Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, I agree with what's been said by my colleagues with regard to a registry. I think it would be a useful tool that would bring some baseline transparency. As has been mentioned, it's something we're discussing with the policy departments that lead the development of tools in

Procedure and House Affairs committee  What I was trying to communicate is that, when we're investigating foreign influence activity during an election or outside of an election, we're not necessarily focusing on impact. We're focusing on the activity of the adversary. If they're acting in a way that is deceitful and

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Again, we'd be looking at the activities. If it's an agent of a foreign state who is, for example, looking to get the vote out for a certain candidate and is messaging in that regard, that's what would concern us. Whether the agent had success or not would be secondary, but any a

Procedure and House Affairs committee  My light has come on, so I'll try to answer that. I'm not a diplomat. I don't know what is normal or abnormal in terms of consular representation, and I wouldn't speak to that specific assertion. What I would do is echo what my colleagues have said, which is that hostile foreign

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'll really quickly echo what my colleague from the RCMP said, which is the requirement to address intelligence to evidence. That is an obstacle for us. Our inability to translate intelligence that's collected in a very covert way into an evidentiary arena that can assist law enf

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, it's true. We see China—in particular, China—using non-traditional methods of foreign influence activity. They're not relying necessarily on trained agents. They use cut-outs. They use proxies. They use community groups, and they use diaspora organizations and community le

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, that's true.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you for the question. Maybe it's a symptom of where I work, but I find that we are talking about it more and more. That's the honest answer from me. I think about where we were five or 10 years ago. I couldn't have thought of being in front of a committee like this and sp

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Through you, I'll take a stab at that. There was a lot in that question. Maybe I'll separate what occurs during an election and outside an election, first of all, through the protocol and otherwise. There's a policy in place and protocols in place during

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would say as well that we can't speak to specific ridings, specific candidates. Our measure is not whether foreign influence activity has moved the needle. When we see foreign influence activity, that's enough for us. That engages our mandate. That engages an investigation. T

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Certainly when we see it, we report it.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Through you, maybe I'll put those in two buckets: policy, and some of our briefings to folks who can be impacted by foreign influence activity. On the policy side, there's the foreign registry, of course. Behind the scenes, certainly the service and

Canada-China Relations committee  I wouldn't comment specifically on TikTok and what our assessment may or may not be of that company. I can certainly confirm in a general way that what you said about social media being a potential platform that does get exploited for foreign influence activity is true. It's a pl

Canada-China Relations committee  I wouldn't recommend that, Mr. Chair. The service provides assessments and advice to government and decision-makers. That sort of thing is done in a confidential setting.

Canada-China Relations committee  First, I'd just like to emphasize that, certainly from my perspective—and, I think, the service perspective in general—the co-operation between us and the RCMP and the rest of the national security community is very sound, very good and very healthy. There was a time when that wa