Public Safety Committee on June 6th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Genuis, that's enough.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

—she should withdraw it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Genuis, I get your point, but it's debate at this point.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Chair, it is not debate. It is a point of order about decorum.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I understand.

Mr. Villemure, I believe, wishes to speak to the same point of order.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My colleague raised this point more quickly than I was able to. I think that's rude and inappropriate. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Mr. Bittle, go ahead on the same point of order.

[Chris Bittle, Liberal, St. Catharines, ON]

I've called this out before. He's not the only one, but Mr. Genuis is one to very much lean into the mic frequently. We have interpreters here. With Mr. Genuis's voice and mine, usually the volume isn't the problem. The mic can work from a lengthy distance. We don't have to lean into it to yell into it.

I was wondering if Mr. Genuis could respect the interpreters and stay back. It's something he frequently does.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you. It's a different point of order, but well taken. I think we all have a tendency to lean in, but we have to be respectful of the interpreters and their hearing.

Ms. O'Connell, please carry on.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Please make sure, Chair, that that didn't take away from my time.

Mr. Villemure may call me impolite, but I think he would be quite embarrassed.... Mr. Genuis might not have defended him so clearly if he had heard some of the comments made towards me while we were suspended. However, I'll move on to the actual work of this committee.

Madame Drouin, you spoke about an important point that should be noted and understood. You mentioned something in reference to Mr. Cooper's questioning about Madam Hogue's inquiry and the request for additional documents. You said something about a footnote in that request. Can you please elaborate on that answer? I ask because I'm quite interested in what you were referring to.

[Nathalie Drouin]

In a footnote, the report says that the conversation on cabinet confidence is ongoing. This is my understanding of the situation. It's not about whether or not she should receive more. It's about how she can use publicly the cabinet confidence documents she has received.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

This can be for Mr. Vigneault or Madame Drouin, whoever is best suited to answer it.

Earlier in questioning, Mr. Caputo insinuated that anyone who receives a security clearance can no longer do work in the topic area of, for example, foreign interference if their clearance has allowed them to do that work. Mr. Motz and I received security clearances and worked on the 2019 foreign interference review of NSICOP, yet here we are asking important questions, raising important issues and not breaching the indoctrination requirements that we signed, which we are committed to for life, not just for our time on NSICOP.

I found it quite interesting that Mr. Caputo was, in a way, trying to justify why his leader wouldn't receive a security clearance—he would be muzzled from asking tough questions—yet the legislation that would restrict his disclosure of sensitive information was the very thing that, just an hour earlier, Mr. Caputo was asking Minister LeBlanc to breach.

Is there a law or legislation that applies to the minister or cabinet that would apply differently, somehow, to me, Mr. Motz, the leader of the NDP or the Leader of the Opposition once we received a security clearance?

[David Vigneault]

The law applies to everyone the same way, including elected officials who have the right security clearance to receive information and officials in government who are bound by the law.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

It was also suggested by Mr. Caputo, who I'm assuming was referring to the SOIA, the Security of Information Act—he didn't specify—that the minister can release secret information if it's “in the public interest”. Mr. Motz and I would have signed the same indoctrination papers, the same legal requirements, once we received clearance and once we received sensitive information. Nowhere in them did I ever read a caveat that says the minister can unilaterally disclose sensitive information or somehow declassify—which is usually referred to in the U.S.—some information that he deems appropriate.

Am I missing something? Is there some magical law that allows the minister himself to determine what can or can't be shared publicly? I think the insinuation Mr. Caputo is making is quite important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

That will be the end of your questions, Ms. O'Connell.

I'll let the witnesses answer.

[Sarah Estabrooks, Director General, Policy and Foreign Relations, Canadian Security Intelligence Service]

Bill C-70 includes a new provision that would clarify an ability to disclose personal information when it's “in the public interest” and when “that interest clearly outweighs any invasion of privacy that could result from the disclosure”. This is a corollary to the broader provision that would allow for the disclosure of information to build resiliency to threats to the security of Canada. It doesn't exist now. It's in this bill.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

I now give the floor to Mr. Villemure.

You have two and a half minutes, Mr. Villemure.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Drouin, I'm going to make an analogy, okay? When we go to a website, we're often told to click on something to accept cookies. I'm used to accepting those that are strictly necessary. I was speaking with the Privacy Commissioner of Canada the other day, and I asked him who this acceptance was necessary for. He told me it was for people proposing a kind of contract, people who put this provision in place. Like my colleague a little earlier, I'm wondering about the documents that are provided to the Commission on Foreign Interference because they're deemed relevant and necessary. The question is the same for cookies on a website: who deems these documents necessary?

I'm curious to hear what you have to say about this because, both for cabinet confidence, which I understand the usefulness of, and for the classification of documents, something worries me. In the case of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, we saw that there was a clear overclassification of a few hundred pages, after all. I'm concerned about overclassification, in government in general, and in any government.

Do you believe that reports such as those submitted to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, or NSICOP, can be overclassified?

[Nathalie Drouin]

In the case of NSICOP and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, or NSIRA, there's really a process that has improved since they produced reports. First, we classify the reports produced. Then there is an exchange process that is done mainly with CSIS teams to determine, through a balancing of forces exercise, what can be made public, how it can be made public, or whether a summary can be prepared. So there really is a process that is healthy, in a way, because CSIS may want to protect a document, but one of the two bodies may think it would be in the public interest to disclose more. So it leads us to a balance that can evolve depending on the context—

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

I'm sorry to interrupt. It's my two and a half minutes that force me to do so.

Do you think overclassification in general is a problem?

[Nathalie Drouin]

That's not necessarily a problem. Sometimes, the reflex may be to classify something that isn't necessarily secret. These are things that we deal with on a regular basis. The “secret” clearance is a good example.

Going back to your example of the Winnipeg lab, I think it's also important to note that it's sometimes easier to make certain information public when the risk has been mitigated. This was a major factor in the new disclosure in the Winnipeg lab file.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Villemure.

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

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Bilodeau, I appreciate your earlier answers to the many questions you've received on the definition of “arrangement”. The committee is in receipt of a letter from Canada's research universities. I just want to quote something from their letter:

Greater clarity is needed on how an arrangement will be defined under the Act and whether it would capture research partnerships, funding agreements or other international research activities conducted with publicly funded universities, research institutions or foreign research funding agencies which may be considered foreign principals under the Act. The risk of a chilling effect on international research partnerships as an unintended consequence of the registry’s reporting requirements could significantly harm relationships with international peers and mean that Canada misses out on the opportunity to cooperate on cutting-edge research and access world-leading expertise with peer nations.

I was wondering, sir, if you could comment on that concern raised with the committee.