Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 5th, 2026

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Why did it take you so long? I mean, you've missed every.... Your goals are self-imposed. We didn't impose them on you.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood—Rouge Park, ON]

Mr. Calkins, I'm the third minister within the timeline that we're talking about, from the time the act was put into place.

I will take responsibility for the tenure of my leadership in this portfolio. I will say that we have been working diligently to make sure that all three elements I outlined earlier are fulfilled.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Will you commit to making sure that the registry is in place, the commissioner is in place and it's staffed and ready to go before the next general election? We're already at the next “next” general election.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood—Rouge Park, ON]

Are we?

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Well, your government committed to having this in place by the next general election. You missed it, so your next opportunity is the next “next” general election.

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood—Rouge Park, ON]

I'm not going to make a commitment on a vote that is not in my hands. It's a free vote in Parliament and we don't know how other parties will vote.

If you want to hear from the deputy minister, I'm more than willing to have her comment. We will make every effort and I will make every effort. I will commit to working diligently to ensure that the registry is up and running by early spring.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Are you sure that after the completion and the implementation of your foreign registry, it won't interfere in any way with Canadians voting in the next general election, whenever that happens to be?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood—Rouge Park, ON]

This is one tool, Mr. Calkins. This is not the only tool. There are other tools that you've heard about previously. This is definitely an important tool with respect to our democracy—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

It won't affect regular, ordinary, lawful Canadians in being able to vote. Is that correct?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood—Rouge Park, ON]

This is not a panacea, if I may be very candid. It is a very important tool. It's one of several recommendations of the Hogue inquiry. Of course others have recommended this as well, including this committee, I believe. It is one of several tools. This in itself will not solve all of our issues with respect to elections, but it certainly will assist us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

We will turn to Mr. Louis for five minutes, please.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Minister, for being here and to everyone for your service in keeping Canadians safe and keeping our elections secure. The actions taken by all of you have shown that foreign interference is taken seriously in Canada. I appreciate that.

Minister, you're saying the foreign influence transparency registry and the commissioner are important tools, but they're not the only tools that will work to protect Canadians' democracy.

Can you expand on our government's other efforts? How can we work together to counter foreign influence and interference, whether it's CSIS, the RCMP or CSE? You're all at the table and no one's working in silos here. Can you explain the co-operation that happens?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood—Rouge Park, ON]

I may just ask the officials from each of the portfolios represented here to comment on this. Maybe we'll start with Ms. Boudreau and then go to Mr. Rogers.

[Jodie Boudreau, Deputy Commissioner, Federal Policing, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

We work very closely with our partners, the service and other public safety partners. We investigate every complaint of foreign interference.

Our primary role is to keep Canadians safe and secure. Whether it's during an election or any other period in time, we use all means that we can within the legislation, respecting the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of individuals involved, in investigating all complaints of foreign interference.

[Daniel Rogers]

I can add to that by saying that for CSIS's part, there are three things I might draw to the committee's attention.

One is that we continue to collect intelligence to be able to identify when foreign interference might occur. We can use that intelligence to inform things like the transparency registry or law enforcement actions that the RCMP might undertake.

The second thing that we can do is take action directly through our threat reduction measures to prevent that foreign interference from occurring.

The third thing is to provide information, whether classified or unclassified, to groups of Canadians to help them be resilient against foreign interference and to make sure that any attempts to influence them covertly or coercively are unsuccessful.

[Tricia Geddes, Deputy Minister, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness]

I'll just add two pieces that we bring to the table from Public Safety.

One is the policy development and the policy-making. In some of the legislative initiatives that we've seen in recent years, including Bill C-70, there are some really important tools in there to protect Canadians against foreign interference.

Additionally, the work of our counter foreign interference coordinator in helping to do outreach to vulnerable communities is a really critical part of this tool. It's to ensure that we're building trust with those communities, so that they understand what the threat looks like and so that we're able to better understand how we can help them, whether it's through some of the law enforcement and intelligence tools or, frankly, whether it's through just better dialogue and understanding what the issues of concern are.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you. That is helpful, and it's helpful to know that you're continuing to work, whether it's an election or not.

I would imagine that during an election cycle, the work is increased, and the co-operation is increased as well. How much can you explain about how that happens?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood—Rouge Park, ON]

I think it's very important to note that during elections, the minister is not involved in any of the decision-making. It is, in fact, the SITE task force committee that is in charge. I think you heard from them earlier this week. It is strictly run by civil servants, and they report directly to Canadians. There's no reporting mechanism that goes through the regular channels in off-cycle election periods.

I think Canadians should be very confident that it is an independent body that truly reports to Canadians, as opposed to through elected officials.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

I appreciate that.

I want to continue, Ms. Geddes, our conversation about groups that might be targeted from other nations.

I think you mentioned that we need to reach out to them in the languages of their choice. How are we able to do that? You have to build trust to do that, and you have to meet people where they are. We had a brief conversation the other day at this table, but maybe you could expand on that.

[Tricia Geddes]

I think this is critically important. That was one of the key lessons that we took from the last election. We had increased transparency and we were using the traditional means of reaching out to media technical outlets in that way. I think we did genuinely feel that we did our best to try to reach communities directly in a couple of languages, but frankly, there's a lot more we could do. We have looked to secure contracts that we're able to put in place quite quickly to enable us to do translation and be able to reach directly into those communities.

Beyond just the language, though, it's also the means by which people in the communities are communicating with each other. When we have information we need to share, I think we need to continue to make sure that they're well informed about the threats and that we're using the right tools at our disposal to be able to inform communities where they are.

A lot of lessons were taken on that front, and we'll continue to do some work to improve our mechanisms there.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

That's great. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

We will go to very quick rounds, and for once, I'm going to be militant. We'll do two minutes, two minutes and then one minute.

We'll start with Mr. Calkins for two minutes, please.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Minister, I asked you the same question twice, just moments ago, and I'm surprised at your answer.

The question I asked you was this: Again, after you implement the registry into full effect, will it impede any Canadians from voting? You could not say no to that question. I don't know why you can't say no to that question.

Why would the implementation of the registry prevent a Canadian citizen from voting?

[Gary Anandasangaree, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood—Rouge Park, ON]

I'm sorry, Mr. Calkins. I may have misunderstood your question.

My understanding of your question was that this establishment of the registry will, at the end of the day—

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Ponoka—Didsbury, AB]

It's supposed to be a tool to keep foreign interference out of our elections, not to prevent Canadians from participating in the election. Do I have that right?