Public Safety Committee on May 5th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Fisher.

Ms. Michaud, you have two and a half minutes, please.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can't help but make the connection between cyber attacks and the pandemic that we're currently experiencing.

Mr. McGuinty, as you said, China and Russia have been engaged in many cyber attacks in recent months. This includes not only information theft, but also disinformation campaigns. For example, in Europe, hackers stole and altered data on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. The European Medicines Agency confirms that confidential emails were stolen and posted on the Russian dark web.

Canada is a G7 country and will hopefully become a vaccine-producing country in the near future. We can assume that this isn't our last pandemic.

How can we counter these cyber attacks, which directly affect and threaten public health?

[David McGuinty]

Ms. Michaud, you're absolutely right. This phenomenon affects public health, research and development and the Canadian economy. These threats exist throughout our society. We've tried to clearly describe the situation in this area in paragraphs 64 to 67.

First, CSE has assessed that the number and sophistication of cyber-threat actors is increasing. Second, CSE says state-sponsored programs from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea pose the greatest strategic threat to Canada, likely attempting to develop cyber-capabilities to disrupt Canadian critical infrastructure: energy systems, water systems, our grid and traffic flow control. Third, CSE notes that state-sponsored actors continue to conduct commercial espionage against our businesses, academia and government to steal intellectual property. Fourth, CSE tells us that online foreign influence campaigns are ongoing and are not limited to major political events, like elections.

This phenomenon is happening everywhere. We wanted to describe it for the benefit of parliamentarians and Canadians so that they can understand the scale of the situation and see that it affects all sectors of our economy and our universities.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madam Michaud.

Mr. Harris, you have two and a half minutes, please.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

Thank you, Chair.

Lots of questions arise, but I do have to ask one overriding question having to do with the mandate of your committee. My understanding, initially, was that there was a great deal of interest in having oversight of the various security and intelligence agencies that are operating in secret, as is their want and as is expected, and in making sure that they are following their policies and that their practices are in keeping with the law and in accordance with the expectations of Canadians.

What kinds of activities have you undertaken in that regard? I know you were talking about threat assessments, but what about that oversight? What's been done in that area?

[David McGuinty]

There was a debate, Mr. Harris, when this committee was first being contemplated in Parliament, of course. What is it? Is it an oversight committee?

Perhaps a better description would be that of the American congressional committee and the nature of that committee compared to a review committee, which NSICOP has become. The decision was taken by Parliament to make it a review body to look back over time, with a broad mandate to examine many issues, to get access to classified information, to ask the right questions and to call witnesses.

Each review brings 10,000 to 30,000 or 40,000 pages of material, and then, of course, we provide a report to the Prime Minister, as I mentioned, in classified form. It is then redacted and presented to Canadians. We haven't really focused so much on the question of anything but review.

[Jack Harris, NDP, St. John's East, NL]

If there's a question of somebody misbehaving or doing something inappropriate, [Technical difficulty—Editor] as a Parliament or as a country we have to revert to such things like the O'Connor commission or the Iacobucci inquiry, rather than ask NSICOP to deal with questions of whether or not these things were appropriate, and what recourse individuals might have if they're handled badly in a negative way as we've seen happen with security activities in the past.

[David McGuinty]

These types of lawfulness questions, just-in-time lawfulness questions, can be dealt with by the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, NSIRA.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We're going to have to leave it there, unfortunately.

We'll move on to Mr. Van Popta, for five minutes, please.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. McGuinty for being here and telling us about your national security and intelligence committee report for 2020.

In this report, you highlight the quantum growth of IMVE, ideologically motivated violent extremism. You've answered some questions about that already, so thank you for that clarification.

I'm trying to get a grip on how significant this growth is and whether individuals who are involved in these hate groups are identifiable. What's the nature of their communities? Are they just online communities, or are they real identifiable people? You make reference to a couple of geographical locations in Canada, like southern Alberta, southern Quebec and somewhere in Ontario, as well. What's the nature of these groups?

[David McGuinty]

I think the report, Mr. Van Popta, has made it clear that obviously there's an online virtual community that is growing in the number of groups and participants. The security and intelligence organizations have indicated to us that there are clusters in the country, so we've tried to represent that accurately.

Beyond that, I don't know if I can offer any more detail in terms of the individuals or names, so on and so forth. Most of that would have been, of course, removed.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

It would have been redacted.

I'm not looking for names, but are there identifiable individuals who are involved in this subversive activity in Canada?

[David McGuinty]

There are and the concern the committee wanted to raise with Canadians is that this is a very large group. We found that Canadians are highly active across 6,600 identified right-wing extremist channels, pages, groups and accounts. The study that we looked at also pointed to one prominent message board on which Canadians are more active than American or British users.

What this means is that Canada has a very large base from which to recruit or seek to radicalize participants. That was a very big surprise to the committee as we received the information.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I think that's a very big surprise to all Canadians. It certainly is to me. I had not expected that, so thank you for bringing that to our attention.

The report makes reference to a couple of incidents in other countries like New Zealand, with the Christchurch shooting, and the copycat shooting in El Paso. I think there might have been one or two in Europe as well.

Are there any indications of that type of event happening in Canada? I know there's reference also to the three incel-motivated attacks in Canada. Are there any others that we should know about?

[David McGuinty]

Any event that we were able to present to Canadians, Mr. Van Popta, for the period that we were reviewing, we have presented.

[Tako Van Popta, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, I just have one comment. I want to put a motion to the meeting. I was so happy to see this report from the subcommittee on what we're going to study over the next couple of meetings.

As a new member of the committee, I was getting quite frustrated that things were going so slowly. I'm happy that we're getting close to the end of our studies on systemic racism, the parole board incident and the Bastarache report.

I'm happy to see this report, and I move a motion that the report be adopted.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

I would prefer not to deal with it at this point and to deal with it at the end of Mr. McGuinty's testimony. If that's acceptable to you, then we'll do that.

With that, we're moving on to Madam Damoff for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. McGuinty, it is an absolute pleasure to have you here.

As you know, I was on the public safety committee when we studied Bill C-22, which created the committee. It was my amendment that brought you here. It was Matthew Dubé who reminded me of that in the last Parliament, that I was the one who brought in that amendment. I'm just sitting here so proud of the work that you and the other members of the committee have done and how important it is for you to share the report with all of us and with Canadians. Thank you for that.

When I was looking at the report, Mr. Van Popta was asking what the groups are, and you mentioned this earlier. They are a form of extremism that “encompasses xenophobic violence, anti-authority violence, gender-driven violence and 'other grievance-driven'”. Then it talks about CSIS saying that it's a common belief that “the success or survival of society/civilization cannot be separated from the need for ongoing violence against a perceived threatening group”. These are, for example, “the elite, visible minorities, religious groups, corporations, immigrants, capitalists, the government”.

I have noticed, over the last two years, certainly an increase in the tone of comments that I see online on posts that I make. I was really disturbed by the report when you mentioned how many Canadians.... The report that you mentioned from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue said that “Canadians are highly active across 6,600 identified right-wing extremist channels, pages, groups and accounts.” Since they tend to organize online, it means that these messages are spread more quickly.

I'm just wondering what your thoughts are on how this online presence is contributing. Maybe you can't comment on this, and that's okay if you can't. How does an online presence allow these messages from these IMVE groups to spread quickly?

[David McGuinty]

I can't get into any more detail than what is in the report on this, but let me maybe repeat a few points.

This rapid growth of IMVE is of very significant concern for Canadians. We believe this is true among our closest allies, and it's true in Canada. We have had enough comparative information, classified as well, talking about what is going on in other places, and it's very concerning.

A number of these violent anti-authority groups were recently listed as terrorist entities, including the Proud Boys, which apparently announced this week they were disbanding, I understand. We have seen some unbelievable, horrific crimes against women committed by individuals motivated by misogyny. We have seen the growth of neo-Nazi groups, groups espousing hatred against immigrants, against racialized communities and the LGBTQ community.

Anything we can do as parliamentarians to raise the profile of this new, growing reality and to find ways to address it, I think would be very welcome today.

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

You mentioned in the report, and you touched on it now, how the pandemic has impacted the number of people who have been drawn to this. The numbers you gave to us were actually frightening, a 320% increase, and I suspect that number is even higher given what you've seen during COVID.

I wonder if you could comment on that, please.

[David McGuinty]

There's not much to add except to say that what we tried to do in the report was to apply a COVID-19 lens at the end of each of the five core threat areas to say what really has happened here under the pandemic. It appears the evidence indicates that the activity is being pushed online. There's more subterfuge, more connectivity inside the country, between countries.

I think Mr. Jorgensen could add a little bit more to that, Ms. Damoff, if that's okay.

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

Yes.

[Sean Jorgensen]

Thank you very much.

I would just make two points. One is the monitoring of extremism and how that is being pushed underground. You would recognize, of course, that the security intelligence organizations don't necessarily monitor extremism per se, because being an extremist may be vile speech but it's not illegal. They are actually identifying when that extremism becomes violent.

I think that's the second point I would make. The S and I community, security and intelligence community, has been very clear. It is very difficult in this environment to identify someone who has become radicalized, and then the time that takes them to become violent.

That time frame has reduced considerably, and I know that's something that security intelligence organizations really struggle with. That actually gets to your first point. What is the impact of that online hatred? I think that's one of the key issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Madam Damoff.

Colleagues, that brings us over the hour that is allocated to Mr. McGuinty. I note that he is quite popular. Members are quite keen. Mr. Motz had seemed to hope that we would go a little bit beyond normal.

I'm in the hands of colleagues as to whether we have a third round, or some partial expression of a third round.

I see Mr. Kurek seems to be enthusiastic.

Pam.