Public Safety committee  The answer is yes. Particularly Australia, the U.K., the U.S. and also Scandinavian countries have a lot to teach us in terms of drawing the appropriate line between not revealing information that would be threatening to Canada's national security and where the security agency is not, in effect, protecting its own inadequacies in the performance of its duties as described in the mandates to the ministers that oversee them.

Public Safety committee  Compared to other countries, Canada has been less proactive in prosecuting or outing elements that have engaged in cyber-espionage. The United States has identified a number of agents of the Chinese People's Liberation Army who have been involved in this kind of activity. We tend to be reluctant to engage, particularly with the Chinese, with regard to activities like cyber-espionage, suppression of Chinese language media or indeed harassment of people who might wish to speak out.

Public Safety committee  I think it is a cause of great concern. Essentially, because of Mr. Putin's badly advised or probably not advised invasion of Ukraine, Russia will be considerably weakened, both militarily because they're losing a lot of stuff—they lost the Moskva in the Black Sea—and they're also going to have their economy crippled.

Public Safety committee  I wouldn't want to politicize it in terms of a political party, but I do think that if we do not make diplomats in Canada accountable for activities that are not consistent with their diplomatic status, whether this is menacing and harassment of people in Canada, or attempting to influence discourse in Canadian newspapers, particularly Chinese-language media, by coercing advertisers and the persons who may have relatives back in China to not report on things or to report them in a certain way....

Public Safety committee  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.

Industry committee  I don't have expertise in this area, but it seems to me that if you're looking for a reliable partner, the United States is a much better bet than the People's Republic of China. We have to diversify our sources to the extent that we can. The main thing is that when this committee issues a report, we need to see some vigorous action on the part of government to implement what I anticipate will be the recommendations, judging by the consensus of all the people here.

Industry committee  No, I don't. Particularly with China and their highly coordinated process, they can be inclined to make multiple investments that are just under the threshold areas to try to achieve their.... It's like playing a game of go; they eventually surround you and then you're stuck. No, I don't think it's sufficient.

Industry committee  We certainly want to have our own capacity to be independent of other nations, including the United States. What's most important is that the supply chains be implemented among like-minded countries that respect the rules and the spirit of the WTO and the international rules-based order.

Industry committee  In general, when we have.... For example, when there was a reversal of a cabinet decision with regard to the sale of technologies from a Montreal company that was applicable to directed energy weaponry, or when we decided to allow China to acquire a large satellite company that had satellites that were used by the Pentagon and the Government of Taiwan, I really wonder who has been convincing our government that these things are a good idea.

Industry committee  I'm definitely very concerned about our lack of effective action on this. I was completely flummoxed when we had an opportunity to stop the Chinese acquisition of a Canadian-controlled mine in Argentina. A lot of this seems to have to do with persons who were involved in the policy process who may have a conflict of interest because they are the recipients of benefits from a foreign regime.

Industry committee  Absolutely. As I said in my presentation, I think that.... When you look at Chinese enterprises, they're all under the control of the Chinese Communist Party. They all have Chinese Communist Party branches at the top of their hierarchical structure, and it's the party secretary who coordinates their activities at the direction of Beijing, if Beijing wants to see that.

Industry committee  I think it's almost certain that China would do that if it wanted to get something from Canada, such as more access to our high tech or a greater capacity for the Chinese state to invest in Canadian mining and other critical infrastructure.

Industry committee  That's not really a question I have the expertise to answer. There are a lot of people here who have more. Obviously, we should be pulling the stuff out of the ground ourselves and processing it here. Experts may have a better take on that than me, but that just strikes me as a no-brainer in terms of maintaining the integrity of our ability to avoid being subject to coercion by autocratic states.

Industry committee  My message really is that there is a lot of urgency here. I read the statement by Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi after their bilateral meeting at the Olympics. Clearly, they're getting much closer together and much more interested in creating the lines of what could be an intensified sort of cold war dynamic.

Industry committee  This is a question that really can't be resolved by Canada alone. Certainly, the Chinese use of its belt and road initiative—which involves facilitating corruption and bribery of autocratic dictators in third world countries that have something in China's interest, particularly mineral resources—is something we want to challenge, to provide alternative streams for development funding to those nations.