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

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

I understand that you are all highly educated people who dedicated the last number of years to exactly this topic and are very well informed. Your meetings strive to maintain “a high level of situational awareness throughout the election period.” That's another quote from your report.

You have a lot of high-level meetings with very important people. How does that communicate to the public, and are you comfortable that it is being communicated? Ms. Walshe, you talked about the Get Cyber Safe campaign. How effective has that campaign been?

[Bridget Walshe]

The Get Cyber Safe campaign is effective at reaching Canadians and making sure that the information and advice that we have out there on how to protect themselves and on navigating social media and misinformation and disinformation is reaching Canadians. That's one piece—

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

How do you measure that?

[Bridget Walshe]

Measurement is a tricky one, but we certainly put a lot of effort into making sure that we're making it very available and promoting it.

It's not just that. It's also that during the election campaign, all of the the media briefs that we had were not just about sharing information about the threats that we see and pointing Canadians to where they can find advice to help protect themselves from those threats, but also in talking about the process that we use, the fact that we work together, that this is a very collaborative effort among the security organizations so that we're providing a level of confidence that we are looking for those threats and we are advising on them and mitigating them.

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

Fair enough.

Do you know that the message that this is an existential threat for Canadians is coming through? Do you know that?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

I think that one of the things that we would look to evolve in the future is definitely meeting communities where they are. We started that in the last election by ensuring that materials were available in multiple languages.

Also, in the case of transnational repression cases that we did speak about publicly, we engaged our colleague, the national counter foreign interference coordinator, who engaged with various community organizations across the country to understand the pulse, if you will, around those incidents. This is an area where I believe we will endeavour to do more in the future as a national security community.

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

I'm going to have a little more specific question.

Page 9 of—

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

I'm sorry. You're over the time. They're all very important questions, and we have plenty of time to ask more very important questions.

We'll go to Madam Kayabaga, please.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Through you, Chair, to Madam Lloyd, and without asking for any classified details, how does the task force assess the relative threat posed by different foreign states operating across Canada, and how do you assess the priority of that during an election period?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

The question is on how we assess the threats and how we assess the priority.

We bring together classified and unclassified information. We bring together, as Madam Walshe said, the insights and information from all of the organizations present here, but also inputs from the broader national security community. For example, observers on the SITE task force also include the commissioner of elections and Public Safety's counter foreign interference coordinator. It is really by accumulating the wealth of experience and insights of the community that we come to an assessment and an evaluation of the information and facts that we have before us.

In terms of prioritizing, I can assure you that this community takes every instance of foreign interference extremely seriously, as we do any threats to the security and safety of candidates or campaigns. On your question of priority, it's not so much prioritization as it is of ensuring that we address all instances during an election period.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

Thank you.

In the last election, there were obviously a lot of concerns around foreign interference. We have had the elections commissioner here, and he's told us that our institutions are some of the safest around the world. However, this question is raised quite often, and there is a specific case that our colleagues on the other side have raised.

There could be an election at any time, because we are in a minority Parliament. There's a lot of work that your task force is doing, but it's not palpable to the public. What information can you share that would help someone in the riding of London West feel much safer about the next election, which could happen any time from now?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

Mr. Chair, perhaps I'll answer the question in two ways.

All of the information that we provided during the technical briefings is still available to all Canadians, but more importantly, all of the tool kits to protect democracy, to be cyber-safe, to understand and navigate the social media environment of information and disinformation remain available to all Canadians. We would look to amplify and increase that on an ongoing basis, and we do so as individual member departments.

In addition to the foreign interference document, a new document from the service, there is also a CSIS-specific document that relates to threats to democratic institutions, similar to the report that Ms. Walshe emphasized.

I would reiterate that a way to do better in the future would be to ensure that those publications are available in even more languages and that they are understood through engagement efforts with those Canadians and individual communities on an ongoing, sustained basis, not only during an election but also on an ongoing basis.

[Arielle Kayabaga, Liberal, London West, ON]

We know that extortions have impacted communities in Surrey and Brampton and other places, and some of those extortions have been linked to foreign interference. Is there any work that you're doing to address or assess the impact of the linkage between foreign interference and the extortions that are happening in the communities of Surrey and Brampton and in other areas in the GTA, where it's very related to ethnic groups? What's that linkage around foreign interference and extortions?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

What I would share with the committee is that it's a very complex world that we are facing in terms of navigating national security. The CSIS director, in his public speech in November 2025, highlighted the overlap of the various tools that are available to hostile state actors to be able to perpetrate foreign interference.

We also are very conscious of the Venn diagram of the types of techniques that foreign actors will use. In some instances, there may be overlap with the use of criminal proxy agents. In the foreign interference space—and CSIS has issued an alert about this for Canadians—there may also be the use of private investigators to assist and enable transnational repression. Similarly, in the cyberspace, we are aware of the overlap between criminal entities that support various hostile states in undertaking those efforts.

While I won't speak to the specifics of any ongoing efforts by the RCMP or other police of jurisdiction as they relate to extortion specifically, we can tell you that we do monitor the efforts of multiple states as they relate to the engagements of proxies, private sectors or criminal organizations. That is part of what we look at in monitoring for threats to Canadians.

[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, Mr. Chair.

If I may, I want to preface my question.

In November, Charles Burton appeared before the committee. He told us about the work he'd done, particularly on the Kenny Chiu case. He told us about WeChat and the very sophisticated aspect of that platform, particularly with respect to not only information manipulation, but also mass manipulation. We know that countries that engage in foreign interference, such as India, have banned this platform.

People have discussed banning TikTok. I know you're going to tell me that it's not your role to decide whether or not these instruments should be banned. That's up to the lawmakers. However, to make an informed decision, we need to know what's happening on the ground. You are our eyes on this.

Based on your experience in the field, to what extent is WeChat, for example, a major vector for disinformation?

[Saliou Babou]

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

My answer may disappoint you. Yes, I will confirm that it's not our role to determine which platforms should be monitored or what action should be taken with respect to any given platform.

What I could say is that we made certain incidents that occurred on the WeChat platform public, before and during the election. Our work is ongoing. When we perceive information threats, we make them public so that people can make informed choices.

As for whether platforms should be monitored more closely, I would say that that question isn't our responsibility. Our job is to communicate information threats, whatever they may be, on WeChat and other platforms, as is the case with elections.

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

I understand that you can't make the decision. However, in terms of the number of attempts to disinform, was WeChat one of the platforms that was often involved, based on what you saw on the ground?

[Saliou Babou]

I can confirm that WeChat was one of them, as we've publicly identified two disinformation campaigns that took place on WeChat.

In our technical briefings, we also identified campaigns on other platforms. It's one of many platforms that we monitor continuously. As information threats emerge, we share them with the public.

However, I couldn't say that we pay more attention to one platform than another.

[The Chair, Liberal, Chris Bittle]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Van Popta, you have five minutes, please.

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

Good. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you again to the witnesses.

In the previous round, you were talking about how or to what extent your group's high level of situational awareness was being communicated to the public. I was asking that line of questions in the context of the panel's refusal to answer earlier questions about whether specific ridings were being targeted.

On page 9 of your report, you state that the SITE task force “sent a comprehensive email to all candidates that included information from the SITE [task force] on tactics used by threat actors, personal and cyber security advice, and instructions on how to report incidents to the SITE [task force], further empowering candidates to take proactive steps to secure their campaigns.”

I don't remember getting that. I was a candidate. I checked with my campaign manager, who I will acknowledge had a higher level of situational awareness about these sorts of things than I did. I was out knocking on doors and pounding up signs throughout the riding.

Did my campaign get an email like that? Why wouldn't I have known about that?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

Mr. Chair, I can confirm to the member that the email was sent to all confirmed candidates based on a list shared with the SITE task force, through the Privy Council Office specifically, by Elections Canada. That email was sent on April 11, if that will help the member to locate it.

The description you gave is accurate in terms of the information we shared. What we were trying to emphasize there was that it was clear for all candidates and campaigns the path by which they could communicate any instances that were observed by the campaign teams, the volunteers and the candidates themselves during the period of the election.

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

Good. Okay. I'll acknowledge that perhaps I was a bit negligent in not reading all the emails that came to my campaign email, but my campaign manager asserts that he did not receive it. Now, maybe he did, and maybe he also just glanced over it, in which case he and I will have a little follow-up conversation about this.

However, just the fact that I didn't know about that email and about this service even being available makes me really, really wonder how effective your SITE task force has been in communicating with the public when your goal is to ensure that the public has a high degree of confidence in our electoral system.

[Vanessa Lloyd]

I'll answer the question perhaps also with a point of interest to your colleague Madam Normandin.

One of the things we're aware of is that public opinion reporting, which will come out later this year, demonstrates that national security issues are most informed or are most received by Canadians where they go to get their information via television, newspapers and the Internet. Social media actually falls below that list in terms of where people go to receive national security information.

I would add for the member that in addition to the email we sent, we did an unclassified brief that went over all the information that was shared in that email to all campaigns. The opportunity for each and every candidate's campaign to be represented at that briefing was also put out to increase the chances that the candidates would understand the information we were putting out to help them maintain the integrity and security of their efforts.

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

In your earlier testimony, or perhaps lack thereof, you didn't want to answer questions about whether specific ridings were being targeted with foreign interference. I'm wondering if you could answer this question: If there was a riding, or a campaign in a specific riding, that was being targeted, did you reach out to that campaign specifically?