Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Oct. 19th, 2023

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Stewart. Currently, you are with the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, but you were a deputy minister at the department of public safety. You were at public safety when China started using all these tactics. That said, I do recognize you've had a distinguished career in the public service.

I am trying to get some clarity to help me better understand things. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the impression I've gotten from the previous witnesses is that the structure the government put in place to fight foreign interference is dictated by circumstances. There was Russian interference in the U.S. in 2017, but now, we're dealing with many more tactics—more subtle and targeted tactics. They're being carried out at the local level. The public is following the committee's proceedings, so I would like to know whether we are equipped to respond to that. Do our services have the ability, as we speak, to tackle those methods?

[Rob Stewart]

I would say they absolutely do, but I'm no longer in that role.

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

You say yes, but you seem to be shaking your head no.

[Rob Stewart]

No, I'm saying yes.

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

Very well.

[Rob Stewart]

From what I've heard, measures were recently taken to strengthen the intelligence sharing system to be more mindful of what is happening. That includes the creation of a cabinet committee.

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

What do you mean by “more mindful”? Reassure me or enlighten me, please.

[Rob Stewart]

Obviously, we receive a lot of information daily, so we have to put it into context and determine what the really important information is. That's hard to do, and sometimes it takes time, but that's the key process in the system. Right now, we have a lot more processes to specifically address that.

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

If I understand correctly, when you determine what's really important, you're making a judgment call on the information you've collected, or you're interpreting it in a certain way.

[Rob Stewart]

It's about figuring out what we need to do.

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

That means a red flag doesn't go up automatically to signal that further investigation is needed.

Tara Denham was here on Tuesday, and she told us that the G7 rapid response mechanism, or RRM, relied solely on open-source data to monitor foreign interference. Why don't the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, a.k.a. CSIS, and the Communications Security Establishment share more information with agencies to flag more threats? Maybe they're doing it now, but it worries me.

Have things changed since to better detect threats? Currently, the information is limited to what is seen, what is read and what is heard. There are trolls, different methods and other information that isn't open-source.

[Rob Stewart]

There are links between the activities Global Affairs Canada undertakes and the open-source intelligence mechanism. There are also links with other security agencies and their activities, to be sure.

The social media realm is very opaque. It's not at all easy to understand. We can't be certain as to how social media work or who's doing what. Consequently, when a situation arises, we have to take the time to carry out an in-depth investigation, using our tools.

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

You said you can't be certain. Do you have any recommendations to address that, since this is a growing phenomenon? What I'm hearing is that things are too fast-paced, that there's too much intelligence to process with the tools at your disposal. I don't find that reassuring. How do you plan to fix things?

[Rob Stewart]

I think the recent measures strengthen the system and improve our ability to focus on what we need to do.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart, for answering me in French. I really appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Thank you, Ms. Gaudreau.

I really do appreciate that all members were able to provide unanimous consent to work through bells.

We could get through your six-minute round, Ms. Blaney, if you would like, or would you prefer to return after the vote?

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

Well, I don't know how long it is until the bells—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

It's 10 minutes.

Is your screen not showing it yet?

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

It's not showing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

There are about nine minutes and 50 seconds.

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

I'm fine with that. I think we can get to the House pretty quickly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bardish Chagger]

Perfect.

That is six minutes to you, through the chair.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Stewart, for being here. I really appreciate it.

I've listened very closely to your testimony today. I heard very clearly that there is a huge amount of information that comes in on a regular basis and that you have an army with different categories of people that is working on that information. We've heard repeatedly that one of the challenges, of course, is going through all of that information and finding out if there actually is a threat. There is a minimum threshold, and it sounds like everybody is waiting until that threshold is hit before any action is taken.

I am trying to understand this, and I hope that you can help me.

I want to recognize that this is a changing reality, and technology is changing so quickly that across the planet I think everybody is trying to figure out how to catch up to this new reality.

What is the process specifically for MPs? Why I ask that is that we're here on a question of privilege of a member in this place who did not get information that would have been helpful for him to have. As we are in this reality, I think it's important that Canadians trust our institutions, trust the processes that are in place, and that people who put their name forward to sit in these seats have some assurance that, as they're doing their work, there are processes that are looking after what's happening in terms of foreign interference in the work they do.

Could you help us in any way to understand the process? Is there a particular process for MPs? I understand that a lot of people are targeted, and I would assume that different categories of people being targeted would have streamlines of how that process unfolds. I'm wondering if that's the case for elected officials.

[Rob Stewart]

I'll apologize in advance, because this is not an area in which I am familiar in terms of the processes. I'll speak to the panel and the 2021 general election.

The panel's job is to determine whether there is a threat to the integrity of the election, in broad terms. It was not interpreted to be our job to determine whether there is a threat to the election in a specific riding, although we were informed of questionable activity in various ridings. The way the panel works is that it's supposed to tell the Canadian public if there is a threat to the election. That's its primary job.

There are meetings with the political parties by the SITE task force on an ongoing basis. There is an expectation that, were it determined to be a material threat, that would work in that fashion. As it happens, we did not come to that determination.

I think the question you're asking today is an open question, for which an answer is merited.

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

It seems to me that a lot of these concerns are coming through social media. I know that is a hard thing to quantify and that there are different methods for every different type of social media. I also understand that social media themselves have regulations or rules that are internal to their organizations.

When it comes to elections, how is that monitored? If a social media site is not doing its work to monitor these issues that they have a commitment to doing, what is the recourse in Canada? Do you have any sense of that, or who would be the right person to talk to?