Public Safety Committee on April 16th, 2018

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Then I heard the Prime Minister, on February 27, in the House of Commons, advancing and suggesting that there were rogue elements within the Indian government, to suggest that.... Who knows what his motivation was to say that, but to say that in the House, he obviously believed there were rogue elements of the Indian government whose motivation was to embarrass the government.

I'm curious to know whether you were rolled out in this circumstance to try to do damage control for the PMO and the Prime Minister.

[Daniel Jean]

Sir, at the stage where I am in my career, I don't think I would be trying to do something like that. Second, the easy thing would have been to stay away from it, and of course, Canadians would have had a lot more misinformation implicating public institutions that are respected.

I chose to do the right thing, sir, and throughout my career, I've always done the right thing.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

I believe you, and based on your record, I would certainly applaud your stellar career.

Now, some time between the 22nd and the 27th, this theory of the conspiracy came forward. Did you brief the PMO or the PM himself on this possibility that there were rogue elements within the Indian government?

[Daniel Jean]

First of all, we're not going to discuss classified information here, but what I can say is that, throughout the incident, the Prime Minister was being briefed on both unclassified and classified information.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

When, then, in this whole series of events, did you advance that there was some fake news out there, as you called it, some false information, some misinformation, and that you wanted to counter that false information? When did you advance that you were going to step forward and set the record straight?

[Daniel Jean]

You understand, of course, sir, that the Prime Minister was in India and I was in Ottawa, right?

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Yes.

[Daniel Jean]

I was in India the week before doing hard work for our relationship with India.

That evening, when I proposed to make the background briefing—for the three reasons that I've said—I did speak, as I always do, with officials in the PCO. I spoke to people in the PMO, and I called an official, my most senior official accompanying the Prime Minister. He had already received both the classified and the unclassified information. I explained what I was going to do in terms of the background briefing. So the Prime Minister would have been briefed.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Concerning your wish to appear before the committee today, what were your thoughts when that was being stymied by the government?

[Daniel Jean]

It's not really for me to judge, sir. As a public servant, as an official, I do not engage in parliamentary processes, tactics. There was a valid reason, and I can certainly appreciate it, and that's why I think it's going to be fantastic that we have a national security committee of parliamentarians, because they wanted the Leader of the Opposition to be able to see what we had in the classified information and then be able to see what we provided to the media.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Motz.

The final five minutes go to Ms. Damoff.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

It's a good segue into my next question, actually.

Mr. Jean, you mentioned that Mr. Scheer had a right to classified briefings, and you mentioned our national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians. This committee actually studied the legislation to form that. That committee has access to confidential briefings, and it sounds as if there would be a lot more in order to put the whole situation in context, that really a classified briefing would give you all of the information.

We appreciate your giving us the unclassified part here today, but I understand you made the offer to Mr. Scheer almost a month ago. You said it was around March 22, and so far he hasn't found time in his schedule. I know he initially refused the briefing, but he has not had time to have that briefing yet.

Just late last week he was sharing fabricated stories on his Twitter feed about meetings and, as it turns out, the story wasn't even true. Both the Indian government and the minister involved on the Indian side have both said, no, there was never a meeting that was cancelled.

I am just wondering. Are you still willing to give the Leader of the Opposition that classified briefing, which obviously would put things into context for him, so perhaps he wouldn't be sharing fabricated stories in social media?

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I want to caution all members about talking about “fabricated stories” by a colleague. We'll just go with “stories”.

[Daniel Jean]

In fairness to the Leader of the Opposition, I would say that he took the position that he wanted the unclassified before, and in fairness to the opposition, I would also say that you are back today from a two-week break. As the chair knows, I made the offer to do the briefing and when he called me, after receiving the letter, asking if it needed to be done at that time, I said no, that I thought members of Parliament deserved their break. In fairness, this is how it was done.

Now, the offer is there. He wanted the unclassified to take place. The offer is still there, and that will be with other officials of the committee on security and intelligence, who have the same assessment that I have on the fact that there were what we perceived to be coordinated efforts to misinform Canadians.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Given the information you have provided to us, it seems to me that the security agencies, CSIS, the RCMP, and the other agencies, actually did their jobs really well, as they so often do.

Would you say that's a fair statement?

[Daniel Jean]

I have the privilege, honourable member, to coordinate an incredible group of people, from security and intelligence, to international, to defence. I have these people around my table every Wednesday, and the work they did over that 48 hours, when you look at the sequence of events, to be able to confirm the information, relay it to Delhi, debunk all the false information that was going through.... We woke up the RCMP at midnight on the 21st because some people were trying to fabricate a story that was not true.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

I would agree with you. All of us, regardless of party, have a great deal of respect for those agencies and the work they do, and I want to thank you for coordinating that.

There seems to be a lot of terminology that's used that isn't quite right. We keep hearing “rogue Indian conspiracy theory”. I just want to reiterate that you've never called it that. You've called it “coordinated efforts”. Is that not right?

[Daniel Jean]

What I have said is that there were people who were trying to make a faux pas, like something that should not have happened, and tough questions should be asked. They were trying to make that faux pas a lot bigger by fabricating false stories, and my intervention was to debunk that.

On conspiracy, as I said, the word “conspiracy” does not appear in all the stories by the media that I briefed, except for the John Ivison story, which asked why they were saying this, because I never said that.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Right, but we heard that word again today, and I just want to be clear that this is not something you have ever put out there.

[Daniel Jean]

That's correct.

[Pam Damoff, Liberal, Oakville North—Burlington, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Ms. Damoff.

Thank you, Mr. Jean, on behalf of the committee, for appearing here. Indeed, thank you for your years of service to the community.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.