleading and requires that specific context to properly be understood.

Does your Office of the Law Clerk have the necessary expertise? You've already testified here today that this would be the first time you would be doing this. I would take it that the expertise is not necessarily there. If it's not there at this time, how would you gain that expertise in time? How would you understand the context that's needed to ensure that the proper elements of those documents are redacted?

[Michel Bédard]

Thank you for the question.

Through you, Madam Chair, there are two parts to the question. The first is the capacity of the office. I heard you referring to the interpretation of intelligence and being able to draw conclusions. This is not part of our mandate. We do not have a capacity to develop it. This is a specific skill that is beyond the mandate of the Office of the Law Clerk.

Now, in order to make redactions to what information could be particularly sensitive, as I mentioned earlier, there are two means in particular:put those redactions, and also the ability to talk with the provider of the documents to assess the context of the proposed redactions.

I don't know if my colleague, the Sergeant-at-Arms, wants to add anything about the interpretation of intelligence.

[Patrick McDonell]

No.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

If my understanding is correct, in order to have the capacity, you would also have to co-operate and work with the provider, whether it's CSIS or another agency. They would have to walk you through what is sensitive in nature and what isn't.

[Michel Bédard]

That was the gist of the answer. That said, I haven't seen any documents. I haven't seen any proposed redactions and I haven't received any explanation about documents. At this stage, I'm not in a position to answer more. That would be speculation.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Hypothetically, let's say there was a huge document dump. That's what we would be expecting, right? We have seen already in reporting what has happened. There were aspects of intelligence out there; however, after having reviewed different versions of drafts, perhaps ones that were translated, were not translated properly, or draft versions that interpreted the intelligence one way and then final versions that interpreted the intelligence another way.... If you were to get all of these documents, how would you understand one version from another?

It sounded very complex to me when the Right Honourable Mr. Johnston was here explaining that there were different versions and even interpretations within the agencies themselves when it came to looking at those documents and what they should be conveying to parliamentarians and to average Canadians who will then be consuming the information that comes to committee.

[Michel Bédard]

Is the question how will I go about assessing multiple drafts?

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Yes.

[Michel Bédard]

Again, I'll have to refer to any proposed redactions from the provider and any conversation that I might have with them.

As I said, the mandate of the Office of the Law Clerk will not be to provide an interpretation or draw any conclusions. It will be to redact sensitive information. If there are various drafts of the same information or a variation of the same information is in all these drafts, we'll be consistent in our redaction, but we're not in the business of drawing conclusions. That will be for the committee to do.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

I understand and that's exactly my worry. It's that you won't be looking at that evidence and drawing any conclusions. However, if the evidence that needs to be redacted gets missed or is not redacted, we would then draw certain conclusions and Canadians would draw perhaps potentially incorrect, dangerous conclusions from the evidence.

I believe that is my time. There are so many more questions to ask other witnesses and [Inaudible—Editor].

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

There is.

Madam Gaudreau.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm learning quite a bit, and I want to learn more. Something that came up a lot in everything we've heard so far is that foreign interference is happening more and more and that it's important to be cautious about who has all the necessary expertise to receive material classified as secret.

We are talking a lot about national security and foreign interference.

I'd like you to talk more about that, because I'm not sure I fully understand something. We're being told that we have to be cautious when it comes to national security, but that foreign interference is on the rise.

Can you enlighten me on that? You have a solid minute to answer my question.

[Patrick McDonell]

I think the best organizations to provide information to our members of Parliament on national security would be the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. On foreign interference, it would be CSIS. Those are our best resources.

I think if I would try to do that here, I would be doing you and them an injustice.