:
Madam Chair, committee members, there's no need for introductions. The Chair looked after that.
I want to highlight that Deputy Commissioner Flynn was in charge of most of our foreign interference files in the last couple of years, so a wealth of knowledge is here, and I hope we will be able to share that knowledge with all of the members here.
As you're likely aware, foreign interference poses a complex threat to the security of Canada and Canadians. The RCMP is actively leveraging all tools at its disposal to combat foreign interference. We're working closely with our domestic and international partners to take a multipronged approach and to share as much information as possible.
[Translation]
In a minute I'll come back in more detail to how we're tackling foreign interference, but I assure you we're doing everything we can to keep Canadians safe.
Foreign interference can involve various states such as the People's Republic of China, the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran, among others, attacking Canada, its institutions, its society and its citizens.
[English]
These activities are undertaken to advance the strategic interests of a state, and the methods can include threats of violence, coercion, or surveillance of the public, including culturally or linguistically diverse groups, human rights defenders, political dissidents, pro-democracy advocates, and politicians at all levels, including members of Parliament.
I will speak to two issues today. I'll speak about the RCMP's role in responding to and investigating foreign interference-related threats to public safety, including members of the public and MPs, and how members of Parliament can identify and report foreign interference-related activities to the RCMP.
[Translation]
First of all, the intimidation of MPs is worrying, as it poses a threat to the security of elected leaders and our democracy. Foreign actors are attempting to undermine our sovereignty and exercise the power of foreign states on a transnational scale. I want to assure the members of this committee that we are aware of these threats, we are responding and we are fighting foreign interference.
[English]
The RCMP has opened an investigation of reported allegations of intimidation targeting the , and has contacted the Commissioner of Canada Elections regarding other allegations that have come to light that fall under his mandate, and has offered its assistance.
Within the Government of Canada's approach, the RCMP has a number of tools at its disposal to address foreign interference. The RCMP's investigative teams may leverage specific provisions of the Criminal Code to investigate potential threats of violence, harassment and intimidation involving state actors. These could include breach of trust, intimidation, criminal harassment and foreign-influenced threats or violence, which fall under the Security of Information Act.
We use the knowledge gained from our criminal intelligence, as well as our collaborations with domestic and international law enforcement and security and intelligence partners, to adapt to the criminal methods used by foreign actors.
[Translation]
The RCMP works closely with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS, under our co‑operation agreement. We have undertaken to ensure the effectiveness of this partnership despite some of the challenges we still face in using partner intelligence to advance criminal investigations.
That said, much work has been achieved following the Operational Improvement Review, conducted in 2018, which focused on the challenges of using intelligence as evidence. Of the 76 recommendations, 18 have yet to be fully implemented to facilitate the full use of intelligence to prosecute criminal cases.
[English]
It is important to underline our co-operation with local police jurisdictions, as well as our domestic and international law enforcement and security and intelligence partners to address foreign interference activities. I recently attended a Five Eyes law enforcement meeting in Australia, and foreign interference was the key topic of our discussions.
With that, I will open it up. Mark and I welcome questions with regard to foreign interference.
Thank you.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Through you, I would like to thank the witnesses for being with us today.
I'll be honest with you, Madam Chair, that it's tough to follow MP Blaney, because I have some of the same questions she brought up. I'm glad she was able to cover them.
I have a couple of follow-up questions further to my colleague, Mr. Berthold's, comment just now. He mentioned the fact the RCMP was not aware, the fact that the National Security and Intelligence Advisor was not aware, the fact that the was not aware, and the was not aware of the specific threat to MP , which is the subject of today's meeting, the question of privilege with respect to the intimidation campaign.
Does that not reinforce the findings of the special rapporteur, Mr. Johnston, where he put forward the recommendation about the governance and the communication of intelligence and the problems in terms of the flow of that information.
Would you agree that you yourselves were not aware of the specific threats? And if you are in agreement with that, what would you suggest that we improve in terms of making sure that you are made aware? CSIS was aware, but you were not made aware.
What would you improve in the process to make sure that any threat to or intimidation of a sitting member of Parliament is brought to your attention and, therefore, make sure that everybody who needs to know is made aware?
With that, Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner, on behalf of PROC committee members, I really do want to thank both of you for, I feel, a very honest conversation.
I think the comments that you just ended with, Deputy, are quite accurate. We don't want to just be reactionary, but there do come times where we need to be honest about where we as lawmakers can help our agencies and organizations do the work they need to do, because no one of us is in this alone, and when it comes to our democratic institutions, every single one of us has a responsibility.
I know that was a tough question posed by Mr. Fergus, but at any point, if there is an opportunity to provide some suggestions as to what can we do to actually allow you to do the work that we entrust in you and that we need you to do, we would welcome that feedback. I don't think that speaks to what you're not doing or what you haven't done. I think that speaks to us wanting to strengthen our institutions, all of us together, because I think that as Canadians we have that responsibility.
I think our rights and freedoms come with responsibilities, and the insights that you have, I know I would never have, and I know many of us won't, but there are people who have served. If something comes to mind, please talk to your teams and let us know. We are at a moment where I think most people are taking this very seriously, and we want to ensure that we're laying a stronger foundation for the future.
I want to thank you for your time and attention. I want to thank you for your service. I wish you a really good rest of the day, and we look forward to seeing you again. Thank you. Keep well and safe.
The meeting is suspended. We'll get ready for our next panel.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good morning to the members of the committee.
Thank you for inviting me this morning.
Foreign interference is an important issue that continues to be at the heart of our national agenda and deserves our constant attention.
[English]
Madam Chair, I know that at least part of the reason you invited me here today is that I was acting national security and intelligence adviser from early July 2021 through to early January 2022.
It was, of course, during this period that a July 20, 2021, CSIS report on Chinese foreign interference was produced and disseminated. It's a report that has proven to be quite controversial since key aspects of it were published in The Globe and Mail on May 1 of this year.
Privy Council Office records show that the report in question was in my reading pack on August 17, 2021. For the record, I have no recollection of receiving it or reading it then. Like Jody Thomas, I was, at the time, fully occupied with the evacuation from Afghanistan, as Kabul had fallen only two days before.
I believe I did read the report when the dust from Afghanistan settled because I was interested enough to have commissioned a follow-on piece by a different group within our intelligence community in an attempt to gain the fullest possible picture of Chinese foreign interference in Canada. I would be pleased to come back to this point if members of the committee are interested.
There are two important aspects of the July 20, 2021, CSIS report that seem to have been widely misunderstood.
First, the report was never intended to spur action by readers, whether around the targeting of MPs or any of the other examples of foreign interference it lists. In its own words as published in The Globe, the report was intended to establish “a 'baseline for understanding the intent, motives and scope' of Beijing's foreign interference in Canada.” It was not a memorandum for action. It was a report for awareness.
Intelligence agencies in Canada and elsewhere produce a range of products for consumers. These products are short reports containing fragments of information, sometimes from a single source, that tend to be concise and timely; as well as longer, periodic assessments that often rest upon earlier intelligence and are designed to build understanding of complex issues. It is like the difference between the kind of breaking news that appears on the front page of The Globe and Mail and the deep-dive reports that often appear in the middle pages of the weekend edition.
The July 2021 CSIS report was very much a deep dive. It was not intended to spur action by me, as acting NSIA, or by anyone else. It was certainly not something that I would have rushed to brief up the on.
Importantly, as reported by the Globe and repeated by Jody Thomas, the report did not name or any other MP. Indeed, it would have been highly irregular for this kind of piece to go into that kind of detail.
The second key aspect of the July 2021 report that seems to have been widely misunderstood is that anyone reading such a report could have safely assumed that any necessary action on any of the specific points raised had already been taken. Indeed, this was the case for the reference in the report to Chinese actions against Canadian MPs.
To recall for the committee.... As reported in the Globe, the targeting of Canadian MPs by China was linked to a February 2021 parliamentary motion, sponsored by , condemning Beijing's oppression of the Uyghurs and likening this oppression to genocide.
You will recall that, after the motion and subsequent sanctions imposed several weeks later by Canada on people and entities in China, China responded by sanctioning and the entire membership of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development.
It was in this context, as shown in David Johnston's report, that China built “profiles” and “contemplated action” against Michael Chong and other MPs. It was in response to that Chinese activity that in May 2021, CSIS wrote the issues management brief, referred to in the David Johnston report as an IMU, to the Minister of Public Safety.
If you look at page 27 of the Johnston report, you will see that this was not an action note seeking a decision from the minister. It was an information note telling the then minister that CSIS intended to provide defensive briefings to MPs who, intelligence showed, China had intended to target.
Now, I know that there have been questions about how this issues management note was sent, who received it and so on. I'm aware that you have already asked about this. I know that you will be raising these questions with my colleague David Vigneault when he appears before you this evening. But the larger picture is this: Intelligence emerged in the spring, around the time of the Uyghur motion, that the Chinese government was looking for information on parliamentarians, and in particular on Mr. Chong and his relatives.
That intelligence was actioned, in that it led to an information memo to the Minister of Public Safety and then, in June 2021, to a defensive briefing to Mr. Chong and another MP. All of this is on page 27 of Mr. Johnston's report.
Madam Chair, some may find that all of this took too long. The point has already been made that if the then Minister of Public Safety was not aware of the intelligence with respect to Mr. Chong and other MPs, there were obviously deficiencies. But I would submit that the system did function according to the protocols that were in place back in 2021. Importantly, as you are aware, the system has now been changed. The new ministerial directive issued on May 16 of this year means that, in the future, any intelligence received with respect to specific MPs will be briefed up to ministers.
Getting back to where I started, Madam Chair, all of this is to say that in my view, the focus on the 2021 CSIS report—who the NSIA at the time was, who else read it, whether it went into a black hole—has been misplaced. Action by the relevant authorities with respect to the targeting of MPs had already been taken before the report was even published.
Before closing, Madam Chair, allow me to make two final points. First, much has been made of the term “target” in the sense of being a “target of Beijing”. I do not intend to diminish for one moment how unsettling it must have been for Mr. Chong and other MPs to learn that China had been building profiles on them and possibly preparing to take action, including against their family members living abroad. At the same time, as Jody Thomas, Wesley Wark, Thomas Juneau and others have already indicated, there is nothing inherently nefarious about foreign governments discussing members of Parliament or anyone else in Canadian society. Members of the committee should be aware that all embassies, including Canadian embassies around the world, create influence maps that list individuals through whom they intend to pursue national objectives. The important thing to keep in mind is whether the activity in question is clandestine, deceptive or threatening to an individual or an institution. As previous witnesses have stated, intent and capability are key.
For the record, while governments with values that differ from our own do not always appreciate Canada's activities abroad, Canadian diplomats do not engage in foreign interference. Everything they do is overt and above board.
This brings me to my second and last point, Madam Chair. While our focus recently, and appropriately, has been on members of Parliament, in the case of China, many of the Canadians on lists, whether you wish to call these individuals "targets" or part of larger "influence maps", will be ethnically Chinese. These diaspora members are, in my view, the most vulnerable populations when it comes to China's interference in Canada. They are Canadian citizens and permanent residents. They deserve the same protections as everyone else living in Canada.
When it comes to foreign interference, I view this as an area of the greatest long-term threat. We need to know more about ongoing foreign interference in these communities, what form it takes, and how it can be combatted.
Public hearings with these communities were to have been included in the second part of the process led by David Johnston, and I hope that the importance of this focus does not get lost in whatever process is agreed to in the future.
[Translation]
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'd like not only to thank you, but also to tell you that I feel like I'm in The Twelve Tasks of Asterix, as if the situation will finally be crystal clear only when we finally get all the pieces of the puzzle and hear all the testimony.
Thus, we see that what we are doing is essential. We are parliamentarians, not experts. However, we are before the public, who are currently seeing that we are doing our spring cleaning, which should have been done 20 years ago.
I have a host of questions, and it's important for me to ask them, because I'm really not reassured, not by people's expertise, but because of the flaws in communications. Had it not been for these flaws, the alarm would have sounded. Names would have come out. People would have known. When a potential prime minister isn't even made aware of what's happening to him, that's serious.
Actually, we're seeing that there are several chairs, but they all have big cracks in them. So we're going to be constructive, today.
I understand that the witness, whom I greet in passing, has extensive experience, both at the UN, CSIS and as a deputy minister. However, we urgently need this cry from the heart that will really help us shed some light.
If we ask people if they really trust our democracy, they'll probably say that, if they're told about the new measures we're going to take, they'll believe in it.
I'd like to hear your comments on that and then I'll have a few more questions.
You have a great deal of expertise and you're now collaborating with CSIS, as a deputy minister.
I yield the floor to you.
:
I thank the member for raising all these issues.
[English]
I think spring cleaning is always a good idea. I think it helps us update things.
I too worry about the threat to our institutions, both from foreign interference but also from lack of comprehensive understanding of the nature of the threat. In that sense, I would point to the fact that a ministerial direction has been issued on May 16. That makes it very clear that the , through the , wishes to be informed rapidly should there be any information or potential threats to members of Parliament.
On top of that, as has been stated by other witnesses before your committee, the government is, I believe, considering legislative changes to some of the key legal frameworks that govern this space. There's a project afoot—I think it's well known—to create an agent registry. There are potential changes to other laws as well.
I think you can look forward and, indeed, Canadians can look forward, to an updating of the cadres or frameworks that govern this area. In addition to that, as Jody Thomas said when she was before you, within the public service we are creating or tweaking some governance mechanisms and some information-sharing mechanisms to try to ensure that we can do the very best we can in terms of providing relevant information to the government.
The final point that I would make, and I'm happy to expand on it later...I do have a sort of varied background, as you indicated or as the member indicated. I'm not a career public servant. I've seen how other organizations work outside of Canada. What I would say is that I think we have a national security set-up that was optimized for terrorism. We had this period in Canada between 1989 and, say, the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, where, after 9/11, the primary threat was deemed to come from terrorists. I'm not certain that's any longer the case.
We have geopolitical tensions. We have foreign interference. We have what the Indo-Pacific strategy calls—I might not get the wording right—an increasingly assertive China. The world has changed, and our set-up needs to be able to adapt to that.
We can argue about whether the action was appropriate from our opinions, but it is alarming to me that we have multiple MPs who were targeted and they just didn't know. That's concerning.
You said that was provided a defensive briefing, but I want to be really clear. According to the testimony that we've heard, he was provided the defensive briefing, but he had no idea that he and his family were being targeted specifically.
When you look at that, how does that make sense? If I don't know that I am being targeted, as a human being, and I'm provided information, that information is helpful— said it was helpful—but it doesn't allow me to assess the issue in a meaningful way. That's what I'm really concerned about, because at the end of the day, to me, this is not partisan. This is a broken system—I don't think everything's broken, but there's a part of it that's broken—that we need to fix so that parliamentarians feel they have faith in the system, and Canadians have faith in the system.
Can you explain from your perspective or give me insight as to why he was provided a defensive briefing, but he did not know that both he and his family, both internally and externally to Canada, were being targeted?
:
Please pause, Mr. Cooper.
Deputy, I'm going to say to you there was a series of comments that were made within that exchange. I have to appreciate your attempts to answer and not be given the floor.
This institution that we're creating and that we're trying to improve is not one that always functions well. The way people interpret comments and the way they are repeated often don't match the way they're delivered.
Your opening comments will be part of our binder. Members will be able to review them. I can assure you and reassure you that what members—some more than others—want to take from them, they will.
With that, for me, when it comes to this issue, it's very important. The minute there was a good exchange, a good hour, I rewarded good behaviour. I commended it. I appreciated it.
I try not to interrupt, but right now I am taking some time here to interrupt, because the members need to understand that this chair will take time when we're not taking turns and allowing everyone to satisfy their role.
That's how simple it is.
I am going to give the floor back to Mr. Cooper, but, Deputy, rest assured that I will provide you some time to answer if you would like it. Your being here to provide us information is important. I also want to make some comments today, too.
We need to understand how our institutions work. Oftentimes people who are on the elected side, who have not had the exchanges, don't really really understand where there is overlap and how it works. What you know and what we know doesn't always match. This is our opportunity to better understand what you know.
Thank you for that.
I hope everyone got to take a nice little breath.
Mr. Cooper, you have the floor.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Through you, I would like to thank Mr. Morrison for being with us today.
I'm trying to determine the question of privilege for Mr. Chong. I'm going to clarify a couple of dates. After I do so, could you make sure I have the right information?
We understand that, on February 18, 2021, Mr. Chong introduced the opposition day motion. On February 22, 2021, there was a vote. Subsequent to that vote, you mentioned influence maps were created on the members of the subcommittee on human rights, which would have included Mr. Chong. No physical or imminent threats were in that.
I understand the issues management note of May 2021—I don't have the exact date—was prepared. No specific threats were made, and no MPs were named specifically. Subsequent to that, Mr. Chong received the first defensive briefing on June 24, 2021—a defensive briefing that did not include specific threats.
On July 20, 2021, there as an assessment and deep dive done—this famous memo—that did not require action and did not name any MPs. It appeared in your reading package of August. Could you clarify the exact date? That, of course, did not, again, include names of MPs. You had follow-up action identified.
Mr. Chong has testified that he initiated meetings with CSIS on August 5, 2021, February 25, 2022 and July 18, 2022.
I'm trying to get a better understanding of when the specific threat to MP Chong gets to MP Chong. I'm trying to understanding when he was made aware of the specific threat. I understand he mentioned he learned about it through the media on May 1, 2023—I think. We're trying to determine the point of privilege.
Could you clarify the date of the May 2021 issues management note, the reading package date and which date Mr. Chong was made aware of the specific threat to him that would have constituted an intimidation tactic?
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Mr. Morrison, in answer to the last question posed by Mr. Nater, you said that with respect to the follow-up to the July 2021 CSIS memo, you saw a draft in December of 2021, and that draft was finalized in January of 2022. When Mr. Nater asked you to provide a copy of that to the committee, you said that you would be unable to but that much of its contents had been reported by Global News.
For the record, Madam Chair, I would like to note that Global News did in fact, on March 8, report a January 2022 “Special Report” that was prepared by PCO, which was date-stamped and finalized, suggesting that it was intended to be read by the and his senior aides.
That memo, or “Special Report”, contained, among other things: that “A large clandestine transfer of funds earmarked for the federal election from the PRC Consulate in Toronto was transferred to an elected provincial government official via a staff member of a 2019 federal candidate,”; that “We assess that Canada remains highly vulnerable to Chinese foreign interference efforts.”; that “We base this judgment on intelligence that highlights deep and persistent Chinese Communist Party interference attempts over more than a decade”; and, that “The group allegedly involved at least 11 candidates and 13 or more aides.”
In short, Mr. Morrison, you have conceded what the and this government have repeatedly denied and attempted to cover up.
Did that PCO memo, that January 2022 Special Report, come to the attention of the ?
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I want to thank the witness again because he's walking us through a timeline that is going to help us put the puzzle pieces together. As I mentioned, when pieces of information and/or intelligence are taken individually, it's hard to put the puzzle pieces together.
Mr. Morrison, you mentioned that the reading package of August 17, 2021, which included the July 20 memo, had information that prompted you to do a follow-up. You then saw in December 2021 a draft, which was finalized in January 2022. We know that an order in council dated January 4 named Jody Thomas as the national security and intelligence adviser and she began her role on January 11, 2022.
She has testified that immediately when she took on the role, and in her previous role as deputy minister of national defence, one of her concerns was that the acts of the People's Republic of China were of concern. This was not something that was new to people. I, myself, sat on the national defence committee during my first mandate and was made aware of concerns of national security issues with respect to China, Russia and other states actors.
Could you walk us through what you would do differently or what you would recommend? You received the reading package in August. We were in an election at that time. Cabinet was sworn in later that year. Therefore, there was a delay of approximately five months before you actually received the draft. They were gathering more information, I'm assuming, which you had requested.
Could you let us know what you would do differently or what would you recommend to us to help the NSIA, future NSIAs and departments to see if we could have been doing something differently in that timeline?
It seems like a quite a bit of time from the time you requested the follow-up and the time the draft came. I'm assuming intelligence is not something where you send out an email and hope to get information back. This is gathering and various people are working on that. As you mentioned, we were also dealing with the evacuation of Kabul.
Could you let us know what you would recommend in that regard?
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Mr. Morrison, I've been listening to you from the beginning. I've listened to several witnesses since the beginning of these hearings on the case of Mr. Michael Chong. One thing amazes me, and that is to see that no one has taken responsibility for the information coming from just about everywhere.
You confirmed, today, that you have repeatedly read these memos that talked about foreign interference. You practically confirmed the content of the memo that had been revealed by Global News, saying that it was top secret, but that the whole content had practically been revealed in that article. Your predecessor, Mr. Vincent Rigby, said he had read between 5,000 and 7,000 documents in 18 months. He even challenged me to sit in the national security adviser's chair to see the extent of the work.
That's precisely the problem: We sit people like you or like Mr. Rigby in these chairs to analyze this information. Who makes the connections between the different pieces of information, who makes the necessary cross-references, and who makes sure that we determine what's important?
Hearing you and everyone else who has come before us since the beginning, everyone has been informed, but no one has made a decision.
When you see the word “information”, are you purposely not taking any action because you figure someone else will do it for you, Mr. Morrison?
It's worrying for Canadians and it's worrying for the Chinese diaspora. It's also worrying to know that people who are appointed to positions like yours are incapable of being the eyes of Canadian citizens, who need people who will see elements like these.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
[English]
Mr. Morrison, again I feel obliged to say this. No one is questioning your abilities and your service to our country; it's been exemplary. I will only presume, because I only have evidence to say so, that you have conducted yourself honourably and with a lot of attention to the details and that you do the best that you can. As Mr. Rigby, your predecessor, had pointed out, there is a lot of reading material that comes across your desk. As you answered questions to me about things that are being sent up for information or things sent up for action, if it's classified information that's stuff that you do carry on. Even in spite of getting an information note, you still acted on the material because your experience had taught you that there was something you wanted to dig further on.
I thank you for your work.
I'd like to go back to a question regarding the Johnston report. Mr. Johnston said on page 21 of his report, “There is uncertainty about whether there was money, if it actually went to staff or the provincial MPP, and there is no intelligence suggesting any federal candidates received these funds.”
The media reported later that there was no evidence of covert funding—although this was largely overlooked and the public narrative persisted that candidates, sometimes identified as Liberal candidates, received these funds. NSIA Thomas and the Prime Minister's chief of staff both testified to PROC that there was no evidence of money flowing to federal candidates.
Mr. Morrison, does that seem true to you in terms of what Mr. Johnston wrote in his report?