Evidence of meeting #81 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 intelligence.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
You would, as the national security adviser, have been on that list. Would you have been privy to who else was on the list?
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
I can't remember off the top of my head.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
No, but you would have been privy to it. I'm not asking you to recall names. I'm just asking if you would have been privy to it.
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
I would have been privy to it. At the bottom of the document on the second page, third page, there's a long list of who it was circulated to. I recall that, but I can't tell you who was on it.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
You testified earlier that every minister can set things up differently in how they receive information through the process we have, but we also have a document tracking system, so I'm assuming that everybody was at least consistent with document tracking. There's a flexibility permitted in how intelligence is shared as long as it's able to be tracked by the tracking system. Is that right?
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
I'm simply telling you how the document is shared with the minister. I can't tell you how it's done in different ministers' offices at the end of the day.
The documentation is circulated. You would have to ask CSIS, especially in this specific context, how they circulated this document and whether it was just sent electronically or put in a package and sent to the minister. I don't know; I simply don't know.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
It would have been reasonable that the Prime Minister's chief of staff would have probably been included in the distribution list.
Was there ever a circumstance while you were the national security adviser where you wanted access? Did you have direct access to the Prime Minister, or did you need to go through people in order to get there? Were you ever denied a meeting with the Prime Minister that you requested?
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
I was never denied a meeting. I dealt regularly with the chief of staff, and if I needed to see the PM, I got to see the PM. It was sometimes difficult getting on his agenda, because he's an incredibly busy man, and don't forget this was during the pandemic, but if there was an urgent matter, the chief of staff would take my call.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Red Deer—Lacombe, AB
You were quite assertive in your opening remarks. I appreciate the candour and the frankness, and I believe you do have a lot to share. Would you like the opportunity? We only have a few minutes here in this committee today. It sounds like you have a lot to say. Would you like to be able to say that at a public inquiry?
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
Are you asking me whether I believe there should be a public inquiry?
Conservative
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
I would relish the opportunity to speak at a public inquiry if there were one. I would relish the opportunity to speak to public consultations if those happened under the auspices of Mr. Johnston. I would be happy to be consulted as part of a government review of national security policy, foreign policy and any other policy relating to security. That would be wonderful, but I have to say that my views are pretty well covered in that document from last year. I would strongly encourage all of you who have a chance to read it to do so and also to read the CIGI report, because, going back to the previous question, there's a lot in those two reports, and I think you will be quite amazed when you read them how they played out a lot of the recommendations in both the convoy and foreign interference.
A lot of my views are already on the public record, but I would be happy to re-engage and get into the details.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Thank you.
I appreciate the shout-out to CIGI. It happens to be based in the riding of Waterloo, so keep up the good work.
I would just say—and I should have said this after Ms. Blaney—that next week's notices for Tuesday have both been published, and David Vigneault will be appearing on Tuesday.
Ms. Sahota, five minutes go to you.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Rigby, I want to get your thoughts on how this has all transpired, how it has come about and the leaks that went to the media as a result. Some are saying that this is whistle-blowing.
I personally believe that some good may eventually come out of this, because we're trying to correct the gaps that may exist, but what is your belief? What are your thoughts regarding the leaks that have taken place, the responsibility of the media and basically what has transpired here? Do you think this is good for our national security?
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
In terms of the leaks, categorically and unequivocally it's wrong. It's against the law. It undermines our national security in terms of potentially exposing to hostile state actors where our strengths and weaknesses are. It potentially exposes human sources to retribution. It literally puts lives at risk. This is not the way to go about this.
I know there are a lot of people out there saying the whistle-blower is a Canadian hero—not in my books. Not a Canadian hero and not a whistle-blower: There's been no explicit wrongdoing in terms of laws of being broken, malfeasance or anything like that. You can certainly be upset that the government did not respond in certain ways to some intelligence, if that's the way you feel, but if you start having public servants releasing—illegally—highly, highly classified intelligence, then you are trending in the direction of chaos.
In addition to undermining all of our national security interests and so on, it sets a bad examples for others who are then going to start leaking documents. Every time somebody is a little bit upset that they're not being listened to and they feel that...“I'm going to go directly to the Canadian public.” You're going to have everybody in every department going, “Oh, well, look at all the exposure we got on foreign interference, so why don't I try that?”
That's not the way a parliamentary democracy works. The government—ministers—are accountable to the public. Public servants report to the government. There was an excellent article in The Globe and Mail a while ago by Jim Mitchell and a former clerk of the Privy Council to this effect in terms of how our system works. This is not the way it works.
Did some good come of it? Well, as I said earlier, if people had read those two reports.... Honestly, I'm not going on about these reports because my name is on the cover. I just think they're pretty solid reports. If people had read those reports, they would have realized that there's a lot happening here and we could have started to try to fix the system that is broken.
But for people to do this, it's categorically wrong, in my view.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Rigby.
You mentioned reading the reports, and also parliamentarians. Specifically, leaders of different parties have been offered the opportunity to also view the evidence and intelligence that helped David Johnston to arrive at his report and other things amongst it.
Do you think that would be a good idea for policy-makers, for our active legislators, whoever is afforded that opportunity, in order to be able to make good decisions moving forward or to continue either to criticize or to hold our government to account? Do you think they should be viewing those documents?
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
It's an idea that was explored a bit when I was NSIA in terms of providing security clearances to those outside the public service or outside the political system, not just to members of the opposition, to leaders of the opposition, but also even to the private sector. We'd often brief the private sector—CSIS, for example—and research institutions on threats. They'd say, “You're not giving us enough detail.” We toyed with this idea. We didn't go anywhere with it at the end of the day—not yet.
I think we need to share information more broadly. I think we need to move outside of the pure executive and share as necessary. Not necessarily every single piece of intelligence needs to go to the leader of the opposition, but certainly in some cases it would be useful.
In my own personal opinion, speaking as a private citizen, I think that if I were the leader of the opposition and I had a chance to take a look at the intelligence that right now was being offered to me, I would take that opportunity, because I think it's in the interest of Canada's national security for the leader of the opposition to understand that intel and what it says—but that's me.
Liberal
Ruby Sahota Liberal Brampton North, ON
Thank you, Mr. Rigby.
There's another thing I wanted you to comment on. The Right Honourable David Johnston, in his first report, talked about communication gaps. In your position as a national security adviser before, do you have any comments or recommendations for us as to how those can be corrected?
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
Communication gaps in what context?
Liberal
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
Well, as I said, if it's about sharing information, I've mentioned a number of things that we could possibly do, I think. A stronger centre.... I think that we need to look very closely at the role of the NSIA. We recommend in our report that basically—it's my own personal view as well—someone should come in and take a look at the role of the NSIA.
It's been around now, that position, for about 20 years. It's been performed in different ways by different NSIAs. It's ebbed and flowed in terms of the strength, the capacity, behind the NSIA. The job jar shrinks, expands.... I think it needs to be strengthened. I honestly think it needs to be strengthened, so I'd start there, and we can talk off-line about some other ideas that I have.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bardish Chagger
Thank you. You can also always provide them to committee. We'll have them translated into both official languages and shared with all members. Any insights are always welcome.
You will have the floor for 2 minutes and 50 seconds, Ms. Gaudreau.
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I only have two questions to ask.
First, we see you have a great deal of information to offer. You talked about your retirement, but you remain quite active and are entirely willing to share all you know.
Is there an explanation for your retirement or resignation? You've only been there for 18 months.
Visiting Professor, Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill University, As an Individual
I came up to 30 years, so I was at full retirement. It was a very difficult decision to retire. A number of people said I was just hitting my stride and it looked as though I was finally making sense of this job, and I should stay on a little bit longer. I wanted to stay on a little bit longer, but I also wanted to leave the job still on my feet and have my health and so on and so forth, so it was time for me. But there was a part of me—and I hope you'll see that from the passion that I bring today—that did want to stay on and try to improve the system a little bit more.
I know there have been some very interesting questions around this committee table about the duration of the NSIAs and that, in the last four or five years, you've had quite a turnover. I know there's been quite a turnover and there have been some suggestions by former clerks that maybe there should be a five-year term. I think that's something worth exploring. I share the concern that NSIAs are coming through so quickly, often at the end of their career, and often as they are retiring, so I think that's something that does need to be looked at.
Bloc
Marie-Hélène Gaudreau Bloc Laurentides—Labelle, QC
So, it was a choice you made. That was what I wanted to be sure of.
Mr. Johnston met you during the process of tabling his report, didn't he?