Public Safety Committee on Oct. 8th, 2024

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Mr. Erskine-Smith, that's a great question.

Much will depend on how the foreign influence transparency registry is rolled out. We have the legislation. We don't have the registry, yet. The registry would have the capacity to do two things if it is effectively instituted. One would be to provide some degree of deterrent against so-called grey zone actors, and you might consider Tenet Media founders as an illustration of that. The other would be to pursue either monetary or criminal sanctions under either that legislation, or changes to the Criminal Code that were introduced, particularly changes to the Security of Information Act that were introduced in Bill C-70.

Hypothetically, in future, we might have a better capacity, as the United States has had for some time, to use criminal sanctions against such activities. At the moment, we don't really have that.

[Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Thanks very much. I appreciate it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Erskine-Smith.

It's your turn now, Ms. Michaud.

You have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being here.

I'll continue in the same vein; my questions are for Mr. Wark.

I wanted to get your opinion on Bill C‑70 that the House passed a few months ago to deal with foreign interference. I was asking the witnesses in the previous hour whether they thought Canada had the same tools at its disposal as the Americans with the FBI, for example, to uncover schemes like the one behind Tenet Media. I'd like to know what you think.

Do you think we have the same tools as the Americans to deal with this interference? Do we also have the right legislative tools in a context where everything is evolving so rapidly, technologically speaking?

We know that social networks are a powerful tool for disinformation. Right now, are these legislative tools to be found in Bill C‑70, or do we need to go further?

Will we have to constantly renew ourselves to be on the cutting edge of new tactics or stratagems used by people who want to make disinformation or propaganda for Russia's benefit? I imagine so.

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Thank you, Madame Michaud. I'll respond in English.

In terms of tools, I think the first tool is the ability to detect these kinds of serious activities. That goes to the intelligence capacity. It goes to the disinformation monitoring capacity, which is too weak at the moment in Canada—and that was the burden of some of my remarks in the opening presentation.

In terms of responding to them—if you can detect them—I think the tool kit has been very limited up until recently. Bill C-70 will improve things. Bill C-59, before that, with its new powers given to CSE, may improve our capacities to respond to these disinformation campaigns and try to render them null and void.

The last thing that has to be said is that in no real universe will we be able to detect or counter all disinformation campaigns. At the end of the day, it comes down to Canadian citizens and consumers being able to respond to them in a sensible way.

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

In your opinion, what examples can we take from the United States?

The United States seems a little more advanced, being the main target of Russian propaganda in North America. Are there any examples of what's being done there that Canada can learn from to improve?

I quite agree with you, we'll never be in the same place or the right place to predict everything. However, have you noted any good examples of measures being taken elsewhere in the world from which we could learn?

The previous witnesses were saying that in Europe, we might think of France and Germany as the main targets. To your knowledge, do these European countries and the United States have ways of doing things that Canada could learn from?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

I just want to say very briefly—and I don't mean this in a supercilious way—that the United States has the FBI, and we do not. We have the RCMP, which has divided attention in terms of contracted policing roles and national security roles, and as the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians recently pointed out, that division of responsibilities is not serving Canadians well. Something has to be done seriously to boost the capacity of the RCMP to perform as a national security law enforcement agency, which has been in its mandate for decades and was reinforced, frankly, once CSIS was created. So, we have a big problem on the law enforcement side.

The legislative side, I think, we are improving on, but again, I would come back to the fact that we need.... The starting point for all of this has to be an intelligence capacity, which we don't have at the moment.

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

In your opening remarks, you talked about a responsibility that falls under Global Affairs Canada, but which should be the responsibility of the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness.

Could you come back to that and, if possible, tell us a little more about it?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

I would just say, as I tried to explain in the brief history, that the rapid-response mechanism was originally established as a kind of secretariat to coordinate activities on the part of the G7 countries. That was in 2018. It was only in late 2022, midway through the year, on the basis of what we were seeing in terms of the kind of psychological operations that Russia was conducting, in conjunction with its invasion of Ukraine, that the government decided that we needed a dedicated unit to kind of monitor disinformation, so that was added on to RRM Canada in 2022.

It's important, of course, to note that Global Affairs Canada has no specific legislative authority to do this work. It relies on Crown prerogative to do it, which is, in the world of intelligence, always a weakness.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Michaud.

We go now to Mr. MacGregor for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both witnesses for joining us today.

Professor Wark, I'd like to start with you.

I appreciate your opening remarks about the rapid-response mechanism, and I guess it's in the name. It's a response; it's after the fact. I'm always trying to look for more proactive ways that we can effectively deal with this issue. You may have heard my earlier interventions with Mr. Scott from Reset Tech, just lamenting the fact that so much of our public discourse today is held on platforms that are controlled by a handful of billionaires whose main motive, of course, is to enrich themselves. We can see the way their social media platforms operate.

I think Mr. Scott said that if we were back at the height of the Cold War in the mid-1980s and a number of Canadian media companies were running an hour's worth of Kremlin propaganda, they'd be hauled before a committee right away, and action would be taken.

I guess from your perspective we've talked about how we can confront the power that these social media companies wield. I know it's difficult from a Canadian perspective because they're largely based in California and in Silicon Valley, and they are subject to U.S. laws. However, doing nothing is not an answer. We have already seen the corrosive effects that their platforms are having on what people in Canada are thinking about and the effect it's having on our democratic norms.

Do you have any thoughts that you can share with the committee on how we proactively deal with the platforms that are hosting a lot of this misinformation and disinformation that is, in some ways, directly linked to what Russia is trying to do with its strategic objectives?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Mr. MacGregor, I wouldn't claim to be an expert on platform regulation. For many of the people I work with at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, that's their kool-aid, and I'm sure they would be happy to come and talk to you about that at some point.

I'll come back to your question about the rapid response mechanism, and I'll say that it's probably mistitled. I think the idea was it was going to be a rapid detection mechanism, but maybe that sounded a little too un-Canadian when it was created. I think I would take to heart many of Mr. Scott's comments in terms of a guide, particularly in terms of requiring these social media platforms to be much more transparent and much more responsible.

I would also add to that—and this, maybe, just reflects my own age—that we did this to ourselves. No one required us to sign up to YouTube, Instagram, etc., and, you know, drink from those fountains. I think Canadians have to exercise some degree of responsibility themselves in terms of how they intersect with social media platforms. There's an education component to that. There may be a regulation component to it, but at the end of the day, in a democratic society, it comes down to our being able to exercise good judgment in that regard.

I think there's a lot that can be done, and this is why I'm very keen on a model like the Swedish Psychological Defence Agency—which perhaps our other guest knows more about than I do—that could combine a detection capacity and use intelligence resources and so on alongside a public-facing organization that could really talk to and try to educate Canadians.

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

Thank you for that.

Mr. Oksanen, maybe that's a great segue to you.

I'd like to have your thoughts on the same question because, with Canada's geographic position in the world, I think we have a history of feeling quite insulated from events that happen on the other side of the Atlantic. Of course, for residents in Sweden and for your neighbour in Finland, Russia is always present and always has been, for centuries. I'm wondering how that informs the discourse in Sweden on this very same topic. Are there any other lessons that you think Canadians need to learn from that so that we can make recommendations to our own government?

[Patrik Oksanen]

I think both Finland and Sweden have had an advantage here because we know Russia more than other countries. You mentioned earlier in this panel discussion that there are problems in Germany and in France because they don't have the same level of understanding of Russia. We have a good understanding of the problem, in general, in society.

As mentioned, we have this new agency: the Psychological Defence Agency. It has been up and running now for two years. The effects are too early to tell, really, but what we are seeing is that there is an increased level of awareness in society. They've been doing a lot of work in educating civil servants in various levels. Also, they have this detection capability so that they can reach out to relevant agencies that have to deal with the actual problem and that have to address it in the Swedish system. The Psychological Defence Agency is not the one addressing this information if it is under, for example, public health.

If I may also address the overall question on regulated platforms, I think we should start to have a debate and think about social media a bit like tobacco. We have dealt with tobacco in a way to inform the public of the problems and the risks. For example, for young people, they are not able to buy it, and so on. I think that is an approach that we should consider in the open society. That debate is nowhere yet in the world, but I think that is something that we need to start to think about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

We'll start a second round now with Mr. Brock.

Please go ahead. You have five minutes.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to thank both witnesses for your attendance and participation in this study.

At this time, Mr. Chair, I'd like to move a motion that was put on notice last Friday and was filed with the clerk in both official languages.

The motion reads:

That the committee reports to the house the Minister should apologize for defending a dirtbag cop shooter by saying “It is disturbing to me as a member of Parliament to hear other members of Parliament use names and slurs toward constituents. These are Canadians we are talking about. When we are calling each other names and calling constituents names we can do better” and recognize this monster is currently being charged with attempted murder, possession of a firearm, uttering death threats and breaching a probation order, and has previously been charged with possessing a stolen vehicle, stolen license plates, breaking into and entering multiple homes, as well as breaching an earlier probation order.

I'd like to be recognized as the first speaker, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Brock.

I call the attention of the committee to House of Commons Procedure and Practice, page 1065. Regarding the admissibility of motions to committee proceedings, “a motion should not contain offensive or unparliamentary language. Motions should not contain any objectionable or irregular wording, and they should be neither argumentative nor in the style of a speech.”

On that basis, the chair finds that this motion is not admissible.

[An hon. member]

I challenge that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

The chair has been challenged.

The decision for the committee is this: Shall the decision of the chair be sustained? If you vote yes, then you agree with the chair. If you vote no, then the motion will go forward.

Mr. Clerk, would you take the roll, please?

(Ruling of the chair sustained: yeas 7; nays 4)

Thank you, Mr. Clerk.

The chair's decision is sustained.

Mr. Brock, you have two minutes left.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I'll pass the rest of my time to my colleague, Mr. Motz.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I would like to ask Dr. Wark a question, if I could.

We had a witness here on Tuesday last week whose question was, why is Canada still a safe haven for Russian operatives?

I'd like to ask you the same question. Why is Canada still such a safe haven?

Why has the current government not taken any action with regard to those in Canada who collaborate with institutions that spread Russian propaganda?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Motz.

I could preface my answer by saying that I wear as a badge of honour the fact that I'm on the Russian sanctions list. That is not our list of sanctioned individuals, but theirs. I think I'm on that list partly because I have advocated for much more aggressive activity on the part of the Government of Canada in terms of Russian diplomats, who are engaging in activities that are not commensurate with their Geneva Convention duties, being declared persona non grata.

As Mr. Motz probably knows, Canada is almost unique among NATO and EU countries in not having expelled a single Russian diplomat from its establishment in Canada since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Frankly, I think there is no good argument to be made for that lack of action. I would distinguish that activity, which is fully within the federal government's capacity, from the broader question of dealing with Russian potential agents of influence, proxies and so on, in Canada.

Here, I think there is a twofold problem. One is that up until very recently, in Bill C-70, we really haven't had the legal tools to respond to that problem.

Secondly, I think there is, as I indicated in response to Madame Michaud's question, a genuine institutional lack of capacity, both on the intelligence side and the law enforcement side, to be able to respond to these threats.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Motz.

We go now to Mr. Gaheer.

Please go ahead. You have five minutes.

[Iqwinder Gaheer, Liberal, Mississauga—Malton, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing before the committee.

Professor Wark, my questions are for you.

You've mentioned to me in the past that we don't have an FBI in Canada. We have the RCMP and up to 80% of the work they do is contract policing.

You've obviously thought about this at length. Can you talk a little bit about what it would look like if the RCMP looked a little bit more like the FBI? What would happen to contract policing?

In your opinion, what could the RCMP then focus on that they don't quite have the resources for now?

[Dr. Wesley Wark]

Very briefly, Mr. Gaheer, it's a complicated issue.

I think that in the broad scheme of things, the RCMP should get out of the business of contract policing altogether. An alternative model would have to be found in funding law enforcement in the provinces, territories and municipalities. Surely that is not beyond our ability.

I think what we need the RCMP to become is a nationally focused law enforcement and national security agency that can really have the capacity to dig into a variety of serious criminal and national security offences, whether they're serious organized crime in nature or have to do with national security challenges, of which we face many.