Evidence of meeting #126 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 india.
A video is available from Parliament.
Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council Office and National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister, Privy Council Office
As the commissioner and the deputy commissioner offered, and as I said in my opening remarks, there were several updates on this file to me and the Prime Minister over the last year.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
I'm trying to understand. We had this unprecedented event, when the Prime Minister stood in the House of Commons and made this quite extraordinary claim that India was responsible for the murder of a Canadian. On October 14, 2024—11 months later—we saw quite a phenomenal escalation of the concern to those in Canada, Canadian citizens and others from India.
From an outsider's perspective, there was that statement made in the House of Commons, and then things got extraordinarily worse, despite the number of efforts you have outlined you made in that time.
I'm trying to understand where the failure was to stop this. Perhaps you can shed some light on that, Ms. Drouin. Why were all these efforts that you've said were done not successful? It got to a point that 13 individuals were in peril 11 months later.
Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council Office and National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister, Privy Council Office
The commissioner said it and I'll repeat it: There have been investigations into violence against Indo-Canadians on Canadian soil for several years now.
You are quite right in saying that there's been an escalation of violence since August 2023. That's precisely what led the RCMP to hold discussions with Global Affairs Canada so we could look at all the tools available to stop that network from propagating violence.
The first step was to completely prevent the network from collecting information needed to commit acts of violence.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
Thank you, Ms. Drouin.
Just with my concluding few moments, it seems like it took prompting from the RCMP for Global Affairs and yourself to really insist on this quite unprecedented diplomatic action to expel six diplomats. Why did it take the RCMP initiating those conversations to get it to such a point?
Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council Office and National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister, Privy Council Office
I could clarify something. In 2023, we were operating on the basis of credible information concerning India's involvement in Mr. Nijjar's murder.
The information that's been made public over the past two weeks is the result of thorough investigations. I think it's important to make that distinction. The hard work of multidisciplinary teams, led by the commissioner and deputy commissioner, allowed us to expose that plot. They determined that the investigations needed to continue, but simultaneously, the necessary steps had to be followed to stop the network inciting the violence.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Ms. Dancho.
I'll go now to Mr. Sarai.
Mr. Sarai, please, you have five minutes.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank you all for your very professional and thorough role in uncovering the egregious breach of Canadian sovereignty and safety of Canadians by India. It's also very sad to see that my colleagues from the Conservative Party have not asked one question, not one question, in the House or in here, or in the press, on India's involvement in these crimes. It's all been about your role in sharing information with The Washington Post to counter disinformation. This is while this is the greatest threat to Canadian sovereignty that we have faced in at least my generation. This is sad and goes beneath my lowest expectation of the Conservative Party of Canada.
Every Canadian, including Canadians of Sikh heritage and of South Asian heritage, deserves better. It has just been heard that India has a very pro-India agenda that it wants to implement in Canada, and a leader who is said to have received support from India prefers silence, not to see the evidence, rather than address the issue, the threat, that is facing our democracy. I'll let Canadians figure out the correlation between the three.
My first question is for you, Mr. Duheme, or Mr. Rogers can answer.
Have you seen evidence of any other democratic country that has gathered information on Canadians, passed it up to its capital, then given the information to organized crime to conduct such heinous crimes as murder, extortion and shootings in Canada?
Commr Michael Duheme
Mr. Chair, I will limit my comments to the fact that we do have ongoing foreign interference investigations. Considering that they are ongoing, I'm not going to comment on that. However, going back to the India side, we did see the indictment of two Indians in India on a planned murder of a U.S. citizen. That dictates that other countries are probably going through what we're going through with the same modus operandi.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
What I'm asking is this: Have any other countries used that modus operandi on Canadians that we've seen in the past, that we're publicly aware of, to this degree that includes murder and extortion?
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Have any of your actions been political or politically motivated?
Commr Michael Duheme
Not at all. As I mentioned earlier, this is an RCMP-led investigation, and we actually brought it to the attention of the government.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
Has the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, Pierre Poilievre, ever contacted you, Mr. Duheme, or your department, or Mr. Rogers, or Ms. Drouin, for a briefing on the transnational aggression by India against Canadian citizens?
Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council Office and National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister, Privy Council Office
If I may, I'd like to say that, along with my colleagues here, I had the opportunity to give a briefing to all the opposition leaders on the situation being discussed here.
Liberal
Deputy Clerk of the Privy Council Office and National Security and Intelligence Advisor to the Prime Minister, Privy Council Office
No, it's we who have offered to all leaders individual briefings on this actual situation.
Director, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
I'm not aware of any such recent request, although I will say I've just joined the service and have been here for a day.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
What are you doing to prevent proxies from working in Canada for the Government of India or other countries?
In terms of preventing them from continuing to do this, are there charges, deportations or protections in the case of their being threatened or coerced to provide information? What tools are being used for that?
I'm looking for whatever you can disclose, obviously, since it's ongoing.
Commr Michael Duheme
One of the main tools is engagement with the communities and having people come forward. That's one of the main ones for us. We want people to have confidence in law enforcement and to come forward if they witness it or hear it. We also have a 1-800 line where people can report, and we work very closely with the service and other partners to make sure we're in lockstep when it comes to intelligence and threats to the Canadian people.
Liberal
Randeep Sarai Liberal Surrey Centre, BC
You have stated that the way they gather information is through these proxies. I would consider that a criminal activity if you're going against Canadians and providing information for the purposes of criminal activity.
I'm asking what measures are being used to prevent other proxies or the current proxies from doing this.
Commr Michael Duheme
One's an awareness. I will admit that we've been using two terms: agents and proxies. The definitions we've been using are that an agent would be the organized crime group that's doing the work on behalf of consular officials and the Government of India, and proxies are more people within the community who are sometimes recruited and, sometimes, probably being engaged without even knowing it. It's doing a simple task—“Did you see that person?” or “What's the address of the person's residence?”—but without even knowing it. Some could have been coerced into doing it because of threats to their family or to their lives.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ron McKinnon
Thank you, Mr. Sarai.
We'll start our third round now with Mr. Lloyd.
Mr. Lloyd, please go ahead for five minutes.