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

[Saliou Babou]

That's more a question for the lawmakers. This is something that parliamentarians should be debating. It's not up to the government to know what position to take with the platforms.

For us, I would say that it's not a waste of time. I think measures must be taken. During the last election, I think we were very transparent in sharing as much information as we could with the Canadian public. I believe it's our duty to do that, and it's our responsibility as Canadians and as public servants too. This is an ongoing effort, and we will continue to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

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

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

Mr. Chair, I'm going to continue where I left off. I'm going to try again.

In addition to Don Valley North, how many candidates and how many ridings were targeted by foreign interference activities?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for the follow-up question.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to tell you the numbers of the incidents or the reports we received. I can tell you that foreign interference activities—

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

You're not able to provide the numbers. Will you undertake to provide those numbers to the committee?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

Mr. Chair, for reasons of privacy of the reporting and for national security reasons as it relates to the individual incidents, I can provide assurances to the member that in instances where we observed other incidences for which we cannot speak publicly, that those instances where it affected a riding or candidate were a subject of conversations with the security-cleared members of each party.

I would also mention to the committee that there is a classified version of our after-action report, and parliamentarians who sit on the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians have access to that report as well.

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

Well, thank you for that.

Based upon your answer, I think I'm able to discern that other candidates and other ridings were targeted. I'm not asking you to disclose the particulars of where those ridings are or who those candidates are; I was simply asking if you would be able to provide a number so that we can have an idea of how big or how small this problem was.

[Vanessa Lloyd]

As I believe I mentioned in my remarks, what we did observe was small scale, and in no instance did the panel determine that there was an impact on the ability to have a free and fair election, either at the national level or at the riding level.

I could perhaps be helpful to the committee by sharing that we did receive reporting from individual members of the public, as well as from candidates. Each instance was explored by the various members before you today, and all of those instances were put before the panel for their consideration.

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

Thank you for that.

What foreign actors were responsible for these activities? We certainly know that Beijing was responsible for the targeting of Joe Tay, as well as for the WeChat propaganda campaign involving Mark Carney that largely promoted him, although there were some contrasting narratives.

I presume Beijing was also involved in some of these other instances. Is that the case?

In addition to that, what other states were involved in these concerning activities?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

Before we began the election period, the SITE task force did undertake an assessment of what we expected to see during the election period. That included an overview that was provided to Canadians and the public through the very first technical brief. In that brief, we outlined that we expected to see, as MP Normandin mentioned, a range of activities specific to disinformation, for example, as well as the potential for cyber-activities. We didn't expect to see incidences of violent extremism.

We went through each of the countries that we expected to see conducting some activities—

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

My time is very limited.

I understand that there was work done in anticipation of what might happen during the election, but we've had the election. I'm asking what states were involved in the activities that were identified as being foreign interference.

[Vanessa Lloyd]

In the after-action report, we outlined that instances were observed that related to the People's Republic of China and to Russia. We indicated that we were also monitoring for foreign interference efforts by both India and Pakistan.

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

Okay.

Mr. O'Hayon, is the RCMP undertaking any investigations with respect to foreign interference-related activities that occurred during the 2025 election?

[Greg O'Hayon, Director General, Federal Policing Security Intelligence, Intelligence and International Policing, Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force, Royal Canadian Mounted Police]

As we confirmed during the technical briefings, an investigation was initiated into the incidents related to candidate Tay. However, in terms of confirming the existence of criminal investigations that were triggered during the 45th general election, the RCMP does not publicly disclose whether or not a criminal investigation exists until charges are laid.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much, Mr. Cooper.

I will go to Madam Brière for five minutes, please.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here. It's a bit like Groundhog Day for some of them.

My Conservative colleague pushed you a bit on sharing information that could be sensitive during a campaign, for a candidate or for a party.

Can you talk about the importance of getting all the security clearances before gaining access to the information you need?

How can that influence decision-making in a timely manner when we receive information through an intermediary, and not directly? Someone may not have the right security clearance, the clearance that allows them to obtain all the relevant information to make the best possible decision under certain circumstances.

[Vanessa Lloyd]

I'll start.

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for the question.

I am happy to be able to share with the committee that we were successful in securing two cleared candidates for each party to be able to share the relevant information. We provided briefings to those individuals before the election, over the preparatory period at the outset of the election and during the election.

We also ensured that we gave as much information as possible to each candidate and to each campaign. We did that in a way that equipped them with not necessarily classified detail about threat actors, as referenced by the Conservative member, but on what foreign interference, for example, looks like, and we ensured that each candidate and campaign had the ability to report it to SITE.

We are also conscious that although we work constantly to improve the efficiency of our communication with Canadians, there is still hesitancy, in some instances, to trust the institutions of government. Therefore, in particular as it relates to foreign interference that can have a real impact on individuals, we wanted to ensure that there are mechanisms for both individual citizens and volunteers to report it through a chain of trusted engagements that they have with either the campaign managers for particular ridings or through the national representatives we were briefing on a regular basis.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Would anyone like to add something on this question?

[Bridget Walshe]

Absolutely, I can add a little bit from the cybersecurity perspective.

While it's true that a lot of the information that we have and that we use to inform on threats to the election is classified, we also work hard to make sure that we are able to share when we can. Both ahead of the election and during the election, we shared a lot of information about the details that we saw from a cybersecurity perspective, for example. During some of those media technical briefings and in some of our previous publications on threats linked to the government of Iran, for example, which is conducting cyber-threats online, we tried to share enough detail so that especially candidates and anyone involved in the campaign had the information to know and to recognize when they might be targeted.

That very high level of precision and technical detail is something that we really strive to make sure that we continue to improve on and share.

[Élisabeth Brière, Liberal, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you very much.

It sounds like there's a lot of work being done to respond to situations. That's to be expected. My colleague asked you about social media. Obviously, once the post is online, it's easier to react and inform people.

Is it still possible to do prevention work?

[Saliou Babou]

I thank the member for the question, Mr. Chair.

Yes, a lot of work is done upstream. As was said earlier, this is ongoing work. We have databases and access to narratives that we monitor on a daily basis with a team of analysts. All this posturing is taken during elections, and even before elections, to set the monitoring parameters, especially with regard to digital platforms, in our case.

In addition, a lot of incidents are detected and not necessarily reported, for a number of reasons. In particular, we don't want to amplify content that wouldn't be present in the Canadian ecosystem. An analysis is also done on that.

To answer your question, I would say that it's not only about being reactive once the threat is known. Work is also being done to ensure that the threat doesn't reach a point where it could influence Canadian public opinion.

It's the same thing, I believe, for the other members of the SITE task force.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

We are over time.

We'll suspend for five minutes to stretch our legs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Welcome back.

We will continue with Mr. Van Popta for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the panellists for being here.

I'm going to quote from page 4 in your report:

None of the incidents [of foreign interference] observed by the SITE TF during GE45 were determined by the Panel to have had an impact on Canada's ability to have a free and fair election.

I think you reconfirmed that several times in your testimony earlier today.

I'm going back to the report of Commissioner Hogue into foreign interference. She stated that in her opinion, information manipulation by foreign actors “poses the single biggest risk to our democracy. It is an existential threat.”

I think you all appreciate that the public is alarmed by that. Our democratic processes are very important to us. We want to know that we have free and fair democratic elections. You say that we have, yet it's an existential threat, so how do you connect those two?

If I could clarify where I'm going with this question, you also state as your goal: “Canadians must have full confidence that their election is secure.” How do you connect all of that together? There's alarm on the one side, but you're hoping that we're feeling secure about our election processes.

[Vanessa Lloyd]

Mr. Chair, I would offer to the member that we're certainly grateful that each department here had the opportunity to participate in the public inquiry on foreign interference. Again, the instances that we saw in this particular election did not meet the threshold, and where we could, we spoke about the instances that we did see.

One of the things we emphasized to Canadians as it relates to the security of their vote was to ensure that on two occasions, during the technical briefings, we shared with Canadians that their votes are secret and their votes are secure. I believe the committee heard last week from the commissioner of elections, and during the technical briefings we often pointed to the measures that our colleagues at Elections Canada were undertaking to ensure that the activities of voting at the polling stations were undertaken securely. We emphasized the nature of foreign interference, which is that foreign interference by hostile state actors is an attempt by a hostile state actor to influence a vote and that the system of voting in Canada ensures that votes are secret and are secure.