Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 17th, 2023

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

Mr. MacDonald, that was perfect, because I've actually suggested that intelligence is very much like puzzle pieces. You might have one puzzle piece, but unless you are able to put those parts together and see the big picture.... Also, does that puzzle piece belong in that puzzle? Sometimes intelligence is very isolated, and it may not be valid.

I think what you've explained to us is very helpful, and I want to thank you for coming in and answering questions. Thank you for the service that you have provided and that you continue to provide us.

Thank you again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

We now go to Ms. Gaudreau for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

This may surprise my fellow members, but I'd like to hear Mr. MacDonald's take on something Vincent Rigby, who's appeared before the committee before, said. It's from a Globe and Mail article. I'll even read it in English:

“The July 2021 report and the targeting of Mr. Chong and other individual MPs—

Not bad, eh? I'd like to see you do the same in French.

—was produced and distributed after my departure. But—

This is the important part:

—I am not surprised this intelligence was not raised to the political level,” he said. “This is where the system is particularly weak.”

I'd like you to comment on our weak system.

[Mike MacDonald]

Thank you for your question.

Madam Chair, I think one of the important things when we look at intelligence—and I partly referenced this in my last response—is that it is but one picture. You need to ensure that what you may be providing to more senior decision-makers is never taken out of context, and that it is put into proper context.

There may be extraneous factors around that information or intelligence that the intelligence community does not yet know and may find out months or years from now in the future. The seriousness of the threats to national security in and of themselves dictate that extreme due diligence. At the same time, it's a balance.

It's a balance between the facts and possible actions.

At times those are judgment calls that are made around taking action versus continuing to monitor, assess and advise.

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

I'm glad to hear the witness say that, Madam Chair, because he referred to judgment.

I'm trying to put myself in your shoes. As I understand it, the information can come in four different ways. It can come right into your inbox, for instance, so you have to screen, and figure out what's more important and what's less important. Basically, it's about finding who's really responsible.

In life, if we know that multiple people have flagged something, we can rely on some of them to make a judgment call as to what's sufficiently important or urgent.

How do you do that screening? How do you demonstrate your ability and responsibility while having to make a judgment call? How do you go about doing that?

What happened can't happen again. No more. You said it. This is important and urgent.

[Mike MacDonald]

Thank you.

Madam Chair, I have a few comments on this, if I may.

I think it's more than just multiple doors of intelligence being produced and then disseminated. We do know—and I think the committee has heard—about the enormous volumes of intelligence that are created every year. Over 60,000 intelligence reports are created in Canada alone, let alone within the Five Eyes. It's hard to go through and distill and be aware. It's a reality. I'm not saying anything more than that.

The other thing I've experienced is that it's one thing to inform about intelligence, but there is always the question, from a client perspective, of what you do about it. What does it mean? That's often a comment back from a reader or a consumer of intelligence. They say, “So what happens now? What do I do?”

I think that's something on which more innovation, if I can use that word, is needed, but there is a balance between collecting and assessing intelligence and informing the decision-maker. Those are things that need to be balanced out. That is one of the improvements—or refinements, one could say—that the system is looking at, but it is something that has been heard.

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

I appreciate your comments, because there are many lessons to be learned. You said that at the outset.

It works like a sieve in a factory. To let the granular material through, you often have to push the big rocks to the side.

You talked about having to be innovative in how advice is provided and how intelligence is communicated, assessed and put into context. Shouldn't there be some sort of formal commitment to address that?

When I go back to my riding, people tell me that this didn't make a difference.

Perhaps it's necessary to show that a real commitment is being made and that this is being taken very seriously.

That was more of a comment than a question.

I appreciate your suggestions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Ms. Blaney, go ahead.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Through the chair, welcome, Mr. MacDonald. I appreciate your being here.

I do understand—on the most basic level, I admit—that things are changing very rapidly. This area is moving so quickly it's hard to even stay close, let alone ahead of the issue. I think of my recent trip to Denmark, where I met with NATO parliamentarians. I heard from multiple countries that they are struggling with this as well and are trying to figure out how to address these issues. Technology is changing and growing in ways that we can't even begin to fathom. This environment changes so rapidly. I appreciate the challenges.

I appreciate as well the need to make sure that information is vetted so that it's not just given out without context and is creating fear where fear does not necessarily need to be. However, in the case where it could be something that we're worried about....

We are sitting around this table talking about a question of privilege for one of the parliamentarians who brought it forward. I know that other parliamentarians have been impacted. I know that one in my caucus as well has been impacted. I think the concern for parliamentarians and the concern for Canadians is that we need to be able to trust our system. When the fear begins and we don't have trust or faith in our system, it really can lead to things that I don't think any of us want to experience.

I guess my question really is this. As this picture, as I think you referred to it earlier, gets more and more complex and harder and harder to assess, how do we create information that will help protect parliamentarians and also help Canadians have faith in our system? I know that's a really profound and big question—I'm sure you can't answer it in, like, 30 seconds or less—but this is where I personally am struggling as we go through this. A lot of my constituents are hard-working people. They watch things happening, and they don't always understand all the nuances. Quite frankly, they're busy. They're doing the work they need to do and are struggling along on their own path.

To me, when I look at this process, I want to make sure that we're building faith and building consistency so that people can trust those systems and we MPs can know that we'll be alerted if we're targeted.

[Mike MacDonald]

Thank you for the question—and for your thoughts, to be honest. There is a lot there. I will try to answer as quickly as I can, I promise.

First, protecting parliamentarians is extremely serious for parliamentarians and democracy. There are systems in place for that. There are places to go. I think review committees that review national security activities, the recommendations they make and the reports that come out from parliamentary committees all contribute to the body of changes or body of refinements or adjustments that are about raising confidence.

Canada has world-class national security agencies with some of the techniques and methodologies they use, and the dedication. That's comforting. Improvements can come daily. I don't deny that.

I also think that in the media the Prime Minister's directive and the Minister of Public Safety's ministerial directive about informing parliamentarians about threats was instrumental. I think the NSIA creating the deputy minister committee that assesses foreign intelligence and makes decisions therein was very instrumental. On the processes that I understand have been put in place—others can confirm—around tracking how intelligence moves, who accesses it, who reads it, what they do with it and so on, some of those changes were already in place even before I left my job.

I think those are all very reassuring.

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

Thank you for that.

Again, what I'm hearing, though, is that some of this information came to the member of Parliament, Mr. Chong, and to us.... Well, it was in the media. This is really concerning for me. This isn't the way we should be learning about this information.

One of the challenges is how quick the response is and how the information gets to us. I keep hearing about the need to assess the information before it comes out. I understand that, but how can we see that happen more quickly? Is there a way that we can do it? Is it more resources? Is it increased training? Is it having more people?

To me, there's a bit of a challenge here. I don't want to disrespect the hard work that's happening. I just want to find out how we can make sure that parliamentarians know more quickly so that we don't get lost in this sort of situation that we're in now.

[Mike MacDonald]

First and foremost, Mr. Chair, to speak to committee member's point, some of those changes are not really in my ambit to speak about. It's the intelligence agencies—the collectors, assessors and disseminators of intelligence—that would have thoughts on that.

To finish, I would go back to my previous comments and to the previous comments of other senior deputy ministers who have appeared here about the changes that they've put in place. That's the start of something immediate that's happening.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

We'll now go to our second round, starting with Mr. Cooper. He will be followed by Ms. Sahota, Madame Gaudreau and Ms. Blaney.

Mr. Cooper, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. MacDonald, you stated that you first learned of the July 20, 2021, memo sometime in the spring of 2023. Did you first learn about it when it was reported in The Globe and Mail on May 1, 2023?

[Mike MacDonald]

Yes, that is my recollection of the events.

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

Thank you.

I recognize that you were in the role as national security and intelligence adviser for only the span of two and a half weeks, and that's fair enough. However, you were in the role of assistant secretary to the cabinet for intelligence and security both before and after, all the way until 2023.

Would you concede—or agree, at least—that this is the type of information that probably should have crossed your desk? Would you agree that the fact that it didn't cross your desk for two years is concerning?

[Mike MacDonald]

Again, I will echo what many people have said: There need to be better ways in which intelligence is not only shared but also identified and flagged for individuals when there's a reason for it to be.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. MacDonald.

Madam Chair, I will now be moving a motion that I had put on notice. I'm moving it reluctantly. I would have preferred that we dealt with it on Thursday during the second hour, but in a conversation that I had with Ms. Blaney, she was not in agreement that this be dealt with in the open and in a transparent manner on a matter of extreme seriousness involving an incident that brought great shame on the institution of Parliament and brought great hurt to many Canadians, particularly Jewish Canadians. It's, therefore, in light of the refusal of the NDP to be transparent in how this committee moves forward in getting to the bottom of this disgraceful incident, I will now be reading my motion into the record.

I move:

That, given the international embarrassment created by the Liberal government by allowing a former soldier of a Nazi military unit in World War II to attend and be recognized during the Address of the President of Ukraine, delivered in the House of Commons Chamber on September 22, 2023, and that either proper vetting was not done or the individual’s military record was ignored, the Committee begin a study, pursuant to Standing Orders 108(3)(a)(i) and (ii), concerning this matter, and for the purposes of this study,

(a) the Committee invite the following to appear during the weeks of October 9, 16, 23 and 30, 2023:

(i) officials from the Office of Protocol of Canada, Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, including those who organized the President’s visit, on a panel by themselves, for one hour,

(ii) officials from the Federal Policing branch of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, including those with responsibility for internationally protected persons under the Protection of Diplomats Convention, on a panel by themselves, for one hour,

(iii) officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, on a panel by themselves, for one hour,

(iv) the Acting Director of the Parliamentary Protective Service, RCMP Superintendent Larry Brookson, by himself, for one hour,

(v) the Sergeant at Arms of the House of Commons, former RCMP Assistant Commissioner Pat McDonell, by himself, for one hour,

(vi) officials from the International and Interparliamentary Affairs branch of the House of Commons Administration, on a panel by themselves, for one hour,

(vii) officials from the Privy Council Office, on a panel by themselves, for one hour,

(viii) officials from the Prime Minister’s Office, on a panel by themselves, for one hour,

(ix) representatives of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the Canadian Polish Congress, on a panel by themselves, for one hour,

(x) Michael Levitt, former MP and President and CEO of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, and Richard Marceau, former MP and Vice President (External Affairs and General Counsel) of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, on a panel by themselves, for one hour, and

(xi) two one-hour panels of stakeholder representatives whose names shall be provided by the parties to the Clerk of the Committee within one week; and

(b) an order do issue for all e-mails, memoranda or other documents transmitted between the Speaker’s Office or the House of Commons Administration, on the one part, and any government department or agency, including the Prime Minister’s Office or any other minister’s office, on the other part, in relation to the Address of the President of Ukraine and the arrangements concerning it, provided that these shall be deposited with the Clerk of the Committee, in both official languages and without redaction, within ten days.

Now, Madam Chair, because this motion was put on notice before October 9, the motion will need to be amended with respect to some of the dates, which we will be moving shortly, but with regard to the substance—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Mr. Cooper, I will pause and give you back the floor—rest assured.

We do have a witness here. It sounds like we are moving on. Perhaps we can release the witness.

Madame Gaudreau.

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

Madam Chair, the member is proposing that we wrap things up on the question of privilege and is engaging in sabotage.

I apologize, Mr. MacDonald, but now you're seeing what we deal with on the procedure committee, a place where we should be working more as a team. You're experiencing what we experience in question period and elsewhere.

If we must discuss the motion, Madam Chair, we should let Mr. MacDonald take his leave, but frankly, this is why we met, and I still have questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

I appreciate that.

Can I just get a nodding of heads? I think we are entering into other committee business, and the rules only permit me so much.

I do think Mr. MacDonald's time is valuable. Are we okay releasing the witness?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

With that, Mr. MacDonald, we want to thank you for your time. If something else comes to mind later, and if you would like the committee to consider that as we draft our report, please send it the clerk. We'll have it translated in both official languages and shared around.

Thank you for your time and service, and we wish you a good rest of the day.

[Mike MacDonald]

Thank you.

I would just like to thank the committee members.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.