Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and distinguished committee members, for the opportunity to speak today on this important bill. It's a pleasure to be here.
Indeed, maybe I'll start by saying something that you probably don't all hear very often: Thank you very much. It was a real pleasure to see this bill proceed with the pace and with all of the work you're doing.
We're independent and non-partisan, so when I say this, I genuinely mean it. I know how hard you're working. We're sitting here in the evening, and everyone's working away to get this done, so thank you very much.
It's in that spirit that I plan to make three arguments.
Number one is that activities covered by the proposed foreign influence transparency and accountability act should extend to municipalities, and we need definitional clarity around who is a public office holder.
Number two, the registry and the commissioner should be in place before the next federal election.
Number three, the act should nest within a broader national security strategy.
Now, let me tell you what I mean by those things.
First, we need to extend this to municipalities, and we need definitional clarity. Now, in Canada, the preamble of a bill is an important tool for looking at its statutory interpretation. I don't want to put everyone to sleep by talking about the tools of that interpretation, but let me just say that the preamble provides an introductory statement that sets out the guiding principles, the values and the objectives of the legislation.
The preamble for the Foreign Influence and Transparency Accountability Act says:
Whereas efforts by foreign states or powers and their proxies to influence, in a non-transparent manner, political and governmental processes at all levels of government in Canada have systemic effects throughout the country and endanger democracy, sovereignty and core Canadian values;
I pause there to dwell on “all levels of government”, and just the impact of that.
Now we have to look at how it applies. The application of the act applies to:
(a) federal political or governmental processes;
(b) provincial or territorial political or governmental processes;
And, essentially, it applies to the governmental processes of indigenous groups and governments.
Now you have to look at the definitions. You go through them, and there's a definition of “public office holder”, but it's different in the Security of Information Act.
We're not covering municipalities here, and we have two different definitions in the same bill about what a public office holder is, so we're probably going to want to take a hard look at that.
If you contrast that with the Security of Information Act, what the bill says is that:
Every person commits an indictable offence who, at the direction of...or in association with, a foreign entity...engages in surreptitious or deceptive conduct...with the intent [to influence a political or governmental process, educational governance etc., etc., with a democratic right in Canada.]
It goes on to define a public office holder differently, and so now you have two pieces of legislation wrapped up in the same bill, effectively trying to do the same thing with different definitions of what a public office holder is.
I wonder why you wouldn't have concomitant obligations for registration. It's two sides of the same coin.
In my view, the SOIA provides the legal teeth to prosecute and punish covert foreign operations, while the FITAA—I don't know if that's what we're calling it, but I'll call it the FITAA—complements this by creating a preventive transparency regime aimed at exposing and deterring such activities through mandatory disclosure and public oversight.
It's a dual approach—deterrence and, hopefully, long-term preventative transparency.
Secondly, we must have the registry in place before the next federal election. You have to again go back to the purposes of the act, like we did at the beginning—“in Canada have systemic effects throughout the country and endanger democracy, sovereignty and core Canadian values”. It's not “might” have systemic effects; the bill says “have systemic effects”. It is a statement of fact.
If you were to meet that purpose, how can you not have it in place before the next federal election? It would be a little bit like bringing a birthday cake for a Saturday afternoon party on the following Tuesday. You will have missed it.
I watched the officials testifying. If it's too hard to do it all at once, just go with the federal government, the federal election. Roll it to provinces and municipalities separately and after. However, you have to get the birthday cake to the party.
Thirdly, it should nest within a broader national security architecture. The defence policy update said we're going to do a national security strategy every four years. The defence policy is going to be updated every four years. We have Bill C-26 that went through this committee, which I was happy to testify about. We have the CSE Act that's due for an update, a review, in 2022. The CSIS Act is now on a five-year review cycle. Bill C-34, on the Investment Canada Act....
This is all coming together. I think the point here is to look at all of the pieces of legislation and all of the various strategies—critical minerals, intellectual property, innovation, research, economic security. Look at them systematically, because adversarial states are looking at them systematically, believe me, and it requires a strategic approach.
As I said at the beginning of this, I've had the privilege of speaking with some of you before. I know how hard this committee works, and I know that you can do it, but I would just encourage you to think strategically and not just do the whack-a-mole thing on one piece of law.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
