Public Safety Committee on Oct. 8th, 2024

[Dr. Ben Scott]

I think you're exactly right to put your finger on the business model and the responsibilities of the industry to do a better job of protecting security and public safety. The exploitation of these products is not an accident. It is taking advantage of vulnerabilities that these giant, extremely wealthy companies have left in their services.

I want to state up front that the solutions that I would propose to you are almost never to delete content. If you have an operator that is clearly being paid by a foreign adversary to intentionally manipulate and deceive the Canadian public, that's an illegal activity. It would be illegal in any media, just like it is on social media. That's prosecutable. That should be removed.

The key point here is that it's not the public square. It's not a mirror of society that you see when you open your phone and you look at Twitter or Facebook. It's a funhouse mirror. It's distortion.

A public sphere brings to mind the idea that everybody has an equal opportunity to speak. In social media, that's not the case. TikTok and YouTube give megaphones to some speakers on their platforms and not to others. They give the megaphones to the people who attract the most eyeballs and earn them the most money. When you give megaphones to propagandists who are paid by the Russians, like at Tenet Media, you are giving them a massive advantage in communicating in that public sphere and drowning out lots of other voices that might otherwise have been finding audiences in the Canadian public.

There are things that can be done around transparency. How do these algorithms work? How does TikTok and YouTube decide what gets amplified and what doesn't?

Why aren't these things more transparent to researchers and to public interest organizations?

We look at these social media platforms like they are great innovators and magical technologists when, in reality, they're just making money like any other business.

Think back to the Cold War. If it were 1985 and commercial broadcasters in Canada were handing an hour a day to the Kremlin to program whatever it wanted with no questions asked—blasting it out to the whole Canadian public—they'd be sat in front of this committee in five seconds, yet with social media companies, it's like, "Well, there's nothing we can do”.

There sure is a lot we can do about it and it starts with conversations like this one.

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

Thank you very much for that.

Professor Shekhovtsov, I'd like to turn to you. Being in Europe, you are much closer to the front lines of the confrontation between Russia and Ukraine.

Certainly, we are no strangers to people emailing us about how Canada is doing too much for Ukraine, that it's corrupt and that it's full of Nazis. We've all heard that false discourse.

What I'd like you to point out is what the consequences would be for a country like Canada if we were not to hold Russia back in Ukraine and were to let them roll over that country.

What does that do for the general security of NATO and countries like Canada?

[Anton Shekhovtsov]

Thank you for this question.

It is my belief that Ukraine, although it is currently a main object of the Russian aggression, is not the last in line if Russia succeeds. It only takes one Ukraine, one country, for Russia to amass huge forces on the borders of the EU and NATO. This completely changes the security situation in all of Europe. The assistance that western nations, including Canada—and again, I'm grateful for the support—give to Ukraine is not only to Ukraine, but an investment in the security and maintenance of that security architecture in all of Europe.

Of course, I know that Polish colleagues and colleagues in the Baltic states are always nervous about whether NATO would come to their help in case Russia decides to be aggressive against them as well. However, Ukraine is indeed.... As Ukraine is standing right now, it prevents Russia from attacking NATO member states, from attacking the EU, where the involvement of countries such as Canada would have been much more significant, and the amounts of money and, then, financial assistance to European—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I'm sorry, sir. I have to cut you off. Thank you very much.

We'll start our second round now with Ms. Dancho.

Ms. Dancho, go ahead. You have five minutes, please.

[Raquel Dancho, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here. It's excellent testimony.

I would like to build on some of the questions from Ms. Michaud concerning the capacity in Canada. I have concerns that we relied on the DOJ to find this out.

You've mentioned that we have the capacity in Canada, and yet it seems, from what you were saying, that it hasn't been made a priority by your current intelligence and law enforcement agencies. I do want to ask you a question about that.

Before I get to that, I want to address something with you, Mr. Chair. I want to register my disappointment that you cancelled Thursday's meeting on this study. I do not feel that we were adequately consulted. The standard practice from my last experience with this, before I was away on mat leave, was that there was much more consultation with vice-chairs. As first vice-chair, I do think we anticipated that we would be called to discuss what could be done about Thursday in the event that witnesses were not able to attend Thursday's committee meeting.

Now, that does happen. However, in reviewing the motion put forward by the Liberals, the witnesses who were mentioned on there were not exhaustive. It specifically mentions other “disinformation experts”. I know from past experience that we have had situations where our excellent public servants have come, with relatively short notice, to provide feedback and information. Of course, this area of study that we're working on has an intelligence focus. It has a law enforcement focus. It has a legal focus. I would be shocked if, among all the individuals in our public service, any of them could not have come. I do believe that if more effort were put in, we could have had a robust meeting with other witnesses, perhaps within our own government apparatus, who we should include in this study. I want to register my disappointment in that regard, given that we do not feel that adequate consultation was provided. I would ask that in the future you provide better consultation.

There's a second point I want to make about this. We have a number of other things that we could do as a committee. If we couldn't get witnesses on this important study, we could have reviewed, for example, the Paul Bernardo report that has been gathering dust. The analysts worked very hard on that report. That was an area of intense public interest when this committee was reviewing it. Given that the individual we were talking about was the worst mass killer and rapist in Canadian history and was being moved from maximum security prison to medium security prison, with all the privileges that entails, I was shocked to see that we wouldn't at least look at that draft report. The committee had already approved to study that issue. We had the draft report. It's sitting and collecting dust. Why were we not able to review that report on Thursday?

Mr. Chair, there are a number of studies that we have agreed to as a committee and a number of things we could have talked about. I think it would be shocking to the public to think that a meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security should be cancelled because we have nothing to look into. I just find that completely unacceptable.

Again, to quote the Liberals' own words, Ms. O'Connell said—I would wish to discuss this with her, but she's not here at the moment—“We, as a committee, should be held accountable if we don't take this as a very serious priority.” She said we owe it to Ukrainians “to not wait another minute”. Yet where was the discussion, where was the leadership from Liberal members, to ensure that we had a committee meeting on this on Thursday?

That there was no one who could have, Mr. Chair, I find very hard to believe. I would ask that more effort be put into ensuring that we have this study. If we can't find witnesses, find someone from government. It is important that we get into this issue. But if we can't, let's focus on the work that we've already done. I would ask that if there's no one we can find for this very study, let's look at the Paul Bernardo study.

I wanted to register my very clear disappointment that this was not adequately consulted on and that the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security Committee of Canada failed to have a meeting for an excuse that I don't find acceptable. There's a whole host of issues we could be looking into. It is a failure that we had that meeting cancelled.

Thank you.

With my remaining minute, Mr. Scott, to go back to my question, can you elaborate a little bit on what you'd said to Ms. Michaud? I thought it was a great area of interest that this committee should hear.

I can reiterate, if you don't recall what I said.

[Dr. Ben Scott]

I do. I don't have any information about what the Canadian authorities did or didn't do, or what their involvement might have been, in the DOJ indictment. I'm only relying on publicly available documents, including the DOJ's published affidavits.

In my experience working in the U.S. government, it is very possible, if not likely, that there was Five Eyes co-operation if this was an intelligence operation that discovered this Russian intervention through signals intelligence. Just because it's not public that the Canadian authorities were involved doesn't mean they weren't. I can't say one way or the other whether or not they had an involvement in this particular case.

What I will say is that it's very difficult to detect this kind of operation of payola influence using dark money as a foreign power, because there are so many different YouTube and TikTok channels out there that will operate on a pay-for-play basis. As I read the DOJ affidavits, it was only through wiretaps that they were able to discover this one.

Partly, I put that at the feet of the technology companies who simply don't monitor sufficiently for patterns of propagation characteristics that indicate the probability of some kind of malign influence or coordinated inauthentic activity.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, sir.

We go now to Mr. MacDonald, please, for five minutes.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

Chair, I just want to go back a little bit. Mr. MacGregor talked a little bit about it, but it was also mentioned in the preamble. It's regarding the operations launched against European countries, and how they differ from operations launched against Canada and the United States. We did mention France and Germany.

I'm just wondering what the difference is there between what they're doing now to Canada and basically what they've been doing for a number of years to France and Germany.

This is to Mr. Shekhovtsov, please.

[Anton Shekhovtsov]

Thank you for this question.

Indeed, some of the Russian information operations target particular audiences. Although the western world can be one audience, there are still differences among different nations. Those differences, to put it simply, are that every society has its own vulnerabilities and sensitivities. The vulnerabilities that are probably inherent in one western society is not really a case for another.

Just to give you an example, for France and Germany, immigration or even illegal immigration from the Middle East and Africa is something that these countries are concerned with. This is probably not the case for central European countries, where immigration from those regions of the world is not that significant.

For Canada, I think it is the proximity to the U.S. Maybe some Canadians are not very happy to be confused sometimes with the citizens of the United States.

This Nazi problem is also a concern. I'm aware that in many debates in Canada—

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you. I'd like to move on.

Are both far left and far right political actors equally susceptible, or are they focusing on one over the other?

[Anton Shekhovtsov]

I think if we are talking about Canada, it's mostly far left actors who are susceptible to Russian disinformation campaigns regarding Ukraine. If the Russian propagandists are talking about immigration or LGBT issues, then probably the Canadian far right is the most susceptible. These are different topics for different audiences.

Really, those strategic and tactical narratives are tailor-made to divide nations and to divide the national consensus. They're using these extremes from the right and left to achieve their objectives.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Can you see around the world if particular political parties are using this propaganda as a decisive tool in their own countries?

[Anton Shekhovtsov]

We see that in some countries of the EU, and I would probably mention Hungary and Slovakia at the moment. These countries have governments that are particularly influenced by malign Russian strategic and tactical narratives. The fact, for example, that Slovakia is no longer providing state-sponsored support in the military sphere to Ukraine, in my opinion, is quite largely an influence or effect of Russian disinformation being very successful.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

In your opinion, basically in the United States if a new government gets in over the one in office right now, there will be a decrease in support for Ukraine. We've seen the government opposition here vote against a free trade agreement with Ukraine. Are these the types of things that concern you?

[Anton Shekhovtsov]

I am concerned, of course, about support continuing for Ukraine. I'm sure it doesn't really matter for Ukraine where the support is coming from. As I mentioned at the very beginning, all parties and all political forces that in one way or another provide support and assistance for Ukraine are all welcomed by Ukrainians who are fighting this existential fight.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

How much time do I have, Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

You have 19 seconds.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

That's fine. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. MacDonald.

Ms. Michaud, you have two and a half minutes.

[Kristina Michaud, Bloc, Avignon—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Shekhovtsov and Mr. Scott, my question is for both of you, and you can answer in turn.

It has to do with a fairly recent controversy in Canada. I don't know if you've heard about it. People wanted to present the documentary Russians at War at the Toronto International Film Festival. This documentary was made by a Russian-Canadian documentary filmmaker, Anastasia Trofimova. Some people say it's obviously Russian propaganda, and that it was filmed illegally in occupied Ukrainian territory. Others say it's not Russian propaganda and that it was financed by France and Canada. Canada did indeed donate a few hundred thousand dollars for the production of this film.

How does one go about detecting or differentiating between the different forms that propaganda can take in Canada?

I don't want to make allegations, and I don't want to say that this film is propaganda, but there was controversy nonetheless. The Deputy Prime Minister said she was uncomfortable with the fact that it was funded by the Canadian government. The Ukrainian MPs I met last week made us aware of this. I don't know if the president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress mentioned it. I know she was here at the last committee meeting. However, it's still something that's floating around in the news. We're wondering whether we should make room for it. We wonder if it could be a form of propaganda.

How do you think we can untangle all this?

Mr. Scott, would you like to speak first?

[Dr. Ben Scott]

Thank you for your question.

I'm unfamiliar with the film. I can only speak broadly and say that there always has been and always will be, in democratic societies, speech that makes people uncomfortable.

The question is, first and foremost, is it lawful? There is a very high bar in Canada for what constitutes illegal speech. If it reaches or exceeds that bar, then it shouldn't be permitted. Everything else, I think, is fair game. However, that doesn't mean that broadcasters or social media platforms have to amplify it and extend their audience for commercial reasons beyond that which it would achieve on its own merits.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Madam.

We go now to Mr. MacGregor for two and a half minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll turn to Mr. Scott again.

I wanted to look at how we assign responsibility for where we're at. I mean, in my opening exchange with you, I talked about how we have a handful of billionaires who control and wield so much power and influence over the public discourse through their platforms. We're certainly looking forward to hearing from a few of those representatives.

As you know, for the influencers themselves, these are not regular everyday folks. They are multi-millionaires in some cases. They make a lot of money doing what they do.

Do you think the influencers themselves need to be assigned some responsibility for this? Or can they remain wilfully ignorant of where they're receiving their money from? Do we need to target the social media platforms? One of my NDP colleagues has an idea for legislation that tries to enforce algorithmic transparency. Do we need to look at large corporate sponsors whose ads run on these platforms and are being funnelled towards eyeballs, depending on how extreme the content is, or is it a mix of all three?

I would love to hear your feedback on that.

[Dr. Ben Scott]

Yes, you should do all of those things.

I'll echo the comments at the top of the hearing that for the individuals involved in the Tenet Media case, who are Canadian citizens, they ought to be before this panel.

I would also say that representatives of the technology companies, in particular, Google, which owns YouTube; and TikTok, Meta and Twitter also should be sat before this committee and be answering questions about what they do and don't do to guard against foreign interference operations.

The vulnerabilities that these companies permit on their products is really unacceptable, and they do so because we allow them to do so, as citizens and as communities who have the power to make laws and determine how businesses do and don't make money. The longer we allow them to do this without accountability and with impunity, the more we send the message that this is a completely acceptable practice and they can off-load all the harms of security and safety vulnerabilities onto the public.

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

I'll leave it there, Chair.