Evidence of meeting #23 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was registry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Chris Bittle
Thank you so much.
“What's good for the goose is good for the gander.”
Mr. Louis, you have six minutes.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I want to welcome Mr. Boegman, our potential first foreign influence transparency commissioner, to this committee. Thank you for your willingness to put your name forward for this important role.
The Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act establishes a new framework intended to strengthen transparency and protect the integrity of Canada's democratic institutions. As Parliament considers this nomination, it's important that the committee understand not only your professional qualifications but also how you'll approach the practical responsibilities of standing up for this new oversight office.
As previously mentioned, Mr. Boegman, your experience as chief electoral officer in British Columbia serves you well. You mentioned that, provincially, you brought forward a multi-faceted approach. That included bringing together a working group, which you said was unique at the provincial level.
Can you share with this committee what lessons you learned from bringing that working group together?
Nominee for the position of Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner, As an Individual
I brought the working group together primarily because I felt that, as the head of the election agency, I didn't have all the information that was necessary in order to fully understand whether there were any actors at play in the electoral process who we weren't aware of. I engaged with local representation from CSIS, the RCMP and provincially with the office of the chief information officer, the registrar of lobbyists in British Columbia and the provincial government. We needed to bring together people who had access to different sources of information, people who were able to see areas that we just didn't have visibility into.
I found, at the time, that everyone was very interested in working together. At the time, however, the information-sharing pathways were not as direct as I would have liked, although I'm pleased to see that some of the changes that have been made. For example, they now allow CSIS to have an MOU with a provincial partner in order to exchange information.
I found that having the group set up was a great thing, because it allowed us to practise, to plan and to do scenario planning to understand, if something should happen, what the response would be, which agency would have that lever and which agency was best positioned to respond to that threat, whether it was something that was counter to the campaign finance laws, for example, or perhaps a criminal offence. It really helped crystallize the roles of the different agencies as we commonly looked across the risk to the democratic process. That was the biggest one, just knowing the different roles, knowing who has the levers and knowing which tool can be used to accomplish the end goal.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
That doesn't depend on an election cycle itself. It sounds like that work—
Nominee for the position of Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner, As an Individual
That can be ongoing, yes.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
The team that you would be in charge of seems to be around 30 people. How big was the provincial team approximately?
Nominee for the position of Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner, As an Individual
I think there were just under 80 full-time equivalents at Elections BC. We did have access to temporary staff under the legislation, so typically, depending upon the cycle, there would be an extra 20 to 30 people in the office. During a provincial election, we would have about 250 people at the headquarters office and, of course, 25,000 people in the field.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
You also mentioned that our closest allies and partners, like the Five Eyes, possess similar mechanisms to the foreign influence transparency registry we are setting up. How will you be able to work with our other partners and allies to share information and best practices? Are they meeting already on their own and would be now invited to the table? Have you considered how to approach this?
Nominee for the position of Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner, As an Individual
That's a little bit of putting the cart before the horse. I'm not certain how those organizations meet. I can speak to you obviously about my background. I did engage with other Canadian election management bodies at regular meetings, but I also knew that there was a lot of great engagement that could happen internationally with other countries. I was an advocate for that. I would certainly look to establish those relationships and to understand how they have implemented their registries. Obviously there is different legislation guiding each registry. Ours is country-agnostic, for example, as I'm sure you know, whereas the British one has different tiers in it. It's just understanding what those mean, whether they find those are successful. As the legislation is implemented and the office is up and running and starting to do its work, then I think you're always looking for areas where you can innovate, where you see that there's perhaps a gap, and often ways to overcome that come from other organizations.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
You'd say that there would be patterns that you would seek within....
Nominee for the position of Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner, As an Individual
Yes, for sure.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Lastly, you said you would be engaging with communities that would likely be targeted, and you mentioned that brings on transnational repression. You said we need to establish trust or rebuild trust. You mentioned the academic sector, maybe cultural groups. What do you think is the best way we can reach out to establish that trust and build that relationship with cultural groups and academia?
Nominee for the position of Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner, As an Individual
I would need to meet them in person. There are a number of organizations. Certainly I followed very closely the work of Commissioner Hogue, and understand the input that she received. I know that work is ongoing, but certainly for me it would be identifying these groups and meeting with them in person, and establishing regular ways to communicate back and forth.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Chris Bittle
Thank you so much.
We have Madame Normandin for three and a half minutes please.
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
Thank you very much.
Mr. Boegman, you spoke about your past experience in setting up registries. As we know, Australia was criticized for a registry that was costly and relatively ineffective. We also unfortunately know that the government here has a tendency to implement computer programs that are very costly and not very effective.
I’d like to hear your point of view on two aspects.
The first is the latitude you'll have in creating the registry. Will this be something that falls exclusively under your responsibility, and will you be able to make all the decisions in setting it up? The second pertains to the characteristics of a good registry. What are you looking for, exactly, in terms of costs, ease of use and speed of implementation? I'd like you to tell me about your expertise and what a good registry looks like.
Nominee for the position of Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner, As an Individual
Thank you for the question.
To answer the first part of your question, I'd say that the registry is currently in development. I don't think a final solution has been reached. It's more of a temporary solution, and maybe it's not the best solution. It's very important to have an easy-to-use solution for individuals or entities that need to register. It's important that the information is clear and that the steps to enter the information into something else can be followed. It's important to have this information in other languages because there may be people who might want to register and whose first language is not English.
If I have the honour of being appointed commissioner, this responsibility would be mine alone. Currently, the responsibility is shared with other people.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
How do you plan to ensure that individuals who may need to register will have the information indicating that they should do so? Do you already have an idea for an awareness campaign, an information campaign, for example? How do you plan to proceed?
Nominee for the position of Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner, As an Individual
Communication is very important. As for written communication, for example, there are newsletters written in different languages. In British Columbia, I believe 16 languages are used to communicate with all the minority communities. It's easy for members of these communities to understand the rules and know what they need to do to register. There are many means of communication: in writing, orally, online, through the media and social media.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Chris Bittle
I'll go to Mr. Jackson, please, for six minutes. I will be firm on the six minutes.
Conservative
Grant Jackson Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
That's fair, Mr. Chair.
Welcome. It's nice to meet you.
I want to follow up on a line of questioning from my colleague, Mr. Cooper.
We've established that a lot of things are out of your control, with the establishment of this registry, and I think that's fair. I want to make sure that, despite all of that, if you're confirmed into this position within the next month or so, given what you can control, you will be ready to go on day one that you're confirmed into this role.
Nominee for the position of Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner, As an Individual
Yes.
Conservative
Grant Jackson Conservative Brandon—Souris, MB
Are you confident, given everything that's ongoing, that you're being set up for success in this role, given what you've seen?
Nominee for the position of Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner, As an Individual
I believe I'm being set up for success, but I know that I do have other mechanisms, for example, if I believe additional funding is necessary, and that I can pursue those mechanisms.
Conservative
Nominee for the position of Foreign Influence Transparency Commissioner, As an Individual
I think they're the same mechanisms that any federal agency would use to access funding through Treasury Board.
I certainly believe that this is a very important issue for all parliamentarians and that there will be support for the efforts of the office and to ensure that the office receives the funding that's necessary to be successful.