Thank you, Chair.
The threat posed by Russia to Canada's public safety and national security has increased significantly since the western democracies responded to Russia's invasion of Ukraine with measures designed to cripple Russia's economy and with weapons support for the Ukrainian resistance. Whatever the outcome of the suffering in Ukraine, Russia will remain shunned by the west and blocked from financial transactions and trade with lucrative European markets. Putin, I think it's fair to say, is seethingly angry, tormented and resentful, with dangerous capabilities to lash out at Canada in response. He is likely to make common cause with China, which will magnify the threat to us.
Canada is inadequately prepared for the range of threats posed by Russia, including threats to Canada's critical infrastructure, espionage and sabotage. We are less prepared than our allies.
A considerable concern in this regard is whether the RCMP, CSIS and CSE have been sufficiently accountable to the public safety and national security concerns of Parliament as represented by this Commons committee. We know that the RCMP, CSIS, CSE and DND gather a lot of information on Russian malign activities, but when Parliament asks for a briefing to inform the parliamentary development of legislation to protect public safety and national security, those agencies too often stonewall you, suggesting that the information is too sensitive or that disclosing it would reveal operational details that would be helpful to our enemies.
It would be reasonable to assume that Five Eyes, including Canada, were aware of Mr. Putin's megalomaniac ambitions regarding Ukraine. Nothing has changed in Russia. It's simply our perception of it that has become heightened. They know what he has in store for future invasions and what he has in store for threats to Canada, but how can Canada prepare if the RCMP, CSIS and CSE will not hand over their intelligence assessments on what we should prepare for? Too often, Canadian police and security agencies see their primary function as to simply curate information, which they can trade with the counterpart agencies. Again, this issue is more pronounced in Canada than for our allies.
For example, how badly does Canada need a foreign agents registry act, or something like the Australian Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme Act, as a national security measure? I judge this as very urgent for Canada, especially now, but CSIS would know better which Canadians influential in Canada's policy process have received benefits from a foreign state that put them in a conflict of interest that threatens Canadian security and sovereignty. How many of these are there? How high does it go? If CSIS has this data, they should give it to you.
What about the RCMP's Cameron Ortis? What should we be learning from his arrest? What about the Winnipeg labs matter? Was there a failing in protection of Canadian national security that should be addressed by Parliament? Then there's the Quentin Huang matter. Why is it that, unlike our allies, Canada does not successfully prosecute and send to prison people who transfer military technologies from Canada to agents of a foreign state?
Let me add one last point. As the Commons Special Committee on Canada-China Relations has examined, the Chinese-language media in Canada is strongly dominated by elements that support the Chinese Community Party's agenda in Canada. Since the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, Chinese domestic media and its proxies in Canada have been repeating the Russian conspiracy theories and associated disinformation day after day, week after week and more or less word for word. This Russian disinformation has the effect of discrediting the integrity of Canadian democratic and judicial institutions and debasing the loyalty to Canada of a significant fraction of Chinese Canadians.
Canada needs to take all of this much more seriously, in my view, and allocate the resources and the restructuring of our public safety and national security agencies to address it much more effectively than we have up to now.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.