Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2026

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

There's a lot of talk about China, Russia, Pakistan and India. Do you think that, in the next election, there could be attempts at interference from the United States?

[Nathalie Drouin]

Canada expects all countries, including the United States, not to undermine our sovereignty or our affairs, including our elections. We will monitor the situation in an agnostic manner, that is to say, by considering that any country could interfere in Canada's affairs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Van Popta, you have five minutes.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Drouin, you stated in the report before us today that Canadians must have full confidence that their election is secure.

Reading through the report, I summarized that the panel's mandate is to monitor and identify threats of foreign interference, manipulation of information or something like that, to coordinate responses and to generally strengthen public confidence in our democratic institutions.

Mr. Morrison is very confident that, whatever foreign interference there may have been in the 45th election, it did not impact the outcome of the election.

Ms. Geddes highlighted that there are communities feeling vulnerable, particularly diaspora communities within Canada.

How do you measure your success in that part of your mandate to instill confidence in the public that our democratic systems are sound and secure? Do you do public polling?

[Nathalie Drouin]

As we've said, there is always a baseline of foreign interference into our activities. In our preparation for the general election, we did a lot of scenario planning. We anticipated what could come from different countries, and we tried to prevent whatever they were able to do.

Another thing that really comforted us was that when I looked at the activities we did in 2019 and in 2021, the result of the independent review, the result of the public inquiry, was such that we were reassured by independent voices that what we did and what we saw were completely aligned with our own conclusions.

Having said that, I'm not saying that there was no attempt to undermine our democratic exercise. We saw attempts, but we believe that the overall result was fair and sound for Canadians.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley Township—Fraser Heights, BC]

That's fair enough. That's the conclusion you draw, right?

You're very knowledgeable on the topic, of course, and you have important meetings with other important people, but I'm asking about how you measure that the public is confident, as confident as Mr. Morrison is, that whatever foreign interference there was did not impact our election results.

People are feeling vulnerable. People are worried. How do you know that the public is as confident as you are?

[Nathalie Drouin]

The level of confidence—and we can look at specific data—of Canadians toward our democratic institutions is high. When we compare with other countries, it could be better. This is our work here, to maintain that high level of confidence in our public institutions.

[Tricia Geddes]

I completely agree with your points, Nathalie, but we do still have work to do here. We have been working in the national security community in Ottawa to try to build trust with those communities for a number of years, because we need those communities to have trust in our institutions. When they're feeling threatened and vulnerable, we need them to talk to us about the nature of those threats in order to have a better understanding of what can help mitigate those threats. We need to continue to have that conversation.

I agree. I think it's very good. We do polling. We do have some sense, but there's a lack of trust sometimes in government institutions that we all have to work together to overcome. In particular, you're highlighting a very important feature, that we really do need to work directly with those communities. We are making efforts, but there's certainly more we can do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you.

Mr. Wilkinson, you have five minutes, please.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver—Capilano, BC]

You said that there was no significant change in the baseline, but, obviously, threats of foreign interference evolve over time. If you look at the 2021 election relative to the 2025 election, how did the threat of foreign interference evolve over that period?

[Nathalie Drouin]

The use of cyber-technology is on the rise, for sure.

The presence of Russia has also changed, not because they are looking for a specific outcome in our election—this is not what Russia is looking at—but because they want to influence their own narrative. I must say that, unfortunately, we are seeing more Canadians who believe that the conflict was started by Ukraine in 2022.

What Russia is doing is unfortunately getting traction. That is an example of something we were not seeing, as I said, in 2019.

Transnational repression, as Tricia discussed earlier, is also an important thing. The fact that we have identified that is also part of our conversations with other states, whether it's China or India, to make sure they help us. I'm not saying that all transnational repression is state-sponsored; sometimes it's foreign actors and not state-sponsored.

We are having those conversations with those countries to reduce the level of threat when it comes to transnational repression.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver—Capilano, BC]

You all have touched on this in a number of different answers, but if you think about the work you did during the 2025 campaign, what did you and what did we learn that can be applied to the next election? What are some additional things that the government should be thinking about doing to ensure we are appropriately protecting our institutions and our elections?

[Nathalie Drouin]

In terms of the best practices we should continue, we went out as a panel under the signature of the clerk prior to the election saying that we were setting up the panel. We need to bring that awareness.

I think we should keep the weekly briefing. You mentioned having an independent member before, and that is another thing we should keep. The briefings to parties and having clear representatives from all parties to be able to download information as it arises are other things we need to keep.

The diplomatic démarche that Foreign Affairs did is something we need to continue. Interdepartmental coordination is also something we need to continue to use.

[David Morrison]

I will add, because it relates to the prior question on the whole of society, that this isn't just federal elections; it's municipal elections and provincial elections.

Our adversaries can think longer term, so we need to continue exercises like the one we're engaged in right now to raise the awareness of Canadians throughout the country at all levels of government, in civil society and in academia that this is not going to go away. The publicity, best-practice sharing and awareness that this problem doesn't have a simple fix need to go on between elections.

[Jonathan Wilkinson, Liberal, North Vancouver—Capilano, BC]

You foreshadowed my next question.

Historically, we've often had difficulty sharing sensitive information with provincial governments, yet we obviously must also be concerned about interference in provincial campaigns.

What are we doing and what should we be doing to appropriately engage the provinces to ensure they are prepared?

[Tricia Geddes]

In fact, I'm going from this committee appearance to a federal-provincial-territorial conversation with deputy ministers of public safety across the country.

At every single one of those discussions, which happen at least once a quarter, we have this conversation about what we've seen and what we've learned. We've brought in members of the SITE task force. We've offered briefings directly to each of them as they have prepared for their elections within the provinces and territories and also in the municipalities.

We're doing a big, broad outreach to those provinces, territories and municipalities, because David's point that this could affect all of them equally is entirely correct.

One other thing we should continue to do in the lead-up to these elections is increase our communications through different modes and in different languages. Our provincial and territorial counterparts are very good at informing us of the ways they're able to reach their constituents and ensure it's being done in the languages of their choice, beyond just English and French.

Those are really important tools we should continue to drill down on.

I totally agree with you and, in fact, I will raise it with them again this afternoon.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

Madam Normandin, you have two and a half minutes, please.

[Christine Normandin, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Drouin, as we know, a government is in an election period the day after the election, and that's even more true in a minority government context. You never know when an election might be called. As you mentioned, the cornerstone of the security and intelligence threats to elections task force is public trust in institutions. However, we know that this trust is eroding around the world, and Canada is no exception.

However, the context is unique and rapidly changing. The commissioner has not yet been officially appointed, although a name is circulating. There is no foreign agent registry yet. There are discussions about trade agreements with China, when China is one of the main sources of foreign interference. We saw Liberal members on a mission to Taiwan having to leave the country, evidently at China's request. There's also your departure, Ms. Drouin. You leave with considerable expertise, obviously.

With all these changes happening at lightning speed on the ground, how can the task force ensure that it is ready for the next election and, above all, ensure that the public will have confidence in the electoral process?

[Nathalie Drouin]

I would start by telling you that one of the recommendations of the commission of inquiry was that the SITE task force be made a permanent group and not a group that operates only during general elections. The group is now permanent and, although it represents a number of government organizations, it will be located at the Privy Council Office.

As you saw last year, the task force was used in by-elections. During by-elections, the caretaker convention does not come into effect. The government can make decisions, but we still needed a team to monitor the elections. The task force was therefore used for those purposes.

Although Canada is not as big as other countries, our national security teams are still very strong. In addition, the fact that there are five of us makes it possible to ensure continuity of expertise from one election to the next.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Cooper, you have five minutes, please.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to follow up on my last line of questioning respecting Beijing's Toronto consulate and their involvement in targeting Mr. Tay. Mr. Tay testified before this committee that he believed Beijing's Toronto consulate was involved. He cited, for example, supporters being summoned by Beijing's Toronto consulate. That constitutes direct interference.

In the face of that, how can the panel possibly conclude that Beijing's Toronto consulate had no involvement?

[David Morrison]

I believe I said that I'm unaware of any information intelligence that would suggest that Toronto's consulate was involved.

In the case of Mr. Tay, we did undertake a démarche with the Chinese embassy here in Ottawa about the online activity dating as far back as December 2024, because there, we had a direct link between the PRC and the online action taken against Mr. Tay. As a member of the panel, I'm not aware of any other involvement by the PRC.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Just to confirm on that point, with respect to Beijing's embassy in Ottawa, Global Affairs had information or had linked the embassy to some of the disinformation on various social media platforms with respect to Mr. Tay. Is that correct?

[David Morrison]

We had linked the Chinese government, and we passed the message via the Chinese embassy.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Okay.

With respect to the activities of the Beijing consulate, you had no information regarding activities such as summoning individuals.