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.
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
Formally, I don't think I have. I've made the suggestion in several reports. As a witness in other committees, I have made the suggestion.
I would make one concrete suggestion right now. Such a unit could be housed underneath the proposed foreign influence transparency commissioner. That's an independent office to be created through the registry, and it could be housed under there, as that commissioner would be relatively independent.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
Thank you, Mr. Kolga.
I would like to raise one last point with you.
You told us about the lack of support for people we could call “genuine journalists”. I don't remember the exact term you used. If I understand correctly, these are independent Russian journalists who would likely be working outside of Russia. These journalists relay reliable information that can be useful in the fight against foreign interference.
Please provide more details. Who are these genuine journalists? How can we recognize them? What support could be provided to help them continue their valuable work?
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
I have been privileged to be able to work with Russian human rights activists and independent journalists now for the past 20 years or so. Most of those journalists, who were once based in Moscow—whether it was 15 years ago or even two years ago, before the start of the full-scale invasion—have been forced to flee Russia.
These are outlets like Novaya Gazeta, Echo of Moscow, Mediazona, Proekt Media, and TV Rain. There are many of them. They are based in cities like Riga, Vilnius, Warsaw and Berlin. They are operating from those cities, trying as best they can to circumvent Russian state censors and get facts and truth into Russia. Truth and facts are toxic to the Putin regime.
Canada is right now engaging in a fairly significant way in supporting those media outlets by financing some training and supporting the creation of content, but we need to do much more. We need to be working with our allies to ensure that these outlets are sustained. All of their revenue inside Russia has completely dried up. We need to be working with our allies to make sure they're able to sustain their efforts, again, to promote facts and truth inside Russia. It's facts and truth that will eventually lead to a change towards democracy in Russia and a lasting and sustained peace in Europe.
Bloc
Rhéal Fortin Bloc Rivière-du-Nord, QC
I don't think I have much time left. I'll be brief, then.
How do we identify these journalists? I don't suppose there is a registry somewhere of genuine Russian journalists. Is there a way to identify them and a process to support them?
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
You're absolutely right; there isn't a registry or a list of those journalists anywhere, but there are some Canadians, myself included, who have been working closely with them and who continue to work closely with them.
I think that through collaboration with people like myself and organizations like Journalists for Human Rights, who work actively in this area, we can create that sort of a list and ensure that those journalists and the platforms that align with democratic values do receive our support.
Liberal
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to both witnesses for being with our committee today.
Foreign interference has obviously been a hot topic this year. We had the explosive revelations in the NSICOP report, and we also saw the House of Commons come together in a rare show of unanimous support for an important piece of legislation in Bill C-70. We certainly are looking forward to updates on how our intelligence and security agencies are going to make use of that legislation to beef up their capabilities.
I want to go back a bit further, because, of course, Mr. Kolga and Mr. Shull, you were both really good witnesses for our previous study looking into Canada's security posture vis-à-vis Russia. Certainly your testimony back in 2022 aided this committee in making a lot of the recommendations to the government. It's in that context that I would like for both of you to weigh in.
Is there anything else you would like to tell this committee about? If you compare the recommendations we made in that report, which was tabled in the House of Commons in March 2023, and where we are now, is there anything more you would like to see this committee focus on, where some of those recommendations are still a work in progress? Is there anything that we should be highlighting in that context?
Mr. Kolga, I'll start with you and then move to Mr. Shull.
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
I'll try to be brief.
I think that the government has made some progress, even significant progress, in terms of addressing foreign influence operations. I think a shining example of that is the rapid response mechanism at Global Affairs Canada. It started out rather slowly, some six or seven years ago, but has really become quite bold in its efforts to expose foreign information narratives and those tactics to Canadians to build that awareness. That is exactly what is needed. It's that boldness in clearly exposing those narratives and tactics that will help build awareness.
Bill C-70, as you mentioned, is a step in the right direction. We still don't know how that's going to be implemented.
The previous panel mentioned the fact that there have been major changes to the CSIS Act. Allowing CSIS to communicate threats that they are detecting and observing to vulnerable ethnic community groups, for example, is extremely important. It's incredibly important for them to be able to communicate with civil society organizations like DisinfoWatch to let us know what they're seeing, so that we might be able to expose some of those narratives and tactics.
Making sure that the foreign influence transparency registry is properly implemented will be critically important as well, to help protect Canadians against these sorts of operations as well as against transnational repression.
The last thing I will say is that we need to be enforcing our sanctions legislation. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, with the Tenet Media case we know now, thanks to the United States and the Department of Justice, that two Canadians received financing and funds directly from RT—well, through some U.K. shell companies. They received this funding in 2024, according to that indictment.
As I mentioned in my opening remarks, RT was placed on our sanctions list in 2022 already. That raises a number of questions in terms of the Special Economic Measures Act, which allows us to place sanctions on these entities. There are questions as to whether that legislation has been violated.
Enforcing our sanctions legislation is the first thing we need to be doing.
Managing Director and General Counsel, Centre for International Governance Innovation
Through you, Mr. Chair, I'd like to thank Mr. MacGregor for his question.
At the risk of sounding like a sycophant, I thought you all did a great job on that report. I particularly liked recommendation five, which was about capital and cost allowances and tax measures for baseline controls on cyber.
I want to throw out a bigger thing that wasn't part of that discussion. This is in terms of what Mr. Kolga talked about when he was targeted. You have a prominent Canadian who's targeted, and no one knows who's on first. We cannot have that. We need to look at how the RCMP functions. While I like the idea of having the commissioner take some responsibility, as currently drafted that is not in their ambit of focus.
This is criminal activity. Let's treat it like that. What would a reimagined RCMP look like were it to follow the FBI, enhancing their national security focus, strengthening their counter-intelligence capabilities and increasing our ability to coordinate and collaborate with allies? To the question “Who's in charge?” when this type of stuff happens, every single person will know what the answer is.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you.
Mr. Kolga, I'll turn to you for my last minute. Our last panel made use of the phrase “useful idiots”. You talked about Russia Today and the fact that we need to really start implementing our sanctions regime. I want to talk about the influencers themselves, though.
Is ignorance a defence? Do you think these people are actively aware? What amount of responsibility should these people bear? How should that influence our committee's recommendations to the government?
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
That's a great question. We've known since 2012 or so, and even before that, because I think RT was actually established in 2005, that this was going to be a propaganda arm of the Russian government. Anyone appearing, or at least the experts, the academics and the activists who continue to appear on RT today....
In fact, we know that one Canadian activist just last week appeared on an RT talking head show. Whether that individual received compensation for that, we don't know, but the fact is that we have Canadians who know exactly what RT is. They know exactly what its role is in terms of our information space, and they continue to appear on it.
This includes those who were appearing on it before 2022; we know of at least two academics. One Canadian academic was what you might refer to as a “star columnist” for RT up until February 24, 2022, when the full-scale invasion happened. If you go to RT and search up this Canadian academic's name, it will bring up hundreds of columns. This individual was producing content for RT on a weekly basis. They were a Russia expert. They knew exactly what they were doing and who they were speaking to.
I know that the previous panel also mentioned Russian think tanks like the Valdai club. There are several—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
I'm sorry, sir. I have to bring this to an end. Can you quickly wrap up?
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
I would echo the previous panellists, who said we should be looking into the Valdai club and other Russian think tanks, among whom there are several, probably a dozen, Canadian academics who are members.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you.
We'll start our second round now with Mr. Motz.
Mr. Motz, please go ahead for five minutes.
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Thank you very much, Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for being here.
All the panellists who have been here so far today have spoken about and made reference to misinformation and disinformation and how it undermines Canada's democracy, erodes trust in our public institutions and polarizes Canadians. Are we doing enough to combat this, in your opinion?
Mr. Kolga.
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
No. We can always be doing more. I think I mentioned in my opening remarks that Russia spends $3 billion annually on these operations.
Now, these operations that they're funding are targeting their own people, but they're also targeting us. The U.S. DOJ indictment clearly indicates that $10 million was spent by the Russian government to try to directly influence our information space. We're not even coming close to matching Russia in terms of the resources we are deploying to push back on these sorts of narratives. As I said earlier, I think there are signs of hope and some bright spots where we are trying to push back, but again, we need to be doing a lot more.
I think the previous panel also mentioned that we should be looking at a whole-of-society approach to this. We should be making sure our media has a firm understanding of these operations and who the influencers are, for example, so that they are not inadvertently calling them to be on talking head shows or political programs.
We need to make sure our—
Conservative
Glen Motz Conservative Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB
Mr. Kolga, I'll interrupt you there.
You mentioned that our media needs to be aware. That brings to mind a concern I think many Canadians have. I certainly have it.
Are you aware of any Canadian journalists, past or present, who have acted as agents for the Kremlin?
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
In the past—these operations go back to the 1930s—a GRU agent at the time, named Igor Gouzenko, left the Soviet embassy in 1945 with a suitcase full of information. In it were the names of dozens of Canadians who were directly collaborating with the Soviets at the time. Among them were journalists.
This has not changed. Russia actively seeks out journalists in western countries who are aligned with them, in order to help amplify those narratives. Justin Ling, a Canadian journalist, wrote a piece, I think about two years ago, about how the Russian government and the Russian embassy go about this, trying to pitch stories to Canadian journalists, some of whom have taken the bait and amplified those narratives. We can see some of these narratives being amplified in our mainstream media. We've been seeing that for the past decade.
Conservative
Senior Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute, As an Individual
I'd rather not.
As I mentioned earlier, I've been the target of transnational repression in the past. Some of these journalists have been involved in those operations and have jumped on board with them.
I'd prefer not to get into that.