Oh, oh!
Evidence of meeting #81 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was russia.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #81 for National Defence in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was russia.
A recording is available from Parliament.
9:25 a.m.
Some hon. members
Oh, oh!
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
9:25 a.m.
Chair, Defence, Interior and Anti-corruption Commission, Saeima, Riga, Latvia, As an Individual
Let me give you some examples. The EU has been important. Like I said, it gives us a sense of belonging to the west, besides practical things like free trade, free travel—which is really free. You don't have, in the Schengen zone, checks, there's nothing. You don't even have to show your ID. You walk like you walk from one town to another in Latvia.
If you could divide up the first part of your question, exactly what kind of.... In 2002 I was elected, and in 2004, for two years we were sitting twice a week all day in plenary sessions, just changing our laws so they would be harmonized with the EU's laws. Those basically didn't touch any military stuff. The laws on our army, on security, we changed because we were on our way to becoming NATO members. They also needed a lot of changes and standardization.
In what way...?
9:25 a.m.
Liberal
Sven Spengemann Liberal Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON
Maybe another way to cut the question is that if you look at the policy coherence within NATO vis-à-vis Russia—let's stay with Russia for the moment—and then the policy coherence within the broader EU as to Russia—
9:25 a.m.
Chair, Defence, Interior and Anti-corruption Commission, Saeima, Riga, Latvia, As an Individual
About the EU, maybe put it this way—and this is like what the nice lady said—there are certain countries in which there are parties or a president in power about whom you would say they're pro-Russian or said something pro-Russian. It was all over the news, so people are concerned. Now and then they meet Putin, or some prime minister from Russia or vice-prime minister. Then they say, yes, we should do away with all the embargoes, and stuff like that. But when the time comes to make a decision in Brussels, when they sit around the table like this, EU countries are unified against Russian aggression, or fake news, or whatever.
This is more, probably, sometimes the reverence some politicians are paying to Putin when he comes. Or they are interested in some projects there, like Germany, with a pipeline, again, through the Baltics to Germany, which is not a really good thing as it makes the EU more dependent on Russian gas. I mean in the future, liquefied gas. You're also producing that in Canada, yes? Or not. The Americans do.
9:30 a.m.
Chair, Defence, Interior and Anti-corruption Commission, Saeima, Riga, Latvia, As an Individual
They have changed their laws to allow them to export that. Then Germans have all these agreements and want to have more pipelines from Russia. They will be more dependent. There are contradictions, but at the end of the day, when they come together they are unified.
Who suffers most? Who suffers from these sanctions? The Baltics. But we complain less because we know in regard to security and economics that you sometimes cannot advance in your well-being if security-wise you are not in a good position. How will you then get investments? It's all connected. You cannot just say, we just want to trade with Russia, to hell with what's there. No.
9:30 a.m.
Liberal
9:30 a.m.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
I'd like to thank you guys for joining us this morning. Also, it was great to have a conversation last night during dinner.
We talked a lot about fake news. We talked about cyber-attacks, cyber-defence, to a small degree, but we really never talk about internal corruption. What has been done to address that issue? Moving forward, is NATO part of that group to address this corruption that's happening? That's throughout Europe, but primarily we're talking about Russian influence.
9:30 a.m.
Chair, Defence, Interior and Anti-corruption Commission, Saeima, Riga, Latvia, As an Individual
In what way do you mean “corruption”, political corruption?
Very often, there is no proof. Very often, Russia's agenda is like in America, where it coincides with some political party or some candidate's agenda. It doesn't have to be money. It's very often interests that are common. Russia feels it right away, and they abuse this or use this for their own benefit.
I also believe that very often, as it was during the Cold War, there are people who can be bought. There definitely must be politicians who can be bought. Well, excuse me, many people have issues, especially ambitious people such as us.
There are many ways, and Russia uses all of them, as did the Soviet Union. The President of Russia, Putin, was taught in KGB school. People in high positions around him are his former colleagues. The way Russia behaves now and what they are using, the tactics and the strategy, is very similar to what was used.
I recently read an article about how somebody finally got his hands on a KGB manual on how to work with foreigners. I think it's still used today. There are hookers, there is money, there is booze, and all I can advise politicians is to be very careful.
I have been to Moscow myself, before the Ukraine invasion. You get a call during the night in your hotel room and you're offered different things, and it's on you. They will use everything possible if it will coincide with their aims, to achieve something somewhere—I don't know, Canada's position on something, or whatever. I'm not talking just about you, but that's what they use.
Not much has changed. Maybe they have learned more. They are better at cyber things. They understood very quickly that the Internet is a really good thing for their aims, and they are using that.
This is difficult. If it's not going public, I can tell you a bit more. I'm a member of the National Security Council, led by the president. Every month we listen to our security services, and very often they pick up things and pass them to the security services of your country or other NATO countries. It's just interesting. It's interesting to see the way Russian security services work. It's almost as in Soviet times. They have their working hours from 9 to 5. It doesn't matter. You can very often notice that they are Russians because they finish work at 5 o'clock there. In Europe, it would be 3 or 4 o'clock during the day, or in your part of the world it would be different. It's sometimes so easy to detect them because the shift ends with, “I worked my butt off.”
9:35 a.m.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
Thank you for that. It's a hard one to talk about.
You mentioned that Russia is very aggressive. They use all means possible to achieve a goal. Have they used the economy at all? Ever since NATO has had troops on the ground and is doing the training, are they doing anything in regard to the economy? That's a concern.
9:35 a.m.
Chair, Defence, Interior and Anti-corruption Commission, Saeima, Riga, Latvia, As an Individual
Yes. We have sanctions, and the United States has imposed sanctions.
The Russians also imposed sanctions. As I said before, I think the sanctions hit us more than many other EU countries because they are more for foodstuffs. Because we have a common border, during the Soviet times the Baltic States were the ones who mostly supplied Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Leningrad, otherwise they would have been starving. They thought they would hit us and some other east European countries hard and we would be the ones in the meetings in Brussels complaining about EU sanctions, saying “We should do away with sanctions, everybody; let's just be friends.” They use this.
It hits them more or less. What they are eating now is not cheese. It's called a production of cheese. It's not real cheese. You make a cheese substitute.
9:35 a.m.
Chair, Defence, Interior and Anti-corruption Commission, Saeima, Riga, Latvia, As an Individual
Processed something, but it's not cheese.
They have few of their own, and everything else from the EU and other countries are sanctioned on the list: milk, meat, fish, different stuff. Some of our companies had to work very hard to look for markets in other different countries, but they have found nobody went under the water, they're working, and it actually benefits our economy at the end, because they have to look somewhere else. It's easy to sell to Russia, it's a big country. Try to find some ways from small countries somewhere else.
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
9:35 a.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thanks, gentlemen, for being here.
We touched on this when we were in Latvia and we touched on it last night. I'm interested in... I guess it's a unique relationship based on location, but Latvia has a lot of Russians in Latvia. There are a lot of Latvians who speak Russian. There are pro-Russian political groups and parties.
I'm interested in the misinformation campaign. When you think about the way they're spreading fake news, are they reaching out in Latvian, are they reaching out in Russian, are they reaching out to the NATO troops, are they reaching out to the general population, and is any of it having any impact? Are there any success stories on their end? Are there any success stories on your end, or is there a collective eye-roll because the Latvians so understand what's coming at them? I'm just interested in the dynamics of how that plays out based on the fact that a large portion of the population either is Russian or speaks Russian.
9:35 a.m.
Chair, Defence, Interior and Anti-corruption Commission, Saeima, Riga, Latvia, As an Individual
I would advise you, if you are more interested in that subject, to look at the website of the NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence in Riga. They did extensive research where they employed these algorithms. They looked for news or posts on social networks like Twitter and Facebook concerning NATO's forward presence mission. What they came up with was surprising. Of all the posts or tweets about NATO's presence in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, or Poland in Russian, 80% of them came from Russia, with bots or somebody writing these things. You have probably read articles about these big houses in St. Petersburg where people are employed to write stuff. It was 80% in English, and 80% in Russian. There was no Latvian because they have problems with the knowledge, and then the centre of excellence is not writing algorithms or generating them in Latvian. It's difficult. We have difficult grammar, so it's difficult for them, but in Russian and English, up to 80%.
They tried their best, but they didn't succeed. Maybe in some parts of the Russian-speaking population in Latvia, it had some effect, but not in a very substantial way. In English, I don't know. Maybe the author who writes those articles follows some of these bots and reads fake news there, but they didn't succeed. They tried, and there was one case.
Right away, after Germans were stationed in Lithuania—a framework nation, like you in Latvia—they put out fake news that Germans raped a young girl. It took Lithuania half a day. There were officials out in the news, and it was on every official news site, putting the facts and saying it's wrong, and where it comes from. It didn't catch on. But Russia tried. They do this. They test and they look. Okay, if it doesn't work they don't employ it, but if something else works they will use that. They're good at it.
We have developed, in many of our countries, cyber-defence. They have developed cyber-attacks. They excel at this. They're probably the best. I don't know if the Americans do that, employ this, but they do, and they are really good. Defending is harder.
9:40 a.m.
Liberal
Leona Alleslev Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Yes. I'm just wondering if you could share with us what your defence committee is studying at the moment.
9:40 a.m.
Chair, Defence, Interior and Anti-corruption Commission, Saeima, Riga, Latvia, As an Individual
They can send only me here. I'm not studying very much abroad.
What I like to do—and I try to engage the whole committee—is to go and visit our troops outside. We go to training grounds. We see training. We talk to the people. When new equipment is bought, we go out and talk to those who use this equipment. We sometimes even try that equipment. This is really good. We changed to new automatic weapons in Latvia. I come from the times when we were trained with AK-47s.
9:40 a.m.
Chair, Defence, Interior and Anti-corruption Commission, Saeima, Riga, Latvia, As an Individual
I know how it shoots, how it works, everything.
You're trained to do certain things and then you see how this weapon works. This helps. Instead of just sitting behind the table, there's a general or army commander, and you ask them, “How are the new weapons”? “Oh, they're fine.”
9:40 a.m.
Chair, Defence, Interior and Anti-corruption Commission, Saeima, Riga, Latvia, As an Individual
I tried to do this, otherwise.... We are going in April to Adaži base for half a day and hopefully we'll spend time with your troops as well. I have visited Polish troops there, but this time we have intend to talk more to the framework nations.
