Evidence of meeting #59 for Science and Research in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was universities.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
I'm sorry, but Mr. Vigneault said it was one-way, so how is it two-way?
Once again, I think Mr. Vigneault would have to be here to explain his words, such as being uncomfortable or engagement being one-way, when we have a major university such as the University of Toronto working with Huawei this year—not back in 2015, not in 2017, but this year, 2023. Would it make you uncomfortable hearing that U of T was working with Huawei as early as this year?
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Strategic Partnerships, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
I think part of the discomfort comes from the realization for most Canadians that we're actually a target and a vector for foreign actors who are looking to act as our adversaries. That's inherently uncomfortable, I think, for most of us, including universities, so part of the way forward is to ensure we're able to have a two-way conversation, to listen to their concerns so we can ensure we're providing the best advice possible within the limitations of our current legislation.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
In your testimony, you talked about tools and policies. Was there a funding increase for CSIS in the last budget that enabled you to have the tools to counteract Beijing's influence at our research institutes?
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Strategic Partnerships, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
The work we do—
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
Actually, sorry, was the increase in the budget for CSIS enough?
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Strategic Partnerships, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
In budget 2023, CSIS received some incremental funding related to our core work for the modernizing of some of our systems. We didn't receive any foreign interference-specific funding.
Conservative
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Strategic Partnerships, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
The decisions of the government on where to allocate the funding are not something for the public service to comment on—
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
Do you know if Mr. Vigneault requested additional resources to counterbalance that?
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Strategic Partnerships, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
One thing that is important to remember, Mr. Chair, is that the work we do on research security is not just linked to this NSERC alliance granting program, but it's also linked to our core activities regarding investigations and writing broader intelligence threat assessments. We are pulling all the levers that we have at our disposal in order to counter any research security threats to Canadian institutions.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
Christian Leuprecht has stated in testimony that the situation has been growing worse since 2017, to a point that it's now “an existential threat” to Canada's way of life, while key allies like the U.S. and Australia have been far ahead of us in taking steps to protect themselves.
It's clear that someone has dropped the ball here. Is it CSIS, or is it the fault of the government and Trudeau that things have become worse since 2017?
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Strategic Partnerships, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
Thank you again for the question.
I think one of the important things to be aware of is that the threat itself has changed. It's not only about the response. For example, this summer, PRC introduced two national security laws, which have fundamentally expanded the definition of national security so that they empower PRC intelligence and law enforcement agencies to compel co-operation of firms and people. That significantly changed the nature of the threat.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
Thank you very much for the questions and the answers.
Now, we will go to Ms. Bradford for six minutes, please.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all our witnesses for coming today to answer our questions on this very important topic.
Ms. Giles, perhaps this is building on what you just referred to. Could you please tell the committee about the People's Republic of China's “Seven Sons of National Defence” and how partnerships with these institutions can pose threats to our Canadian universities?
Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Policy and Strategic Partnerships, Canadian Security Intelligence Service
I'd like to pass this question to my Public Safety colleagues, if that's acceptable to you, Chair. They've done quite a bit of work in this space, but I'd be happy to answer any auxiliary questions.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Lloyd Longfield
By all means, go ahead if Public Safety can answer that more succinctly.
Lesley Soper Director General, National Security Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
I'm not quite sure how I might answer this. The “Seven Sons” are seven of the major research institutions that are known to have defence linkages. As a general understanding, many other jurisdictions have put in limitations around the types of research collaborations that could go on with those institutions in the context of, for example, the alliance grants program. If there was known to be a linkage, we would be scrutinizing that relationship, particularly if it's an area of sensitive technology, of dual use, or of potential military application that could be co-opted unwittingly from a Canadian researcher.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Have our Canadian universities actually been warned about partnering with those that are considered PRC's “Seven Sons of National Defence”? Have our universities been warned about this?
Director General, National Security Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
We might refer to the February 14 statement made by the then minister of public safety and the Minister of ISED in relation to affiliations that are known to have linkages to defence institutions. Through that statement, I think the government made it very clear that there are risks in relation to those types of linkages with foreign state military-associated institutions.
Liberal
Director General, National Security Policy, Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness
I think we're looking at what we would call “sensitive areas” of technology. Again, if you look at the February 14 statement, we haven't delineated yet fully for the public what those would be. We're talking about cutting-edge research in areas where foreign states may seek to take military advantage or seek to have a leading edge in innovation for reasons that may be entirely commercial, but they may also be contributing to a state security or military apparatus.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Mr. Khoury, could you please tell the committee how the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security engages with post-secondary institutions to educate our researchers on how they can protect Canada's national security interests while collaborating with international partners?
Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Communications Security Establishment
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.
We have a number of ways to engage with academic institutions. At the cyber centre, our priority is to inform and to empower those institutions to raise their cybersecurity awareness and cybersecurity resilience. We do it through advice and guidance that we issue constantly. As the threat evolves, we update our advice and guidance.
We have interactions with academic institutions to help them, in some cases, design their cybersecurity programs, if they are offering those. We also develop a number of tools that we make available through open source. We have open-source tools, and if they want to, we're more than happy if they use them or deploy them on their networks to protect those networks. We also engage with them technologically to look at the security of their network, if they invite us to spend time with them and they demonstrate it to us.
It's very much an operational collaboration in that case, but it's also through advice and guidance that we put out.
Liberal
Valerie Bradford Liberal Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON
Do you also make this available to and collaborate with the technical institutes, smaller universities and community colleges? Is the same attention paid to them as well?
Head, Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Communications Security Establishment
Yes, we communicate with them through a number of round tables. Sometimes with universities, it will be through a university round table. Sometimes it will be one-on-one, when the university invites us to have a direct conversation.
Technical colleges are also a forum in which we will communicate, often through a gathering of these technical colleges, where we will brief them on what the cyber-threat is and how they can work to protect themselves.