As reports of alleged Chinese interference in the last two federal elections stack up, one of Canada's highest-ranking intelligence officials told MPs that while Canadians' concerns about foreign meddling are understandable, they should be assured that "the last two federal elections were fair and legitimate."
That's how Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's National Security and Intelligence Advisor Jody Thomas put it during her testimony before the Procedure and House Affairs Committee (PROC) studying foreign election interference.
She said that while various federal agencies tasked with detecting, deterring and countering foreign interference have acknowledged that "foreign interference has been attempted," the government is taking "concrete steps" to strengthen Canada's institutions and ensure those responsible face consequences.
Appearing alongside Thomas were foreign affairs associate deputy minister Cindy Termorshuizen, and public safety deputy minister Shawn Tupper, who confirmed during Wednesday's hearing that, despite all that's been reported, the RCMP is not investigating any of the interference allegations stemming from the last federal election.
"The RCMP form a critical part of the team of people who assess activities during elections. They were aware of the information that was brought forward, they have looked at that information and have concluded that they will not pursue a criminal investigation," Tupper said. "I can confirm that the RCMP is not investigating any of the allegations that are arising from the last election."
Tupper also spoke about how the nature of foreign interference is shifting, from "suitcases full of money" to the use of social media and cyberattacks, as evidenced during the 2016 U.S. election.
"It's more pervasive, it's more aggressive, and the potential for damage to our democracy is that much more serious," he said.
Following this panel were a handful of members of the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections (SITE) Task Force, including CSIS director general of intelligence assessments Adam Fisher and the Communication Security Establishment's (CSE) deputy chief of signals intelligence Alia Tayyeb.
These officials spoke about the work they did during the campaigns to make officials aware of the threat landscape, and sought to clarify the difference between intelligence and evidence and the challenges in translating intel into something law enforcement can act on.
While members of Parliament prodded officials for information about what they knew about attempts by China to meddle in and influence Canada's democratic process, given the meeting was public and the issue concerns highly sensitive information, the responses were light in detail or specifics, citing obligations to protect classified information.
"We must also carefully consider that … in some cases publicly disclosing intelligence on foreign state-specific attempts to interfere may ultimately play into their hands, including by potentially affecting outcomes of electoral processes and creating confusion," Thomas said.
The limited new information shared sparked frustration among some MPs, who noted that when they asked questions in an effort to clarify the situation, the answers were largely classified.
"We do try very hard to— all of us who have been talking about foreign interference for a good amount of time in the public—we try to be as transparent as possible… It is a careful balance that we deal with every day," said Tayyeb.
Over the last several years, Canadian security agencies have been warning governments and citizens of increasingly sophisticated efforts from foreign states to interfere in Canadian affairs, though Wednesday's testimony comes amid a few months of media reports, including those citing unnamed CSIS sources, that raised questions around specific alleged attempts to meddle in the 2019 and 2021 elections.
For example, The Globe and Mail has reported that China used a "sophisticated strategy" to defeat Conservative politicians considered unfriendly to Beijing while attempting to get the Liberals re-elected in 2021, an effort defeated former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu told CTV News he thinks he was a target of.
Global News has reported that China allegedly interfered in the 2019 campaigns of some candidates, including Liberal Han Dong who the news outlet reported CSIS believed was a "witting affiliate" of Chinese influence networks, and that the spy agency told the Prime Minister's Office to rescind his nomination. Dong has strongly denied these claims, and CTV News has not independently verified either outlets' reporting.
On Wednesday, Thomas called the leaks "very concerning" and condemned those leaking information as jeopardizing Canada's national security and putting employees and those subject to investigations "at unnecessary risk."
She said she would not speculate on the motivations of the leaks, nor would she comment on the accuracy of the reports containing them.
"I'm not going to comment on information that was inappropriately obtained," she said. Similarly, SITE's Fisher said he was not prepared to validate the reporting.
Trudeau, while insisting his government is taking the issue seriously, has also sought to cast doubt on some of what's been reported, including that CSIS would provide advice to the prime minister on a political issue. He's also questioned the claims' impacts on Canadians' confidence in democratic institutions.
"We have an awful lot of mechanisms that are underway right now around determining what kind of foreign interference has happened," Trudeau told reporters on Wednesday.
The prime minister has also repeatedly pointed to assurances from SITE, an election interference monitoring body that has offered assurances that "the integrity of our elections was not compromised."
“National security agencies saw attempts at foreign interference, but not enough to have met the threshold of impacting electoral integrity,” reads the Critical Election Incident Public Protocol’s report into the 2021 campaign, released Tuesday.
In an interview ahead of the hearing with CTV News' chief political correspondent Vassy Kapelos, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino said the Liberals are "eyes wide open about the fact that foreign interference does present a challenge to our democracy," and that it's "critically important" that Canadians are united in recognizing the threats countries like China pose.
In a statement sent to CTV News on Wednesday, China's embassy in Ottawa denied attempting to interfere in Canadian elections, calling the claims "purely baseless and defamatory,” and alleging media outlets have been “seriously misleading the public.”
"China has always been firmly against any attempts to interfere in other countries' domestic affairs," the embassy said. "We are not interested in meddling with Canada's internal affairs, nor have we ever tried to do so."
NDP PUSHING FOR NATIONAL PUBLIC INQUIRY
So far, Trudeau has resisted calls from the opposition parties for a public inquiry amid increasing demands for the federal government to be transparent about what top elections integrity bodies and security agencies knew about allegations that specific MPs or candidates were targeted by China.
During Wednesday's hearing, the NDP gave notice of intent to move a motion asking for a national public inquiry to be launched into allegations of foreign interference in Canada's democracy, with the power to compel national security documents and call key government and political figures to testify.
The New Democrats are taking the position that, as more reports emerge, the parliamentary committee is not the most appropriate venue to continue this investigation.
“When reports like these come out, people don’t want elected officials to score political points—they want solutions that protect our democracy,” said NDP MP and committee member Peter Julian in a statement. “To have the utmost confidence in our system, there must be a thorough, transparent and independent investigation into all instances of alleged interference in the election."
Ahead of the meeting, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told reporters that the Conservatives will be looking to amend the NDP proposal once it comes up for consideration to ensure the parliamentary committee work continues alongside the striking of an inquiry, and that the individual heading the "independent" inquiry be unanimously selected by all recognized parties in the House of Commons.
"It has to be public. We can't simply bury it behind closed doors and have it in secret while Canadians are left in the dark, potentially with another election interfered in before the results of the commission come out," Poilievre said. "The results of the Commission and the regular testimony must be public."
The proposal will come to a vote during a follow up committee meeting on Thursday, where another batch of witnesses are slated to appear, including Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault, Commisioner of Canada Elections Caroline Simard, top officials from CSIS, CSE, and the RCMP.
Differing views have emerged among Canada' intelligence community on whether an independent public inquiry or a probe by the top-secret and multi-party National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) would be best to get to the bottom of the various reports, in an effort to fully assess the foreign meddling allegations and any potential impact on Canada's democratic institutions.
Trudeau told reporters earlier this week that, in addition to the ongoing work of PROC, he’s “hopeful” that NSICOP embarks on a study into how to continue to strengthen Canada’s electoral systems and guard against interference, which has recently been noted coming from both foreign and domestic actors.
“Canadians do want to hear directly from independent experts on the safety, the stability, the security of our elections and of our democratic processes despite the ongoing attempts at interference,” Trudeau said. “It is extremely important… that Canadians see that this is open, transparent, non-partisan, independent. Because we're all concerned and worried about our elections’ integrity. That's why we have put in place mechanisms, why we continue to see hearings on this.”
Richard Fadden, a former CSIS director and national security adviser to the prime minister, told CTV News earlier this week that there are precedents in Canada for commissions of inquiry to be able to receive classified information.
Given the work the Public Order Emergency Commission has just completed under Justice Paul Rouleau, Fadden said he is in favour of that more objective approach, noting that what's at stake is Canadians' confidence in the integrity of this country's electoral system.
Former CSIS director Ward Elcock thinks NSCIOP would be better suited than a public inquiry to take this work on, while noting that alongside this effort, the government also needs to shake the perception that it hasn't done anything with the information that's been made public.
Having the testimony held in public would limit the amount of information officials would be able to provide, witnesses cautioned on Wednesday.
"Inquiries like this one I think, are very important in terms of understanding what happened… A public inquiry will have the same limitations that this committee does in that we cannot talk about national security information in a public forum," Thomas said.
She pointed to NSICOP as the best forum for further study, as officials can be "absolutely transparent" with the MPs and Senators who make up that committee because they have been cleared to see the top secret information underpinning the federal government's determination that foreign interference seen did not meet the threshold of compromising the last two elections' outcome.
For now, the matter is primarily before PROC, which has a mandate to review and report on the election of members to the House of Commons, and has been studying the issue of foreign election interference since November.
Wednesday and Thursday's meetings are the result of MPs unanimously voting to expand its study to cover the last two federal elections and call additional cabinet ministers and federal security and elections officials to testify, given the recent reporting and opposition MPs increasing concerns about the Liberal government's transparency surrounding potential foreign meddling.
The committee was locked in procedural deliberations late into Wednesday evening over a push led by the Conservatives and backed by the Bloc Québécois to further extend the committee's witness list, including calling Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford and the author of the 2021 report Morris Rosenberg to testify.
"As we seek to get to the bottom of alarming reports of interference by Beijing in the 2019 and 2021 elections … This is not about Chinese Canadians who are first and foremost the victims of Beijing's interference activities … What this scandal is about is what the prime minister knows about this interference, when he first learned about it, and what he did about it, or failed to do about it," said Conservative MP and PROC committee member Michael Cooper during the post-testimony portion of Wednesday's hearing.
"And so far … there is absolutely no evidence that the prime minister has done anything meaningful in response," Cooper said.
The Official Opposition also wants a further trove of top secret documents turned over, which sparked an hours-long debate with Liberal MPs questioning whether the Conservatives’ intentions are to “create a big show out of our security agencies,” as Liberal MP and committee member Ruby Sahota put it.
“I think we can continue with the witnesses that we have,” she said, suggesting the committee’s work could focus strengthening future elections. “I'm just really hoping and urging that we can put the partisanship away and really suggest how we can make this about our democratic system.”
