Evidence of meeting #121 for Public Safety and National Security in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was russia.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Salma Zahid Liberal Scarborough Centre, ON
Going further into RT, how does Russia use RT and other state-run media to advance its agendas, both domestically and internationally?
President, Ukrainian Canadian Congress
We know they're a tool of the Russian government. They work closely with the FSB. They are one and the same in effect, and they do exactly what we have seen; they buy politicians in the EU, and they buy social media influencers. They're way ahead of us in terms of the mechanisms that they use, and we are, in many ways, sitting ducks here, because we have been very comfortable in Canada for a very long time.
We bought into the peace dividend after the Cold War, and now we have to reframe our thinking and build our defences to be more resilient. As I said, that starts in school with our youth, and it will be a generation or two before they are educated, but we have to start that form of education with politicians. We have to clean out the vectors of this disinformation, starting with the Russian embassy, and prevent this garbage from coming into Canada.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you.
Mr. Fortin, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Chyczij, I think I'll call you by your first name, as you suggested earlier. Alexandra, I understand that Finland has set up an elementary school education program. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that this has also been done in Norway and Denmark. You told me that the program has been in place for about six years.
Has there been an assessment of the impact or effectiveness of these measures on disinformation in countries that have decided to proceed in this way?
President, Ukrainian Canadian Congress
Yes, there is something called the European media literacy index, which measures a country's resilience to disinformation. It measures European countries, and those three countries ranked numbers one, two and three in terms of their ability to resist disinformation.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Do you have a copy of that report? If not, can you get one and send it to the committee?
President, Ukrainian Canadian Congress
I'm sorry. You said a copy of...?
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
I am referring to the report you mentioned that refers to studies done in Europe on the impact of disinformation.
President, Ukrainian Canadian Congress
Yes, we can send you what we have, and I certainly believe that Finland's ambassador to Canada might be prepared to share.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
I'm sorry. I don't want to rush you, but I only have a few seconds left.
Do you also have information on Finland's elementary school curriculum? Do you have a copy of that?
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Do you have a copy of the Finnish elementary school curriculum you spoke of?
President, Ukrainian Canadian Congress
No, we don't have the program or the curriculum, but it is something that I recommend that this committee do a study on, and we will certainly make inquiries with the ambassador of Finland to Canada.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you, madam, for coming here today. What you are telling us is important, and I would like the committee to invite you to come back whenever you are next available. If you have any other information on the issue, please send it to us, because we have to react.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Mr. Fortin.
We go now to Mr. MacGregor for two and a half minutes.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
At this committee we have often had the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service before us as witnesses to update the committee on their activities. Of course, a lot of what they do by its very nature goes unreported. They have to operate in a very clandestine world. They have to be very mindful that their sources could be compromised and their lives even put in danger if they reveal too much information.
However, in the spring session, there was a rare moment of unity when the entire House of Commons came together in very short order to pass Bill C-70, which among other things pretty much brought an analog law up to date in a digital world. It has allowed CSIS to be a bit more proactive in how it shares information with other entities. Certainly I've had meetings with CSIS officials since that act received royal assent. The service is still coming to terms with how it's going to implement some measures, but it certainly is being a bit more proactive.
When it comes to the work that our security and intelligence agencies are doing—and this includes the officials at Public Safety Canada—and you compare it to some of the European examples, are there any wishes that you have for how maybe those agencies could be a little more proactive with the Canadian public in a non-political way in underlining the gravity of the threat and the measures that need to be taken to counteract it? Could they maybe be a bit more proactive when we actually have some success in stopping some of these campaigns?
Maybe I'll start with you, and we can ask everyone to comment on it quickly.
Founder and Administrator, Russian Canadian Democratic Alliance
Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.
I would say that it's not surprising that there's limited transparency from security agencies, because that's the nature of the work. However, as a member of the public, without greater transparency, it's very hard to understand what's being done behind the scenes versus not being done at all.
We've seen that in the course of the current public inquiry into foreign interference, where it seems like sometimes the Canadian government might just not be aware of the foreign interference campaigns, and we later find out the allegations. It seems, at least to the public, that the Canadian government was not working on these cases at all.
President, Ukrainian Canadian Congress
To me, it is inconceivable that a colonel in Russia's military intelligence, Mikhail Mikushin, could have spent a decade in Canada, earning two degrees, one of which was at Carleton University, where the Valdai club member holds tenure. It is inconceivable that Canada's intelligence services did not identify him for over a decade. It was the Norwegians who had to do it for us.
Similarly, the Vavilovs were here for over a decade. They moved on to the United States. I mean, this is how they work. They become nice Canadians—we're all nice people—and then they go on as trusted allies and continue their work. They were exposed by the Americans.
I don't understand it. What are our security services doing?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you.
I have to draw the line there. That brings an end to this panel.
I would like to thank all of our witnesses for being here today. Thank you for all of your input.
Go ahead.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
I don't have a question around it.
The witness, Alexandra, has mentioned this Valdai club a couple of times. I'm just wondering if she could send the committee information on that, so that we'd have it for our report.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
I would invite all witnesses, if you have further information to share with the committee, to please send it to the clerk. He will make sure it's appropriately translated and distributed to the committee.
Thank you very much.
With that, we will suspend to bring in the next panel.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
I call this meeting back to order.
For this panel, as an individual, we have Marcus Kolga, senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and from the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Aaron Shull, managing director and general counsel.
Both of our witnesses are appearing by video conference.
Before we start with witness statements, I want to remind people that we had asked that anyone who has recommendations and suggestions for the auto study report get them in, hopefully by today. Sooner is better, because the analysts need to work them into the report. Could we do that?
I would also ask the clerk to remind people to get witnesses for this study in by Friday, if at all possible, so that we can organize that as well.
We will go now to Mr. Kolga for a statement of up to five minutes.
Please go ahead, sir.
Marcus Kolga Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for the privilege and opportunity to testify before you today. I want to begin by expressing my gratitude for your recognition of the serious threat that Russian information and influence operations pose to our democracy and society.
For the past 15 years I've dedicated myself to monitoring and exposing Russian information warfare and influence campaigns targeting Canada and our allies. This is not a partisan issue. Safeguarding Canada's cognitive sovereignty and the integrity of our information environment is essential to defending our democracy and maintaining social cohesion.
The September 4, 2024 indictment from the U.S. Department of Justice highlights the extent of this threat, but it is just the tip of a much larger iceberg. For over a decade, Canadians have collaborated with Russian state media outlets like RT and Sputnik news, and with platforms like Montreal's Global Research, which the U.S. state department has identified as a key pillar of the Russian disinformation ecosystem. They also enable and collaborate in Russian transnational repression, targeting Canadian activists like me, communities and even parliamentarians.
Furthermore, Canadians continue to engage with sanctioned Kremlin-aligned think tanks such as the Valdai club and the Russian International Affairs Council, which played pivotal roles in the laundering of disinformation and in efforts to affect policy and opinions in Canada through the influencers connected to them. These Kremlin-controlled entities, including RT, are not merely propaganda tools. They are designed to weaponize information in order to manipulate our understanding of the world around us, undermine our democracy and erode our social fabric. They are not bound by any physical borders, either.
An FBI affidavit released alongside the DOJ indictment of September 4 provides detailed minutes of high-level Russian meetings and strategy documents. One of Vladimir Putin's closest advisers, Sergey Kiriyenko, was involved in these meetings, underscoring the personal importance of these operations to Putin. Among the documents in the affidavit are instructions to Russian propaganda agents to monitor western information environments for domestic conflicts, friction points and crises, and to artificially create and intensify tensions in countries allied with the United States. The documents instruct agents to create false narratives and lies. They are delivered through western influencers and state media platforms like RT to achieve this. Global Affairs Canada has now identified RT as an arm of Russia's intelligence apparatus engaging in psychological operations and disinformation, while its cyber-actors target western nations, including Canadian critical infrastructure.
The U.S. indictment exposes the significant involvement of Canadians in RT's activities. It alleges that a company established by two Canadians received $10 million from RT to create a platform for transmitting these narratives to Canadian and American audiences. While this may seem like a large sum, it is only a fraction of the $3 billion that Russia spends annually on information operations globally. The indictment claims that Canadians were producing content for RT as early as March 2021 and that RT funnelled money to these individuals through U.K. shell companies as recently as this year. RT was added to Canada's sanctions list in July 2022, which raises serious questions about potential violations of Canadian sanctions laws. This committee should inquire as to whether the RCMP is investigating these Canadians and others collaborating with Kremlin-controlled entities.
Both the DOJ indictment and the FBI affidavit are smoking guns. They provide clear evidence of Russian operations targeting Canada, a threat that has persisted for nearly 90 years. Perhaps the most alarming case of Russian intelligence operations in Canada, and one that's been largely ignored, is of GRU Colonel Mikhail Mikushin. For over a decade, Mikushin attended Carleton University and the University of Calgary. He even wrote an article for the Canadian Naval Review journal and volunteered on a Canadian political campaign. Shockingly, it wasn't CSIS, CSE or the RCMP that uncovered Mikushin's identity as a GRU colonel recently. It was Norwegian intelligence. That's Norway, not Canada. The service Mikushin provided to Russia's intelligence operations was so important to Vladimir Putin that he was included in the August prisoner swap, returning to Russia alongside Putin's other GRU assassins and hackers.
It's unlikely that Mikushin was the only Russian intelligence agent working in Canada, nor are the Canadians behind Tenet Media the only Canadians collaborating with RT and other Kremlin media. If we seek to disrupt, stop and deter such operations, we must hold those behind them and their Canadian collaborators to account by investigating and exposing them, enforcing our existing laws, properly implementing new ones like the foreign influence transparency registry and BillC-70, and simply ending our willful ignorance to this threat.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.