Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, yes, I've been assisted by a team of legal experts.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, no, there would be no question of drafting assistance from the PMO. We're completely independent in our work from the PMO.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, we had continual discussions with PMO officials as we were seeking information and trying to get different—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, the report is something I wrote, with assistance from my senior legal team, and that was it.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, I was asked by the government of the day to undertake a job to review foreign interference, and that included the question of whether a public inquiry would be the best way to do it. After very thoughtful consideration, we concluded that it was not, but that conducting public hearings on the matters that were not classified information would be a very appropriate way to build trust in our institutions.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The answer to that question, Madam Chair, is no. We were not impeded. In fact, we worked very carefully to try to write a report that would put as much light as we could on this matter but still respect classified information. There was no impediment to that. We were very pleased to be able to push those boundaries a little bit more than they ordinarily would be in a public report.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, we set out a series of initiatives that had been taken, principally from about 2017 on. Russian influence was the main concern then; Chinese influence became that. There clearly was important activity. The concern is that the activity was not fast enough to catch up with the growing foreign interference, which continues.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, a public inquiry would duplicate the work that we attempted to do, especially dealing with classified information. Any public inquiry is going to run into that same problem: How do you deal with classified information in an open fashion and report upon it? Our view is that you could do that particularly in the area of reforming our systems, looking at them carefully and thoughtfully, drawing the best expertise you can, reinforcing the oversight committees, building on a better system of managing foreign interference and taking lessons from other jurisdictions, especially the Five Eyes, which have had considerable experience in dealing with exactly these challenges.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, first of all, with respect to having no criticism of the government, the report goes into considerable detail to say that we have a system of dealing with foreign interference that is not working. It points out a number of the areas of defects. I have welcomed the initiatives that have been taken, such as working to now establish a foreign agent registry, which would put that in the public realm.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  What I would say, Madam Chair, is that we did the best we possibly could in the two months we had to follow the facts as far as we could and apply the law. We welcome the scrutiny, the overview of the two committees you referred to, joined by the leaders of the major opposition parties.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, I do have deep respect for Parliament, and I hope I've given good evidence of that through my life, and through my time as Governor General. The reason I'm continuing in this position, with respect to the motion of Parliament, is that I believe the vote was based on allegations that were false.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, I was asked by the government of the day to undertake an important task, to review foreign interference in our elections. I undertook that task and intend to continue it until my services are simply no longer useful or required. That's the reason why, with great respect to Parliament, I have—

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, the activities of the police stations are nefarious and widespread here in Canada and in other jurisdictions. They are the subject of an RCMP investigation, which is a rather unusual situation. Because of that ongoing investigation and oversight activities, we felt it was appropriate to see that investigation through.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The reference, I think, that Global News had was to an early draft of an understanding of what transpired in a conversation between a member of the PRC consulate and Mr. Dong. That was subsequently superseded by another interview, which indicated that the suggestion in the first one that he had suggested the two Michaels be further detained was simply a wrong interpretation.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Madam Chair, we did not meet with the director, Mr. Perrault, because there were no complaints before him or the commissioner of Canada elections with respect to interference. We anticipate that we would be meeting with him and his colleagues as we look at improving our systems, including any suggestions that can be made to help the commissioner of Canada elections work more effectively.