Procedure and House Affairs Committee on June 13th, 2023

[David Vigneault]

The member is raising a critical lesson that has been learned, and we do strive to have a very diverse group of people who will be doing the engagement. When it's not possible, given the fact that we are engaging with lots of very diverse groups, we put a premium on people who will understand how to work with these communities and engage in long-term relationships.

We have met with a number of these groups. We try to be careful with what we say publicly, because we do not want these groups to be thinking that we are just doing this for PR reasons, but we also do not want the people who are interfering with their activities to put a target on their backs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

We will go to Mr. Cooper, followed by Mrs. Sahota.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Vigneault, David Johnston repeatedly claimed in his report that with regard to foreign interference in the 2021 election, “misinformation could not be traced to a state-sponsored source.”

This is in stark contrast to what Mr. O'Toole informed the House, namely that CSIS briefed him that his party, several members of his caucus and Mr. O'Toole were targets of misinformation and voter suppression orchestrated by Beijing before and during the 2021 election.

How can Mr. Johnston's conclusions be reconciled with what CSIS informed Mr. O'Toole?

[David Vigneault]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be trying to straddle the line on the classified information here.

The ministerial directive is quite clear that CSIS is to share all information that it has at its disposal, as it was with the case in question.

I mentioned earlier that sometimes we have information that needs to be corroborated, that needs to be vetted under rigorous practice. Without going into very specific details, I can say that there was some information that was shared in that briefing that may have been in that category, but it was important to respect the directive that all information be shared.

I think, in his testimony, the independent special rapporteur also mentioned that there may be other information that he would need to look at. The focus of the work was clearly on the 2019 and 2021 elections, but that doesn't mean it's to look at all of the intelligence available through CSIS or other agencies. This is one of these situations we're faced with now, the words of the MP in the House versus what was shared by CSIS versus what was provided by the rapporteur.

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

Thank you for that.

Now, there's quite a gap, quite a contrast, really, between what Mr. Johnston concluded, that he couldn't find evidence that the interference was state-sponsored, and what Mr. O'Toole was told by CSIS, which was that Beijing orchestrated a campaign that included misinformation, using, among other things, state social media accounts. That was also contained in a rapid-response mechanism report that, frankly, Mr. Johnston should have seen and couldn't explain how he hadn't seen when he concluded, as he did, that he couldn't find evidence that the interference was tied to the Beijing regime.

Mr. Johnston, as you also alluded to, stated in answer that he based his conclusions on the intelligence that he had. Are you suggesting that Mr. Johnston wasn't provided all relevant evidence and intelligence, or do you know?

[David Vigneault]

What is clear is that the focus of the work was on the integrity of the election in 2019 and 2021. I think that the work and the report clearly focus on that.

The discrepancy that the member points out is a very valid point. As I mentioned, the information that was shared under the ministerial directive was to be all information. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's information that we would have assessed as something with the right level of certainty about the action. That information was shared despite that. It's not necessarily information that had been previously put into intelligence reports, because it was still being developed. We still needed to confirm some of that information.

I totally understand the confusion that exists here. I think this is something that, with access to all of it, will be available.

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

Thank you for that.

You are quite right. It pertained to Mr. Johnston's report, and the subject of his investigation was specifically the 2019 and 2021 elections. The information that was shared with Mr. O'Toole pertains directly to the 2021 election.

Mr. Johnston already had his report in translation by the time he saw fit to interview Mr. O'Toole. Then he basically failed to address it and came, evidently, to completely erroneous conclusions.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

That was more of a comment than a question. Is there nothing to add? Okay, I just wanted to confirm.

Madam Sahota, you have the floor.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think we can take it from there.

I still don't think we're being completely clear. I think there's a misunderstanding here that's happening at committee. You just said that, just because there is intelligence—in going back to the issue of the briefing that was given to Mr. O'Toole.... If CSIS believes that the source or origin of misinformation or an orchestrated campaign—whatever you would like to call it—believes that it may be linked to a foreign state actor, does that make it so?

Is that evidence that it is absolutely linked to that foreign state actor, or could there still be a possibility that the actor may be here in Canada and spreading that misinformation or orchestrating a campaign? It's to have clarity on that point.

[Cherie Henderson]

That's a very important question to dissect a bit.

When we collect any piece of intelligence, we are trying to build a picture, so every piece of intelligence is assessed on its own merit. In some cases, we will have a very solid source that we receive that information from, and in some cases we may not. We try to corroborate that information in order to build a better picture. Every piece of intelligence goes into understanding what the actual situation is, but sometimes you are still trying to build the picture, and you don't have a lot of really strong.... Our threshold in the service is to suspect that there's a threat, which allows us to investigate, so it could even be that we suspect this could be what's happening but we don't yet have that clarification to believe it.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

That's very helpful.

In this instance, when it comes to Mr. O'Toole's briefing, did you suspect, or did you know? What was he briefed on?

We know what he understood, and then I think this is exactly why.... For all of us, it is educational as to how these briefings should be provided and how it should be explained to members of Parliament why you believe certain intel to be so; or maybe it's an absolute evidence that, ah ha, we have backup to prove that this is where it's coming from. Based on the testimony that we've received from Mr. Chong, the briefings that were given to him were at a very high level. There wasn't a clear understanding or a clear picture of what was explained to him in some of the briefings he had received before the news reports came out.

In the case of Mr. O'Toole, we know what he believes, but did CSIS inform him that it believed that was the origin of the information, or was he informed that you had evidence, solid evidence that this was where it was coming from? Therefore, could David Johnston's conclusion, in your opinion, still be correct?

[David Vigneault]

I'll provide a couple of comments on this.

First, maybe just to correct the record, it has been mentioned in the media and other venues that the briefing to Mr. O'Toole was provided by me personally. That's not accurate. It doesn't make a big difference, but just to correct the record, it was provided by very senior CSIS officials.

That said, the very specific details of what was shared with Mr. O'Toole, unfortunately are classified, so I cannot provide the member with that level of specificity. However, what I think is clear, as I mentioned earlier, is that we provided all of the information we had, and that includes information that, as my colleague Ms. Henderson mentioned, may still be need to be fully validated. That is why these discussions about intelligence matters sometimes require a lot of very specific discussions and details. Those nuances are very critical so as not to create confusion, some of which, unfortunately, we do have at the moment.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

All of that evidence pertaining to this briefing, then, and the evidence that led you—or whoever briefed Mr. O'Toole on the information that was gathered—to believe...was all given to Mr. David Johnston.

[David Vigneault]

Madam Chair, as I mentioned earlier, a lot of information was shared with the special rapporteur. However, the focus of his review was not to look at each and every specific instance of members, so some of that information would not have been part of the specific work of Mr. Johnston.

As I said, if information has not been fully validated by CSIS, we would be very careful about sharing it, since someone may draw conclusions based on information that we have not validated yet. I think that explains a bit the situation that we're in now and some of the confusion that exists in the public domain.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

That was very helpful, so it was not validated. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

We are entering our fourth round.

Go ahead, Mr. Berthold.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Vigneault, we're going to address a really interesting topic, your organization's estimates. In 2020‑2021, CSIS's budget was $676 million.

Is that correct?

[David Vigneault]

I'll have to take the member's word on that, but that seems to be about the right figure.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

The main estimates showed additional amounts to combat foreign interference. The figure is $648 million for the 2022‑2023 fiscal year.

Is that correct?

[David Vigneault]

No, I don't think so.

How much did you say?

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I said $648 million.

[David Vigneault]

That's the total service budget, not the foreign interference budget.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

I said that budget included additional stated amounts.

[David Vigneault]

All right.

Yes, that seems right, in that case

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

So that represents more than $20 million less than in 2020‑2021.

Is that correct?