Public Safety Committee on May 17th, 2022

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

On the second part of it, I'm wondering, with the further sanctions you are requesting, what does this mean for Canadians in terms of potential national security threats to our own citizens?

[William Browder]

What you don't want to do is to be in a situation where these sanctioned individuals continue to conduct business, hold assets and potentially have access to those assets for the use of Vladimir Putin. I think it's quite an important thing that there be no loopholes, that Canada doesn't become a loophole type of place where these oligarchs can abuse that.

I think that's really important. As you said, Canada isn't necessarily a superpower, but it's an important part of the alliance, and Canada should certainly do that.

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Browder.

Mr. Chair, how much time do I have?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

You have 49 seconds.

[Jake Stewart, Conservative, Miramichi—Grand Lake, NB]

Okay.

My last question is to Jeffrey Mankoff.

A considerable amount of your research focuses on the imperial legacies of some countries like Russia and how this influences their current geopolitical outlook in the world.

Russia and Canada both share important Arctic borders, and Russia has been quite belligerent in Arctic waters. Is this a result, in your opinion, of imperial legacy, or is it a more recent development in geopolitics?

[Dr. Jeffrey Mankoff]

I don't think there's a simple way to answer that question. I think it's both. As a former empire, Russia is a country that has never been confined to its borders. It doesn't necessarily consider that its current borders are permanent and legitimate. In that sense, it has been an expansionary power.

I think that the focus on the Arctic—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you.

[Dr. Jeffrey Mankoff]

—in particular is more recent, though.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

I will now invite Mr. Zuberi to take his five-minute slot.

Please go ahead whenever you're ready, Mr. Zuberi.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being here today.

I'd like to start off with Mr. Mendes.

I perused your biography, and I'm aware that you have been an adviser to the United Nations. There's a nexus here that we're talking about with respect to the domestic aspect of what Canada is doing, but also internationally.

We know that Russia and other countries hold Security Council seats.

How do you suggest that we, as a nation, work with the international community to constrain Russia so that the impacts of this conflict are not felt here on domestic soil? We know about many of the impacts, such as increases in gas prices, etc. Could you comment on that briefly, please?

[Prof. Errol Mendes]

Thank you very much.

That's a really important question because, in my view, with what has happened with Russia invading the Ukraine, but also at the same time the potential for similar types of damage to the international rules by China and other countries, what we are actually facing in the world today is not what President Biden is saying, namely that it is between “democracy and autocracy”. It really is a full-scale attack by certain authoritarian countries against the international rules that we have actually established since the Second World War.

For that reason, I think it's really important, when we're looking at Russia, for example, to think about how those countries in the world can.... It doesn't have to be only the western countries, but those who actually do believe in the rules that were established after the Second World War. How do we work together to stop the type of damage that Russia—and I have to say China, too, and other countries—could be doing to the international rule of law and the peace and security that were established after the Second World War? Part of that actually means working together in very different areas.

Actually, I would like in a way to answer your question by also answering Madame Michaud's question. For example, in terms of countermeasures with cyber-attacks, you don't have to announce the countermeasures. They will be felt if you do it in the strongest way. For example, if all the western countries that are basically the targets of Russian cyber-attacks could work together to put together such a strong countermeasure and deterrent that it could basically undo a lot of the technology and manufacturing going into arms manufacturing in Russia, it could actually stop a lot of their arms manufacturing, which they're using to attack the Ukraine.

There are ways in which, collectively, the nations who believe in the rule of law can work together to stop the types of attacks that are happening in the world. That's why, again, I would strongly recommend—and I've written an eight-page brief for this presentation, so I welcome you to look at it—and am actually suggesting that those who believe in the international rule of law should be thinking about a kind of article 5 collective security response to the type of damage that is being felt by Russia—

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you—

[Prof. Errol Mendes]

—and by other countries, including China.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Mendes. I have less than a minute and a half.

First off, I wanted to give a shout-out to Mr. Browder.

I like your book and I'm reading it still. It's an excellent read. I'll email you to know whether or not I should fast-forward to your second one and skip the first one, and whether that has updated information. I'm seeing a no.

Going back to Mr. Mendes and Mr. Mankoff, I'd like to put forth a question to either of you. Whoever feels they want to jump in, please do so.

With respect to Arctic security and the security of what's north of most of our civilian population here in Canada, to what extent do you think we need to focus on this vis-à-vis what's happening right now with Russia and other international actors?

[Prof. Errol Mendes]

Do you want me to go first, Jeffrey?

Thank you very much.

As an international lawyer, I'm extraordinarily worried about the fact that Russia is promoting vast amounts of activities in the Arctic, including having massive ports and basically preparing to extend even to areas in doubt in terms of Canada's jurisdiction in the Arctic. I think there needs to be a lot of attention paid by Canada to what is happening in the Russian side of the Arctic, which is slowly creeping over into our side. We have to promote our international obligations in that part of the Arctic.

I'll leave the rest to Jeffrey.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you. I'm sorry, but we're out of time.

I now would invite Ms. Michaud to take her two and a half minutes as we move along towards the end of this panel.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Mankoff, in a March 7, 2022 Toronto Star opinion piece, you said that the west should decide how far it would want to go to respond to the Russian concerns over a hostile Ukraine at its borders. It could be a matter of relaunching arms control, but also of responding to Russia's concerns over NATO's potential expansion.

I would like to get a better understanding of what you meant by that, regarding how the west should respond to Russia's concerns over NATO's expansion. We must remember that there weren't really any discussions on Ukraine becoming a NATO member when it was invaded by Russia.

Similar to a question I put earlier to another witness, considering Sweden's and Finland's desire to join NATO, should we fear repercussions?

[Dr. Jeffrey Mankoff]

Thank you.

This war is ultimately going to end with some kind of peace deal. What that peace deal looks like, of course, will depend very much on what happens on the ground. As that deal is hammered out, one of the questions that will have to be resolved is, what is the nature of the European security architecture? Clearly, part of Russia's sense of grievance that precipitated the start of this war was the belief that NATO expansion posed a threat to its interests. We don't have to accept that as a legitimate concern, but I think it behooves us to recognize it is a concern that Russia has expressed. Any stability on the European continent is going to require dealing with that concern in some fashion.

As we've seen with the movement of Sweden and Finland toward NATO, Russia is not in a position, right now, to make good on some of the threats it exerted previously. I think, perhaps, depending on how the war with Ukraine plays out, that it may be in a similar position vis-à-vis Ukraine, in the future. Nevertheless, whether or not Ukraine is to be a member of NATO over the longer term is something that is going to have to be part of a much larger settlement about the nature of the post-war European security architecture.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

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

Mr. Chair, I would just like to thank Mr. Mendes—

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

We're out of time. You have three seconds, if you can figure out what to do with three seconds.

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

Thank you, Mr. Mendes, for answering my questions by answering Mr. Zuberi.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jim Carr]

Thank you very much.

Finally, I would like to turn to Mr. MacGregor.

Sir, you have two and a half minutes, which will take us to the end of this panel. Go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Professor Mendes, I'd like to turn to you.

In your opening remarks, you talked about how Russian trolls targeted public trust, and we have seen examples of that. In fact, we know that, in a lot of the social media spaces promoting distrust of public health measures, they immediately switched over to pro-Kremlin propaganda when the Ukraine war started. This does suggest very strongly that there is some Russian involvement in trying to push these narratives along.

This subject matter is very closely related to our committee's study of ideologically motivated violent extremism. One of the struggles we've had, as a committee, is trying to find the line where we are respecting charter rights of freedom of expression, but also holding social media companies accountable for their content.

I'm wondering, sir, if you have any thoughts on specific recommendations our committee can make about inoculating social media platforms against foreign state actor interference that pushes disinformation to foment public distrust of our democratic institutions.