Public Safety Committee on Nov. 7th, 2024

[David Pugliese]

I don't know what was going through Mr. Alexander's brain.

I covered Mr. Alexander before on the F-35 fighter jet file when he was on that. I covered the Afghan war, which he was kind of a lead on. I exposed a lot of stories about corruption in the Afghan National Army. I exposed the existence of a child sex ring among Afghan national security forces where they would sell children.

I have a reputation, and I'm proud of it, of being a journalist who does journalism.

Again, I can't speak to Mr. Alexander's motives. I have covered him in the past.

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

Alex Cosh published an open letter on November 5 to advocate on your behalf. It was signed by many journalists and people in the field. It asks Mr. Alexander to provide evidence of what he's alleging or to apologize publicly.

Have you had any contact with Mr. Alexander since—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Madam Michaud, I apologize for interrupting. Perhaps you can ask that in the next round.

Your time is up. Thank you.

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

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Mr. MacGregor, you have six minutes, please.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I welcome both of you to our committee.

Wow. October 24 was quite the meeting for me to miss that day.

Honestly, like Ms. O'Connell said, we had no idea this kind of testimony was going to come forward. We actually received the documents from Mr. Alexander in an email at 12:21 p.m., and the committee started at 3:46 p.m. that day.

I have many years of experience at committee. In my experience, when a witness is both handing in documents and testifying, the documents can provide a good reference point, but I tend to put more weight on the testimony. My practice is that, if we are going to quote extensively or use a witness's particular information given at a committee during the drafting phase, those are always helpful to come back to.

My staff person was giving me updates from the committee and was describing in real terms how sideways it suddenly went with Mr. Alexander's testimony. We don't have much experience with someone coming before a committee where they are protected by parliamentary privilege and just going after someone in the way that he did.

Mr. Pugliese, we want to afford you the same parliamentary protection and give you the time and space here at this public committee that Mr. Alexander was afforded.

Mr. Alexander did say in his statements that he had shared these documents with national security authorities in Canada. Outside of October 24, was this the first time you had heard about this? Have you ever had someone in an official position in Canada contact you about these documents?

[David Pugliese]

Madam Chair, no. I have never been visited by any security personnel. I've never been visited by CSIS, RCMP, whatever agencies there are.

I've had a long association with the Canadian Forces. For instance, I have gone overseas on multiple occasions with Canadian special forces on an exclusive basis. You can be sure they have taken a close look at my background before they allow me access to some of the sensitive things they do, so to answer your question, no, no one has. I haven't heard anything.

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

To borrow the line of questioning from my colleague Ms. Michaud, do you have any further thoughts on just what you think might have prompted Mr. Alexander to go down this road? Can you search your memory for any way that you might have crossed paths that affected him personally? I know that as parliamentarians it's the nature of the job to sometimes feel the rough edge of the press. That's a normal part of public service, but....

[David Pugliese]

Madam Chair, what struck me is that Mr. Alexander seemed very upset by my journalism. He's upset that I report about these procurements that go off-line. For me, that's just reporting on where our tax dollars are going, so I don't understand what that big issue is.

I'll give you an example of some of the things that people have accused me of doing—like Russian disinformation. Last year, Canadian Forces were training Ukrainian troops in Poland and the Canadian troops were not getting paid their allowances for their food. That was causing problems back home in the families, because there's less money. The spouses of these soldiers approached me, told me the story and asked me if I could write a story. I wrote a story. It was brought up in the House of Commons, and a week and a half later, these soldiers started getting their pay, but this appears to be.... Then I started getting emails saying, “You're embarrassing Canada. You're helping the Russians. This is Russian disinformation.”

My response to this is in reporting on this type of thing. It's not Russian disinformation. If you don't want the Russians to use this information, then pay the soldiers properly. That is the issue here. Not everything is Russian disinformation because it might embarrass the Canadian Forces or the government of the day, and the sense I got from him, he seemed very perturbed about my reporting.

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

In speaking of Russian disinformation, you've probably heard that in our last meeting Ms. Lauren Chen was here as a witness. She, her husband and her company, Tenet Media, are named in a U.S. indictment as having been the recipients of several million dollars from Russia as of today. We asked her a lot of questions and she came back with the same standard answer.

For you, as a journalist who does all of this incredible investigative work, talk a bit about the challenges when you're dealing with social media companies that don't have journalistic standards and practices and no internal code of ethics that guides how they report on truthful events.

[David Pugliese]

Sure. Madam Chair, as much as people—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

We'll have just a brief response, please, a brief answer.

[David Pugliese]

—dislike my journalism, you have a place to go. At the Ottawa Citizen, you can complain to my editor. You can take me to the national press council and file a complaint.

With these other organizations, you can't. That is the difference between me and some of these other entities that you're running into.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

Thank you, Mr. Pugliese—

[David Pugliese]

The one thing I pride myself on is—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Raquel Dancho]

I'm so sorry to interrupt. Our time is up on this round. Perhaps Mr. Lloyd will allow you to finish your comments. I apologize for interrupting.

Mr. Lloyd, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will say at the outset that the meeting where these allegations were made was very bizarre. Not having adequate time to review these documents beforehand really minimizes the opportunity to focus in on them. I'm going to take that opportunity right now to go into these documents and ask you some questions.

I assume you have read the documents, Mr. Pugliese. The documents first appear to be written in about August or September 1984, and say that the subject, “Stuart”, was permanently residing in Ottawa at the time.

Were you residing in Ottawa in 1984?

[David Pugliese]

Madam Chair, no, I was not residing in Ottawa at that time.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Okay.

In a later document, it says that in 1989 and 1990, the subject, “Stuart”, began active work at the Ottawa Citizen newspaper.

Is that the time when you began active work at the Ottawa Citizen?

[David Pugliese]

Madam Chair, that is correct, and that information is available online. I would just add that one of the other documents also stated that in 1988 I was permanently in Ottawa. That is false.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

Another document says, “born and residing in Canada, student activist”.

Were you a student activist?

[David Pugliese]

Madam Chair, no, I wasn't a student activist.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

The reason I'm asking is that these are very specific things.

[David Pugliese]

Sure.

[Dane Lloyd, Conservative, Sturgeon River—Parkland, AB]

If somebody is putting this together, they must have done some research on you. Wouldn't you agree that the best disinformation always has an element of truth in it?