Public Safety Committee on Oct. 18th, 2024

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

I'm moving to adjourn debate, so we can get back to the business of the study—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

That's enough.

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

Wait a minute.

Ms. Lantsman, you're actually not subbed in for anybody on this committee at the moment, so you can't move that motion.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

I guess I'll continue talking. Perfect.

I'm sure that one of my colleagues will move that motion because they feel exactly the same way about this. This motion that we are debating, which is entirely political, stops us from doing the work we need to do.

I'm absolutely fine talking about the failures of this government on foreign interference, which we have seen play out over the last nine years.

This particular issue has, frankly, proven that the Prime Minister has failed on foreign interference. The Prime Minister, at the Hogue commission, admitted that our intelligence agencies have been gathering information on India and that it has been committing foreign interference on our soil for a number of years, yet it's clear that he did nothing to act on this.

Now, he didn't need secret clearance to be able to say any of that at the Hogue commission. He didn't need anybody else to have secret clearance when he got up in the House of Commons and gave out information about what we knew and when we knew it at the time. He certainly didn't need anybody else to have clearance. He doesn't really need clearance to be able to walk across the House of Commons—take 10 steps—to tell the Leader of the Opposition if there are members in his party...like he suggested at the Hogue commission.

Look, if the Prime Minister has nothing to hide, then I think Canadians have a very reasonable question about why he wouldn't release the names. Is it that they actually sit in his caucus or in his cabinet and he's done nothing about it?

Anyway, this all casts aspersions certainly on members of Parliament. I think it casts a greater amount of scrutiny on the Liberals, who perhaps have members of their own caucus, members of their own cabinet, perhaps committee chairs and perhaps parliamentary secretaries who have been involved in foreign interference. It's the Prime Minister who's really withholding that information from Canadians.

Going back to the foreign interference that he's done nothing on, even when the Liberals were given the opportunity to protect Canadians from extortion.... Bill C-381 was brought forward by my co-deputy leader, the great Tim Uppal, who worked hard to speak to communities right across the country about an extortion issue. I know that some Liberals didn't want to look like they were voting against the bill, so some were absent. They knew that extortion had gone up threefold, fourfold or fivefold in their communities. I get that. What I don't understand is that a party claiming to be seized with this issue would vote against an extortion bill that would put these violent offenders behind bars.

Extortion, of course, is one of the crimes that the RCMP highlighted during its press conference that happened on the matter at hand. Voting against this protection against extortion act makes very little sense. In fact, it makes very little sense that the Liberal members have not taken seriously the rise in crime in our country.

First, it was Bill C-75, which allows violent, repeat offenders out on bail, sometimes minutes or an afternoon after they commit a crime. It's Bill C-5, which allows people to serve a sentence in their basements after repeatedly stealing cars, for example. They have made this country a more dangerous place.

When presented with the opportunity to work on things like extortion, members of this government, members of the Liberal Party and members of the House of Commons decided that, no, they are not going to take this issue seriously, even though it's the one that they purportedly are taking seriously because the RCMP came out and said that it was part of the issue at hand.

The United States managed to thwart an assassination attempt on American soil by agents of the Indian government. Canada was unable to do that.

I think conversations like that would be best had with the witnesses we all agreed on for this study before this motion was brought forward. I think I speak on behalf of many on our side of things when I say it is a great shame that we are not looking at the seriousness of this issue and that we are holding the actual study hostage.

After the Liberals said no to a committee, you would think they would do something to reverse themselves, like they always do. After Kevin Lamoureux stood up in the House and said we are not having a special committee on this, he spoke to members of the Sikh community and members of all other communities and he said no, we are not having this committee. You would think the Liberals would want to at least have the study here, which was agreed upon. It is a shame.

It turns out, Mr. Chair, that this was just enough time to have me subbed in. I'm going to move the motion I did before in order for us to close off the debate on this so that we can get back to the work of committee, which the Liberals and the NDP are stopping.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I again have a motion to adjourn the debate.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

Before we go to Ms. May, I just want to bring up a housekeeping matter. In relation to our study on Russian interference, we have a witness who has been invited in relation to the movie Russians at War. We have been contacted by the producers of that movie, offering to share a link to the movie for anyone who wants to watch it.

Now we, as the committee, can't distribute it because it's only in one language, so if you wish to receive that link, please advise the clerk. He will share your email with the producers and, presumably, the producer can send you the link.

Anyway, that's my intervention.

We'll go now to Ms. May. Go ahead, please.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all members of the committee.

I hope we will be able to proceed with a number of critical issues. Ultimately, the most serious issue that I think I've faced as a member of Parliament is the notion of evidence from the RCMP that a foreign government has committed criminal acts on Canadian soil, including homicides, and that they particularly target one community, the South Asian community, within Canada.

I am going to try, Mr. Chair, to be as concise as possible. I can't say my name was taken in vain, because it's always an honour to be called out for being ineffective by the deputy leader of the Conservative Party. I want to correct the record where I need to, but I will try to keep my comments fairly limited.

I share with Ms. Lantsman a sense that it was unfortunate that last night's emergency debate was unnecessarily.... Well, who can use the word “necessary” in terms of the hyperpartisanship we hear in Parliament? However, to the extent that she mentioned that all parties got to speak, I did get to ask questions but I didn't get a speaking slot.

However, I regret that in last night's debate, not all members.... I have to say that Ruby Sahota's speech was excellent on behalf of Brampton North. There was an awful lot more partisanship than is appropriate, I think, when we're talking about an issue as grave as the emergency debate on the actions that the RCMP has alleged the Indian government has coordinated against Canadians on Canadian soil.

To the extent that last night's debate may have been characterized as bringing more heat than light, in the time I have right now, Mr. Chair, I'm going to try to do the opposite and bring more light than heat.

I'm going to start with the comments from Ms. Lantsman, just because I think it's important to remember that words matter and respect matters. When we're dealing with issues that are obviously bringing a great deal of emotion to the floor, Canadians want to see us speak respectfully of each other and of other Canadians.

In reference to the former governor general, the Right Honourable David Johnston, being referred to by Ms. Lantsman as a “family ski buddy” of the Prime Minister, I just want to remind everyone that when David Johnston was appointed Governor General of Canada, that decision was made by a former prime minister, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper.

The decision and the appointment process for David Johnston as Governor General was, at the time—and I recall it well—in 2010, extolled by many because Stephen Harper made the decision to have an expert advisory panel to keep politics out of it and to appoint an eminent Canadian to the role of Governor General.

Because I respect and admire David Johnston a great deal, even though I did vote that the special rapporteur role was not working and that he should resign, I had a hard time with that vote because of the depth of, I'll admit, my deep personal affection and respect for David Johnston. However, as former governor general, he should not be referred to, in any parliamentary proceeding, as a “family ski buddy”. David Johnston served this country with extraordinary commitment and dedication, as did his wife, during the time he was Governor General, and he continues to do so.

As his role of special rapporteur has a direct bearing on the motion before us from my colleague from Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, who happens to also be my neighbour on Vancouver Island in Saanich—Gulf Islands, there's no question that leaders of opposition parties have never before had the right or the opportunity to ask for top secret security clearance. That opportunity was only created when David Johnston filed his report, which was not a “Coles Notes” summary but an effort to open up, for more Canadians, access to top secret information to understand the extent of foreign interference in our election process.

In his initial report, David Johnston said there are top secret security documents he had read that he thought should be available to leaders of opposition parties if they were able to obtain top secret security clearance. I took that opportunity as quickly as possible, so I had my top secret security clearance in the summer of 2023.

It's important for all leaders to have that, such that we can talk to each other without worrying that we're going to betray or violate what used to be called the “Official Secrets Act” but is now the Security of Information Act.

Again, I want to go to “words matter and respect matters” and continue along with that. Just to respond to one of the other people Ms. Lantsman mentioned, having denigrated our former governor general, she praises to the skies Mr. Mulcair. I also have a lot of respect for Mr. Mulcair, but his track record on “words matter and respect matters” isn't great.

Back in 2005, the Quebec court found—and Mr. Justice Denis' decision was really hard to read—that if you want to respect an individual in public life.... I'm sure Mr. Mulcair would rather that he had not defamed a former member of the Parti Québécois cabinet, Mr. Duhaime. It was found by Mr. Justice Denis that Mr. Mulcair used language that was imprudent, false, defamatory, malicious and a number of other adjectives. That was unfortunate. It was lucky for Mr. Mulcair that Quebec taxpayers paid the $95,000 judgment against him for having defamed a former member of the Quebec cabinet.

Moving on from there, I wanted to speak to some of the points that really show, again, that what language we use really matters here. This goes to some of the points made by my friend, Ms. Dancho from Kildonan—St. Paul.

I want to start with a bit of a short preamble. In Debate, we've thrown around members of all parties, and I'm not trying to find fault with anyone for using language that's imprecise. It's easy to use language that's imprecise. We've variously referred to “receiving briefings” or “taking an oath”. I prefer to say that, when you have top secret security clearance, you have access to read top secret security documents yourself.

Now, to that extent, are you then muzzled? No. You can reflect; you can share, as I've tried to do.

Ms. Dancho was working from memory, and believe me, Raquel, I'm not saying a single thing in criticism of how you recalled what I'd said in press conferences. It was months ago, and I know it was your best effort to recall what I'd said. However, I never said there were no worries about what occurred in Parliament.

The committee report is called the NSICOP report. It's always a hard acronym to say, but it's the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians. I read the unredacted version, so I read the secret report. We know from that report that there was, in the language used by the parliamentarians, “witting” and “semi-witting” participation by people who might be sitting members of Parliament.

It led to a great deal of speculation, and I was worried that the atmosphere began to approach a witch hunt, asking if there were traitors among us. I didn't say that there were no worries. I think foreign interference is a significant worry. I think we need to pay a lot of attention to it, and that's why I continue to urge Mr. Poilievre to get his top secret security clearance, because we need to be a united front as Canadian parliamentarians.

We need to put Canada first and be able to let any any foreign interest—foreign government or non-state actor—that thinks it could interfere with Canadian democracy or, worse, commit criminal acts on Canadian soil, know that they will not find any daylight between us as leaders, that we stand together to say that there's no room here for foreign interference.

Where we have soft underbelly spots in how our own political parties may operate, we need to tighten those up. We need to make sure that we pay attention to the two places that were found to have the greatest vulnerabilities—nomination races and leadership races. Those we could clean up. On those, we could stand together.

Back to some of the comments Ms. Dancho made, I didn't say there were no worries. I want to repeat what I said, so that it's clear because people variously said that I changed my story in some way. I have not. I am not muzzled. What I am is keenly aware that I can talk about what I've read as long as I don't violate the Security of Information Act.

Violating the Security of Information Act is an offence for which you can be jailed. More than that, and I have explained this before, not all information you read runs the same risks to our security establishment.

As a Five Eyes partner, I certainly don't want Canadian security to be viewed as lax such that other Five Eyes partners don't want to share information with us. That's why I completely agree with the findings of our former governor general David Johnston that it is significant, worrying and unacceptable that anyone within our security establishment shared confidential and, in fact, privileged, top secret information with journalists. That puts our security establishment in a position of being less trustworthy to other Five Eyes partners.

I do think that David Johnston's report as special rapporteur was absolutely correct in that. That's not because I want to muzzle people or act out of partisan interest, but we have to ensure that, down the line, those who have access to information that is top secret and protected by the Security of Information Act do not feel that they can put.... Let's be clear. The Globe and Mail reporter Bob Fife, who has a great reputation for good reason, can't be on the speed dial of CSIS agents.

We have another question today, which has just come up, about The Washington Post. I'll turn to that in a moment, because I think it's important and needs to be investigated, but this isn't about muzzling people. This is about parliamentarians who have taken an oath of loyalty to Canada. That includes the Constitution of Canada and the laws of Canada. You don't go around recklessly violating the Security of Information Act.

Just to correct the record, I never had to check anything with the RCMP before I spoke. When you sit down to read a top secret security document, you're not allowed to take notes. You're not allowed to bring any electronic devices in the room with you. You should have to rely on your own mind and your own ability to assess information, to read and to remember what you've read. I went in to read the top secret, security-cleared document, which was the unredacted report of our parliamentary committee that included members of the Liberal, New Democrat, Conservative and Bloc parties as well as independent senators, the NSICOP committee chaired by David McGuinty.

When I went in to read that, there was, again, no pen, no cellphone and no electronic devices of any kind. They're under lock and key outside the room, and the room is windowless so no one can train a telephoto lens on what you're reading from another building across the street. I had no staff, none of my staff. The Privy Council Office had someone there to keep an eye on me as I read. The only thing I was allowed to bring in with me was the redacted public version of the committee's report so that I could cross-reference back and forth and see that the redacted version on page 32, paragraph 72 has had a significant deletion where it refers to allegations of Indian government interference in the Conservative Party leadership race. I said, “Okay, let me read what it says where it's not redacted”. That was the only point of reference.

Before I made any public comments, I felt it was incumbent on me as someone with top secret security clearance, to the extent that it was legal for me to do so, not to be muzzled. Quite the contrary, to be able to be certain that I was absolutely not exposing any of our security assets to any risk, I asked experts in security, “Is it okay if I say that, having read this report, I don't think there's any allegation, intelligence or evidence of proactive efforts by any currently sitting member of Parliament in the House of Commons to betray Canada in the interest of another country, that nobody here is a traitor?” That's what I asked. I stand by that.

We do know that there was a former member of Parliament. I think we should have an investigation of that individual.

Again, Alistair MacGregor made this point recently in this committee. I guess it was last Friday. It's really important. There's a distinction between intelligence and evidence, to the extent that you can have a security operative somewhere around the world who says, “We've heard blah blah blah”, but “blah blah blah” doesn't become evidence against an individual unless it's tested in court and is actually pursued and is actually researched.

It becomes intelligence that's worth knowing, but I was very clearly warned by the officials in the security establishment before I gave a press conference, “If you say this part of the report out loud, it may look innocuous to you to share that, but don't share it, because it could expose one of our intelligence assets to potentially being killed.” I took it very seriously to avoid saying anything that violated the Security of Information Act.

I don't think that means I'm muzzled. Again, I urge Mr. Poilievre to ask for—you don't get it as a right and you go through quite a process—top secret security clearance, with the goal that all of us, as federal party leaders from parties that have loads of differences with each other.... However, as individuals, we're Canadians first and political party leaders second. If we were able to be on a level playing field, where we all have top secret security clearance, we could meet in one of those windowless rooms with nothing but other people with top secret security clearance. We could actually have an honest discussion about what we do to demonstrate to the rest of the world and to all Canadians that we are a unified front—no daylight between us—in our commitment to end foreign interference in Canada and in our elections. That's what Madam Justice Hogue's inquiry mandate covers.

In this extremely serious set of allegations that the RCMP has uncovered a criminal network operating within Canada and taking instructions from another government and threatening.... In fact, having already experienced homicides in Canada, which are being investigated by the RCMP, this could not be more serious. To the extent that it's fallen into a partisan debate, that's unfortunate, but that's Mr. Poilievre's fault. He's the only one who can ask for his own top secret security clearance so that this will cease to be a political football. I say that knowing that my comment will be seen as partisan by my friends in the Conservative Party from Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner and from Kildonan—St. Paul.

God knows, I think of you guys as my friends. I'm trying to be as fair and honest as I can here. I beg of you that Mr. Poilievre be encouraged by his own caucus to ask for top secret security clearance. I wrote to him back in June and asked him to do so. He has yet to reply to my letter. That's okay, and I know he's busy, but it's important that we're all on the same page and able to deal with this.

I would just like to say that I completely support the motion before you. I would vote for it if I were a member of committee and able to vote for this.

If we can create a Canada-India special committee, which I do support, I would like to ask other colleagues around this table to urge their parties to allow the Green Party to have a seat in that committee. I think we could be useful. We work hard and, as I've said, we try to bring more light than heat.

I was really pleased last night—I think it was at one minute to midnight—when the foreign affairs critic for the New Democratic Party, the honourable member for Edmonton Strathcona, said that she would support allowing a Green Party member of Parliament to have a seat on a committee. I do hope that we'll get established. I hope that whatever party said no.... I wasn't in a position to see who said no to the unanimous consent motion, so I won't speak to that because I don't have direct knowledge. In any case, for whoever said no, next time around, just let UC take place, but please rewrite the motion so that there's a seat on that committee for a Green Party MP.

Lastly, I want to refer to the allegations that we started this discussion with this morning, the allegations in today's Globe and Mail.

I'm not comfortable at all with the idea that Nathalie Drouin or the deputy minister of Global Affairs Canada would have shared information with The Washington Post before Canadians knew that information. I do note that representatives and spokespeople for both our national security adviser and the deputy minister of Global Affairs Canada have denied that they gave briefings to The Washington Post. I do note that the story in The Washington Post for October 18 falls some days after, of course, October 14 when the RCMP did a press conference. I do know that, in the briefing I received from Madam Drouin and also from the new head of CSIS, Mr. Rogers, on October 16, I did ask specifically whether the leader of the official opposition got this briefing. They said yes but that they were unable to share as many details with him as they had just shared with me because he doesn't have his top secret security clearance. I think it's very important.

Again, I support this motion by Alistair MacGregor. I think it's very important that we all encourage Mr. Poilievre to get his top secret security clearance because, otherwise, it leaves a cloud over the question of how much foreign interference there was in the Conservative Party's leadership race.

When the committee gets back to the business of the discussion on the motion to have a significant study calling before this committee as witnesses many of the people whose names I've just mentioned, I do hope that the question of this allegation that someone with security clearance sent information to a reporter.... That needs to be investigated because we, as a country, can't be respected in the world that takes intelligence and information shared with intelligence agencies from other countries.... They need to know that top secret information obtained through the work of intelligence assets around the world is protected. Otherwise, we could find ourselves frozen out of key information that we do need. I don't think there's anything more serious than this. I mean, obviously, I think climate change is a serious threat, imminently.

However, our obligation as parliamentarians is to ensure that Canadian laws are respected, and that includes respect for the Security of Information Act.

Again, I don't feel muzzled. Melissa, I don't feel angry or upset or any of the words you used. I'm honoured to be able to play a role that I hope is helpful to Canadians in saying what I can talk about, what I can't talk about and why. None of the reasons put forward by Mr. Poilievre so far have impressed experts like Wesley Wark or Mr. Fadden. They don't make sense. Asking for top secret security clearance, an opportunity we would not have had but for the report of David Johnston—back to where I started—is at this point an obligation of Mr. Poilievre. I don't think it's a choice. I believe he is duty bound to pursue that so that we can unify as political leadership in this country, regardless of how much we may disagree on other points.

As Canadians, we must be unified in shutting out any foreign interference in our electoral processes, but even more so in the day-to-day lives of Canadians who must not be subjected to extortions, threats or actual experiences of physical violence, including death. This is no place for partisan politics.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Ms. May.

We have overrun our time slot at the moment. I'm going to ask if the committee is in agreement to adjourn.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

We are adjourned.