Public Safety Committee on June 3rd, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 110 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Pursuant to the order of reference referred to the committee on Wednesday, May 29, 2024, and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, May 27, 2024, the committee resumes its study of Bill C-70, an act respecting countering foreign interference.

Before we begin, I would like to ask all members and other in-person participants to consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents.

Please take note of the following preventative measures in place to protect the health and safety of all participants, including the interpreters. Only use a black, approved earpiece. The former, grey earpieces must no longer be used. Keep your earpiece away from all microphones at all times. When you're not using your earpiece, place it face down on the sticker placed on the table for this purpose. Thank you for your consideration.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of members and witnesses. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. As a reminder, all comments should be addressed through the chair.

Regarding specific comments on Bill C-70, as indicated in the memo that was sent out on May 31, I would like to remind members that amendments to Bill C-70 must be submitted to the clerk of the committee by 4 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, Friday, June 7, 2024. It is important for members to note that, pursuant to the order adopted by the House on May 30, the 4 p.m. deadline to submit amendments is firm. This means that any amendments submitted to the clerk after the deadline and any amendments moved from the floor during the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill will not be considered by the committee.

I would now like to welcome our witnesses for the first panel today.

We have Mr. Charles Burton, senior fellow, Sinopsis. We also have Mr. Michael Kempa, associate professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa.

Welcome, gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today.

I now invite Mr. Burton to make an opening statement of up to five minutes.

[Dr. Charles Burton, Senior Fellow, Sinopsis, As an Individual]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My area of expertise is Chinese domestic politics and foreign policy. I was educated in China, and I've worked in the CSE, in the Canadian diplomatic service and as an academic. I have published several articles and reports on Chinese influence operations in Canada.

I will focus my remarks on part 4 of Bill C-70, the foreign influence transparency and accountability act part, as it impinges on the activities of agents of the Chinese Ministry of State Security targeting politicians, civil servants and others involved with shaping Canada's relations with the People's Republic of China regime.

Justice Hogue's report earlier this month noted that her mandate is to investigate potential foreign interference with “Executive decision-making by Cabinet and its ministers in relation to their departments, including indirect foreign interference with ministerial decisions when such decisions are based on information originating at a lower level of government covertly influenced by a foreign state (or its proxy, agent, etc.).”

I'm not sure why Justice Hogue's mandate is limited to “a lower level of government covertly influenced by a foreign state”. In the previous meeting of this committee, Mr. Genuis raised the possibility of a future Attorney General of Canada being in a conflict of interest because he or she had benefited from foreign interference in his or her riding. My knowledge of China's united front strategy around the world is that there is enhanced Chinese Ministry of State Security early targeting of politicians deemed likely to, in future, assume influential positions such as Attorney General of Canada.

We know from a leaked December 2021 CSIS report how China's Ministry of State Security uses three colour-coded political interference tactics to gain influence over Canadian government officials here in Canada and those travelling to China. Blue refers to sophisticated cyber-attacks on targets' computers, smart phones and hotel rooms for possible blackmail. Gold refers to bribes. Yellow is what CSIS described as “honey pots”. That's how China employs sexual seduction to compromise a target.

Bill C-70 and existing legislation should go a long way to addressing this kind of concern, but I would put forward that there are more sophisticated operations by the Chinese regime here in Canada and other countries that are more challenging for us to counter.

For example, former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke recalls in his biography that shortly after he retired from politics, he travelled to Beijing and met with Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who told him, “Mr. Hawke, China never forgets its friends. I want you to know that we regard you as one of our best friends.” In the years that followed, Mr. Hawke took on several directorships and consultancy positions relating to China, which enabled him to achieve considerable financial success.

Here in Canada, we observe former cabinet ministers, former ambassadors to China and people retired from senior roles in our foreign ministry who have assumed lucrative opportunities relating to China after leaving government. Government career options in law firms, businesses and other sectors with associations with business networks identified with the Chinese Communist Party would, clearly, not be open to those identified as unfriendly to China while in a position of public trust, because we know that the Chinese regime keeps extensive files on all of us. They know who their friends are.

A concern is whether Canadian officials, because of the very subtle Chinese influence process of implied future benefits after retirement for Canadian policy-makers, which Bill C-70 cannot track, would perhaps not act immediately on intelligence assessments they receive that would call for Canadian government action that goes against Chinese interests in Canada, but leave these for others to respond to, for fear of being identified with actions the Chinese embassy would not feel well disposed towards.

If I could just conclude, I would say from this that just as government officials cannot exploit classified information to serve personal interests after retirement and have to keep the secrets that they derive in the course of their service secret for life, perhaps we need to restrict public servants from receiving benefits from foreign entities for life as well.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

We'll go now to Mr. Kempa for an opening statement of up to five minutes.

Please go ahead, sir.

[Michael Kempa, Associate Professor, Criminology, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Chair McKinnon and members, for inviting me.

I would just begin by saying that, overall, the very large bill, which touches on the constellation of laws that govern Canadian national security, is very complex and welcome. The amendments, I understand, are quite urgent. There is a desire, perhaps, to have certain measures in place in time for any election that may come in 2025. Some of the easier reforms certainly could possibly be achieved in that time frame. I'll flag some that are perhaps a little bit more complicated, that raise more concerns and that may render it more difficult to implement some recommendations in time for that potential election.

Reform to the CSIS Act, amendments to other areas of national security legislation, and the creation of a foreign influence transparency registry are obviously the three main dimensions of reform. Most of what I have to say relates to the CSIS Act itself, seeing as that's one of my major areas of expertise, as opposed to the others, although I will raise a couple of issues with regard to the other two categories.

With respect to CSIS Act reform, I would regard it as very appropriate that CSIS now be able to pursue foreign intelligence virtually stored beyond Canada's borders. Having wider ability to secure information from third parties, notably telecommunications companies, through streamlined procedures is very welcome. All of this coming through streamlined applications procedures for less invasive warrants is very welcome. As I read it in the bill, it's probably a good balance for ensuring civil liberties on those sliding scales of pursuing warrants in an expedited fashion.

The key new ability for CSIS to share threat intelligence with other levels of government beyond Ottawa—including indigenous governance bodies, private sector institutions and the university community—is, indeed, extremely urgent. Fortunately, it's very easy to legislate, which means that it could possibly be done in time for CSIS to be able to advise other bodies around any election in 2025. However, it's more difficult to implement in practice once on the ground.

I'd merely flag for you that CSIS and its new partners will have to figure out how best to share this new intelligence and what the thresholds for the sharing of intelligence with a wider variety of partners ought to look like, not only because of CSIS's long-standing culture of being reticent with the sharing of information, but also because of many partners simply not yet being skilled in weighing the value of and so putting into action different types of intelligence.

Perhaps these types of issues could be addressed through regulations developed through Public Safety or Foreign Affairs and with CSIS's oversight body to guide CSIS in the development of those protocols. It's very encouraging, in particular, given that this bill is understandably.... Although large, it does not address some of the broader thematic issues around CSIS's mandate and CSIS's relationship with other agencies, such as the RCMP, whose role in national security is itself evolving and certain to be significantly reformed over the course of the next five years or so.

The automatic requirement for review of the CSIS Act every five years is extremely important and welcome. It leads me to read this bill in terms of whether we are putting in place anything that could frustrate some of the broader reforms that may be coming down the pipe in five years' time. Fortunately, there are not many areas that appear to lay barriers to bigger questions that may come up, but there are a couple of areas where we may not want to tie our hands, which I'll briefly touch on before I close my five minutes.

I would encourage you to read your reforms to the CSIS Act as part of a triptych of legislation—as it was in the 1980s when the CSIS Act, the Emergencies Act, and the RCMP Act were all drafted with reference to one another—such that in this piece of legislation, we have not revisited the question of the mandate of CSIS overall or the connection of the CSIS Act's famous section 2 standards for whether or not CSIS gets involved in anything to the standards for invoking the Emergencies Act itself.

It is probably wise to leave the section 2 standards as they are in this legislation, for the reason that the second set of issues will be certain to come up as we have decisions from the Federal Court of Appeal on what exactly the section 2 standards for the Emergencies Act entail. There will be future lessons that will come from the Hogue commission's review, added to the Rouleau commission's insights into the Emergencies Act, as well as the ongoing work of NSICOP and NSIRA into the future of the RCMP and so forth. Therefore, leaving that open is very wise at this time.

However—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Could you wrap up quickly, please?

[Michael Kempa]

Yes, certainly.

As we get to the CSIS Act review, a key question will be whether or not “threats to the security of Canada” can include economic disruption as a form of violence that could pose a threat to the security of Canada.

Very briefly, there are two areas of concern that may tie our hands into the future. One is creating Criminal Code offences related to interference, any type of offence beyond terrorism committed in service of a foreign entity. You may find hurdles there if you have very minor offences, such as summary offences committed for a foreign entity, that could lead to severe penalties similar to those for major indictable offences.

Finally, on the transparency registry, it seems that the country-agnostic approach might prove difficult, in that you would bring a very wide range of countries to the attention of an agency that potentially could not monitor all of that information. I understand the desire not to create a permanent list of blacklisted countries, but a potential solution there would be to allow for regulations whereby the ministers, in co-operation with CSIS and its oversight body, could produce periodic lists of countries of concern that could change with time.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

We'll start our questions with Mr. Caputo.

Mr. Caputo, go ahead, please, for six minutes.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you, Professor Kempa and Mr. Burton.

Mr. Kempa, if there was anything you were just dying to get to but left out, here's your chance.

[Michael Kempa]

No, I think I've covered it. On anything that would come up in questions, I'm sure we could elaborate.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Certainly.

I have a couple of potential questions, but I'm going to turn to Mr. Burton first.

You highlighted relations with China in particular, but I'm concerned about all sorts of relations, as we all should be, when it comes to foreign interference. You mentioned a colour-coding system, and you said that this bill goes a long way to addressing this type of interference.

Do I have that right?

[Dr. Charles Burton]

Yes.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Okay.

Can you expand on how and why that is?

[Dr. Charles Burton]

I think the main thing is that it empowers CSIS to inform people when there is potentially an issue with respect to a conflict of interest involving certain significant people who are influential in the decision-making process. I think that's a very good thing.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Genuis isn't here. He's in a lot of places, but right here, right now, isn't one of them. He will be joining us later, I'm sure.

Let's take his example about the Attorney General. I assume this would involve a foreign entity having a dossier of some sort about an attorney general or something like that. In that instance, based on what you just said, what positive impact would Bill C-70 have on information sharing or the ability to alert?

[Dr. Charles Burton]

I think the people who have to be alerted are the people who would potentially be the subjects of this.

I have, for example, a young friend who was running for office in Saskatchewan. I calculated that he was being engaged by potential agents of the Chinese state, proxies of the United Front Work Department, who were offering him things and extensive praise. I said that this is how they start. They see him as an up-and-coming young man who may, in fact, someday be serving in our Parliament, and they would like to cultivate good relations and a possible sense of obligation in him. I told him to just be careful. In fact, he'll be speaking to CSIS about what happened.

I think it's just a question of people not knowing when they're subject to a sophisticated engagement by the very many agents of the Chinese state who are operating in our country.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Well, that's an interesting point. People don't even know.

To me, the question would be why there isn't training on this type of thing. Obviously, as parliamentarians and elected representatives, people should be aware, but from what you're saying, it's much more insidious, maybe surreptitious, and people may not even know it's occurring.

Is that accurate?

[Dr. Charles Burton]

Yes. I've spoken to someone who was central in the development of the Australian Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act. He said that perhaps the act is not drafted very well and perhaps the Government of Australia has not allocated the resources to their security intelligence agencies to follow up on the act, but that simply the existence of the act is a consciousness-raising device. I think a lot of people who might have been inclined to accept some sort of going easy on China in anticipation of future benefits will now be aware that this is something that will not reflect well on them and makes them complicit in the Chinese regime, including all of the espionage, foreign subversive activities and genocide that the regime is characteristic of.

I think that just the fact that we're talking about this is already a very positive thing in terms of raising people's awareness that they shouldn't just let the Chinese regime start to make them beholden to a regime that is hostile to our interests and is engaged, as General Eyre has said, in hybrid warfare against us already.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

How much time do I have, please, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

You have a minute and a half.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Okay.

Professor Kempa, you spoke about the “country-agnostic” nature of Bill C-70, which is something that, at first blush, I would be supportive of.

Now, one of the reasons why I suppose we would deal with this is that we have a changing world, and different governments are going to have different mandates. Is there a compelling reason why we wouldn't apply the same standard—and a high standard at that—when it comes to transparency and the registry of any foreign agents?

[Michael Kempa]

I think the only reason has to do with capacity.

If you were to establish a registrar's office that would be responsible for maintaining the database and some information on the activities of all those seeking to impact Canadian policy and outcomes and so forth in a legitimate fashion, the amount of information would simply be overwhelming, to the point that it would—as a senior colleague of mine, Wesley Wark, refers to it—have the potential to develop into a form of almost security theatre, where you have an office that exists and that by trying to watch agents from around the world simply cannot do so.

The idea is that if you were to focus your attention on updated and rolling lists for which there was evidence to suggest we should be focusing on certain regions, you would have more capacity in that institution.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

That could be addressed through regulation, obviously.

[Michael Kempa]

Yes.

[Frank Caputo, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Okay.

I think my time is probably up.

Thanks to both of you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I'll go now to Ms. Damoff for six minutes.