Public Safety Committee on April 16th, 2018

[Daniel Jean]

Can I just finish answering your question? The journalists who were briefed on background on February 22 in the afternoon and in the evening, and on February 23 in the morning, were the ones who were accompanying the Prime Minister. The choice was made by the PMO. That's not something that is necessarily unusual. There was a broad variety.

Mr. Akin was not on this initial list. The reason I spoke to Mr. Akin is that, on February 24, he wanted to bring me on record. I first called Madame Connolly and I asked her, as a Global colleague, if she would ask him to maintain their commitment that it would not go on the record. I did not want to go on record because—

[Erin O'Toole]

Out of issues of time—

[Daniel Jean]

I'm just saying that Mr. Akin did not receive the full background briefing.

[Erin O'Toole]

In response to one of the questions, you used the term “we”. You said, “we” didn't get back to the Vancouver Sun. Is that the national security adviser or the Prime Minister's media team, sir?

[Daniel Jean]

No, what I meant by “we”—

[Erin O'Toole]

At times your presentation sounds much like someone.... Correcting inaccurate information that's out there about the Prime Minister should be done by the Prime Minister's Office, not by the national security adviser.

[Daniel Jean]

I don't think there would have been much credibility for a political staffer to go and explain that people were using the names of three respected public institutions in an inappropriate way to try to create a narrative that was totally false. That's the rationale. I think I've explained it before.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. O'Toole and Mr. Jean. We'll have to leave it there.

Mr. Picard, you have five minutes. Go ahead.

[Michel Picard, Liberal, Montarville, QC]

Mr. Chair, I'll be splitting my time with my colleague Peter Fragiskatos.

Mr. Jean, thank you for the information you've given us today. I have a question for you.

To be a politician is to be misquoted from time to time and to draw criticism and negative comments. I'm going to engage in a bit of speculation, if you'll indulge me. My hunch is that, at the many functions and events attended by a member of the government, some of the participants present may have a more questionable past than others, unbeknownst to the government member.

In light of the fact that being widely criticized comes with the territory as a politician, what prompted you to take action under the circumstances, other than your admirable loyalty to the public institutions involved? Why did you decide to set the record straight in this specific instance?

[Daniel Jean]

I have three points in response to that.

Two of the positions I've held at the Privy Council Office have involved crisis management, cabinet secretary for operations and national security advisor. I have also worked in positions abroad. In Haiti, for instance, I was constantly managing crises during two coups d'état.

During a crisis, it's important to establish the facts as soon as possible, to prevent the spread of misinformation. It's also important to answer technical questions. Furthermore, when misinformation starts circulating, as it did in this instance, the ability to set the record straight is essential.

Over the past two years, we've seen the emergence of what is known as information warfare all over the world. You start with something that is true and add elements that are completely false in an effort to embellish the facts. Like every intelligence and security community around the world, we are examining the issue to figure out how to prevent and combat this type of warfare.

Our analysis clearly shows that, when the information is available ahead of time, it's very easy to call on the media, and that is evident from our interview with Mr. Akin. The analysis also shows that, whenever that step is taken before the situation has played out, the person dealing with the media has to field very tough questions, such as those I'm being asked today.

Afterwards, people all of a sudden realize that that person may have been right. It happened to a predecessor of mine a few years ago. As I told him some weeks back, the outcome brought him vindication.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Fragiskatos, you have about a minute and a half.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Jean, for your many years of public service and for being here today.

Throughout this debate, the argument, the idea, the narrative of foreign interference has appeared. I want to ask you, as national security adviser, a general question on foreign interference—how you feel about it, what it means, how you define it, and the extent to which it poses a threat to Canadian national security interests. Again, please respond in general terms.

[Daniel Jean]

In general terms, we're doing a lot of work, as I said. We're doing a lot of work to support the Minister of Democratic Institutions, and we're also doing a lot of work to support the Minister of Public Safety. There is, of course, foreign interference when you are in a situation like an election, but you also have foreign interference in between elections. We are basically trying to understand how this is done.

You had a good example in Canada. It is public, so I can talk about it. It was actually on international organizations. It was on WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency. Basically, there was an attack by Russian actors whereby they acquired the medical files of athletes who had won Olympic medals, for example, that gymnast who won so many gold medals. They took the fact that these people had medical exemptions—some Canadian athletes did too—and they started to say.... They didn't talk about why they had these medical exemptions. Of course to get a medical exemption to take medication, if you're an Olympic athlete, the threshold is very high. But they didn't put out that part. They just put out the part about the medical exemption, and they said, “You say we're cheating; you're cheating, too”.

I think it's very important to have the ability to understand what is fact and what is reality, and when you see that things are not true, to be able to respond in an agile way. I'm really happy that the media are doing more and more of that.

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Motz, you have five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Jean, for being here today.

Would it be fair to say that having a national security adviser brief the media is unusual in a circumstance like this, yes or no?

[Daniel Jean]

Not necessarily, no. I think that when you have a situation like that, in the heart of a crisis, the national security adviser is right in the centre of it. He's the one who has all the information. Otherwise, I would have had to bring in the CSIS people, the RCMP people, the GAC people. That would have been really complicated.

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

What's interesting is that your predecessor, Mr. Fadden, said on the weekend that he would be the most surprised person in Canada if you alone actually decided to do the briefing. I guess, after hearing you today, he is the most surprised person in Canada.

[Daniel Jean]

In all fairness—

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

Do you regret raising the rogue Indian conspiracy theory?

[Daniel Jean]

I have a lot of respect for Mr. Fadden. I was actually his right arm when he was the deputy minister at immigration, and—

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

Right. The question is—

[Daniel Jean]

—and I'd like to say that it's very difficult to command when you don't have facts in front of you. Now there will be some facts.

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

Again, I ask the question. Do you regret raising the conspiracy theory of rogue Indian elements?

[Daniel Jean]

I never raised a conspiracy theory, as I said before. What I said is that there were coordinated efforts to try to misinform, and I said that these were either private people—it was definitely not the Government of India—or if there were people from India, they were acting in a rogue way. That's what I said.