Public Safety Committee on Oct. 5th, 2026

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Is it at a higher standard than for someone being placed in NATO?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

The base requirement for an employment with CSIS is “top secret enhanced”. The directive on security screening outlines the requirements for issuing and considering whether an individual, under those requirements, is suitable for employment at CSIS.

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

If CSIS were to hire an individual, would they look at their past history and whether they've applied to the public service at all before?

[Vanessa Lloyd]

As my colleague Mr. Hatfield outlined, we would do all of the checks that are outlined in the directive on security screening—

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

You wouldn't check that they have because that wasn't one he listed.

[Vanessa Lloyd]

“Top secret enhanced,” for example, does mean that we have to do the background and employment checks. As an employer, we would have to do all parts of that continuum we've been speaking about today. There's suitability: Do they have the knowledge and experience for the job? There's reliability—

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I'm very specific. I'm trying to home in and be very specific regarding fraud. If I'm hiring somebody for my office, for instance, I would like to know whether they had applied somewhere else. I don't always have access to that. Maybe members of Parliament should have access as to whether or not that person applied to the public service at the federal level and was denied because it was seen that they had committed fraud. That's a real concern. If they're willing to commit fraud to get a job at the federal level in our government, why is that not...?

It just feels very laissez-faire. It feels very, “Oh, well, that's just a small piece. We're really looking at this.” That's pretty important. If someone is willing to lie to get a job with the federal government, how are we not more cautious of putting them in a place of high national security?

Maybe that question is for Mr. Bilodeau—I don't know.

If we're not, what can we do to get there?

[Richard Bilodeau]

Let me answer your question from the perspective of a hiring manager—which I am. I have delegated authority to hire. It is important for me, when I hire somebody, to, first, assess the person on whether or not they meet the requirements of the job. However, part of that assessment is talking to previous employers and doing reference checks with, for example, the immediate previous supervisor. We do that because that allows us to understand—

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I'm sorry. Can I just clarify something? As far as I understand, this person was found to have committed fraud, so they did not get employment before. In a scenario where they just applied, would we be able to find that out? They applied for public service somewhere across the federal level. They were found to have committed fraud. Now they come to another public service and try to apply there. What's missing? Why are the silos...? What's missing in communication?

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

Give a short answer, please.

[Richard Bilodeau]

Without speaking to that hypothetical situation—and I don't want to speak to the case, either—

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I understand.

[Richard Bilodeau]

—immediate previous supervisors can include government and non-government supervisors. For example, if I talk to an immediate supervisor and that person has information on the person's employment, that could influence how I do that suitability, that reliability.

To your—

[Rhonda Kirkland, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

That's right, but that doesn't fix the problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Jean-Yves Duclos]

I'm sorry, Ms. Kirkland. I always—as you know—hesitate to do that.

I have to now turn to MP Powlowski for five minutes, please.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

This is an interesting area of inquiry for me. I have not spent a lot of my life thinking about how I would do security screening. It would seem to me, just in thinking about it, that this would be pretty difficult—potentially impossible.

You talked about biometrics and law enforcement records. I assume the Chinese or Russians aren't going to employ some petty criminal from Thunder Bay who's done a lot of B and Es, so I'm not sure how useful that would be. You also mentioned Internet inquiries. When did that start?

[Adam Hatfield]

The Internet inquiry, or open source inquiry, has been part of security screening since at least 2014, and it was part of it prior to that. It depends on the level at which the individual is being screened. It is not a default requirement for the lowest level of screening and reliability. Of the six levels of screening, it is required for four of those, and a department has the flexibility to go above and beyond and can certainly do so, as Mr. Bilodeau noted about Public Safety.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Does that just include using Google, or do you have the ability to screen social media like Facebook posts and things like that?

[Adam Hatfield]

Different government departments will do it differently. Everything is done with the person's consent. There are privacy issues here. There's also the fact that a lot of what you might find out about someone on the Internet is in fact completely false. There are controls in place to make sure that when a department gathers information about an individual specifically for an Internet inquiry, they bring that back to the individual, if it's potentially security relevant, to ask, “Is this actually you?”, and verify that the information is in fact accurate.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

What do you do if I say, “No, I don't want you searching my Facebook”?

[Adam Hatfield]

It's just like when you're at an airport: “If you don't want to be searched, you don't have to get on the plane, sir.”

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

That means you don't hire them if they don't like it.

[Adam Hatfield]

Full consent for the security screening process is a fundamental part of the process. An individual can choose to withdraw their consent and say, “I don't want to go any further,” and the screening is simply cancelled.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

How useful is that information anyhow? Say someone like this woman who's been accused of spying for NATO is applying for a job, but five years ago she said something on a Facebook page like, “The Chinese are our friends. We ought to have a closer economic association between our countries.” Is that really going to be something that bars you from hiring her for this kind of position, and should it be?

[Adam Hatfield]

None of the checks that are done are pass-fail checks, and that is by design. The directive states that it must be a “collective evaluation” of all the information, giving due consideration to that individual's particular circumstances.

The question that you're posing is about the decision-maker in that moment and everything they're looking at. If required, they can always go back to the individual and say, “Listen, these are the things that are causing us some concern. Can you talk to us about them?” That is what the security screening officials are trained to do in order to make a good risk decision within the context of their organization and their own security tolerance.