Public Safety Committee on Nov. 28th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 132 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format.

I'd like to remind all participants of the following points.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. All comments should be addressed through the chair.

Members, please raise your hand if you wish to speak, whether participating in person or via Zoom. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can.

Ms. O'Connell, you had your hand up.

[Jennifer O'Connell, Liberal, Pickering—Uxbridge, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I don't want to interrupt proceedings, so I hope we can take care of this very quickly. I would like at this time to move my motion:

That the committee summon Mayor Patrick Brown to testify alone for no less than two hours on the study of Indian interference, and that he appear before Tuesday, December 10, 2024.

I'll quickly speaking to that, Mr. Chair. We have spoken about this before. This notice has been on the record for quite some time. I don't want to take away from our important witnesses and testimony, but because we have discussed this previously, I think it's important that we deal with this motion in order to be able to summon this witness and get him scheduled so we can continue with this.

Hopefully we can handle this quickly. I would like a recorded vote.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

We have a motion on the floor.

Ms. Dancho, go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am just reviewing some of this and looking at past witnesses who have been summoned, for example, Ms. Lauren Chen. Certainly she seemed to be, from the indictment, the receiver of $10 million from Russia to further Russian propaganda. That seemed quite severe. Kristian Firth certainly was summoned and ultimately looked to have been defrauding the taxpayer of millions of dollars.

I'm not aware that we are accusing Mr. Brown of any wrongdoing. I am not familiar with whether the Liberal members are or not, but it would just seem that this is quite a significant sledgehammer of a tool to use on someone who I don't believe is being accused of anything. Certainly we agree with inviting him to committee. That's why we voted in favour of that. However, to use a summons.... I'm not sure, Mr. Chair, and perhaps you could consult with the clerk. Has a summons been used in this way? I'm not very clear on that. It just would seem from our perspective that this is quite an abuse of this tool in this regard, given my knowledge of those who have been summoned.

Those are my opening comments, Mr. Chair, and I would appreciate it if you could provide a response.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

I'm being told that an invitation was given to Mr. Brown, and he declined. Alternative dates were provided, and there was no reply. That's why I think this motion is before us.

Mr. Sarai, I have you next on the list.

[Randeep Sarai, Liberal, Surrey Centre, BC]

Thank you.

Having sat as the chair in justice, I think there is a precedent once somebody has refused to testify. If the committee so wills, they can subpoena the person. It's not to say there was any wrongdoing. It's a matter of getting the witness here if the committee decides that it's very important and vital to have that person as a witness.

I don't think this committee decides or any committees decide if somebody's guilty of anything. It's an investigative tool and a reporting tool. Never is the guilt the reason to subpoena somebody. It's to have them here and respond. As Parliament is paramount, I think it's very important that people respond to that and take it very seriously. If they don't respond in another manner, I think a subpoena is an appropriate method.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Thank you, Mr. Sarai.

I have Mr. Uppal as the next speaker.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Maybe it's a point of order, or maybe it's more of a request, but we do have witnesses who have travelled to be here. I understand that just recently, our last witness has decided not to come due to the rescheduling, so we do have time at the end of this meeting to address this issue. If we could put this off until after the witnesses are done, we could address this as well. We would respect the witnesses and their time, and also this committee's time, if we were to deal with this motion after the witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Ms. Dancho.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, I would just like to underline that I think this is quite disproportionate, given he's not being accused of anything. We're not sure why there's such aggressive action from the Liberals. I wonder. Perhaps Mr. Brown is just guilty of being a member of the Conservative Party and running for leadership, and they wish to punish him. It seems to be that way. Certainly, this is politically motivated—that's very clear—but regardless, it just seems very disproportionate to use this kind of tool, and we don't support that, Mr. Chair.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

I hear those comments, but we do have a motion on the floor. I have no one else on the speaking order. We'll move to a vote on the motion.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)

A summons will be sent to Mr. Patrick Brown.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted on October 22, 2024, the committee resumes its study of electoral interference and criminal activities in Canada by agents of the Government of India.

I'd like to now welcome our witnesses for the first hour.

As an individual, we have Mr. Ward P.D. Elcock, and, from the Sikh Federation of Canada, we have Prabjot Singh, legal counsel.

I now invite Mr. Elcock to make an opening statement of up to five minutes.

[Ward Elcock, Former Director, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, As an Individual]

Mr. Chairman, I don't actually have an opening statement, but just for the benefit of the committee, since I'm usually introduced as a former director of CSIS, it might be useful for members of the committee to know a little more about my background.

Prior to becoming the director of CSIS, I was the senior lawyer in the Privy Council Office for 10 years. During that period, for four years I was deputy clerk of the Privy Council and coordinator for security and intelligence, which is the old title for the national security adviser. That title was changed as a consequence of 9/11, in part because our colleagues to the south never knew what a deputy clerk was, so they were never sure who they were talking to. That change was made post-9/11.

After CSIS, I had several national security-related posts, but they're not particularly relevant to this hearing, I assume.

I'd be happy to answer any questions that any of the members have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

That's great. Thank you, Mr. Elcock.

A notice is sent before the committee convenes, obviously, with the names of the witnesses appearing. My hope is that members do look at the witnesses appearing and their bios.

I now invite Mr. Singh to make an opening statement of up to five minutes.

[Prabjot Singh, Legal Counsel, Sikh Federation (Canada)]

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa Waheguru Ji Ke Fateh.

Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that we're meeting today on the unceded, occupied territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people. As a settler here, I'm grateful to the generations who have taken care of this land for thousands of years.

Over the past year and a half, particularly, we've heard a lot about Indian foreign interference and transnational repression. As legal counsel for Sikh organizations at the foreign interference commission, I had the opportunity to review government and intelligence documents and cross-examine officials across a broad spectrum of government departments.

Having reviewed that evidence and heard that testimony, one thing is unequivocally clear: India is in a category of its own in terms of its corrosive and violent actions in Canada. India has no equal or peer in this regard.

For years, India has misused its diplomatic and state resources to directly target the Sikh community in Canada. Its specific objectives are criminalizing political advocacy for an independent Sikh homeland, Khalistan, and marginalizing Sikhs from all parts of public life, regardless of their political opinions.

To achieve this objective, we've seen evidence of India discrediting party leaders using materials drafted by Indian intelligence, interference in the leadership race of the Conservative Party, the use of proxies to influence the issues that are raised in Parliament and cognitive warfare and disinformation tactics that demonize the Sikh community while also manipulating public narratives about political differences to reframe them as sectarian conflicts. One of the most subtle tactics is how India misuses its own security agencies, judiciary and diplomatic staff to provide a cover of legality in its persecution of Sikh activists.

Given this reality and the events over the past year and a half, it's important to acknowledge that Canada's security and intelligence community failed to detect the extent of India's activities until after the assassination of a pillar of our community. This was despite the experiences and complaints of the community for years before this attack.

The lack of public transparency and decisive action to combat Indian foreign interference in Canada until after it was already too late appears as though it's largely related to the fact that foreign policy considerations were given greater weight by Canadian decision-makers than the long-term domestic harms caused by foreign interference. This is something that's been echoed and reported by NSICOP as well.

Media reporting regarding NSICOP's 2019 annual report in particular suggests that officials consciously redacted every single mention of India throughout the entire report, effectively hiding not only the significance of the threat but even the existence of a threat from India. The report actually details, according to media reporting, that the government chose not to dismantle an Indian intelligence network due to foreign policy priorities, to export pulses to India and, particularly, to ensure the success of the Prime Minister's trip to India in 2018.

This de facto impunity granted to Indian diplomats and intelligence operatives appears to have emboldened Indian officials to escalate their operations in this country. This ultimately paved the way for the assassination of Shahid Bhai Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June 2023.

There's work to do by this committee and across government to address vulnerabilities in Canada's capacity to detect and monitor Indian disinformation, to put an end to the abuse of redactions, to hide threats from the public inappropriately and to make meaningful changes to ensure that Canada doesn't allow foreign policy priorities to dictate the response to foreign interference.

It's also important to note that this is an institutional problem across successive Canadian governments, which have failed to address this issue year after year after year. The Sikh community has paid the ultimate price for this.

Despite the violence and the threats our community has faced, our community members remain resolute and steadfast. We've faced persecution, massacres and genocides throughout our history, simply for existing. India's targeting of our community today is simply the latest iteration of that.

Our community will continue to advocate for justice and engage in its right to advocate for a sovereign Khalistan. We will continue to stand up to tyrants and pursue justice for all oppressed peoples all around the world, no matter the cost. Shahid Bhai Hardeep Singh is a testament to that fact.

The question and the work before the committee today is on whether all parties sitting around this table can demonstrate the commitment to not allow our community to be used as a bargaining chip by India and can demonstrate the courage not only to call out India's actions unequivocally but to actually hold it accountable and make sure there are consequences for the violence inflicted.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Thank you, Mr. Singh.

I will now open the floor to questions. First I have Mr. Uppal for six minutes.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you very much.

I will start with the legal counsel for Sikh Federation Canada, Prabjot Singh.

Thank you for being here.

Obviously, from what you're outlining, there's a very serious situation with foreign interference from India. I know we heard from the RCMP about cases of intimidation—a lot of it to the Sikh community—violence, extortion, assassination and attempts on a number of other lives as well.

The Prime Minister admitted that they have known for a number of years about foreign interference from India, yet they failed to take action. They failed, frankly, to protect Canadians from that foreign interference.

There's one thing I want to start off asking you about. We have seen a significant amount of misinformation coming from India. We saw a lot of this during the farmers' protest a couple of years ago. Maybe most recently we saw this again with some of the unfortunate instances in Brampton. Have you tracked or seen this information? Also, what have you seen as the Canadian government's response to this disinformation coming from India?

[Prabjot Singh]

With regard to that disinformation issue and with regard to foreign interference more broadly, as I outlined, this is an institutional problem that's plagued successive governments for the last 40 years. There's evidence on the record in public media reporting and other government documents that India has been engaging in foreign interference and that there has been some degree of awareness of those activities in this country.

As you pointed out, the question of disinformation is particularly dangerous, not only because India's disinformation bolsters racist stereotypes about Sikhs and tries to paint the entire community as extremists and terrorists, but also because it is targeting Canadian institutions all across the board. Weldon Epp, the ADM for the Indo-Pacific, has noted that India has a massive potential to engage in this kind of disinformation activity.

You talked about the farmers' protest in particular. The rapid response mechanism that's housed in Global Affairs Canada started operating around that time. It noted that India was engaging in significant activity that was targeting Canadian officials, government officials and the Sikh community in particular.

In addition to this narrative of Sikhs being extremists or terrorists, I think one issue is that there is a concerted effort by Indian actors to paint political difference around issues of political rights in Punjab as a sectarian conflict. The RRM did actually observe in 2021 that pro-BJP outlets were trying to manufacture and amplify a narrative of tension between the Hindu and Sikh communities in the country, and that there was some degree of insecurity.

Earlier this year, in March 2024, CSIS provided a high-level security briefing in which it talked about the fact that India engages in foreign interference, particularly with its Hindu nationalist agenda at the forefront. One of its objectives is to target and marginalize Sikhs from political life in Canada altogether.

Therefore, the impacts of this foreign disinformation and this kind of interference are not only in terms of electoral interference; it also has corrosive impacts on social cohesion by trying to paint sectarian conflict in Canada where it doesn't actually exist.

In terms of the government's capacity and in terms of that rapid response mechanism, one of the most shocking things is that, in 2021, by the RRM's own account, its analysts, its employees and those involved in that project didn't actually have familiarity with non-western media ecosystems like India. It noted particularly that this makes Canada vulnerable to Indian disinformation and the amplification of those kinds of messages.

There's a lack of familiarity, then. There was an acknowledgement that this was the case. The mechanisms or methodology are particularly concentrated on mainstream messages or political leaders and are not actually trying to differentiate how Indian disinformation is targeting the community or acting in Canada particularly.

There's a methodology that's clearly ineffective. There's a lack of familiarity. Also, to my understanding, as of the spring of this year, there's nobody within the rapid response mechanism who even speaks Punjabi or Hindi, which are the languages of choice for Indian disinformation. Even broader than that, even within civil society, the Media Ecosystem Observatory, an academic resource to monitor disinformation, also doesn't have those resources.

We're looking at a country with a juggernaut of a media apparatus and social media capacities that is specifically and aggressively targeting Canada, and it doesn't look like Canada really has any mechanisms or capacity to monitor, understand, analyze and actually counter that disinformation.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton Mill Woods, AB]

Thank you for that.

I want to get back to something you said about the redaction of documents that clearly took out any notable incidents of Indian foreign interference.

Can you elaborate a bit on why you think that was the case or why that happened? Obviously, that alone would have, at the time, helped protect Canadians further, but it was taken out. No action was taken because of it.

[Prabjot Singh]

From the community's perspective, it's particularly shocking. As I said at the outset, it's not just that the gravity of the threat was consciously hidden from the community and public. It was also the existence of this threat and how it operates in the first place.

We talked about how foreign interference by India has been happening for decades. In 2018, after the Prime Minister's trip to India, NSICOP published a special report that was meant to look into allegations of disinformation, particularly by Daniel Jean, who was the national security and intelligence adviser at the time. That report was meant to be a transparent mechanism for talking about and dealing with national security and intelligence issues. It talks about Indian intelligence targeting Canadian officials with disinformation in order to pressure the government to take law enforcement and security actions against Sikh activists in this country based on that disinformation. The report is significantly redacted and doesn't divulge very much detail about the nature of that disinformation campaign. It doesn't appear there was any assessment of the potential efficacy of that disinformation campaign in terms of manipulating or pressuring Canadian security and intelligence agencies. From the community's perspective, we have felt significant unwarranted activity on that front.

The more concerning part is this: After that, the 2019 NSICOP annual report is all about foreign interference and Canada's capacity to combat it. There are case studies dealing with Russia and China. For those cases, there's a summary of two to three sentences describing the nature of the information that was redacted. There's a case study of Russian foreign interference and one of Chinese foreign interference. Then there's a second section that talks about Canadian operations to counter that foreign interference. There's a third section that is completely redacted. All it says is that another country is targeting Canada for foreign interference.

Based on media reporting, I believe that Sam Cooper, in September of last year, reported getting access to an unredacted copy that outlines how, in 2016 and 2017, CSIS observed an Indian intelligence network operating and proliferating in Ottawa and Vancouver. Intelligence operatives were developing assets in those areas, engaging in intimidation and—

[The Chair, Liberal, Iqwinder Gaheer]

Thank you, Mr. Singh. We're over time. Perhaps the next member can give you time to finish that answer.

Mr. Chahal, go ahead for six minutes, please.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for joining us today to provide testimony on this very important topic the committee is studying.

I'm going to start with you, Mr. Singh.

You made some comments in your opening statement regarding foreign interference, particularly in the Conservative leadership race.

Do you believe there was Indian interference in the Conservative leadership race?

[Prabjot Singh]

I think it's important to note and understand, based on Canadian intelligence's own observations, that India's foreign interference is pervasive at all levels of government and in all parties.

Just finishing off that last point, in that 2019 annual report where you're talking about electoral interference, the reporting is that when CSIS wanted to dismantle that intelligence network, the Government of Canada actually told CSIS to stand down and not take the action that it wanted to take to dismantle the intelligence network, because it was going to disrupt Canada's intention to export pulses. Also, it would have created complications and potentially kiboshed the Prime Minister's trip to India. That was a conscious decision that was taken at that time.

With regard to foreign interference in the Conservative leadership race, we saw that the NSICOP report in June of this year talks—I believe it's in paragraph 73—about intelligence reporting interference in the Conservative Party's leadership race.

If you go into the exhibits of the foreign interference commission, there is an intelligence assessment by CSIS—I believe it was in October 2022—that's heavily redacted. It talks about foreign interference by India in the leadership of a political party, which coincides with the Conservative Party's leadership race at that time.

Sam Cooper, who engaged in media reporting around this time, talks about getting exclusive access to an unredacted copy that goes into detail that India targeted the leadership race of the Conservative Party at that time, particularly by excluding a leadership candidate from the Conservative Party from attending any events that were being held by the Indian diaspora community, and the consulate in particular, because that individual had taken policy positions that were contrary to India's interests.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Are you aware of any concerns with the financial funding of individuals who ran in that leadership race or in nomination races before or after that in the Conservative Party of Canada?

[Prabjot Singh]

My understanding, based off Sam Cooper's reporting, is that there are Indian proxies who claimed or were observed to be engaging in illicit funding and buying party memberships to influence the outcome of that leadership race.

[George Chahal, Liberal, Calgary Skyview, AB]

Most federal party leaders have had security clearance and have reviewed the documents. I believe the Bloc leader also has received a security clearance.

Do you believe that all leaders of Canadian political parties should get their security clearance? The only leader who hasn't is Mr. Poilievre of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Do you think this should be a requirement for a leader of a political party?