Public Safety Committee on May 5th, 2021

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

We see that in other countries that have similar bodies such as yours.... The U.K., for example, gives out a report noting the amount of effort that is devoted to particular topics. We've been told the U.K. report provides thoughts about the allocation of effort with MI5, which is similar to CSIS, and says that, as of March 18, they were devoting 67% of their efforts to investigating and disrupting Islamist terrorism.

Do you think it would be useful and helpful for your committee to be assessing that kind of effort so that we would have an idea, as members of Parliament and the public, as to what effort is being placed against particular activities? Is that something you would consider doing in the future?

[David McGuinty]

It may very well be something the committee considers. One of the opportunities coming from Parliament soon enough is the five-year review of the statute that creates the committee. That may very well be something the House may want to debate or consider in the statutory authority. The ISC in Britain has a slightly different structure from ours. We choose topics based on a series of criteria we arrived at early on when the committee was first created.

I think your question, which is really important, also raises, Mr. Harris, the question of recommendations from the committee to the government, and whether the government is responding adequately or not. We said something about that as well in the report.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. Harris. Unfortunately, your time is up.

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

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Kurek, you have five minutes, please.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. McGuinty, for your work and the leadership provided on this important file.

The report notes that some ISIS sympathizers were not active combatants, but I imagine that most of those captured would make that claim—ISIS terrorists who participate in fundraising, planning, recruitment and propaganda. I'm sure that over COVID a lot of this has been moved online, but I would suggest that's a pretty big threat as well. The 61 individuals identified as having returned to Canada, have they faced repercussions for those crimes?

[David McGuinty]

That's a really important question, Mr. Kurek. The committee, obviously, looked at this very closely, but it did not review the issue of repatriating foreign fighters or the broader issue of extremist travellers as a part of this annual report.

We do of course speak, from paragraphs 24 forward—I think that's what you're alluding to—about the international terrorism environment. We have named the numbers. What we're presenting here are the accurate numbers: those who were detained, those who are at large and those who are dead. The numbers remain unclassified, so we were in a position to do so. That's as far as the committee was able to go in this particular area that you're raising.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I appreciate that. It deals with such interconnected and complex issues.

I've noted that it's common to make mention of far-right groups rather than calling them what they are: hate groups. Certainly as I've watched Conservative and Liberal and other political parties' blogs and whatnot, you see the comments. There's hate coming from all sides, and it is absolutely tragic.

Is there any distinction, from your experience, between hate groups and the groups the report calls “ideologically motivated violent extremists”? Is there a differentiation?

[David McGuinty]

I know that there's a debate around the nomenclature and the choice of words to describe these. I really would like to ask my colleague Mr. Jorgensen to jump in here for a second. I know he is tracking that for the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

We seem to have switched to French all of a sudden.

Could we just back up on that, Mr. McGuinty, and start your response in English again, please?

[David McGuinty]

Sure.

I was saying to Mr. Kurek that there is an important debate, I understand, around the nomenclature and the language that is appropriate. I think Mr. Jorgensen would be best placed to give us an idea of where that now lies and whether it is something that has reached the committee for deliberation. I do not recall, Mr. Chair.

[Sean Jorgensen]

Thank you.

Very quickly, Mr. Kurek, I think there's a very clear distinction between extremists and.... Over time, extremists have been identified as doing everything from promoting women's rights to urging equality for Black people in the United States, for example. There is a very clear distinction between those people and people who take any type of extremist position into a violent realm.

This is where I think that CSIS has worked very hard with its international allies and partners to essentially focus on the behaviour and not necessarily the motivation. We know that it's ideological. That's what makes it, for example, terrorism.

However, I see your point. It's not right wing; it's not left wing. It is “what's the violent basis for that behaviour?“

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

All right. Here is my last question, and I'll try to squeeze two in here.

One os about espionage related to Canada's research institutions. You noted this in paragraph 45 as a major target for foreign espionage, and certainly in the midst of COVID we've seen a changing dynamic related to that. That's my first question.

My next question is specific to the protection of our democratic institutions and the integrity of the electoral process, as well as the need to ensure that our elections are protected so that Canadians can trust that foreign interference is identified and stopped. Of course, we read the headlines, but it's often the more clandestine operations, and with the proliferation of online issues, there is certainly that threat.

I'm wondering, then, whether you could, in the short amount of time that is available, identify the threat to research institutions and also the actions that could be taken or the recommendations that could be made, whether to Elections Canada or to law enforcement, regarding the protection of our democracy.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Mr. Kurek has stretched his five minutes quite magnificently.

Mr. McGuinty, could you respond to those very important questions in less than 30 seconds?

[David McGuinty]

I'll do my best.

Paragraph 45 onwards, for members and for Canadians, describes this question of espionage in the science and technology field. We talk about the thousand talents program. We talk about the threats from Russia and China. We talk about new technologies being increasingly the focus targeted by foreign states, and we talk about the risk to critical infrastructure—our electricity grid and beyond.

On the question of electoral integrity, This is precisely why, Mr. Kurek, we as a committee focus so heavily on the Jim Judd report, to assess whether or not the mechanism that was put in place by the government—a five-person panel to deal with foreign interference, primarily cyber in nature—should be expanded.

We made four or five recommendations. One was to include, for example, in-person, more traditional foreign interference, so that it would be caught. We also made some recommendations as to how that would be communicated to Canadians, if there were an occurrence, because this would happen in the context of a usually heated and usually partisan campaign context—healthy and normal.

However, we want to make sure that if this were to occur, as it has occurred in the United States and other jurisdictions, we're best prepared to deal with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Thank you, Mr. McGuinty. Neither you nor I know anything about partisanship.

Mr. Fisher, take five minutes, please.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank Mr. McGuinty for being here. I've been on a lot of committees and have sat in front of an awful lot of testimony. I have to tell you that none has been as exciting, frightening or terrifying as some of the testimony we're hearing from you. Thank you very much for the work you do on behalf of your committee.

I also want to give a quick little kudos to the members of this committee as well. I'm a new member, but I have to tell you that here we find very insightful questions and very respectful dialogue, and I'm nothing but impressed with this committee since becoming a new member.

Kudos to the chair, of course, for handling things in such a professional way.

[The Chair, Liberal, John McKay]

Get to your question, Mr. Fisher.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Mr. McGuinty, in your committee's report, you reference the terror code listings process. Before 2019, there were no ideologically motivated violent extremist groups listed as territory entities, and now there are six white supremacist organizations, including the Proud Boys.

During your conversation with MP Michaud, you also said something about 100 organizations. Then you said you believe there may be as many as 300. I'm interested in your opinion on what impact a listing process has.

[David McGuinty]

It's not something that the committee examined directly, Mr. Fisher. I think it's fair to say that listing a group is exposing a group. It is making more information available to the Canadian people about some of the activities that these groups pursue and what's at risk, which is what we've tried to capture in this report based on the classified information we've received on this front. It's not just one government that has listed. There have been other governments that have listed, and it's an important tool.

The proliferation of these groups is what I think also surprised us. It's the quantum leap in numbers that really had us as a committee, together. We have a member of this NSICOP committee on the public safety committee—Mr. Motz—who will recall that we all sort of shook our heads and thought at first that it was a misprint. This rapid increase in IMVE is of significant concern.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Do you have any concern that by listing these groups it brings this relative fame and maybe encourages some groups to begin, to start the process of forming groups?

[David McGuinty]

I couldn't really say whether the infamy of it will drive people to participate or to sign up, but I think that in order for us as Canadians and as Parliamentarians to know what we're dealing with, we have to have this in the open.

A core message of the committee in this report is that this isn't going away. It's increasing. It's increasing in numbers. It's increasing in groups. It's increasing in online traffic. It's a source of recruitment. It's a source of radicalization, and it would be very helpful for parliamentarians and for Canada to build on some really important work that's going on now, Mr. Fisher, to try to understand why this is happening.

This is not just happening in Canada. As the report sets out clearly, it's happening globally. It's happening in the United States. It's happening in France, Germany and the U.K., so we're going to have to wrestle this to the ground and have a better understanding. That's one of the reasons we wanted to give this an important profile in the report.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

How about online hate legislation like we see in Australia? Do you see the benefit of taking action against this type of online violence before it has real world implications?

[David McGuinty]

It's not something the committee has examined. It might very well be. It would be a very important issue for the public safety committee to examine, for example, whether that would that be a contributing factor to help....

I want to repeat the message: This isn't going away. It's expanding in reach, size, scope and seriousness. I think we're going to have to deal with this now collectively.