Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 10th, 2026

[Vanessa Lloyd]

The process for ensuring that campaigns were informed when there was an instance that either met the threshold that we were going to speak about publicly or where we had the ability, through a cleared party member, to share that information was to do it through the cleared members, because in some instances we were sharing classified information that we could not speak about publicly. So we—

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

I'm not talking about publicly. I'm talking about the specific candidate whose campaign was being threatened by foreign interference, which is an existential threat to our democratic systems.

[Vanessa Lloyd]

In every instance where we could share that information and where we felt it was important for Canadians, including Canadians in ridings all across the country, to be aware of an instance of foreign interference, the panel made the determination about whether they would direct the SITE task force to speak about it during the tech briefings. In other instances, we offered classified and unclassified briefings, regular briefs during the campaign to those cleared party members to pass along information. It was up to those campaigns, national campaigns, to manage the impact of that information sharing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

Since I have a bad habit of not deleting emails I've read, I did as a candidate receive an email from security and intelligence from the PCO. The re line is, “Ensuring the security of candidates in the 45th Canadian general election”, with attachments from SITE and the RCMP.

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

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for your continued testimony.

My Conservative colleagues are bringing up some issues around possibly receiving communications, but it's also public knowledge that their party leader has refused to get security clearance. I know they enjoy the yes-or-no questions. I just want to ask a simple one.

This would be a yes or no, Ms. Lloyd. A political party leader without security clearance cannot directly receive classified intelligence or operational detail. Is that correct?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

Mr. Chair, whether or not an individual has a security clearance is protected by privacy implications. It is correct that we can give classified information only to those who are authorized to receive it. As I mentioned earlier, all parties had cleared representatives for us to be able to do that.

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

Thank you.

Cleared representatives seem to be an extra step, and I will be looking here to make sure that we're maintaining the integrity of elections. My concern would be about how a political leader can make a timely, responsible decision during an election period, when things change fast, if they're getting filtered or second-hand briefings rather than getting direct access to classified threat information. I'll leave that as is.

The SITE task force is also monitoring against malicious uses of artificial intelligence by hostile actors. That threat is changing rapidly. How are your responses changing as quickly?

Ms. Walshe can answer that question, because it's a bit of a cat and mouse game.

[Bridget Walshe]

Mr. Chair, we certainly do see changes in the way artificial intelligence is being used online. In our day-to-day lives, we've seen how much easier it is in the past year or two to use artificial intelligence. We see the same thing happening with the threat actors who use it in their malicious activities.

To monitor that, we look globally at how it's being used online. As an example, when we put forward our publication last year on the threats AI posed to Canada's democratic process, we looked at over 200 elections that occurred in that year or year-and-a-half period globally ahead of that to understand the tactics and the techniques being used.

We put that into the report so that Canadians have that information to understand how to protect themselves and what the threat is, but we also use it internally. We use that to derive the advice and guidance we provide. We use it to provide insight into our day-to-day operations in cybersecurity for Canada. We share it with our colleagues across the security community.

It's a big piece that helps us inform how we operate and that helps us in the advice and guidance we give to Canadians.

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

You've already answered my follow-up question.

You are looking at other countries and trying to learn from that in what I would call the off-season.

[Bridget Walshe]

Absolutely. We look at what's available online for what we see through the important intelligence we have within Canada to put together a picture of how that use by cyber-threat actors evolves over time.

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

Thank you.

Mr. O'Hayon, we wanted to get you in on the conversation and haven't had a chance yet. You're with the RCMP federal policing security intelligence, intelligence and international policing, security and intelligence threats to elections task force.

How does the RCMP determine when suspected election interference activity crosses from influence to criminal or coercive conduct? What steps are taken, and what coordination happens?

[Greg O'Hayon]

Thank you for the question.

In terms of what the thresholds are, those are determined depending on the piece of legislation we're enforcing, whether it's the Criminal Code of Canada or the Security Offences Act. There are stipulations in those that are quite clear about when that threshold is crossed.

What I can say is that when the threshold is crossed, the RCMP will take the necessary actions to investigate to its fullest extent, whether it's a cyber-threat or a physical threat. In the course of that, whether this happens during a by-election or a general election, it will be shared with our SITE task force partners so that they at least have visibility not over the criminal investigation but over the fact that an incident has occurred.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

We will now turn to Mr. Cooper for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to drill down a bit on what happened to Joe Tay in Don Valley North.

The election panel announced to the public that there was a transnational repression campaign and went on to cite some of the targeting as it specifically pertained to Mr. Tay. That announcement was made on April 17, nearly at the very end of the writ period. Mr. Tay testified that the day after he was nominated as the Conservative candidate in Don Valley North, which was on March 23, the RCMP attended his home to advise him that there were credible threats to his safety and that they had been intercepted.

I just want to confirm, Mr. O'Hayon, that it is correct and that the RCMP did attend his home at that time.

[Greg O'Hayon]

That is my understanding, yes.

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

Okay.

Would it be fair to say there were threats that persisted against Mr. Tay through the course of the election campaign?

[Greg O'Hayon]

Thank you for the question.

Apologies, sir, unfortunately, I'm not able to....

I don't have that level of detail, Mr. Chairman. I'd be happy to take the question back and provide the answer to the—

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

If you would, that would be appreciated.

Mr. Tay was eventually told by the RCMP that it was unsafe for him to go door to door to canvass because of these threats. When was Mr. Tay informed of that? At what point?

[Greg O'Hayon]

Thank you for the question.

Unfortunately, I will have to go back and provide a detailed answer to that question. I don't have an answer to that.

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

Okay, if you would, because I'm just trying to understand the timeline. Very early on, in fact, well before the writ was dropped, information had been intercepted that Mr. Tay was being targeted, at least on social media propaganda efforts, by Beijing.

Mr. Tay went on to indicate that, although in the panel report that was released—as well as the press release, media release, that went out—detailing the transnational repression campaign, it involved much more than propaganda. It involved voter suppression efforts particularly targeting Chinese seniors residences, as well as harassment, surveillance and threats of violence against Mr. Tay.

I don't suppose, Mr. O'Hayon, that you would dispute that.

[Greg O'Hayon]

Thank you for the question.

As I've said before, I can't comment beyond the confirmation that there was a criminal investigation that was opened as a result of the threats against Mr. Tay. The details the member is bringing up may or may not have come up during the investigation. I can't confirm.

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

Okay. Since you can't confirm the details but you're undertaking to provide some level of response to this committee with respect to those details to the degree that they can be disclosed, I would take it that whatever information the RCMP had was relayed to the panel. That would have been occurring on a day-to-day basis, a frequent basis.

[Greg O'Hayon]

Well, what I can commit to is providing the answers that we can. I can't.... I am, like I've said—

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

I'm just trying to confirm that the information would have been relayed to the panel.

[Greg O'Hayon]

Pardon me? I didn't hear the question, sir.