National Defence Committee on Feb. 7th, 2023

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I sit on the committee from time to time. This is a fascinating subject, I must say. It's a source of concern, but also an area with tremendous potential.

I'd like to start with Mr. Shull.

I have a question about the cyber-attacks that we experience in small doses. In all likelihood, we will face more and more of them, so do you think we could go so far as to consider them war crimes?

[Aaron Shull]

That's a very good question. Indeed, senior members of the Ukrainian government have called for the offensive cyber-activities in the Ukraine to be considered war crimes. At present, it's likely not, but certainly it's not necessarily something that—

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Excuse me, Mr. Shull.

The sound quality isn't good enough for the interpreter to do their job.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Can you make sure your microphone boom is in the right place? Speak louder and try again, please.

[Aaron Shull]

Is it possible to interpret now, if I speak slowly?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Unfortunately, we can't take any more testimony from you, Mr. Shull. The audio is not good enough for interpretation—unless you want to log out, exit the screen, log back in and see if you can get your audio working better so that we can hear you for proper interpretation here.

Monsieur Desilets, I stopped the clock. You can direct your questions toward Dr. Wark, if you want.

Go ahead, Mr. Desilets.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Are we carrying on with the same witness?

It doesn't look like it. Since he's still having technical issues, I'll switch to the other witness.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You have to continue with Dr. Wark.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Wark, we've talked a lot about the firm McKinsey & Company lately. Since the firm also has ties with China, do you think it could affect Canada's national security?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Thank you.

I'm not an expert in contracting. I hesitate to answer. I think the answer that you had from CSE is probably the most appropriate one, which was that in terms of the security of contracting, it is a matter for PSPC. It's one that, in my experience as an occasional contractor—not on the scale of McKinsey—they take very seriously.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

As a contractor, you're not on the same scale as McKinsey & Company. That's what I gather.

You mentioned the Five Eyes alliance. What do you have to say about Canada's position and participation in the alliance? Do you have any criticisms?

Is Canada's level of participation adequate?

Where are the gaps?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

It's a very interesting question. It's hard to answer precisely for anybody who has an outsider status—like me—and who has not taken part in Five Eyes' meetings or communications.

My understanding is that Canada has been a member of the Five Eyes and was key to the expansion of the Five Eyes system. Our membership goes back to 1949, so we've been a part of this grouping for a very long time.

Our principal investment in the Five Eyes has always been in the signals intelligence and cybersecurity fields. We've expanded beyond those over the years as the Five Eyes expanded. I think there is a greater contribution that Canada could make to the Five Eyes in a variety of fields. That raises the perennial issue, for example, of a foreign intelligence service and what additional information it might provide to Canada.

There's also a role that other Five Eyes' partners look to Canada to play that we're able to play on occasion, but probably not to the strength that we should, which is in the assessment of global security threats. The threat assessment piece is an important piece with the Five Eyes, and Five Eyes partners like to get multiple perspectives on complex, developing global threat issues. We have some capabilities in that regard, but I think we could invest a lot more in the analytical side of the intelligence business, which often gets a lot less attention than the collecting side—the signals intelligence or the agent on the ground side.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

That's interesting.

You said there were three types of false information out there. I really appreciated how you categorized them. The second type was disinformation, which is put out deliberately. It's a fairly new thing, if I'm not mistaken. We've probably experienced this type of false information on a different level.

Do you think there is anything we can do to counter false information that is deliberately put out by the Russians, the Chinese and, at times, perhaps even allies?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Thank you for the question.

We should probably be worried most about adversaries who are deliberating conducting disinformation campaigns and interfering in democratic practices. A lot of our attention has been paid, since 2016, on the possibility of election interference, because that's so fundamental to democratic practice. There's a lot of attention, as well, to the ways in which foreign state adversaries can use cyber-tools to try to impact diaspora communities in Canada and among our allies.

I think there are three effective things that we can do in that regard.

One—probably the most important thing—is to monitor and call them out publicly. Call them out as a form of deterrence for foreign state actors trying to use those tools, but also call them out to make sure that the Canadian public understands what's going on. We do that on occasion. We're doing it more often than we've done in the past. There are always sensitivities about calling out things because they can have diplomatic repercussions, so it can be complicated, but I think calling out is an important thing.

Public education is a critical part of the piece, but I will also say that trust in Canadians and trust in the ability of Canadians to make some common-sense decisions, ultimately, about what is clearly false and what is information that's being circulated on behalf of a foreign state is an important but, perhaps, underemphasized part of the equation. This may be the optimist in me, but I continue to have some faith in public sense.

I always like the example of what the French government did in response to its concerns about election interference in the national election in 2016. They created a special office in the president's office that was designed to introduce satirical commentary about clumsy Russian disinformation campaigns and to make fun of them. I think that's a great tactic.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Ms. Mathyssen, the last six minutes go to you.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm glad to see Mr. Shull back online. I think my questions could be for both witnesses.

I'd like to continue on a bit from what Ms. Kramp-Neuman was discussing, Mr. Shull. I think you mentioned the discussion about the profit side of social media and the dangers of it, and of course the algorithms that are specifically used and written to bolster those profits, but really put forward more of that misinformation or sometimes online hate. We've seen that directly.

Could you comment in terms of what role the government needs to play in terms of the regulation of this and the responsibility of those private corporations to not use or not profit so much from those algorithms?

[Aaron Shull]

Sure. I'll just see if the translators are able to pick me up now. Not at all?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Unfortunately, we're not getting the go-ahead.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Perhaps he could submit those responses.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That's a good idea.

You could submit your answer in writing to the committee. Just forward it to the clerk and then we will have your feedback on that basis.

Ms. Mathyssen, let's move ahead.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I would actually offer the same question, then, to Mr. Wark.

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Thank you for the question.

The fact that CIGI, which is at the heart of Canada's cyber-universe in terms of research, occasionally seems to have some difficulty connecting is actually a running joke between Aaron and me, but anyway....

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

I would say that I think one of the things that Aaron and I have discussed and focused some attention on—I offer this as a partial answer—is that the universe of social media communications is increasingly being affected by automated bots. These are simply machines out there that amplify, according to certain algorithms, certain kinds of messages, and they can be used for disinformation purposes by foreign state actors. We saw this with Russia in the 2016 election campaign against the United States. They can be used by social media companies to boost ratings.

I think the conclusion we've come to—without having the tools and necessarily suggesting how you do this—is that we have to tackle the automated bots issue in some form or another, to reduce their impact and the scale of the use that is made of them.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I was informed—and there was a presentation I received—about how we see personal information going forward and people's rights of usage of that personal information. It was suggested that, at whatever point, people be paid to surrender that personal information to Facebook, to social media or to any of those forums. Is that potentially a future way forward in terms of that compensation so that people know more of what they're getting and there's almost a contract?